Page 105 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
She continues to cry for a good five minutes in the bathroom. I move us over to sit on the side of the bathtub.
“Let me have a look at your hand.”
She pulls away, holds it out.
It’s deep but not stitches deep, thankfully. Just a small slit on the side of her right hand.
“Hospital job?” She sniffs, looks up at me.
I smile, shake my head, stare at her face, try to locate a similar mark I left on her a few years ago. I catch it but it’s faint and I can probably only see it because I was the one who put it there.
I reach up, brush my finger over it, she grabs my hand, leans into it.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “For that.”
She shrugs. “It’s okay. You didn’t mean it—you weren’t you then and I know that, Arthur. You’d never do something like that now. Digby wasn’t high or drunk, he did that because it’s in him to do that.”
“You don’t need to make me feel better about it. It was a shitty thing to do regardless of my state of mind.”
She smiles softly. “We were kids.”
“Yeah, acting like fully grown adults.”
Phoebe leans in, presses her lips softly against mine.
“What am I going to do about all my shit?” She laughs, tired, waves her hand to the floor. “That’s at least three grand’s worth of stuff.”
“Well,” I pull her up, walk over to the sink. “Lucky for you that we’re in Paris and not in the middle of the desert.”
She smiles at me through the mirror as I rinse her hand under the tap—it’s a real, genuine smile. Reaches her eyes.
We go out, I buy her all the shit he ruined and although I’d have much rather sat down with her and talked about it instead of spending money, it puts a smile on her face.
I guess that’s what she’s used to, though. A lot of girls in our circle are. When you only ever received gifts instead of conversations, it kind of just sticks.
The whole day, she acts fine, like nothing happened at all and in a weird, sick way, it makes me happy—like it’s her. That’s what Phoebe does. That’s what my Phoebe has always done. Her acting any other way would’ve put me on edge.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lady Phoebe
“Sweltering, isn’t it?” I ask Digby.
He raises his eyebrows, waves around. “It is the middle of June.”
Roll my eyes. “Thanks, I wasn’t aware of the date.”
He nudges my arm. “Don’t be like that—how’s your hand?”
He says it so casually that it irks me.
Does he not remember?
It was literally only last week I was in Paris with Arthur.
Anyway, I hold my skin coloured bandaged hand up to him. “It’s okay,” I shrug. “I can still spend all your money betting,” I wiggle my fingers.
I love Royal Ascot. I love the bright colours and the hats and the horses and the free champagne and strawberries they hand out—but mostly I love betting on the horses that I know are going to lose with Digby’s money.
