Page 48 of The Grosvenor's Ghost

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“Oh, yeah.”

“You sure?”

Nose in the air, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Don’t know. Just asking.”

“Okay, then.”

“Okay.”

He rocks back on his heels, looks around with his eyebrows raised. I stare at him, want nothing more than to kiss him.

“We should probably go bac—”

“I heard through your sister that Carter Holland is in London,” I cut in because I didn’t want him to finish that sentence.

“Oh—what? Yeah, yeah, he’s back.”

“Is he living with you or…?”

He laughs. “God no. He’s boarding at Darcy—had to retake his last year.”

And then it clocks that he’d be in the same year as Evangeline. When Theodore passed, the pair of them had a lot of time off school but Ev took the brunt of the missed education. Had to retake year eight. Arthur, thankfully, caught up pretty quickly (probably because of all the coke he was taking at the time) but I always wonder what would’ve happened. If he was held back a year, would that have changed things for us?

“Are you not going to ask after your sister?”

He grimaces, looks a bit sorry. “Nah—I know what she’s thinking about me.”

I think about the two of us crying on my bed. “Do you?”

He sighs wearily, shakes his head. “Don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Right, then.”

“Should we go—” he nods his head towards the door.

I nod and when we go back in, we part ways. At the bar, Athena saddles up next to me.

“No Lottie?” I ask, looking around for her.

“No, she’s still got that post-department thing.” She shakes her head, sighs sadly.

“She's got what?”

“You know,” she turns to me, waves her hand around. “The thing they get when they just have a baby.”

Tilt my head, frown. “Postpartum?”

Her mouth opens, closes, laughs airily. “Potato, tamala.”

“Right.”

“So, yeah, she’s back at the house with Charlie, all very sad.”

“Isn’t the baby about two now?”

“No—yeah, she is but it comes back every now and then. She was really bad with it when she was born—the baby’s still a nightmare, though. Woke up the other night, saw her sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Something out of the fucking poltergeist.”

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