“Hurry up!” she calls, stepping into the cab.
The paparazzi reluctantly let me through, and Cordelia leansacross to shut the door behind me as I jump in. I launch myself across the floor of the car, yelling at the top of my lungs, “Go! Go! Go!”
The driver puts his foot down and we speed away, leaving behind all the drama.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Cordelia laughs, nudging me with her shoe. “All right, James Bond, what are you doing lying flat on the floor?”
“I was hiding my face from the reporters,” I explain, lifting my head. “Are we safely away?”
She nods. I clamber onto the seat next to her and lean back, brushing my hair off my face and brushing dust off my dress. The taxi driver asks us where we want to go and Cordelia shrugs. “Is there a pub around here?” she asks him.
“A few.”
“We’re after a low-key one,” she instructs. “A shitty old-man pub.”
“No problem.” He chuckles.
“Thank you. No one will think to look for us in a place like that.”
“Are you OK?” I ask her.
“I will be.”
“Thanks for letting me come with you. I didn’t think you would.”
“I need a drink,” she replies, looking out of the window. “No fun on your own.”
I sense she doesn’t want to go into it right now, so we sit in silence for the remainder of the journey, getting out at a pub that perfectly fits Cordelia’s request. The sign declaring it to be named the Duck is grubby, and so wonky it might fall off atany second and take out some poor unsuspecting passerby. You can’t see in through the windows from the outside thanks to them last being cleaned in the eighteenth century, and as soon as you push open the heavy, creaky door, you’re struck by a waft of lager mixed with stale smoke, even though no one’s supposed to have smoked in here since 2007. To make it worse, there’s an added smell of bleach in the mix, not too potent but as though someone started to clean and gave up after the first swipe. A few people are dotted around the small tables but the place is so dimly lit you can barely see their faces. The barman looks up from his phone when we walk in, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead in surprise.
“This is great,” Cordelia says, making a beeline for the bar. “I haven’t been in a place like this for years.”
“Yeah,” I say, less enthusiastically. “This is great.”
She hops up onto a stool at the bar and asks the barman to see the wine list.
“We have white wine or red wine,” he replies, frowning. “That’s your choice.”
“Oh. In that case, I’ll have white wine. Sophie?”
“Emily,” I correct. “I’ll have red.”
I’m confident in my selection as the barman reaches for two wineglasses and sets them in front of us, heading to the fridge for the white. I’m by no means expecting a delightful red wine, but at least it won’t have the horrible tangy aftertaste a bad white produces that makes your face scrunch up like you’ve eaten a sour sweet.
“This is much better than a stuffy party,” Cordelia declares. “It was getting a bit too busy in there. I needed some space.”
“I should probably text your mum and let her know I’m with you and you’re all right,” I say, getting out my phone but waiting for her permission before I start typing.
“Go ahead.” She smiles at the barman as he announces that will be £9.45. “For both? Are you sure?”
He nods while I send a quick message to Lady Meade. She replies immediately, thanking me.
“What a bargain,” Cordelia exclaims, beeping her card on the reader. “I’m going to come here again. Thank you!”
With a furrowed brow, he moves away from us, repositioning himself on a stool behind the end of the bar and getting out his phone again. I can’t imagine he meets such enthusiasm on a daily basis, or a promise of a repeat customer.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” I ask carefully, having learned my lesson from the weekend at Dashwell.
