In the morning Richard, the bastard par excellence, Stirling placed your cup right at the edge of the table: precisely where your elbow was bound to knock it off. Everything happened according to his script: the scalding liquid poured onto your Shakespeare notes and the words about King Lear's madness blurred into brown smudges.

Fucking prick.

Later that evening, at a party in the old wing, he stood by the window. The light slid across the crystal goblet, the wine dark as blood. A show-off. You drank cheap champagne to ease the trembling in your knees but his inky gaze followed you across the room. It was getting unbearable to stay there. You glided past people, keeping close to the walls as if you were melting into the plaster. Maybe he was coming for you. Maybe he was already there.

The alcohol messed up the time. You'd definitely had too much. The walk back took twenty minutes but felt like forever.

The door to the room was ajar. You closed it.

He was lying on your bed, his feet in shoes thrown over the blanket.

The young man held your diary in his hands, the pages rustling under his silver-ringed fingers. The bedside lamp cast a golden light on his cheekbone, and in the half-shadow he looked like a mocking Iago. Distinctly unkind but theatrical.

"I felt like I disappeared when he was—" Richard read aloud, drawing out the words, tasting them on his tongue like sticky toffee. "Lovely."

You stumbled back. He flung the diary aside, lunged and grabbed your shoulders. His fingers dug into your skin through the thin fabric of your dress and you stumbled back, your elbow hitting the perfume bottle on the nightstand. The glass shattered on the floor and suddenly the room was filled with the scent of sickly cherries.

Trying to wriggle away was a stupid idea. He threw over you easily onto your back, pinning you to the mattress.

"You like drama," he whispered, his lips sliding across your temple leaving a wet streak. "So imagine this is your third act… and I'm a tyrant who doesn't believe in happy endings."