Chapter 3

T hat fucking eggnog.

I groan, unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth, and somehow manage to roll myself to the side of the bed where I know there’s water.

Hydration. I need hydration. Gulping down the entire glass, I push myself up on my elbow and ease into a full sitting position. My brain gives one hard thump inside my skull, then stops.

God knows what time it is.

God knows what time my body thinks it is.

Shards of dim light peek out of the huge curtains, so it must be near morning, but that’s the only clue. I brave turning my head and prepare myself for the onslaught of pain. Any…second…now.

My entire body curls in on itself as my brain tries to escape my skull, without success. My lungs seize in shock, my breath traps in my throat somewhere while it rides the excruciating agony searing through me.

I’m never drinking again.

I might say that every time I’m hungover. But this time, I mean it.

What even is eggnog anyway? Fucking eggnog.

I’m still trying to focus on my surroundings when I finally spy my watch on the side table, next to my phone. Seven a.m. That makes it sometime after lunch back home. It’s enough to stop me from reaching for my phone, because I know full well that I’ll open it to a barrage of messages about escaping England, and I’m far too hungover to deal with that.

The banging in my head dies down enough for me to make out the unmistakable smell of coffee, and it’s all I need to power myself forward and out of bed. Carefully, of course.

First coffee. Then painkillers.

Pulling on a pair of fleecy pajama pants and the one hoodie Miles so generously packed for me, I follow the scent along a dimly lit corridor and down the stairs to the cabin’s cavernous main room. Someone’s been busy. There’s already a roaring fire crackling in the wide stone fireplace dividing the center and an enormous Christmas tree twinkling away at the far end, which I do my best to ignore, but that’s not what has me stopping in my tracks.

It’s the wall of windows.

Bloody hell .

By the time we arrived yesterday afternoon, a blizzard was whipping up the air, so we saw nothing more than a hazy, gray landscape. But this morning…

It’s almost enough to banish this hangover.

Crisp, freshly fallen snow covers everything in sight.

A vast panorama of white, surrounded by mountain tops looking down on a wide river. In the distance the sun has just broached the horizon, turning the ground a deep orange. Trees give way to the thick mounds of snow and their branches bounce back green and clean. The view is only broken up by a few other cabins dotting along the edge of the valley, and chimney smoke curls in the air before disappearing into what promises to be a stunning day.

Directly below me, past the veranda with an enormous firepit and seating for at least twenty, is a covered pool and an equally large hot tub I’ll be trying out later.

Even though I’d say it’s worth every penny of the seventy-five mil, or whatever Murray paid for it, it’s only the second most beautiful place I’ve ever been. Nothing will ever beat the views from Burlington Hall—our family home for the past five hundred years— and its fifteen thousand acres of Oxfordshire countryside, including the village of Valentine Nook.

The noise of a door being flung open has me turning around to find Hendricks and Miles marching in. One of the more annoying qualities my younger brothers have—and there are many —is their ability to function after a night of drinking and display little to no evidence of a hangover. The pair of them had more to drink than Lando and me combined—including Lando’s twenty-four-hour binge—yet they look like they’ve just walked out of the spa my mother frequents every month, Burlington-blue eyes clear and sparkling with the ever-present mischief.

“Oh good, you’re up,” says Hendricks, yanking off his beanie and shaking it free of snow, before closing the door behind him.

I study them as they walk toward me. Maybe they’ve not been to bed. Still being drunk would account for that identical grin plastered across both their faces.

Miles pauses midstride. “What?”

“ How are you two up?”

“Jet lag is for the weak.”

“Screw jet lag. You had more of that eggnog than Lando and I did. Why aren’t you hungover?”

Hendricks shrugs, while Miles drops down in the chair opposite me, shucks off his jacket, and tosses it onto one of the empty chairs, then props his feet on the table. “That stuff was delicious. Need to get the recipe so we can take it back to Burlington.”

Over my dead body. Though any more of that, and I probably would be dead.

“How amazing is this place?” Miles continues, either ignoring the way I’m staring at him, or he hasn’t noticed in the first place. Probably the latter. “We should buy one.”

“We have a ski chalet.” I remind him.

“But that’s in Switzerland. We should buy one here. I always forget how awesome the skiing is, and it’ll mean I can spend more time here for polo in the summer. It would be a great investment. We can find somewhere with land and build stables…”

Given our current view, I’m certainly tempted. But I’ve already stopped listening because it’s Lando’s problem. As the head of this family, all financial investments fall to our eldest brother, therefore Miles will thankfully have to talk to him about it. My head is still banging far too much to enter into a conversation about property.

“So, where’ve you been already?”

“We drove into the town, but nothing was open. Milo wanted to go to the polo club but then decided he was too hungry, so we had to come back,” Hendricks replies.

Just the mention of Miles being hungry has my own stomach rumbling. This house would normally be fully staffed, but considering we arrived with little to no notice, I wasn’t expecting James to organize something quite so quickly.

“What are we going to do for breakfast? I need painkillers.”

“Maggie’s making it.”

My brow furrows—even that hurts. I might have been drunk last night, but I know we didn’t bring any girls back. And there’s no way Miles has picked someone up before seven a.m. even if it was to make breakfast.

“Who the hell’s Maggie?”

“John, the house manager, sent her over. Hen and I met her this morning.”

I scratch my head and curse the eggnog again. I’m usually much better at this. “So, it wasn’t you two who made coffee this morning?”

Miles’s laugh is all I need as an answer.

I’m wondering how I’m going to get this coffee I can smell, along with painkillers I’m becoming more desperate for by the second, plus this breakfast when, as if by magic, a woman appears through a door in the far corner I hadn’t noticed before. She’s carrying a loaded tray of cups and a huge pot of coffee. Leaping up to help her, I’m rewarded with a piercing bolt of pain right between the eyes.

“Good morning. Breakfast is set in the dining room, if you’re hungry. Or I can bring it in here for you,” she announces, moving the tray out of my reach before I can help her because Miles gets there first.

I’d roll my eyes if I didn’t think it would cause me another shot of pain, because from the way she’s looking at him, I’m beginning to think maybe Miles has picked someone up this morning.

“Thanks, darling.” He winks and Maggie’s cheeks immediately turn an impressive shade of beetroot. “And you couldn’t rustle up a few Advil, could you?”

By the time she returns with a full bottle, I’m ready to dunk my head in a foot of snow to freeze out the banging.

Fucking eggnog.

It takes double-strength painkillers, almost the entire pot of coffee, a stack of pancakes with the best maple syrup I’ve ever tasted, along with scrambled eggs and bacon before I begin to feel remotely human again.

Hendricks is on FaceTime with his three-year-old son and Miles is scrolling through his phone on the opposite end of the sofa I’m trying to snooze on.

“That was some quick thinking yesterday, Al. Every news outlet has led with it. Clemmie said half the press are camping outside the Burlington gates because they think Lando is there, and the other half are in The Cupid’s Arrow trying to find out what happened from anyone in Valentine Nook who’ll talk to them.”

“I know,” I mumble, without bothering to open my eyes. “I’m on the group text.”

“Mum said she’ll send James out with a shotgun if they don’t all leave soon.”

“I know,” I repeat. “I’m on the group text.”

“And Clem?—”

My eyes fly open. “Milo, are you going to give me a rundown of everything I already know because I’m. On. The. Group. Text?”

He sighs heavily. “Just making conversation. You’re so grumpy.”

“I’m tired and hungover.”

“Well, as soon as Hen’s off the phone we have plans that will perk you right up. You did the hard work getting us here, so Henners and I have appointed ourselves activity monitors.”

This gets my attention. I’m very well accustomed to Hendricks and Miles’s activities—some of which may or may not have landed them an invite to spend the night in our local jail cell from time to time. Even if it is the Valentine Nook jail cell, which technically our family owns.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re about to have fun. We’re waking Lando, then we’re going to get our Christmas tree, and we’ll hit the slopes before lunch.”

The words are out of my mouth before my brain has time to catch up. “I’m not going to pick a tree.”

Miles pins me with his rarely seen but very firm glare. “Yes. You are.”

“Milo, don’t start.”

“Alex, this week isn’t about you, it’s about Lando. And we’re going to get a tree to decorate.”

His tone is daring me to challenge him, and I can already tell from the look in his eye this will turn into a blaring argument if I let it. Miles might be the biggest softy of the Burlington family, but he’s equally stubborn, loyal to a fault, and holds a grudge like no one I’ve ever met. He will also go on and on and on about it until I give in.

Unfortunately, he’s right.

This week isn’t about me. It’ll be much easier all around if I set aside my aversion to Christmas and everything that goes along with it, and just do what Miles wants in a bid to make sure Lando’s okay.

“We don’t have any decorations,” is the only argument I can muster at one last futile attempt to get out of doing something I have point-blank refused to do since I was twelve years old. “And we already have a tree.” I point to the one flashing haphazardly in the corner.

“Maggie is sorting us out with decorations. We’re going to pick the tree this morning, and we’re going to spend the afternoon decorating it.”

The familiar panic swirls in my gut. “Milo…please.”

Miles sits up and glares at me. My pleading has no effect.

“No, Al. Not this year. Enough is enough. It’s been twenty years, and Dad would hate it. He would hate you were like this. And Lando always feels too guilty to push you, but he hates it too. We all hate you’re like this. No one blames you except you . Do it for Lando.”

I stay silent.

Lando rarely mentions my aversion to Christmas, or the fact that I usually disappear in December, only to resurface for one day before leaving again. He’s never pushed me on it. Not like Miles, and Hendricks, or my mum. Or even Clemmie. He never says anything because I know my guilt eats at him too.

Lando became the eleventh Duke of Oxfordshire the day our father died. He was fourteen years old. I was twelve.

Along with the title, Lando inherited approximately six hundred thousand acres of land across the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and North America, as well as business holdings in property, technology, sustainability, and roughly nine billion pounds cash.

Up until he was eighteen, our father’s advisors helped run Burlington Estate Group Limited, which was set up by the first Duke of Oxfordshire in 1511. But once he legally became an adult, the responsibilities of keeping our family together fell onto his shoulders.

Something he wasn’t quite ready for, because if it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t have inherited the title so early.

If it hadn’t been for me, our father would still be alive.

It was a rainy Saturday two weeks before Christmas.

Lando and I had come home from boarding school for the Christmas holidays. One of our traditions had always been to decorate the Christmas tree as a family—it was what I was looking forward to the most. It was the most beautiful tree—big and twinkling—and once the star was placed on the top, it almost touched the ceiling of the great hall at Burlington. After the tree was decorated, we would watch a Christmas movie as a family, with popcorn, and we’d be allowed to stay up late. It was my most treasured time.

The twins were only six at that point, and Clemmie was still a baby, and when Lando and I returned home, instead of a naked tree waiting for us to be decorated, the lights were on, the branches weighed down with ornaments—even the ones with my name on them—and the star was shining on top. It had been decided the tree would go up early, and instead of watching a movie, we were going to the pantomime.

I can still feel the disappointment burning in my chest.

I was a twelve-year-old boy, tired from a long term at school, looking forward to seeing my parents and decorating the Christmas tree. I didn’t want to go to the pantomime.

I cried, stormed up to my room, and refused to go out. When I was still upset the next morning, my inherently kind dad decided to go out and get another tree for us all to decorate. Just like we always did.

He never came home.

Driving around the corner of a notoriously dangerous country lane, a tractor had been coming toward him on the opposite side of the road. The driver behind the tractor, impatient at the ten miles an hour it was traveling, decided to overtake. He never saw my dad’s Range Rover and went headfirst into it. They were both killed instantly.

Next week will be the twentieth anniversary of his death.

I can reason that the accident wasn’t my fault.

Miles is right. No one blames me but me. In fact, everyone else in my family still loves Christmas the way my dad loved Christmas. They celebrate it in his memory. They celebrate December.

It’s something I wish I could do, but I can’t.

Because I know that if it hadn’t been for me, then my dad wouldn’t have been driving to collect another tree at that precise moment in time, and he’d still be alive.

My mum would still have a husband, the twins and Clemmie would still have a father they spent time with instead of one they only remember through photos, and Lando would have been able to enjoy his teenage years without worrying about how to run an international multi-billion-pound company before he was ready.

So, yeah, that’s why I hate Christmas.

“Fine. For Lando .” I reply eventually, but refrain from telling him I’d much rather build a snowman. Honestly, I’m surprised that neither of the twins has suggested it. Snowmen, snowballs, and snow fights are the twins’ vibe. “When are we going?”

“As soon as Lando’s awake.”

I balk. I know full well if I walk into Lando’s bedroom and tell him we’re going Christmas tree shopping, he will quite rightly tell me to fuck off. It’s the twins’ idea. They can deal with what could most certainly be compared to waking a bear during hibernation.

Add a hangover the size of Texas, and you could very well be in perilous danger.

“I’m not doing it.”

“Neither am I,” Miles shoots back just as quickly and shudders dramatically. But then his voice softens. “Do you think he’ll remember what’s happened?”

“Yes,” I reply, though the thought briefly occurred to me that we’d have to remind him.

“Do you know if he’s spoken to Caroline yet?”

I shake my head.

“What a fucking twenty-four hours.”

And that’s all there is to say, because what a fucking twenty-four hours , and I finally get to close my eyes for a few minutes peace, until we both sense Hendricks’s presence.

“What?” he says, shutting his phone off to find Miles and me staring at him.

I return his confusion with the smile I know I’m going to have to wear all day. Better get the practice in. “You’ve been nominated to wake up the duke.”

His jaw clenches and he summons a deep breath, but his groan is heard with every step to Lando’s bedroom.