Page 20 of He's the One

Chapter Five

Theo liked Asquith best of all when it was closed up for the night and the public had gone. His parents and grandmother were away and Dastardly had been left in charge, not Theo, though the place could more or less run itself for a few days. The butler, housekeeper, cook and driver all lived in, the other staff travelled in daily, apart from James who lived in the lodge, a small house by the private entrance.

He set off on a walk. Now the light was fading, the colour was washed out of the gardens as they fell asleep. On cold mornings, when a thick layer of white frost coated everything, Theo used to imagine the world had been turned to stone. All except him. On wet days, he pretended he was in the rainforest and had run around the gravelled box-edged paths, and crept through tunnels in the hedges, hiding from all sort of wild animals, few of which lived in the rainforest.

Asquith was magical at all times of the year. He was lucky to have it as his home, but he knew his family were only custodians, really. The place was more than just a home. A hundred years ago, two hundred people had worked here. Carpet sweepers, laundry maids, people to light candles and build fires, gamekeepers and an army of gardeners. Beneath Asquith’s large lead roof were over two hundred rooms, eleven staircases, three hundred and fifty-seven windows and almost two thousand lightbulbs. Now, thanks to modern technology, a team of sixty could take care of the place.

Looking after Asquith shouldn’t have been Theo’s job, though even if his older brother had been around, Theo would still have been expected to contribute to Asquith’s survival. Piers had vanished ten years ago when Theo was eleven. His brother walked out of university before his finals, flew to South America and had never been heard from since. His parents had paid people to look for him but they’d failed to find any trace. For a few years, the story had been that Piers was building orphanages in Chile, but now they avoided talking about him at all. Theo missed him. He wished he had Piers to talk to about Dastardly because he didn’t trust the guy.

While Theo might not want to be his father’s heir, there was no point wishing he wasn’t. He couldn’t disclaim his peerage until he actually succeeded to it and he might not want to give it up by then. Currently, he was desperate to be free to do whatever he liked. That he had no idea what that might be was irrelevant, but he wasn’t free. He was tied by birth, just like his father. Trapped by his brother’s disappearance, just as his father had been trapped by the death of his older brother. Theo was imprisoned by a sense of duty and by the inexplicable and frustrating wish to make his parents see he wasn’t the waste of space they thought he was.

On bad days, he longed to walk away, but the urge to make a difference to Asquith, to preserve the hall and its grounds, to make it one of the premier attractions in the country, even if he had no one to pass it on to, kept him where he was. Though it was hard to hold onto that ambition when almost all his money-making ideas had been dismissed.

He headed towards the woods while there was a little light in the sky. Maybe he’d see Isla. He had biscuits in his pocket. Everything seemed different when there was no one around. Spooky when he was a boy, but not now. The gardens were ageless. There were trees here that were hundreds of years old. It was in the grounds that he felt the history of Asquith more deeply. This place had stood for centuries and knowing his Wetherby ancestors had lived, fought and died to keep it made him determined not to be the one to fuck things up.

But… And there was abut. A bigbut.His parents were in good health. His father was only in his early fifties. He could carry on for another thirty or even forty years, and the idea of having to put up with being unhappy for that length of time filled Theo with dread. He was lonely. He wanted someone to talk to, go out with, cuddle up with, to travel with and see more of the world. If he had someone like that, he could put up with anything. Col’s face came into his head and his throat thickened.

There’d been no sign of the stonemason. Theo had looked. A lot. He’d invented plenty of ways toaccidentallybump into him but the guy seemed to have vanished. All he had to do was ask one of the other workmen but he wasn’t brave enough.I’m pathetic.

He whistled for Isla. He’d reared the fox from a cub. She enjoyed the treats he gave her and tended to come more often than not when he walked into her territory, though she’d shown she could survive without him. Since he’d been a young boy, he’d looked after injured birds and hedgehogs, and there had been a jay who’d trusted him more than she should, but it was Isla he loved the most.

The fox appeared at his side and Theo stopped walking. He crouched down and gave her a dog biscuit. Isla rubbed up against him and he scratched her head.

“My beautiful girl,” Theo whispered. “Want to take a stroll with me?”

She stayed at his side as he kept walking.

“If I were in charge, first thing I’d do is sack Dick Dastardly and Muttley. Good idea?”

He glanced down at the fox who looked up at him as if she was listening.

“I’d transform Asquith into a venue that appeals to all ages and modern tastes. All the ideas I suggested were good ones and I’d make some of them happen. I’d transform myself as well, into a more confident guy, one that people listen to. There’ll be no more tripping up and making mistakes.”

Theo could only assume his clumsiness came from the pressure of wanting to please his parents. He was constantly anxious.

He stopped when he reached the hidden garden. The stone wall was almost completely covered in ivy. It was a shame that the garden was closed off to the public but Theo understood why, even if he didn’t agree. He was tempted to look for the door and see if he could get in but it was getting darker by the minute and it would be completely overgrown in there—full of tigers—so he turned and circled back. Isla left when he reached the orchard and as she walked into the undergrowth, he saw one of her cubs bound out to welcome her. Somehow that made him feel lonelier.

Lonely enough to head for the lodge. James was always glad to see him, even if he didn’t always have time for a chat. Theo knew he was in because the lights were on and his car was there. But his knock wasn’t answered. Theo rang him.

“Theo,” James said.

“Where are you?”

“Out.”

“Your car’s here. Your lights are on.”

“And yet I’m not there. Do you need something?”

Theo turned and headed back towards the main house. “Just a chat. I wanted to tell you about Col.”

“Tell me then.”

As he walked back, he told James everything. Almost everything.

“I lost him,” Theo said quietly.

“You want to find him again?”

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