to start cooking breakfast for a whole houseful of people is a real chore. It’s getting so I don’t mind eating porridge, but the next time one of the cameramen sashays into my kitchen with an Egg McMuffin, I’m going to kill him.’ Karen Gibbs, cook After Drew left, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I lay in bed with my heart pounding, trying to calm it. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat. But my heart still pulsed hot in my ears like a piston. I lay shivering in bed until dawn’s pale light began to filter in, giving shape to the room’s spare furnishings. I got up, pulled Amy’s robe off the hook on the back of the door, wrapped it around my shift. Leaving my ball gown lying in a heap on the floor, I crept from Amy’s room, tiptoed into the hall and down the stairs, through the hyphen into the main house where the occasional wine glass abandoned on a window sill or on the steps of the Chippendale staircase were reminders of the excesses of the previous evening. On the second floor I paused, smiled demurely at the camera.
