Page 3 of Save You (Maxton Hall #2)

Ruby

Ember’s knocking on my door again.

I wish I had the energy to make her piss off. I get that she’s worried, but I just don’t feel able to psych myself up for anything, or to speak to anyone. Even my sister.

“Ruby, Lin’s on the phone.”

Frowning, I pull my head out from under my duvet and turn around. Ember’s standing by my bed, holding out a phone. I squint at it. That’s my phone. And Lin’s name is shining out from the screen at me.

“You took my phone?” I ask wearily. I can feel the outrage trying to build up deep within me, but the emotion vanishes as quickly as it came. Over the last few days, my body has felt like a black hole, swallowing up all emotions before they even have the chance to land.

Nothing really gets through to me; I can’t be arsed with anything.

Every time I get out of bed, it’s as exhausting as if I’d run a marathon; I haven’t been downstairs in three days.

I hadn’t missed a single day of school since I started at Maxton Hall, but now the mere idea of showering, getting dressed, and spending six to ten hours with other people is too much for me.

Let alone the fact that I couldn’t bear to see James.

Just the sight of him would probably make me crumple in on myself like a faded flower. Or burst into tears.

“Tell her I’ll call her back,” I mutter. My voice is rough because I’ve spoken so little in the last few days.

Ember doesn’t move. “You need to speak to her now.”

“But I don’t want to speak to her.” What I want is a little time to get back on my feet.

Three days isn’t enough to let me face up to Lin and her questions.

I sent her a very short message on Wednesday.

That’s all. She doesn’t know what happened between James and me in Oxford, and at the moment, I don’t have the strength to tell her about it.

Or about what happened after that. If I could, I’d blank out the whole of last week and act like everything’s the same as ever.

But sadly, as long as I can’t even manage to get out of bed, that’s not possible.

“Please, Ruby,” says Ember, staring hard at me. “I don’t know why you’re so sad or why you won’t talk to me about it, but…Lin just told me something. And I really think you need to speak to her.”

I glare at Ember, but her determined expression tells me I’ve lost. She won’t leave my room until I’ve talked to Lin. In some ways, we’re far too similar, and stubbornness is definitely one of the traits we share.

Resignedly, I stretch out my hand and take the phone.

“Lin?”

“Ruby, lovely, we have to talk, it’s urgent.”

Her voice tells me that she knows.

She knows what James did.

She knows that he’s plucked my heart out with his bare hands, only to throw it on the floor and trample on it.

And if Lin knows, then the rest of the school definitely does.

“I don’t want to talk about James,” I croak. “I never want to talk about him ever again, OK?”

For a moment, Lin is very quiet. Then she takes a deep breath. “Ember told me that you went off with Lydia on Wednesday evening.”

I don’t reply, just fiddle with the hem of my duvet with my free hand.

“Did you find out then?”

I laugh tonelessly. “What d’you mean? That he’s an arsehole?”

Lin sighs. “Did Lydia really not tell you?”

“Tell me what?” I ask hesitantly.

“Ruby…Did you see my message earlier?”

Lin’s voice is so cautious that my whole body suddenly runs hot and cold. I gulp. “No…I haven’t looked at my phone since Wednesday.”

Lin takes a deep breath. “Then you really haven’t heard.”

“What haven’t I heard?”

“Ruby, are you sitting down?”

I straighten up in my bed.

Nobody asks that question unless something absolutely terrible has happened. Suddenly, the image of James, totally wasted, in that pool with Elaine is replaced by one that’s way worse. James, hurt in an accident. James in the hospital.

“What’s wrong?” I croak.

“Cordelia Beaufort died last Monday.”

I need a moment to take in what Lin just said.

Cordelia Beaufort died last Monday.

An unbearable silence spreads between us.

James’s mother is dead. Died on Monday.

I remember our passionate kisses, his hands running restlessly over my naked body, the overwhelming sensation of him inside me.

No way can James have known about it that evening—that night. Even he isn’t that good an actor. No, he and Lydia must have only found out themselves on Wednesday.

I can hear Lin speaking but can’t focus on her words. My mind is too busy wondering if it’s really possible that Mortimer Beaufort waited two whole days to tell his children that their mother had died. And if so, how shit must James and Lydia have felt when they got home on Wednesday and found out?

I remember Lydia’s swollen red eyes as she stood there on my doorstep, asking if James was with me. The blank, emotionless expression on James’s face as he looked at me. And the moment that he jumped into the pool and smashed up everything we had created between us the night before.

A painful throb spreads through my body. I take my phone from my ear and put it on speaker. Then I click through my texts. I open the thread shown under a number I don’t know. Three unread messages:

Ruby. I’m so sorry. I can explain everything

Please come back to Cyril’s or tell me where you are so Percy can pick you up

Our Mum died. James is losing it. I don’t know what to do

“Lin,” I whisper. “Is that really true?”

“Yes,” Lin whispers back. “They put out a press release earlier on, and within about thirty seconds, everyone had heard the news.”

More silence. Thousands of thoughts are swirling around in my head. Nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing but this one feeling, which comes over me so suddenly and so violently that the words just bubble up out of me by themselves: “I have to go to him.”

This is the first time I’ve seen the gray stone wall around the Beauforts’ house and grounds. There’s a huge iron gate across the drive with dozens of people hanging around outside it, cameras and microphones in hand.

“Lowlifes,” mutters Lin, stopping her car a few yards away from them. Instantly, the reporters swarm toward us.

Lin leans down to lock the car doors from the inside. “Call Lydia and get her to open the gate.”

I’m so grateful to have her at my side at this moment, keeping a clear head.

She offered to drive me without a second’s hesitation, and in less than half an hour from our phone call, she was outside my house.

If I’d ever doubted the depth of Lin’s and my friendship, those doubts dissolved in that instant.

I pull my phone from my pocket and call the number that’s been contacting me so often in the last few days.

It takes a few seconds for Lydia to pick up.

“Hello?” Her voice still sounds as nasal as it did on Wednesday evening when we drove to Cyril’s together.

“I’m outside your house. Could you open the gate, please?” I ask while trying to cover my face with an arm. I don’t know if it’s having the desired effect. The journalists are now standing right next to Lin’s car, shouting out questions that I can’t really hear.

“Ruby? What…?”

Someone starts pounding on my window. Lin and I jump violently.

“As soon as possible, please?”

“Hold on,” Lydia says, then she hangs up.

It takes maybe thirty seconds for the gate to open and someone to come out toward our car. It’s not until the person is a few yards away that I recognize them.

It’s Percy.

The sight of the chauffeur makes my heart skip a beat. Without warning, I’m plunged into memories. Memories of a day in London that started out nice and ended badly. And a night when James took loving care of me after his friends acted like bastards and threw me into a pool.

He pushes his way past the paparazzi and gestures to Lin to wind down her window.

“Drive through the gates and up to the house, miss. These people know that they’ll be trespassing if they follow you, so they won’t do it.”

Lin nods, and once Percy’s moved the press out of the way, she drives into the grounds.

The driveway is so long and wide that it’s more like a country lane through a park, with frost-covered lawns on either side.

In the distance, I can make out a big house.

It’s square, two stories high, with a gabled roof.

The gray slate roof is as gloomy-looking as the rest of the granite-clad facade.

Despite its cheerless look, you can tell that rich people live here.

I think it fits Mortimer Beaufort to a tee—cold and forceful.

It’s much harder to imagine Lydia and James feeling at home.

In front of the house, the driveway opens out into a courtyard, where Lin parks behind a black sports car outside one of the garages off to one side.

“Do you want me to come in with you?” she asks, and I nod.

The air is icy as we get out and hurry toward the front steps. Just before we reach them, I grab her arm. My friend turns and looks inquiringly at me.

“Thanks for the lift,” I say breathlessly.

I don’t know what will be waiting for me in this house.

Having Lin with me takes some of the fear from that, and that’s really good.

At the start of term, that would have been unthinkable—back then I kept my private and school lives strictly separate and told Lin practically nothing personal.

That’s all changed. Mainly because of James.

“Any time.” She takes my hand and gives it a quick squeeze.

“Thank you,” I whisper again.

Lin nods, then we walk up the steps. Lydia opens the door before we have time to ring the bell. She looks just as messed up as three days ago. And now I understand why.

“I’m so sorry, Lydia,” I mumble.