Chapter 26

TWENTY-SIX

T he next day, Xavier and I sat down for a late breakfast with my iPad in front of us while we waited for Elsie to answer her phone. According to her texts, she and Sofia were at Teterboro waiting for their flight to board for London.

A second later, my daughter’s face splashed across the screen. Well, part of her face. Sofia, like most four-year-olds, was very good at giving a FaceTime camera an excellent view up her nose while she looked down at us.

“Hi, baby!” I cheered at her. “Are you ready for your flight with Elsie?”

“Yep,” Sofia said. “And so is Tyrone! I gave him a really pretty pink bow for the journey.”

Xavier nudged into the frame beside me, looking for Sofia’s stuffed unicorn. “Show us his bow, babe. We want to see Tyrone in his Sunday best.”

“It’s not Sunday, Dad. Elsie says it’s Tuesday. I think you might need a calendar.”

I chuckled while Xavier made his amends for mixing up the days and paid Tyrone lots of compliments to scrub the disappointment off Sofia’s face. Lord, she was like her father. No one got a break.

“He looks great, bug,” I told her. “Have fun on your flight. Listen to Elsie, and we’ll meet you in Mayfair when you get here, all right? Ben will be picking you two up right at the airport.”

“Okay, Mama! Elsie, can I watch McStuffins yet?”

“Not until we’re boarded, lovey. That’s in about ten minutes.” Elsie’s motherly voice filled the room, followed by her face on the screen. “Everything’s swimming along here. She’s a pearl, as always.”

“Thank you so much for taking her, Elsie,” I said honestly. “Giving us a couple of days to ourselves after the wedding.”

“Well, after the baby comes, you two should take a proper honeymoon. Consider me the volunteer nurse for the kiddies, all right?”

Xavier winked at me and grinned back at her. “Thanks, Els.”

“See you lovebirds soon.”

The call ended, and like he’d been waiting for the silence, Gibson approached, holding a tray.

“Some messages arrived for you this morning, Your Grace,” he said in his patently droll manner. “And for you, Your Grace.”

I almost jerked to find him looking at me with the address. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but given our first interactions, it was a bit shocking that Gibson, with his familial pride and upright posture, would be the slightest bit happy to address an American interloper as his new duchess.

His face, however, bore no trace of resentment or even irritation with Xavier’s or my presence. Yesterday, he’d addressed me the same, without a drop of irony either.

Gibson, the soul of tradition, was simply getting on with things.

“Sort of exciting, receiving a letter on a silver tray,” I joked as I took my letter, contained in a simple white envelope. “Instead of text or email, I mean. Now I really feel like I’m in the middle of an Austen novel.”

Xavier barely responded, engrossed already in the letter he’d opened with his butter knife.

“What is it?” I asked. “Good or bad.”

He finished scanning the paper and set it down on the table. “It’s from a member of the House of Lords. The Earl of Lonsbury, as it were.”

I perked. “The one who wants you to take your father’s place?”

Xavier looked up. “How did you know that?”

Quickly, I relayed the events of the previous evening to him while I forked a few pieces of kippered salmon onto my plate, along with some pickles. Xavier’s eyes just grew wider and wider until I got to the end, when I’d informed Imogene of just how rude of an American I could be. Then he laughed, loud and hard.

“Fucking hell, Ces,” he wheezed. “You didn’t actually smack her, did you?”

I blushed and took a bite of salmon. “No. Wanted to, though.”

“You’re getting as bad as me. You really told her off like that, though?”

“Why, you think it’s funny?”

“Not a bit,” he replied with a grin. “I rather think cornering you would be like trapping a badger. They’re small, but they’ll scratch your eyes out if you don’t take care.”

I preened. I couldn’t help it. “Well, she deserved it. I do feel a bit bad for her, though, after what Frederick told me later.”

I continued the story with Frederick’s odd remarks that I still couldn’t quite make sense of.

“It does rather sound like he wants to have his cake and eat it too,” Xavier agreed. “He left this morning to go back to Parkvale, where Georgina’s staying. I’m honestly not sure what he’s after.”

“Let’s be careful around him, then,” I said. “Anyway, that’s how I knew about Lonsbury. I gather he’s a powerful man?”

“He heads the Committee of Selection and also sits on several other important ones, including horticulture, rural economy, and regulatory reform. Yes, he’s bloody powerful in the Lords. And a major figure for the Tories.”

He made another face that told me exactly what he thought about that—party or politics, I wasn’t sure.

“So…what does he want?” I asked. “Besides you, of course.”

Xavier twisted his mouth around like he’d just tasted something bitter. “He’s asked me to meet him in London before the committee hearing about the title.” He folded up the letter. “Can’t, of course. Sof’s arriving tonight.”

Gibson remained standing at the far end of the room, but his eyes flickered to the folded letter like he wanted to take it away. Or perhaps help Xavier reply.

“Well, I can handle that,” I said. “If you need to meet him. Maybe it would be good to see what he wants. Make sure he stays on your side of things.”

“My side,” Xavier repeated as he twisted his water glass back and forth. “If I knew what that was, I’d have something to bargain with, wouldn’t I?” He shook his head. “No, I reckon it comes down to what Imogene said. Only I think the threat will be a bit clearer. Agree to take my seat for the conservatives, and they’ll uphold my claim. Refuse, however, and they might be petty enough to strip the title using whatever Georgie’s given them.”

“Would they really do that?” I asked. “I mean, Parliament hasn’t stripped a peer’s title since 1917.”

Xavier’s mouth quirked with one of my favorite smiles—the one he bore when I knew far more about something than he would have expected.

I shrugged. “I did a little research.”

“Thank God I married a bookworm.” He leaned in to deliver a brief kiss. “Right, well. Technically, it wouldn’t be removing the title or stripping it completely. They’d be…moving it to the rightful heir. Whoever they determine that to be.”

“Frederick? Or could it actually be Adam?”

“I doubt it. Frederick is most likely, since that’s what Georgie’s aiming for. But honestly, I don’t remember the birth order of the two cousins Georgina and her sister married and whose fathers were twins. Never really cared to know. And since Adam’s father was disgraced, I don’t think he’ll factor in here.” Xavier sighed and shoved his hands into his hair. “I’ve never wanted to be a politician. And to be honest, I haven’t a clue why they even want me to join.”

“Well, I do,” I said as I reached for another helping of fruit. “It was all the events of the summer. You couldn’t see yourself the way everyone else did. I know you were talked into going to help Frederick make the right connections, but my love, you have this habit of pulling all the attention in the room. You’re like the sun with gobs of shining charisma. No one can look away.”

“That’s impossible. All those people hate me, Ces. Always have.”

“Ever heard of the thin line between love and hate?” I asked. “I think you crossed it this summer. A couple of balls under your belt and a few good whacks with your mallet on the polo course, and suddenly everyone in the stands was drooling over you like a piece of prime rib.”

Xavier frowned, clearly not liking the sound of that.

“Whether you intended it or not, you made quite the re-entrance into society. So, I have to agree with Imogene. It’s obvious that everyone wants to see someone who looks and acts like you stepping in and modernizing things.” I grimaced. “Trust me, I had to hear enough of them talk about it right in front of me. Including their opinions about having an unsuitable American girlfriend.”

My obviously worried husband had the decency to look contrite. “I hate that they put you through that.”

“It’s over now,” I said simply and meant it. We were moving on.

He leaned over and kissed me again, clearly not caring about the aftertaste of salmon or the lemon still lingering on my tongue. I didn’t pull away. I would take as many of these humming kisses as he wanted to give.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if I let you go now, babe.”

I could only grin in response as I reached for my letter, still unopened, on the table. But the second I opened it, my smile disappeared, as did most of the blood from my face.

“Ces?” Xavier put down his fork. “Babe, what is it?”

Wordlessly, I handed the letter to him.

Your marriage is a sham.

Leave him while you can.

Before I make you.

It was clearly typed, just like the last one, but was printed on a slightly different color paper. No signature. Nothing else to mark its sender other than the familiar three-line threat in curt, short prose.

“Gibson,” Xavier barked. “Who delivered this letter?”

The butler’s eyes popped open, and he practically jogged across the room. “I—I couldn’t say, Your Grace. It was in with the rest of the mail this morning.”

“And we don’t have security cameras installed near the post?”

“I—no, Your Grace.” Gibson looked like he believed he was solely responsible for that oversight. “The last was knocked out during a storm over the winter, and Lord Henry never thought it worth replacing, I’m afraid.”

“See it’s reinstalled at once,” Xavier ordered, then turned back to the envelope.

“Did the PI ever come up with anything more about the last one?” I asked.

We’d been so busy planning the wedding I’d barely thought of it. But I knew Xavier had hired someone immediately after our talk with Derek.

“Nothing,” Xavier said. “Your neighbor said the person who paid him called through a blocked number. He never saw him. The investigator agreed the others were likely just byproducts of the Post coverage.”

The hair on the back of my neck flew up.

“You don’t think…” I was starting to shiver. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

But for someone to send them here. To find out where among all of Xavier’s properties we were located, then take the time to find another local patsy to deliver the letter and make sure we would actually receive it.

This was much more than a simple prank. This was personal. And after my last conversation with Adam…there was only one person I could think of who wanted Xavier enough to try to scare me away. Someone who also knew we were here.

“You don’t think it’s from…”

“Imogene?” His face was grim. “It has crossed my mind.”

I sighed. I didn’t want to be a source of this kind of drama, but honestly, the girl had it coming if she wasn’t going to step off from her little interlude last night.

“Gibson,” Xavier asked. “Call the Orthams. Request that they join us for dinner this evening if the cook can accommodate.”

“Certainly, Your Grace.” Gibson left the room, and we continued to finish our lunch, though both of us seemed to have lost our appetites.

I’d only been in England for a few days, but suddenly I yearned for New York more than I ever had. Not because I didn’t feel a sense of ownership here—I didn’t over the house, but I certainly did over my husband. It was more the feeling of exhaustion. I just wanted to be done with the place. But I was starting to feel that, like a parasite, Kendal would never be done with us.

A few minutes later, Gibson returned.

“Your Grace, it appears the Orthams left this morning for Parkvale House. With Ms. Imogene.”

Xavier’s head snapped up. “Parkvale?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“As in my Parkvale House?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Xavier chewed on his lip a moment longer, then glanced at me. “Ces, didn’t you say that Frederick meant to call round the Orthams this morning?”

I frowned. “He did say something about it to Imogene, yes.”

“Christ.” Xavier pushed violently back from the table, causing the ice to rattle in our water glasses and the cutlery to clatter on the plates.

“Where are you going?” I asked, though I had a feeling I already sort of knew. “What do you think is going on?”

“I think Georgina is doing her very best to turn Ortham against me. Not hard if his daughter’s already feeling her worst.”

I cringed. Crap, that had been partly my doing.

Xavier held out his hand and helped me up from the chair. “Don’t feel bad. She had it coming, babe. And for what it’s worth, I’d give anything to have seen her face when you told her where she could go.”

I tried to smile, but it was hard. I honestly wasn’t sure of what to say.

“Gibson,” he barked. “You’ll tell anyone who asks that we’re still leaving for Mayfair.”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

“We’re not going to Mayfair?” I asked as Xavier started towing me out of the room. “And we’re leaving now?” We weren’t supposed to meet Sofia at the house until much later.

“We are,” Xavier confirmed both questions. “With a stop at Parkvale.”