Epilogue

LANDO

Six months later

There’s nowhere more beautiful than the English countryside.

It’s what Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Blake, and their contemporaries wrote about for reams on end. They managed to perfectly capture the essence of what it’s like to be among the rolling green hills, surrounded by horses gently grazing in the fields, a brook babbling somewhere in the distance, the familiar twitter of birds in their nests…

Their words are tangible, and every time I arrive back from London, I can almost feel them welcoming me home. It’s the perfect antidote to a few days spent in the city. I usually only need to take a deep breath of country air, saddle up my horse, Thunder, and the tension in my shoulders melts away to nothing.

Not today.

It all started an hour ago as I was driving under the old stone arch—the words amor principum carved into its center. It marks the threshold to the village of Valentine Nook, one of the oldest villages in Oxfordshire, the heart of the countryside, and has belonged to my family for five hundred years.

Often described as the most beautiful and romantic place in England, it’s believed that Valentine Nook is where you will meet your true love, and according to legend, it’s where Cupid was conceived—hence its name. Cupid’s parents—the gods Venus and Mars came down from Mount Olympus for a tryst near an ancient glen on the outskirts of the village. Nine happy months later, Cupid made his entrance, and the concept of love has never been the same.

Just like my family, the people who live in Valentine Nook have been here for generations too.

There’s Leon Max, my three-year-old nephew, has clearly been here, except the only person I find is my sister, Clementine, lying on a navy and white striped sun lounger with her nose deep in a book. Eleven years younger than me, she’s just taken her finals, and since she arrived back home a couple of weeks ago, she’s been permanently installed by the pool.

“Where’s Mum?”

Clementine tilts her head toward me and slowly pulls down the nose of her sunglasses until she’s peering at me through her Burlington-blue eyes, the ones we all inherited from our late father.

“Oh, hey, Lanny, when did you get here?”

“Thirty seconds ago, d’you know where Mum is?”

She shrugs, totally lacking interest in whatever has me agitated, and returns to her book. “Dunno, she might be in the kitchens, or I think she talked about going over to the vegetable gardens. Or it might be the rose garden. I can’t remember.”

I grunt to myself. Typical. Turning to leave, I then spin back around and narrow my eyes at my sister.

Clementine normally has her ear to the ground with anything happening around here, especially when it concerns things that shouldn’t be happening. If anyone knows what’s going on in the village, she will.

“You don’t know what’s happening at Bluebell Cottage, do you? There are moving vans blocking the lane.”

Clementine abruptly sits up and shifts onto her knees, which I should take as my first warning. This time she whips off her sunglasses, and her expression—only moments ago somewhat blasé and disinterested—is wide with excitement.

Too much excitement for my liking. Especially when she gasps and claps her hands in rapid fire.

“Holy shit. Today? You saw them, today? She’s here already. Oh my god!”

“What?” My brows draw together in confusion. “I asked you about moving vans.”

“Yes!” her screech almost bursts my eardrum. “You really saw them? They were definitely outside Bluebell?”

“Saw what? Clementine, why are there moving vans outside the cottage?”

“Mum’s put a new tenant in. You’ll never guess who it is?—”

“What?!” I explode.

“The new tenant, guess who she is? Guess, Lanny!” She balls her hands, pumping them in the air. “Oh my god, let’s go down and meet her now. We can take her a housewarming gift.”

My fists clench, my blood boils, my molars are on the verge of breaking from how hard I’m clenching them. This time my mother has gone too far, and from the look on Clementine’s face, she seems to have roped my sister in too.

“She? She?” I snap. “Un-fucking-believable.”

“Wait for me!” cries Clementine, totally misreading the way I storm off. “I just need to change. Go and grab a bottle of champagne from the fridge.”

I most certainly am not getting champagne.

I march back over the lawns and into the house, the way I came. Storming down the corridor, I briefly peer into each room I pass—my study, the library, Max’s playroom—but my mother is nowhere in sight. I’m about to take the stairs two at a time when I sense a movement next to me, and I know instinctively it’s James Winters, our family director of operations. The ninja.

In hindsight, he should have been my first stop, seeing as anything my mother is involved with includes him too.

“Your Grace, if I may?—”

My fist tightens around the banister. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, James, there’s no one else around. You practically raised me, drop the officiality, will you?”

He tuts loudly; he knows exactly why I’m boiling with rage, and it dawns on me that my mother’s absence is purposeful. James is waiting for me as the voice of reason, because after our father died, that was the role he took. The five of us children were nothing compared to the thousands of troops he commanded as a former army brigadier.

“I was going to say you can’t do anything about it.”

“Like hell I can’t.” I sprint up the stairs, only for James to follow.

“Lando, I know you’re pissed off, but you can’t kick her out. She signed the lease, and she’s here until the end of the year.”

She. Her. It’s the only part of James’s sentence that has my jaw clenching.

“I didn’t okay it. This is my land, it’s my cottage. I am the duke. I am in charge. Not my mother.”

James sighs but says nothing more. I know he agrees with me, but I also know he’ll do anything my mother asks of him.

“I know exactly what’s going on here,” I snap. “And don’t pretend like you don’t either. I thought at the very least you’d have had my back in this dating agency she seems to be running.”

“Of course, I have your back, Lando. But you haven’t exactly been you the last six months. Ever since…” his voice tails off.

“Ever since I walked in on Caroline fucking Jeremy?” I snap.

“Yes.”

“And how exactly do you want me to be?”

“Well—” He waves at my face—more precisely, the beard, which has grown thick and fast since I returned from Aspen.

“Yes?”

“You look like a yeti, for one. When was the last time you shaved?”

I scratch through the thick bush. I haven’t been clean shaven since my wedding day, and beyond a couple of necessary trims, I haven’t touched it. What’s more, I like it.

“Six months ago. Caroline hated me with a beard, so I’m bloody well keeping it like this.”

James remains silent, only raising an eyebrow.

“What’s the second?”

“Your short temper.” He replies without hesitation. “It’s not like you, Lando. I know what happened was shit?—”

“That’s not the problem,” I interrupt, and carry on up the stairs, because I do not want to get into another conversation about Caroline.

When there’s no response to my statement, I turn around and find James still where he was.

“What?”

“Then what?”

I sit down with a heavy sigh of defeat, twisting the gold signet ring on my pinkie. “I have a business to run here, a huge multi-billion pound business. We do good, important work. But all anyone seems to care about—and by anyone, I mean mum—is finding me a wife. I don’t know who’s worse, her or Agatha Chase. Can’t you get her to focus on Milo? He’s going to be much harder to get settled down,” I add with a grumble.

James chuckles and joins me on the step. A wet Hamish waddles up the stairs and drops down on the one below us, dripping everywhere.

“So…are you going to tell me who I’ve rented Bluebell Cottage to, or do I have to guess? And why’s Clemmie acting like it’s Christmas morning?”

James reaches out and strokes Hamish’s ears. “I don’t know much about her. Her representatives managed it.”

“Representatives? What does that mean?”

“It was her agent, I believe.” He’s waving his hands about while he tries to find the correct wording. “Perhaps a manager? I’m not sure which is which. Gerard, from the estate team, brought her credentials over and the duchess approved it.”

“An agent? What sort of agent?”

“I’d need to check her name, but she’s an actress. Quite well known, I believe.”

“An actress?”

“Yes. American.”

“An American? Has my mother run out of women in England?” I scoff, although the entire scenario is sounding more ridiculous by the second. Hamish groans loudly in agreement.

James shrugs. “Possibly. She’s from Hollywood apparently, according to your sister. Won awards.”

I turn to him, his face is still wearing the same impassive expression it always does. But usually his left eye twitches ever so slightly when he’s joking, only not this time.

It has to be though.

“Are you joking? Is this a joke?”

“No. It’s not a joke.”

“You’re telling me my mother has moved an actress into Bluebell Cottage. She’s trying to set me up with an actress?”

“I’m not sure that’s?—”

“That’s exactly what’s happening here. Stop being so diplomatic. She can’t hear you.” I laugh, and suddenly, like the sun breaking through dark rainclouds, my mood lifts and a smile beams from my face.

My mother has truly outdone herself this time.

“An American Hollywood actress?” The laugh rumbles up my throat from deep in my belly, followed by another, until I’m laughing so hard I roll back on the stair. “An actress? Dear god. Really, James, you should have led with that. More fool my mother, I say.”

“Lando…”

“There’s no way I’d ever date an actress. Come on, let’s saddle up the horses and ride over to the pub.”

The Burlington boys will return in The Valentine Nook Chronicles - a brand new series coming in September 2025.

Valentine Nook is the first book in The Valentine Nook Chronicles, featuring Lando and his Hollywood superstar (can you guess who she is?)