#tify

Maggie was already speaking when he took a seat along the back wall of the lecture hall, sliding down slowly as to not make any noise. He worked hard to steady his labored breathing as silently as possible. He mentally checked out almost immediately, but his eyes never left her nervous fingers hooked together, giving each other comforting strokes as she spoke.

45 long minutes of death by PowerPoint later, Farleigh heard his own name, snapping him from his open-eyed daydreaming.

“Lastly, I’d like to thank Farleigh Start for taking the time to read through this dissertation several times over the last year. You’ve given me lovely feedback, so thank you.” Her voice was weak and rough from having spoken for an hour straight. He simply offered a nod and a smile. Truthfully, he’d only read it once and skimmed it three times. He loved the passion and fervor that worked up in her voice when she spoke about art, and that was enough.

“So, are you a doctor of art now?” Farleigh bumped his elbow into Maggie’s shoulder as they walked side by side back to his dorms. He had waited for her while she answered questions in a closed room. He was glad he’d never know that anxiety. A second class in Art History and never returning to uni again would be more than enough for him.

“I’ll find out by the end of the day, but it is usually a foregone conclusion.” She seemed calmer than she had in months. A weight had clearly been lifted off of her shoulders. It all felt a bit silly to him, but knowing Maggie meant witnessing her drive, however pointless it may seem. She needed a doctorate just about as much as he did. Far less, even. Her future was pre-ordained and quite comfortable.

He’d grown up just a couple of years behind her in age, always stuck together at functions and events. He couldn’t even count how many times they’d been sat side by side at dinner parties. He’d watched her grow from a chubby little girl who couldn’t stop talking about anime into the gorgeous, articulate, connoisseur of fine art she was today. He knew that she’d watched him grow too. He often wondered if he was just a child in her eyes, as he sometimes was in his own.

“Will you be joining us tonight?” He opened his door for her, watching as she toed her shoes off next to his bed and flung herself down, deflating after a long morning.

“Pub?” It was mostly mouthed. Sound barely came out of her. He didn’t turn the light on. There was a softness to her when she was spent that he didn’t see in other girls. He certainly didn’t see it in any of the boys he knew. Something gentle and sleepy and begging to be held.

“Can’t tonight, love. I’ve got a dinner with mum.” She lifted her arms and legs like a bug, slowly waving them about with a foolish smile, beckoning Farleigh into her grasp. “Come, smoosh me.”

“If you’re trying to be sexy, you’re shit at it.” He complied nonetheless, lying on top of her and hiking her thighs up his hips until they were interlocked on his bed. It was intimate, yet anything but sexual. It was a position they found themselves in on a semiregular basis.

“When I’m ready to be sexy, you’ll know.” She giggled and tucked her face into his neck. The heat from her breath made his hair stand on end. “You could come to dinner if you like, Farleigh.”

“Not with THE Countess of Snowden. I couldn’t fathom taking a moment of her time.” He didn’t need to see her to know that she was rolling her eyes. The relationship between their mothers had been adversarial all their lives, though it rarely trickled down to the children. For all of the caddy shit talking and passive aggressive comments over cocktails, they all summered at the same estates and enjoyed the same trappings, even if Frederica and Serena had been at each other’s throats since birth.

The thing about Maggie that Farleigh loved the most, apart from just blanket familiarity, the thing that really set her apart from every other landed gentry in their friend groups, was that Maggie never once acknowledged her birthright. It was there, sure, and it was significant. 27th in line to crown, Easter brunch with the Queen, etc, but she lived her life quietly and calmly, in the way Farleigh imagined boring middle class people did. She never pulled the rip cord for a bailout. He respected the hell out of that. It was something he was never able to accomplish himself.

“Oh come on then, you could ask for my hand in marriage,” Maggie started, exaggerating her posh accent for his enjoyment. Farleigh squeezrf her side, making her squirm into him more. “Two great houses equal in dignity.” She recited Shakespeare mockingly. To her, they really were equals, though Farleigh knew better.

“Dignity, is that what we’re calling this now?” Farleigh slid his hand down from her waste to her hip, letting the silky fabric of her trousers slip between his fingers. If she were someone else, he’d start working on the buttons, inching the zip down, easing them away from her skin. Not Maggie though. This wasn’t a game to be won. There was no trophy at the end. To comfort and to be comforted. That was all they were there for this time.  

“Drinks after, I suppose.” Maggie mumbled, lacing her fingers into his hair softly, her nails barely grazing at his scalp. “If you’re still out.”

“We will be.” Farleigh closed his eyes and let himself appreciate the feeling of her hands on him. He was rarely touched so tenderly by his lovers. Even calling them lovers was giving too much credit on both sides. “Felix has a new pet. You can meet him.”

“Oh, god. Not again.” He felt her body go slack. Maggie’s family was closed off. True aristocracy always was. They found the way the Catton’s took on strays to be intolerable, always making Saltburn a theme park for the less fortunate. Last summer, she’d called it sad. Poverty porn in how they always fed on the stories of the downtrodden. Farleigh wanted so badly to agree, but he knew in some ways he was just as much a charity case as their flavor of the week.

They parted ways around tea, Maggie going to shower and nap, Farleigh off to attend a tutorial he had put zero thought into. He loved the way his tshirt smelled of her hair, of shampoo and the scent she’d been wearing since her 16th birthday. Vera Wang Princess. Cheap and frankly pedestrian, probably purchased at Boots, it was the sort of scent he’d drag a woman for it he met her in the pub. He didn’t mind it on Maggie. It was familiar and soothing to carry her with him for the rest of the day.

Farleigh sincerely hoped Maggie would come out to the pub. He wanted to chat shit with her and maybe dance a bit, but she text him around midnight that she was going to bed. He didn’t reply. She was wishy-washy on nights out. Always a good time, but rarely in much of a mood to have one. She got horrible hangovers regardless and he’d been talking to a boy from St. Anne’s all evening who seemed interested in fooling around.

They didn’t see each other the next day, or over the weekend. This was hardly unusual. Farleigh loved her company in a different way than that if his other friends, or his cousins. He suspected she felt the same. It wasn’t necessary to keep tabs. It was annoying even. With the school year coming to a close, they were likely not to see one another until midsummer anyway.

Farleigh arrived to Saltburn with Felix at the end of term. He’d wanted to take a weekend or two in London to party, but Venetia had pleaded with them to come home. Venetia felt more like family to Farleigh than most. His little sister, faithfully awaiting his return.

They had a peaceful, though boring week as a family with the occasional entertainment of poor dear Pamela’s idiocy. She’d worn her welcome out over the spring, but Farleigh knew that the Catton’s need a bit on tension or they’d go looking for it. He quite enjoyed having someone else be the mess on the floor for them to step around.

Once Ollie arrived, though, it all felt a bit crowded. The little gremlin attached himself to Felix like a leach. No matter where they went, Oliver was there like an unsettling shadow. He was a poor lost boy. He demanded attention and care. Farleigh longed for the comfort of someone who just gave a shit if he was in the room or not.

Felix’s man-child has arrived

Farleigh sent the text already knowing the reaction he’d receive.

Well, then, I’m not coming now. Yuck.

Maggie liked to pretend she had any control over it. Of all of the places to be and families to summer with, one could do far worse than Saltburn.

Of course you are. They’ve already made up your room for you.

It wasn’t entirely a lie. The rooms had been made up for weeks for whenever Maggie and her mother planned to stop by. Hers was one of dozens of rooms that go largely unused.

Next to yours?

As God intended, my love.

When they were children, they’d build little forts with blankets and sleep side by side all summer long, never alone in the night. At home with their mothers, they were always alone. Left to their own devices. Summer was the only time Farleigh felt truly part of anything. When they got older and shipped away to boarding schools, their summers together were sometimes supplemented with bank holidays and winter breaks. The idea was the same even while their bodies were quite different.

They would talk, maybe kiss, maybe touch, maybe more. It was equal parts educational as it was erotic. To this day, when Farleigh makes a girl cum, it’s Maggie’s body he’s using as a roadmap.

She came through the doors with absolutely no fan fair. She had a way with Duncan. She seemed to disarm him. He didn’t feel the protective need with people whose stations were far higher than the family he served. She could take nothing from them, only give. And besides, he’d known her all her life.

“Good morning, lover.” She wrapped Farleigh in a hug from behind at the garden breakfast table, surprising him.  She kissed his neck, his cheek, the tip of his nose. He held his arm out as far behind himself as he could reach to not burn her with his cigarette. Almost immediately, she did the same to Venetia on her right. “Oh how I’ve missed you, my dear.”

“I didn’t even know you were coming today.” Venetia pushed Felix’s feet from the chair between herself and Farleigh to make room for their friend. Maggie had always treated Venetia with a bit more care than most others. It went a long way.

“Oh, I drove. I was only at Daylesford. Hardly a long way.” She immediately silenced the potential comments brewing within Elspeth. She knew exactly how to please her, not that she really needed to. “Mum went off to Portofino.” She cupped a hand around her mouth, allowing only Elspeth and Farleigh to see, stage whispering. “To see a man!”

This elicited a delighted laugh from all of the Catton’s who often joked about how uptight and impossible to please Lady Serena could be. Daughter of Princess Margaret, she had somehow inherited absolutely none of her mother’s good humor or sense of fun.

Suddenly, as if she felt it boring into her, Maggie seemed to clock Oliver’s unblinking gaze. “Oh, hello, you must be-“ She let the sentence linger, having never actually learned his name.

“Oliver.” Farleigh watched him make the completely wrong choice of trying stare her down, that doll-like smile on his face that had pulled so many others in. For all of Maggie’s calm demeanor and candor, she didn’t trust a soul she hadn’t known a decade or longer. There was no way in with her. No amount of charisma or flirtation could build her good will. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Ah.” Maggie raised her eyebrows, pasting a somewhat strained smile onto her own face to match his. “Sure.” Under the table, she took Farleigh’s hand. “I do hope you’ve been having a good summer so far, Oliver.”

After their somewhat tense interaction, Maggie largely ignored Oliver, and Felix too for that matter. They made plans to go to the field in the afternoon. Farleigh felt content for the first time in weeks.

“Strange, right?” Farleigh asked the second they closed his bedroom door behind him, both of them snapping into action immediately.

“Oh god, yes.” Maggie wiggled her jeans down her hips, sitting down on the edge of his mattress to kick them off. “Like a creepy porcelain doll.” She pulled her t-shirt over her head and tossed it into Farleigh’s chest. He was already half undressed himself. Maggie didn’t have a bra on. Her small chest held a sort of unexplainable, ungendered elegance. He preferred her that way.

“You should see the way he looks at Felix like he’s going to eat him or something.” Farleigh emphasized the word eat as he almost fell over trying to yank his socks off.

“I love it when you’re like this.” Maggie was down to her white cotton thong, sprawled out on his bed in a column of mid-morning sunlight. The ever-present dust from the tapestries on his walls left them in a faint, swirling fog. It felt like they were in a dream.

Farleigh stepped between her knees hanging off the bed. He ran his hands up her legs, enjoying the stubble of her unshaven thighs on his fingertips. “Like what?”

Maggie walked her fingers from the top of his hand to his chest before reaching out and pulling him down on top of her. “I like it when you’re a complete bitch.” Her eyes closed when she laughed and he laughed with her.

He shifted into her more, enjoying the way his hips forced her legs wide to compensate for their dramatic difference in size. It was his instinct to say something snide and barbed, dripping with sarcasm, but he knew he didn’t need to. He didn’t need to say anything at all.

Farleigh took his time with Maggie. He always did. They had nowhere to be but with each other. Last summer she had said he looked cast in bronze. She’d called him statuesque. Beautiful. No one else had ever described him as anything more than surface level. No one had ever looked at him long enough.

He pressed himself into her slowly, watching her lip go between her teeth and her face twist upward into a joyful smile. She craned her neck, looking down at were their bodies met. “How’s it look?” He asked with a chuckle, relishing in the way her breaths got heavier the more he moved.

“Really, really fucking hot.” Maggie spoke through a deep exhale, flopping her head back onto his bed and looking up into his eyes. “Best porn I’ve ever watched.” Her hand came up to his cheek, thumb brushing against his bottom lip. “I like to watch this too.”

“See, I like it when you’re like this.” He kept his pace slow and languid, coaxing pleasure out of her steadily. No rush.

“Talking dirty?” Her voice was husky. Her eyes still locked with his.

“No,” It came out sing-song, light. “I like it when you’re having fun.”

Movement in the window behind her caught his eye. Someone walking in the courtyard.

For two glorious weeks, Farleigh and Maggie remained out of sight and out of mind while Oliver creeped everyone out in the middle distance. While it was true that no one was really terribly bothered by Oliver, Farleigh was irritated enough for all of them. He always had the right answer - the perfect piece of sympathy-inducing information to draw a long, loving gasp from Elspeth’s throat.

Felix adored the presentation of it all. Being the one to bring a broken, abused pet to his mother and allowing her a whole summer of tutting over it, fixing it. He had a smugness about him this time that annoyed Farleigh to his core.

They made attempts to break away as a group. Sun-soaked afternoons in the field with clothes off and books open. Films in the library with the curtains drawn and door conspicuously closed. Quiet mornings by the pond where Maggie would scoot her lounge chair up to Farleigh’s to rest her feet on his lap. One way or another, though, Felix would always give in and tell Ollie where they were.

“I invited him here. I can hardly spend the summer hiding from him.” Felix scoffed at their groans as Oliver rounded the corner toward the pond. “He’s perfectly lovely once you get to know him.”

“Where does he get off to all the time anyway?” Maggie asked absently, not fully interested in an answer. She had her forearm draped over her eyes and toe drawing circles on Farleigh’s thigh.

“I think he sits in bed and reads in the morning.” Felix answered, pushing himself off from the edge of the pond in his watermelon floaty.

Farleigh picked through Deathly Hallows, still somewhat listening to the conversation between Oliver and Felix in the water. He could tell by her limp arm flopping off of the sun lounger that Maggie was fast asleep.

“Do they, you know-“ Oliver trailed off, holding onto the edge of Felix’s float loosely so that they didn’t drift apart.

“I’m sure.” Felix sounded dismissive, almost annoyed to be drawn away from his own reading.

“Aren’t they related?” Farleigh struggled to stifle a snort when he realized what Oliver was talking about.

“God, no!” Felix finally looked over to the boy next to him. “We’ve just grown up together. We aren’t family.” He tipped his sunglasses down his nose. “Do you really think I’d be cool with my cousin fucking a relative right out in the open? What kind of family do you think we are?”

Farleigh immediately captured Maggie’s foot in his hand, rubbing circles into the sole until she woke up irritated.

“What?” She sat up on her elbows, cheeks pink and sweaty from the heat.

“The boy thinks we’re incestuous.” He mumbled, keeping his voice low enough to not travel to the pond.

“Oh, by all means, Farleigh darling, don’t give any more context.” Her agitation concluded with her flopping back down and stretching her arms over her head.

He thought about saying more, quipping back to Oliver that they could hear him, but it amused him that Oliver had clearly spend time wondering about the nature of his relationship with Maggie.

“I’m getting a drink.” He closed his book with a clap, tossing it down to the blanket at the base of his chair. He made a show of bending down to just an inch from Maggie’s ear and resting a hand on her belly. “Do you want anything?”

“Mimosa.” She turned her head to plant a kiss on his smiling lips. “Ask Duncan to bring out ice lollies as well, will you?” She read his playful expression and joined in on the theatrics, whispering, “Kiss me again.”

He did as he was told, going down to one knee to kiss her deeply and properly. Behind his back, Felix was splashing water his way fruitlessly and hurling expletives entreating him to stop.

“Get a room!” Felix yelled as Farleigh stood back up and disappeared around the corner. Venetia giggled a few feet away.

Maggie broke the news the next morning that she’d be leaving that evening to meet her mother in Italy.

“You’ll be back before the start of term, though?” Farleigh struggled to keep his tone calm and unaffected around his family. It suddenly occurred to him that she was finished with uni. There was nothing holding them together on a daily basis anymore. He cared for her more than most. He always had, it was no secret, but he wasn’t quite ready to let on how much he depended on her.

Things hadn’t been going well with his mother. Her most recent live-in lover had convinced her to sell her Central Park view apartment and rent place for the both of them in Tribeca. It was one of the last vestiges of wealth they still possessed and she’d simply sold it. She’d told Farleigh that his things from his room were in storage, but she’d help him sort through it. They both knew that she’d blow through her money in a matter of weeks again.

Farleigh had spent an entire evening with his ear pressed to Maggie’s sternum, listening to her breathe with him through his anxiety. It was a side of him he guarded from every single person on the planet, but not her. No matter what secrets he’d let loose, she’d always been his friend.

“Oh, I don’t think so, love.” She poked at her yogurt with a spoon held loosely between her fingers, not actually intending to eat it. “I never did take a gap year and if I’m going to be sweaty it may as well be in the Mediterranean.” She laughed, but neither Farleigh nor Venetia laughed with her.

Oliver stared Farleigh down with a smug smile from across the table, seemingly elated that Maggie had kept something from him.

After breakfast, Farleigh pulled Maggie into the library. “You’re just leaving?” He lit a cigarette before bothering to find an ashtray.

“It’s all a bit crowded here, isn’t it?” She took the cigarette from his lips and took a long drag. “Felix and Oliver - that’s weird. It’s got Duncan all in a tizzy. Annie was saying the Henry’s are coming for dinner at the end of the week and you know I simply cannot stand that lot.” Farleigh only listened, taken aback by the sudden state of her. It wasn’t often that anyone got a rise out of Maggie, even momentarily. “You’re more than welcome to come to Portofino as well, darling. I just can’t stay. It’s all just so,” she lifted her hands between them, wiggling her fingers with a look of disgust. “the atmosphere’s all wrong.”

“You know I can’t go anywhere right now.” He murmured, taking his cigarette back. “I have to ask my uncle to help my mom and he wont take it well if I accept a check and disappear.”

“Oh, Farleigh.” Maggie cracked a smile, placing a gentle hand to his cheek. “You were truly put on this earth to be pretty, weren’t you?”

“God, you’re such a bitch.” He chuckled out in retort, reconfiguring his expression into something more flirty. There was no reason to end their summer together on a bad note. “What time are you leaving? Let me have another taste before you go.”

Maggie’s departure was more than just saying goodbye to his closest ally and confidant for a few more weeks. It meant that Farleigh had to go back to always being on. He had to go back to watching from the wings and observing for the sake of his own livelihood. And he had to do it all with little Oliver in the way.

Things actually carried on just fine for a few days. Nothing more than mild irritation. It wasn’t until Farleigh saw Oliver in a stomach churning display with Venetia that the wheels of kismet finally began to turn.

“I saw them right under my window.” Farleigh stood in Felix’s doorway with his ankles crossed, hip popped, and cigarette dangling from his fingertips. “You would have gouged your own eyes out.”

Felix cringed away, flopping down on his own bed. “Not Ollie, god.” He threw his arms back over it head. “I didn’t think he was, you know, like that.”

Farleigh understood perfectly, and if they were all being honest, he’d assumed Oliver was gay too. Venetia was an unapologetic flirt, but who could blame her. All alone in that giant house with her parents flitting in and out without warning. Boys were a therapeutic escape. A way to feel both desired and necessary in a flippant world.

I was relatable, really. Farleigh had often used the desires of men in largely the same way. No, he didn’t blame Venetia. Oliver, though. Oliver was a problem.

The next morning at breakfast, he read through the gossip rags while Venetia shamelessly flirted with Oliver right next to him. As badly as he wanted to cry out in disgust, he’d already sown his seeds and watched them grow in Felix’s increasing anger.

He tuned the conversation out as they discussed the weekend dinner party. There was a part of Farleigh that loved dinners with the Henry’s. Entertaining was his calling. He loved the way he could blend into the dinner jacketed masses. He loved that he was still one of them.

Only Maggie could see it. Felix and Venetia were whimsically lost in their own youth, but Maggie was self-aware and she was also aware of him. It was always a relief when she would walk through the door and rearrange the seating cards while no one was looking. She’d seat them together and keep one soft, grazing hand on his knee, grounding him. Who would tell her no?

At dinner with the Henry’s, Farleigh would have given anything to see her to his left once again. He found himself only half-listening to the conversation as he imagined her slipping her shoes off under the table and making small talk with the Henry to her left. But she wasn’t there, and the anger of Felix’s betrayal  was sitting like a weight in the pit of his stomach.

During karaoke, Oliver decided to pick at his fresh wound, and it only built the anger more. They flirted and whispered, Farleigh softened by so much liquor coursing through his bloodstream. Oliver brought up Venetia, money, shame. All in minimally veiled seduction.

“If you ever want me to talk to them,” The little rat murmured in his sing-song baby voice, his lifeless shark eyes forming perfect circles. “I know what you’re going through.”

It was sickening, the way he turned the puppy-dog eyes on and pouted his lips. Oliver obviously believed that Farleigh was interested in him. He was unconventionally attractive. A composite sketch of striking features. Farleigh felt nothing but annoyance though.

Still, he swallowed it down, choosing instead to be stalwart and flirtatious over showing his cards.

“It’s time to change things up a bit.” Farleigh tucked the song book under his arm and skimmed through the catalogue, finding exactly the right tune to humiliate the boy. “Oliver, you’re up!”

Taking his place toward the back of the room, he danced and sang along, thoroughly enjoying watching Oliver sink into embarrassment right there in front of everyone. It didn’t seem to truly hit anyone until he sang the lines “I love you. You pay my rent.”

It was beautiful. It was horrifying. It was a perfect little moment of comeuppance.

“This is your song too Farleigh.” Oliver held the microphone out, his face beet red and sweat beading around his hairline and upper lip.

“Only if you insist!” Farleigh shimmied through the lounging guests, snatching the microphone. He was born to perform, and he did. Court jester. Minstrel to his own family. It didn’t embarrass him. He knew exactly where his place was. He was determined to remind Oliver of his.

That night, he’d meant to call Maggie but he was far too drunk and it was far too late. He wasn’t in bed until quarter to three. He felt better. The anger was there. It was often there. But it was dissipating. Taking up residence elsewhere in his body at least.

Just as he drifted off, feeling a glee at the small revenge of the night, something heavy knocked him awake. He opened his eyes to something far worse than a sleep paralysis demon. It was Oliver.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Farleigh moved to lift his arms but Oliver had them pinned to his sides with his knees.

“What do you think I’m doing?” Oliver was cast completely in shadow, only the blue moonlight from the window reaching his face.

“I think you’re in the wrong fucking room.” To this point, Farleigh had felt a lot of things about Oliver, but fear certainly wasn’t one of them. Now, he was genuinely afraid. This was unhinged behavior. This was completely insane.

“Am I?” Oliver spoke in a husky voice. It was soft and sinister. “Are you going to behave from now on, Farleigh?”

He almost laughed. Really? A power play? He was downright transparent. “No.”

Behind his back, Oliver’s hand crept into the sheet that was barely separating their bodies. Strong fingers wrapped themselves around soft flesh growing harder.

“Are you going to behave?”

Farleigh gulped down the urge to buck the smaller man off of him. He could shove him off. He could stop him. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t. “No?”

The hand squeezed harder, moving now. This was sick. It was hot, but it was sick.

“Don’t make me ask again.” Oliver knew what he was doing. He could feel it. They both could feel it.

Farleigh nodded his head quickly, minimally. Upset about giving in.

Oliver was close enough that Farleigh could smell his sickly sweet breath. It smelled of fruity cocktails and pineapple slices. “Say it.”

“I-I’m going to behave.” Farleigh let go completely, his stomach in knots. The anger was back, but so was desire. Disgusting, irritating desire. The thing that always got him into trouble.

Still close, Oliver spit into his hand, and Farleigh gave himself over wholly.

In the morning, Farleigh woke up to a deep, revolting shame. He felt sticky and queasy. He’d let Oliver win. He’d been bested. But more than that, he hadn’t wanted it to happen. He wondered if that was how Venetia had felt. Used.

He tried to wash it all away in the shower, but there was that anger again. Just where he’d left it too.

He was getting dressed when Duncan burst into his room, startling him.

“What the fuck?” He jumped back. Not even a knock? What was going on in Saltburn lately?

“Gather your things.” Duncan lifted his suitcase from the corner, plopping it onto his bed. “You’re to be out immediately.”

It was the coldness in his voice that scared Farleigh the most. He’d never been spoken to like that. He tried to question him but Duncan was gone before he could even form thoughts.

Farleigh made a b-line to James’ office, knocking once before letting himself into the open door.

“James, what’s going on?” He was only met with more icy stares.

Elspeth was sitting in the corner chair, looking pensive, an expression that didn’t suit her. James was at his desk, both hands laid flat on his thighs.

“Really, Farleigh? After everything we’ve done for you?” James took off his glasses, expression pained. “Attempting to steal from us?”

“What? How?” Farleigh moved to sit down but Duncan came in and ushered him toward the door. “No! Wait-how? I haven’t gone anywhere? How could I have stolen anything? Why would I do that?”

In the hall, only Elspeth followed.

“There has to be a mistake. I haven’t-“ He was cut off by Duncan’s hand on his shoulder pushing him toward the door.

“Darling, you mustn’t make such a fuss. Please behave yourself.” Elspeth looked angry. It was another new expression he hadn’t seen.

Before he could even process another thought, he was out the servant’s door and sitting in a car. The trunk slammed hard as his things were loaded in.

“Where to, then?” The driver asked, not even turning around to see him blubbering and snotty in the back seat.