Chapter Ten
Spring had arrived in Langford early that year. A sprinkling of bluebells carpeted the lanes, and daffodils nodded proudly in the breeze which rolled in from the hills behind the small town. As Tess Tennant raced up the hill from the bus stop, she caught sight of her mother and her mother’s friend Philippa, outside the Tennants’ house. They were laughing in the bright sunshine.
‘Hello, Tess darling!’ Emily Tennant called out to her daughter, who ground to a halt, panting. ‘I was just telling Philippa your news.’
‘You haven’t told Adam yet, have you?’ Tess said, between breaths. She unhooked herself from her school bag, trying to look nonchalant and grown-up; she was almost eighteen now, after all. By the time Cleopatra was eighteen, she was ruling Egypt with her brother. By the time she was twenty-two, she’d got rid of her brother, seduced Caesar and had his baby. Of course, she was dead at thirty-nine, and had wrecked Egypt with civil war, so perhaps she wasn’t someone one should slavishly emulate—but she’d been to Rome, got to shag Mark Antony in the process and wear some awesome gold jewellery as well as being super-empowered and all that, so it wasn’t all bad.
‘No, of course not,’ said Philippa, brushing her wild dark hair away from her face as she smiled at Tess. ‘But well done, sweetheart. That’s wonderful. He’s going to be so pleased for you.’
‘He’s got a scholarship to Cambridge,’ Tess said, brushing her hands through her hair. ‘He won’t remember who we are in a few months’ time, he’ll be too important. He’ll be going to posh college dinners with E.V. Rieu and Oliver Taplin, people like that.’
‘E.V. Rieu died in 1972,’ said a voice
