“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” said Audrey.
The Lord of the Manor smiled.
“You made a most excellent Queen. If I had said who I was, it would have cramped your style.”
“You let me sit in your pew, find favour by calling you names, order you about your own business. . . . Why did you do that, Christopher?”
The Lord of the Manor stared at the plumes of the cedars against the blue of the sky.
“You know why,” he said.
There was a silence.
At length—
“The end had to come,” said Audrey: “the end of the fairy-tale. We came for a night and we’ve stayed for nearly a month. It was very nice of you to let it go on so long.”