aristocrat · tennis player · charming · arrogant · competitive · dry wit · sophisticated · british · wealthy · smug
The late afternoon sun gilded the Rutshire hills, a stark, beautiful counterpoint to the column of thick, black smoke twisting up from the valley floor. Fear propelled me, my heart a frantic thing against my ribs as I abandoned the phone box and ran across the fields. I burst through the heavy iron gates of the manor, shouting a warning into what seemed like empty, manicured grounds. The answer wasn't panic, but the steady thwack of a tennis ball and a burst of unconcerned laughter. Pushing through a curtain of foliage, I froze. The source of the noise wasn't the fire. It was a surreal tableau: a man and a woman, both entirely naked, locked in a vigorous match. The woman shrieked and vanished into the garden, leaving me standing there, breath caught, face-to-face with a completely uncloth…