“Yes.” Olive smirked and began punching pillow number two. “I will admit that the prospect of repairing to the country is terrifying. But is it going to be any less so next week? Next month? Now that I’ve told you my sordid secrets, it feels as if they have a less firm hold on me. I think I should like to look for Ralph’s grave. Well, notlike. That’s the wrong word entirely. But I think I ought to.” She finished her pillow arranging and leveled a plaintive look at Clementine. “Will you help me?”
“Oh, Olive, of course.”
“But that’s not the main reason we’ve got to go.”
“What’s the main reason?” Clementine started to reach for one of her pillows back.
Olive swatted her hands away. “The main reason is Archie, silly. You’ve got to tell Archie you’re in love with him.”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m in love with Archie, because we’re never going to marry,” Clementine said unthinkingly.
“I notice you didn’t dispute the fact of the matter.”
“I . . .” Clementinehadn’tnoticed that. Oh. Ohdear.
She burst into tears.
How mortifying. That was supposed to beOlive’ssignature maneuver.
“Oh, Clemmie.” Olive tugged one of Clementine’s hands into her own. “It’s going to be all right.”
“I’m not in love with Archie,” Clementine tried. “I’m just confused.” She ordered herself to stop crying.
“We need to get the two of you together in one place, and I definitely think that place should be Mollybrook or Hill House, or more specifically,outsideMollybrook or Hill House.”
“It’s been a very trying few weeks, and my mind is muddled.”
“I’ve hatched a plan. I shall pretend an interest in a gentleman in Chiddington,” Olive said. “If Father thinks I’m genuine, he will allow us to remove to Hill House. The question is, who?”
“And we were observing country rules at Quintrell Castle,” Clementine said. “Things were exceedingly relaxed. So if I gave you the impression that—”
“The question is, who?” Olive repeated. “Help me think of someone plausible. He must be—”
“Are you even listening to me, Olive?”
“No, I am not, because you’re speaking nonsense.”
“I am not in love with Archie?”
“Is that a question?”
“No.”
“Say it as if you mean it, then.”
“I am not in love with Archie?” Dash it. That second attempt hadn’t come out sounding any different from the first.
“Do you want to go to Hill House or not, Clemmie?” Olive huffed a frustrated sigh, but she handed back one of the pillows. “Here.”
“I do want to go.” She did, regardless of this whole accidentally falling in love with Archie business.
“Then help me think of someone I can pretend to fancy!”
* * *
Watching Olive manipulate Father now that Clementine knew what was going on beneath the surface was amusing. It provided a temporary respite from the reeling of her fevered mind.
In love! With Archie!
