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joke. “But I take care to mix beside an open window, you know, and I haven’t lost my mind yet.” She
tossed the one thick dark braid which extended down her back and smiled, showing dimples so
enchanting that Rayley was momentarily distracted from his investigation. “My parents would no
doubt disagree with that last statement.”
“Have you been here long? At Hever, I mean.”
“Less than a month.”
“Which explains while you still seem…”
“Normal?”
He smiled, bringing his spoon to his lips. The porridge was a bit more palatable in her company.
“Yes,” Rayley said. “Show me where the paints are mixed. Show me anything you wish about the
place, for I feel quite up in the air here, as if I have entered into another world.”
“I’ll take you on a proper tour right after I clean up from breakfast,” she promised, pushing back her
chair which made a rude scrape against the bare stone floor.
“Everyone does not clean for himself?” Rayley asked, but as he glanced around the room, the answer
was obvious. Any number of abandoned bowls sat waiting for someone to gather them, the last dregs
of the porridge undoubtedly growing stickier and harder to clean with each passing minute. Rayley
could only assume that one of the bowls was Trevor’s.
“You must be joking,” Dorinda said, following his glance around the table with a quick, grim smile.
“For even in an egalitarian society, the housework falls to the women.”
****
Trevor ambled slowly over the rolling hills, the grass crunching beneath his feet. It was chilly in the
morning, but if today followed the pattern of yesterday, the afternoon would prove tolerable. He
wondered how many days were left before this gentle weather would give way to true winter.
There was no doubt that LaRusse and Anne were inside the small stone gatehouse – he had seen them
disappear there a few minutes earlier. The question was how close he dare venture before he risked
attracting their attention. He seated himself uncomfortably on one of the large boulders which had
pushed their way through the meadow ground, and, in case the spy was being spied upon himself,
made a great show of extracting his notebook and pencil from beneath his coat. Exactly how a poet
might look while working was an eternal mystery, but he stared out into the distance as if he were
waiting for some grand inspiration.
His eye fell on a rosebush by the side of the gatehouse. It still bore blossoms – at least four large
white ones, the edges tinged with pink, and he wondered if it might be the same plant Geraldine had
mentioned, a Christmas Rose. A flower capable of thriving under the least hospitable of conditions
and he had a sudden urge to pluck this remarkable blossom, to press it and take it back to Emma.
Dare he go so close to the gatehouse?
But why not? he thought. I am a poet, after all, a man who seizes inspiration wherever he finds it.