Chapter 6: Terms

"Looking for something, darling?"

Crispin stood in the study doorway with his hand on the handle.

I hadn't heard him on the stairs.

He closed the door behind him and turned the key.

"I was looking for a pen," I said.

"In my second phone?"

He crossed the carpet in four easy steps and took it out of my hand.

His fingers were gentle, and he smiled while he did it.

He put it in his pocket, and he looked at me with the same face he had worn in front of sixty people.

"How much did you see?"

"Enough."

"Did you photograph it?"

I said nothing.

"Of course you did," he said, fondly. "You were always thorough."

He sat on the edge of the desk and loosened his tie.

I could feel the little recorder pressed against my spine, and I made myself keep still.

It was the only thing in the room on my side.

"I'll make this simple, because you're tired and you've been rude to my mother," Crispin said.

"On Saturday you will walk up the aisle in that dress.

"You'll say yes.

"Afterwards you can mend your little books and live in the top flat, and I'll be kind to you for as long as you're sensible."

"And if I don't?"

"Then your father loses all four hotels on Monday morning.

"And something unfortunate happens at the church."

"You mean accident thirty-four."

He laughed, kindly.

"I'd never put it that way."