Cole pulled up outside the Gaisford house and got out of the car. Usually the place bustled with horses, riders, stable hands and grooms, but tonight it was quiet and peaceful.

Should he put the suit jacket on? It wasn’t cold, but it might look better when he knocked on the door. No. The shirt and tie looked fine. He walked up the path to the back door.

Milly’s father answered his knock. “Cole, you’re early. Come in.”

“Thank you, sir.” He wasn’t too sure what his boss thought about the hired help taking his daughter to the ball.

“Tom, Cole. I’ve told you that before.” Tom Gaisford shut the door behind him.

“Tom.” He tried the name out as they wandered into the kitchen. Milly’s father looked like he’d just got out of the shower.

“Milly’s almost ready. Come into the kitchen, I haven’t had time to eat yet.”

Cole sat on a barstool behind the massive island. “Fred said you were away looking at some horses?” This was the sort of situation when you had to make conversation.

“Yes.” Tom opened the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine. He waved it in Cole’s direction. “Do you want a drink?”

Cole shook his head. A bit early to start drinking for him. Didn’t tend to drink much anyway. His father and his mates had put him off that.

Milly’s father poured himself a wine, then opened the oven and lifted out a casserole dish. He put it on the chopping board on the bench.

“Now let’s see what the efficient Mrs Bennett has made for me tonight.” He used the oven cloth to lift off the lid. It smelled brilliant. Beat the sausages he’d had again.

Tom got a plate out of the cupboard and ladled casserole onto it. “Milly said your friends and hers are going to the ball as a group, and you’re just picking her up.”

“Yeah.” So that’s how Milly explained away going out with the hired help for a bet.

“She should be down soon. She looked ready.” He found cutlery and a linen table napkin. “She said your band is playing tonight?”

“Yeah. Only the third outing.” Cole studied Milly’s father, the light-coloured pants, the beige polo shirt, the expensive watch, hair nicely cut, just starting to grey around the edges. Cole compared him to the father he left slumped in a chair, the television blaring, the plate covered in grease from the sausages still on the floor.

“Good luck.” Gaisford settled on the bar stool at the end of the island.

Then the door to the dining room opened.

He watched Milly come into the kitchen. The dress didn’t look like a bridesmaid’s dress to him. It was all brown and soft and velvety on top with little frayed flowers around the neckline, and the skirt the same colour but a different material.

“Hi, Cole.” Milly smiled hesitantly. She looked really young even though she was just a few months younger than he was.

With her hair loose and brushed smooth, cream stockings, little flat shoes, she looked like a picture in a book. Alice in Wonderland maybe. When they were working with the horses before she went away, seventeen felt about right. But any other time she seemed way younger, maybe because she hadn’t had to grow up fast.

“Hi, Milly.” He eased himself off the stool.

The dress moved softly as she went over to her father. On a real date, she’d be everything he wanted to be with.

She gave her father a hug. “Hi, Daddy. Did you buy them?”

“Not those ones. I saw a couple you might be interested in though. Do you want to come and look at them with me on the weekend?”

Milly nodded. “Okay.” Then she looked over at Cole. “What do you think?” and stood there, arms out from her sides a little, looking down at the dress. Then she smiled up at him.

Usually she was pretty. Tonight she looked amazing.

“Some bridesmaid’s dress. You look good.”

“Do you think it will do?” Now she sounded anxious.

Her father picked up the linen napkin from beside his plate.

“You look great, Princess.” He dabbed his lips. “Have I seen that dress before?”

Milly nodded. “I wore it at Christmas.” She turned back to Cole. “I’m ready to go if you are.”

“Yeah.” He slid off the breakfast bar stool.

He found a park round the back of the hall. Collins had told them they could park there so they didn’t have to carry their gear too far. He had no gear to carry anyway.

Luke and the others must already be in the music room. The lights were on and he could hear someone strumming a guitar. It might be the band the school had hired for the night, but it sounded like Noah.

He went around to the passenger side and opened the door for Milly. “You told your dad we were just coming here as part of a group.”

She nodded as she slid out of the seat, all soft brown fabric and stockings and hair.

“It was easier. I didn’t want him to get weird on you when you arrived.”

“Weird?”

She shrugged. “You know.”

“Like interrogating me about my intentions?”

She grinned. “Something like that.”

“You could have just told him we were doing this to win a bet.” He opened the back door, got out his jacket, shrugged into it, then grabbed the hipflask and stuck it in his pants’ pocket.

This could turn into a long night. He mightn’t drink much, but sometimes alcohol took the edge off.

“I need to go to the music room first to check what the others are doing. What do you want to do?”

“Can I come with you? I don’t want to be in the hall on my own.” She sounded anxious again.

It’s not like she’d be on her own. Half the school would be in the hall. She must know some of them. Strange she acted so shy, when she was really pretty, and slim, and on top of that she seemed to have everything she could want.

“Yeah, okay, come on.” They headed round to the entrance of the music room.

Inside, it all looked pretty much the way it did in the shed when they were practicing. Instruments and people everywhere. Luke in a suit sat on a desk with Tessa beside him, her dress black, tight and lacy with a neckline so plunging if she moved she’d probably fall out of it. The skirt so short it barely covered her butt. As for the shoes, they were the sort girls tended to take off the moment they started dancing. Tessa’s friend Jess was with her. Jess didn’t seem to have come with anyone.

He’d been right about who was playing the guitar. Noah and Adam were lounging on a couple of chairs like they’d settled in to wait until they were due to go on. Dressed in the usual jeans and shirt.

He saw Jess wander over to Isaac. Isaac turned and said something to her. And, bloody hell, if he thought Luke had gone over the top with the makeup and fedora, Isaac had taken it to a whole new level too. His eye makeup so dark you could barely see where it ended and his eyes started, and he had on this long coat that swayed as he moved.

He didn’t like Isaac’s chances of being let into the main hall.

“What got into you?” he asked Isaac. Always the quiet ones that surprised you. Between Isaac and Luke, no one would bother looking at anyone else.

He went over to the drums. Luke had helped him bring them back. Collins said they’d have a chance to set them up on stage later. He’d just check no one had bumped anything and nothing had come off. Milly followed him and watched as he did the checks.

“Are the drums all right?” she asked when he’d finished. She had to be wearing makeup. He’d never seen her lips looking that colour or her eyes that dark. Her hair tumbled all soft over her shoulders. How did he get to be here with her?

“Yep. Ready to go.” They were putting one over Luke. That’s all. All that tenderness after the accident had been about the horses.

He could hear the shushing noise a big group of people make coming from the hall, and the main band starting up.

“It’s kicking off.” Noah looked up from the guitar, his fingers kept moving over the strings. “Time for you ball-goers to get moving. Us plebs will wait here for you.”

“You want to go out there?” Luke asked Tessa.

She nodded. “Are you coming with us, Milly?”

Milly looked back at him. “Are you coming, Cole?”

Real tempting to just stay here and talk to his mates. But he’d better make this look good so Luke would pay up. Make it look like a proper date.

“Yeah. We’ve got a while before we go on.”

Milly hugged his arm as they went through the door. In the hall the ball was in full swing. The band played. The organising committee should have got Stadium to play all night. He reckoned Stadium was better than this lot anyway. They’d show them in an hour or so. The disco balls were turning and casting patches of light over everyone. Heads bobbed, and the noise suffocated.

Tessa dragged Luke to the dance floor.

“Do you want to dance?” he asked Milly over the noise. He tried not to sound too reluctant.

She shook her head. “I’m not good at it.”

“Me neither.” Another thing they had in common. “What do you want to do then?”

“Really?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’d like to go somewhere quiet and just wait until you have to go on stage.”

That suited him. The problem? Where to go.

They could just go to the music room and hang out with Isaac, Noah and Lewis. No. He liked being with Milly and when it was just the two of them she talked.

“Where?” he asked her.

“What about the garden area by the library.” Milly gave a bit of a shiver as she said it. “It’s sheltered.”

“Okay.”