Arranged British Love

Arabella pressed a five number code into the security keypad by the large wrought iron front gate, which stood in-between a large, seven feet brick wall. The wall was in front of the large, circular gravel driveway, with a huge fountain in the middle, with the house behind that.

The gates swung open and we walked out. The two Labradors, whose names were Henry and George, walked obediently by the King and Queen’s ankles, often smiling up at me with their bright, intelligent eyes.

“Oh, look! There’s Ethan!” Juliet exclaimed, waving at the tall figure on the other side of the road.

He didn’t notice though and kept his head down about to cross the road. When we had reached the road, a car came speeding around the corner. Ethan hadn’t noticed, however, and kept walking.

“Ethan! Watch out!” Juliet called, frantically waving to get her brother’s attention as the car got closer and closer to him.

It was like the scene unfolding before had gone into slow motion. Without thinking, I ran into the road, slamming my body into Ethan’s with enough force to throw us both away from the road, rolling down the short hill, just before the car sped across the piece of road on which Ethan had just been standing.

I was lying on top of Ethan who was blinking blearily. He stared at me for a minute, before grumbling “Who the heck are you?” in his posh British accent. I rolled off and stood up, brushing the grass off of my top and jeans. No problem, I just threw myself onto you for the sake of it, not to save your life. Ungrateful twat.

His family ran across the road, Sebastian holding out his hands for his son to grab onto to help him up. Juliet put her skinny arms around my waist and hugged me tight.

“Whoa! Seriously, that was awesome. You just saved his life! His life! So cool.” She cried out, grinning at me.

“Honey, you take Juliet and the dogs inside, we’ll be there in a minute.” Sebastian spoke with the authority of the King he was.

Juliet let me go of her vice-grip and took one of the dogs, trotting after her mother. “Did you see that? The car didn’t even slow down!” Her voice disappeared into the distance as she walked away.

I frowned and looked at my almost-father-in-law. “The car didn’t stop?”

He shook his head. “Just carried on speeding down the road at 90.”

Ethan spoke for the first time since he had gotten off the floor. “Thanks, I would’ve been road kill if it wasn’t for you. Err, whoever you are.” He stuck his hand out. I stared at it for a minute before shaking it.

“I’m Phoebe, you know, the wife.” I smiled, letting go of his hand.

Ethan blinked a few times. “Whose wife?”

Oh no.

“Ur, yours!”

He stared at me long and hard. “You don’t look anything like your pictures.” He cocked his head to the side, seemingly taking in my features.

“What pictures?”

“Oh, your father showed them to me. He, err, gave me one.” Ethan dug his hand in his back pocket, pulling out a black leather wallet. He passed it to me. “Open it.” I did as he said, finding a picture of myself from three years ago, when we were on holiday in Barcelona. My hair was pulled into platted pigtails and I had extremely sunburnt face.

I felt my face redden as I closed the wallet and handed it back to him. “Why do you have it with you?” I mumbled, bowing my head, trying to hide the deep red blush creeping over my cheeks.

“He came over last week and I guess I forgot to take it out.”

I nodded, not knowing what to say. Damn I hate awkward conversations. “So, umm, are you okay? You hit the ground quite hard.”

He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” We stood in silence for a few seconds, before Sebastian clapped his hands together. “Shall we head off inside, we’ll get the nurse to take a look at you.”

As it turns out Ethan wasn’t fine. The minute he tried to walk he fell over, yelling out in pain. So when we walked back that 500 metres to the house, it was with Ethan being supported between myself and his father. Arabella had already called the nurse to the front door and she hobbled over to us and instructed ‘His Majesty’ to take ‘His Royal Highness’ to his room to lie down, so she can do her...medical stuff...okay, I stopped listening.

The nurse hurried around in front of us, opening doors and glancing back every once in a while to see if Ethan was doing okay. I had no idea which way we were going, so I followed in the nurse’s footsteps, admiring the soft rugs, ornate furniture, and original paintings that decorated the halls.

We had gone up two flights of stairs when we reached a large oak door on the left of the huge red carpeted staircase. It was at this point that Ethan became limp and flopped against my shoulder. I staggered slightly and Sebastian called out to the Nurse.

“Nurse Bishop, we may have to hurry up, he’s fainted.”

Nurse Bishop glanced back worriedly and opened the door and led us into a big, light lounge. It was modern in comparison to the rest of the stately house.

“This is Ethan’s floor. And yours now. There’s a living room," a gestured with his free hand around the room furnished with cream couches and a huge plasma TV on the same wall as the door.

“Your room is through there,” He pointed towards a door down a corridor at the back of the lounge. “The nurse will take Ethan from here; you can go and take a look at your room. We decorated it a few weeks ago.” He smiled gently as I unhooked myself from Ethan’s limp limbs while the nurse took my place. I took that when he said ‘we’ he meant a team of professional decorators.

I returned his smile and walked to the door.