One Silver Summer Read online

  Sass was still in her robe when the sound of a car interrupted her. She threw down her book and flew to the window.

  Had he come at last?

  Instead the old guy in the peaked hat, who’d driven her home from the church, left the motor running and walked up to the cottage.

  Maybe Alex had asked the driver to drop off a note?

  She wanted to lean out and shout, “Hey, hello, I’m up here?” but chauffeur guy had already knocked at the front door of the cottage, and by the time she’d thrown on some clothes and burst into the kitchen, he’d gone, and Jess and David were talking over their morning coffee.

  “What took you so long?” said David with a half smile, pushing something across the table.

  Shaky-fingered, Sass picked up a small white card.

  Please, please, she murmured in her head. Please be from him.

  No bigger than a bus ticket, the card could fit in the palm of her hand. Holding her breath, she glanced down.

  Lady Helena Tremayne

  At Home

  It wasn’t from Alex. Sass sat down, her chair scraping on the tiles. She turned it over and read the spidery, slightly unsteady handwriting on the back:

  Dear Saskia,

  Would love you to ride Bo. Come for tea on Friday. Four o’clock sharp. Corbett will collect you.

  Helena

  Sass whispered the mare’s name. Bo would make her feel better. Bo made everything better. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and exhaled with a sigh: Bo, her gentle, silver horse.

  And Alex? Alex was bound to be there at the house and they’d say sorry to each other in a very English way, and then …

  “Will you go?” Jessie interrupted.

  Sass picked at her sleeve. “Sure, why shouldn’t I?”

  “Sass, you know why not. There’s been no word from him for days. Prince or not, he’s only up the road. Hasn’t he …”

  Sass felt a prickle, which she pushed stubbornly back.

  “She’s invited me. It’s my decision if I go, isn’t it?”

  Jessie got up and put her mug in the sink.

  “Of course.” She paused, leaning on her hands. “Just be careful, love. We don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Cressida Slater sharpened her nails. Until now she’d had a French manicure with the tips squared off, but this press conference was too-too unbelievably tedious. Honestly, just when she’d revealed who Mermaid Girl was, she was summoned back to London. For what? The DIV—she yawned—ORCE. Waiting at BP for announcements was such a bore: Buckingham Palace, to the plebs outside. Even the queen had chosen to stay at Balmoral. Who could blame her? This time, though, the royal flunkies were deliberately keeping them waiting. Bad idea when stories with deadlines had a habit of taking care of themselves.

  Cressida looked around at the assembled camera crews from across the globe, waved her nail file at a handsome broadcaster from America Tonight, whose name she’d forgotten. A divorce didn’t sell like a royal baby, or the dream ticket, a royal wedding. Unless Family Wales put in an appearance? The princess knew the value of good press, even if her soon-to-be ex was—Cressida yawned again—so utterly last century.

  While she was in London, she’d get an intern on to researching … What was her name? Cressida smirked. She knew it by heart, but loved seeing it winking at her from her phone. That text from Plum Benoist had arrived like manna from heaven. This story would tell itself.

  Saskia Laura Emerson. Not a local girl at all. As for young Prince Charming, #palacealex was trending wildly and she’d only just begun. She’d dig up more on his girl if it was the last thing she did. Cressida had a nose for romance and a heart as hard as stone.

  In the end, there was no photo-call for Alex. His mother had wanted one, but his father had backed out; flat refused and said he “wasn’t having his son mauled again by the media.” So, that was it. Just a depressing announcement by a red-faced prime minister. Alex wondered darkly if the man didn’t have better things to do, like run a country?

  The rain dripped down the apartment window, blurring the lights of London. Had his leaving saved Sass from anything? He’d kept his head down and nothing more had been printed, though the pictures were still everywhere. The palace lawyers had swung into action. It was a busy summer.

  Alex had spent more time with his father in the last few days than ever before in his life. They were like castaways waiting to be rescued. They’d be eating each other soon. More alike than either of them realized. Private. Stubborn. Stranded. Mum had swum for it. He didn’t blame her. She’d kissed him and said she loved him, but was going away until it all died down. Eduardo had offered her the “sanctuary” of his Argentine ranch, something about the lushness of his “pampas.” Alex didn’t ask.

  In Cornwall, they called rain “mizzle,” as in mist and drizzle. He could see Sass in Bo’s stable, water trickling down her neck. If he closed his eyes, he could feel the dampness of her T-shirt and the warmth of her heart. He banged his head once against the glass, then twice.

  He missed her.

  What should she wear to see the boy she liked, take tea with a countess, and go riding? It wasn’t the sort of thing they taught you in magazines. Sass felt hot and anxious just thinking about it. She hung her things on David’s easel, switching tops with her jeans. The kimono jacket was too … unusual; Mom’s sweater … not right. The plaid shirt too … plaid. She settled for a borrowed blue cami of Jessie’s. Would Alex remember it from the first day they met? There was a grass stain to prove it. Hmm, back to the plaid.

  The car arrived for her at three forty-five. B for Bentley with a pair of fancy silver wings. Sass felt queasy just creaking across the leather. She rolled down the window to get some air and give Jess and David an easy wave that she really wasn’t feeling. Her hands shook and a small twitch flickered at the side of her eye. Not good: winking at a countess.

  Fifteen minutes later and still holding her breath, Sass looked up through the windshield at Trist. Dorothy at the gates of the Emerald City. After the movie, Mom had read her the book from cover to cover. Her fingerprints would still be there. A brush and a little detective dust, and she’d see them turning the pages.

  The car drew up and Sass reached for the door handle, but the chauffeur, whose name was Corbett, shook his head in the mirror and came around the side to open it. He really didn’t have to.

  “Just pull the bell rope and go in. Her Ladyship is in the kitchen. She’s expecting you.”

  “Oh, okay. Thank you for the ride.”

  Sass walked in. She’d never been inside, only come close, of course.

  The house was like a great, caped overcoat: scuffed and battered, the color of wax, and lined with the warmest wool. A threadbare Persian rug of faded pink led her over the stone flagstones in the hallway, past an umbrella stand of extraordinary walking sticks, to an oak dresser weighed down with beautiful things: keys, a peacock feather, flowers, and a moldy statue in an old straw hat. Sass tiptoed to the foot of a wood-paneled staircase, where a grandfather clock stood sentry, ticking in time with her heart.

  Where was Alex? Hadn’t he heard her arrive? She’d felt sure that he’d be waiting. In her head she could see him standing there, self-conscious in breeches and socks and a shirt with the collar turned up a little. She tried to imagine the expression on his face. Happy or aloof? Awkward or pleased? Would he reach out and hug her? Tug her into some corner, or keep her at arm’s length? What would they say to each other; would “sorry” begin to cover it? Sass loitered in the hall for as long as she dared before following the smell of baking toward the kitchen. She couldn’t eat a thing.

  The countess was sitting at a vast scrubbed table in the biggest kitchen in the world. She was cleaning boots: short ones and long, dressed in a stained artist’s smock over a flamingo-pink blouse with a pie-frill neck. Sass wondered if she should curtsy or something to make up for last time? She tried a weak smile instead.

  “My dear, you’re here. Don’t hover
in the doorway; do come in.”

  A pile of clothing sat at the end of a painted bench: pale gloves, pale cotton shirt, pale breeches, and propped against a bench, a pair of newly shined black boots, and on the top … What was that? Sass stepped back a little. A spider. No. She peered closer. Was that … a hairnet?

  “If you’re going to ride, you must be dressed properly. These days, our fellow Europeans rather outshine us, if they are a little lavish with the diamanté.” Helena shuddered slightly. Sass wasn’t sure if she meant the bling, or the thought of being European instead of British.

  Sass’s gaze shifted beyond her. Come on, Alex, I need you here. His things were everywhere and yet he wasn’t. Sass couldn’t think straight, let alone make polite conversation. She sat down and twisted her hands in an abandoned sweater that might have been his.

  “I … Is Alex coming?” Her words fell straight over the curb of good manners.

  The countess looked down her nose as if she’d half expected the question.

  “My dear, Alex isn’t here.” She leaned forward and patted Sass’s hand, her palm as dry as paper. “He had to go off to London. All terribly sudden. I expect you’ve seen the news about the divorce? A sad business.”

  “Yes … No … I … It’s just …” Sass squeezed her hands into fists to stop them from betraying her.

  “Knowing my errant grandson”—the old lady gave a tight smile—“he would have wanted you to carry on riding Bo, even without him. He told me as much himself.”

  “He did?” Sass’s heart surged, then contracted, as the meaning of her words sank in. “Will he be gone long, in London?” Her voice a whisper, as if he’d gone to the ends of the earth. She knew what was being said; she wasn’t stupid. Alex had gone for good and it stung with a pain that took her breath away. Helena had invited her here out of sympathy, that much was clear. Maybe he knew when he was better off without her. She was an embarrassment, after all. Maybe instead he’d gone back to Plum?

  “My dear.” There was a long pause as Helena read her mind. “Sometimes one must make do without. Now I think it’s time you got changed.” She patted the pile of riding clothes. “We’ll take tea on the lawn afterward.”

  Helena leaned against the side of the arena where the horses were once schooled every day. She was used to her own company, but had missed her grandson almost immediately. She’d watched Alexander change in just a few weeks from a surly boy into a tanned and rather dashing young man. Heaven-sent, he was a prince of the realm. Helena smiled, awfully biased. He simply had no idea. She’d seen Amy looking, of course. Had Alex noticed the darting glances? Boys were so blind on occasion, and now Helena knew why he’d ignored her. Her grandson had fallen for this girl, Saskia.

  Her thoughts turned to the girl blinking back the news of Alex’s departure. Helena hadn’t mentioned how he’d dashed off in the mistaken belief that if all eyes were on him and his wretched parents, the press might leave her alone. Because would they? She rather doubted it. There hadn’t been time for proper good-byes; Alex’s face so shut down. Still, she thought firmly, it was probably better that any relationship ended now, rather than with more tears later.

  Her opinion on her grandson’s upbringing had never been sought by the palace. An irony given that Trist was his chosen home. After seventy years, Helena was still in exile. Cast off at eighteen for her own scandalous behavior, which to her at the time had simply, and overwhelmingly, felt like love.

  What did she think? That Alex was better off in London at some ghastly “photo-call”? Piggy in the middle of a horrid divorce. She understood, of course, that without a show of civilized togetherness, they were all of them lost, especially in this age. It was a lesson that Alex had to learn: that however much you hurt inside, you put on a brave public face. It was his duty. His noble destiny. So marvelously, miserably British.

  And yet, what was to be done with this young American left behind? Twice now, Helena had seen the confusion on her face. Didn’t she have a duty to protect her? Keep an eye on her and make sure that at the very least, she learned to ride? None of that cowboy nonsense. If she could handle a horse, then she could handle almost anything. Helena sighed. Nothing beat a good western. Those rugged men riding off into the sunset. Such marvelous hats.

  She watched as Figgy led Bo in: twenty meters of canvas lunge line attached to the mare’s bit. The horse stood like a saint as Saskia stepped forward and stroked Bo’s brow. Figgy’s response was predictably brusque as she gathered up her knitting. Figgy came from a long line of colonials who’d put entire nations to the test.

  “Stand to the left of her, gather up your reins, put your foot in the stirrup and hop on.”

  Undaunted, the girl sprang up with a lightness that was surprising. She sat there waiting, as if she’d ridden all her life. Figgy ventured the question rather loudly.

  “Done much of this, have you?”

  Helena grimaced. Figgy had a heart of gold, but a certain way with words.

  “No, only a few times …” Saskia’s eyes cast down. “Once with Alex. You saw us, remember?”

  “Ah, yes. How could I forget. You’re sitting well now. Nice and straight.”

  “Bo makes it easy.” The girl bent forward and smoothed the mare’s neck from the tips of her ears down the crest of her mane. Figgy seemed to visibly soften. A chink in her armor: anyone who appreciated Bo.

  “Okay now, sit tight, and hold on to the front of the saddle. I have control from here in the center as she moves round in a circle. Let Bo do all the work.”

  And she did: walk, trot, and canter. Both reins, left and right. They flowed together well, quite effortlessly, as if the girl was swimming on horseback. She’d even closed her eyes and held out her arms, almost balance-perfect.

  Helena raised her hand from the side, her bones creaking as she pushed herself from the fence and walked over.

  “Thank you, Figgy. I’ll take it from here.”

  In a paddock in the shadowy-cool of the house afterward, Bo nudged at Sass’s pockets. Sass had loved, loved her lesson with the countess. She wanted to learn and Helena knew so much. Riding was something that maybe she could do. She couldn’t go back to swimming. Not without Mom. But riding felt right. If only Alex had been there to see her. Sass rubbed her face and found that her eyes, and nose, were running: the dust and hay had gotten to her.

  “Silly!” she murmured. Who was she kidding? Only herself. She slipped off Bo’s halter and sat on the grass, and let herself think about Mom and Alex, the grandfather she never knew, and this place. And allowed herself to cry, for just a little while.

  As she dried her eyes, she watched the horse who had brought here turn and amble across the paddock to a water trough. Bo drank deeply, ears flicking, her tail whisking at flies, and in the quiet beyond hearing, Sass found some space.

  Tomorrow and the day after that, Helena had invited her back, and she’d do it all again. And though Mom and Alex weren’t here, with Bo, and Jessie and David, and Harry, and Helena, and even Figgy, she could get past this. Couldn’t she?

  For the next week and a half, Sass moved on. No longer hanging on to the saddle to balance, but off the long lunge line and telling Bo where to go with subtle shifts of her hands, and legs, and weight. Walk, trot, canter, each of them separate and then put together.

  “For goodness’ sake,” Helena would exclaim, “be clear with Bo. Don’t pull her in the mouth. Carry your reins, sit up and half halt … Yes, that’s better, but make sure you’re sitting deep. Super.”

  Diagonals, circles, loops, and serpentines came next: movements that meant something to her now. A whole new language of equitation. And although it wasn’t dressage, Bo responded sweetly, if stiffly for her age, even when Sass messed up, which was often.

  Helena kept her so busy, Sass could almost pretend that she’d moved on from Alex. And when she wasn’t riding, she helped out. Figgy showed her how to pick Bo’s feet out with a hoof pick. How to wash Bo off when she was sweaty afte
r being ridden, how to put a stable sheet over her so that she’d dry sooner, and just how much hay was enough.

  And the days went by. The only person who was never really friendly was the other stable girl, Amy, who sometimes rode out by herself on Dancer. Once or twice, Sass caught her eye and smiled, but the girl would scuttle away, brush the yard harder or fork the muck heap higher.

  Maybe she had her own stuff to deal with? Sass got that. After Mom died, people would turn away from her. Like she was a reminder of something uncomfortable. Was that how Alex thought about her now? His face was getting less clear in her head, although every day she stumbled across his things. Little things. And then her heart would beat faster. A pair of his riding gloves. A paper bag of tangerines on a chair in the tack room. Rosettes on the wall that Figgy would list as his: in red, blue, green, and yellow ribbon. And when she drank her tea, Susan would sometimes rest her nose in Sass’s lap because she missed him too.

  Alex mooched from room to room. The Kensington apartment was cluttered with packing boxes and crates. His mother had moved out and her stuff would soon to follow. The staff still had loads more to do; there were wardrobes full of her clothes. And hats. Endless bloody hats. He spun one across the drawing room like a Frisbee on the beach.

  Now school had officially ended, everyone had gone home or abroad or both. He saw the stream of updates on Facebook, including pictures of Gully and Ol messing about in Ibiza. By the end of the week, he’d caught up entirely on Netflix, was bored of his Xbox, and was left with his music and earphones hanging out near the kitchen.

  Going quietly mad.

  The talk of his parents was keeping the media busy. Alex checked his phone for the millionth time. Kept going back to that one picture of Sass; now he had Wi-Fi and a signal, it was almost impossible not to.