Chapter 10

TEN

“ M ama, sheep!” Sofia shrieked for what had to be the fifteenth time in two hours.

“Yep, sweet pea. There they are again.”

I smiled down at her, then offered an apologetic glance to the elderly couple sitting across a plastic tabletop from us. They had gotten on the train in Manchester and were no doubt weary of hearing about passing livestock. Ten-minute updates about every cow, horse, sheep, and duck in the country was probably not how they intended to spend their trip this afternoon.

But these things were extremely interesting for a little girl who had grown up in a concrete jungle, and I wasn’t about to spoil her fun. The most green Sofia had ever seen was Central Park in the summer, and while the Green Meadows Farm in Brooklyn was a fun place for city kids to see a goat, this kind of spread was beyond her comprehension.

For the last several hours, Sofia and I had been chugging along fast enough that the hedges bordering the tracks blurred into long green snakes. Beyond that, though, the English countryside had been yawning in front of us as industrial suburbs and suburban villages gradually gave way to the rolling green hills and tiny hamlets that appeared in countless films. Sometimes, when the train turned, I spotted the shadows of sharper peaks in the distance, informing me that we were approaching our final destination, nearly three hours north of London.

True to his word, Xavier had contacted Elsie, who had arranged for transport from King’s Cross to Kendal. It wasn’t until I’d risen fully, alone in our sprawling bedroom, and spotted the first-class tickets on the nightstand that I understood exactly what was happening. Which only became clearer when Ben showed up to take us to the station.

So much for London.

Well, I supposed I’d asked for it.

Sofia turned back to a show she was watching on my tablet, allowing me to sink back into the novel on my Kindle. North and South was a classic and seemed to fit given where we were going, even if the industrial town of Milton wasn’t exactly these lushly rolling hills. But before I could get too far into the scene where Margaret Hale finally realizes that cotton baron John Thornton isn’t quite the heartless man she thought he was, I was interrupted by the buzz of my phone.

Finally, Xavier checking in.

But it wasn’t Xavier.

Kate: How’s merry old England?

I sighed. I’d spoken with Kate last night, in need of someone to process the events at the restaurant before Xavier had come home. Since Kate had been at a family dinner at the time, however, our conversation had only led to near-continuous texts from all my siblings since.

Matthew had threatened to teach the duke his own lesson in civility if he didn’t get his act together. Kate had wanted to know what the dress code was for a real-life English manor. Lea said if Xavier didn’t pop the question before Monday, I should just leave him to his terrible family and come home. Nonna suggested I make everyone her manicotti and was appalled they would actually hire a cook to feed everyone rather than making it themselves. And my younger sisters, of course, mostly just wanted to know if there were any other available young gentry in the area they could meet if they wanted to visit.

The truth was, they were all worried about me. No one had actually thought spending the summer in England was a good idea in the first place—except Joni, the youngest. And if Joni thought it was a good idea, it probably wasn’t.

Me: Merry enough, but very old, as usual. And now it’s very green.

I snapped a picture of the passing countryside, which currently included a lot of picturesquely crumbling cottages in the distance and sent it to her.

Kate: Looks cold. Those places can’t have very good insulation. I bet they get moth holes like crazy too.

I rolled my eyes. My fashion hound sister would think first of the moth holes.

Me: I honestly wouldn’t know. All my knits are acrylic, not wool. Only the cheap stuff for me, you know.

Kate: So where’s the duke taking you tonight? He better have a fantastic date night planned since he’s dragging you all the way up there.

Since discovering that Xavier was actually a member of the peerage, my siblings no longer used his name, only his title. As if, despite the fact that they never saw him, they knew it would get under his skin. I supposed it was better than “cheating douchecanoe.”

Me: We’re getting to Kendal late afternoon. I doubt there will be much time for a date. He’s pretty busy, especially with what’s going on with his uncle.

Kate: He’s not with you?! Why the heck not?

I sighed, already anticipating where this was going.

Me: He left early this morning. But he got us train tickets. It’s fine.

Kate: Wait, wait, wait. First the guy makes you cry last night, then leaves you for his castle, and once he finally lets you tag along, he’s abandoning you to the train?

Me: omg he is not abandoning us! He has a lot of stuff with family he has to deal with.

Kate: YOU are his family.

I paused. Was I, though? Sofia, yes. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the slightest bit peeved he hadn’t waited at least for her. Or at least volunteered to send the helicopter he’d apparently taken back for us. She would have liked that a lot.

Yeah. When Elsie mentioned that one this morning, I wasn’t pleased.

But me? I wasn’t sure I qualified. Girlfriend, yes. Mother of his child, yes. But family? That was still a work in progress, wasn’t it?

Me: It’s fine. We’re fine. I’m going to stop texting now.

Kate: If you say fine one more time, I’m going to smack you across the ocean.

Me: FINE, I’ll stop.

Kate: Brat. My love to Sof. We miss her. And you too, you stubborn fool.

I sighed, brushing my thumb over the text. Love was such a small word, but these days I seemed hungrier for it than ever. It’s odd. Sometimes you don’t realize how starving you’ve been for something until you’ve had your first real taste.

Kate: Just don’t let him push you around. You’re MY sister. You deserve the best.

“I know you.”

I looked up from typing a response to find the elderly woman across the table eyeing me with something approximating glee. “Excuse me?”

“Been trying to figure it out all afternoon,” she said in a thick Northern accent, nodding to herself. “Ralphie, don’t you recognize her?” She prodded her husband, who awoke briefly at his name, then fell immediately back to sleep. “Yes, you were in the paper yesterday. You and your little girl.”

She smiled kindly at Sofia, who gave the woman a suspicious look identical to her father’s imperious expression before clutching Tyrone and turned back at the show she was watching.

“Er—are you sure?” I tucked my phone in my bag. “I can’t think of why we would be in the newspaper. We don’t even live here.”

Even as I said it, dread lodged itself in my gut. Maybe the papers had renewed their interest of Xavier’s personal life. Maybe Sofia and I had been followed on one of our sightseeing trips over the last several weeks. Or maybe even worse, Xavier and I had been seen in the alley the other night.

Oh God, what if my nonna saw her granddaughter with her skirt around her waist in a freaking news article?

“Americans, yes,” said the woman. “Oh, I’m very sure. In the local paper this morning. Adorable picture, the duke kissing his daughter and all at the airport last month.” She nodded at Sofia. “Looks just like him, doesn’t she?”

I glanced back at Sofia, who was happily entranced with her screen, headphones on, without a clue what the woman and I were discussing.

“I—well?—”

“Ralphie, you still have the paper from this morning?” The woman shoved the man next to her, who started out of sleep again with a grumble.

“Hmm? What d’ye want, Evie?”

“The paper, Ralphie. I want to read the paper!”

Ralphie was apparently hard of hearing, based on the way Evie was talking to him. Nonetheless, he managed to procure a rolled-up newspaper from his coat pocket and thrust it at her before folding his arms across a barrel chest and sinking back into his slumber.

“See?” The woman opened the paper and turned it around toward me on the table.

I blinked. It was a local paper, barely the size of a pamphlet, the kind that was probably only circulated within a small area to a population with a mean age of maybe seventy.

But still. There I was at Heathrow arrivals, excruciatingly bedraggled in my Flashdance sweatshirt after a long flight, while Xavier beamed at Sofia in his arms like they were a Gap billboard. It was true—they did look alike. I, however, looked like a gremlin.

To my relief, however, it was also an old photo. Which meant none of my fears were true. Yet.

“Lovely,” I murmured.

“But she’s out of wedlock, isn’t she? Too bad, that.”

I felt as if I’d been smacked in the face as I passed the paper back to the woman. “Excuse me? My daughter is not ‘out of wedlock.’ She’s four.”

The woman just blinked, as if she’d only asked what color Sofia’s hair was. “Oh, I didn’t mean it in the bad way. Just that you and the duke. You’re not married, are you?” A quick glance at my hand apparently told her what she needed to know. “Don’t worry, love. I know the truth. She’s his daughter, no matter what the papers might say.”

I glanced back at the newsprint, wishing now I’d kept it, but too proud to ask for it back to see exactly what it said. I wanted to tell her she was wrong, point out exactly what was wrong with the piece, explicate the damn thing until she and every other person in this train knew exactly what was wrong with that logic and why.

But instead, we just chugged alone as I read the same sentence in my book again and again.

Because the truth was, no matter what I wanted to find, Xavier and I weren’t married, of course. And so, instead of arguing with the woman more, I could say very little at all.

We followed a man in a stiff black jacket holding a sign bearing my name, who introduced himself simply as Gibson, out of the Lancaster train station. From there, Sofia and I were driven another hour and change into Cumbria, skirting the actual town of Kendal until we were at the edges of the Lake District, where the farms and paddocks gave way to mountains yawning above glass-blue slivers of water.

“Do you think mermaids live there?” Sofia said as we drove around one particularly large lake, then turned onto a private road that switch backed up a large hill.

“I bet so,” I told her. “What other creatures do you think live in those depths? Fairies, maybe? Or maybe they have their own version of the Loch Ness monster.”

I held up my hands to mime a monster, making Sofia giggle and squeal.

“There are several species of pike, perch, bream, and eels in Windermere Lake,” interrupted Gibson. “There have also been reports of catfish, carp, and chub. Certainly no mermaids.”

Sofia frowned. “No, there are definitely mermaids in that lake. My mommy said so. And you can tell by the rainbow at the end. That’s where mermaids live.”

“There are none,” Gibson argued firmly as he steered around another curve. “The rainbow is caused by the combination of light and rain. It is an illusion, nothing more.”

I shook my head, hiding a smile when he caught my glance in the rearview mirror. The man had no idea what he was getting into.

But before Sofia could argue back with him about mermaid mythology, rainbows, or anything else the landscape indicated, Gibson swung the car down another drive and approached a large gate of swirling black iron.

“Welcome to Corbray Hall, miss,” he droned as the gate swung open.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t with my mouth hanging wide open.

A pea gravel drive approximately the length of Fifth Avenue stretched in front of us, lined with tall beech trees. On either side lay the grounds of an expansive blooming garden containing topiaries, winding paths, vine-wrapped arches, and too many mysterious entrances to potentially secret passageways to count. The drive gradually climbed to the top of a hill where an enormous manor towered over the garden scape on the entrance side and overlooked a view of the entire countryside on the other. I could see three lakes just from the car, and we weren’t even at the top of the property yet.

Majestic didn’t even cover it.

“Mama,” Sofia whispered, clearly no longer interested in mermaids. “It’s a castle.” Her eyes bugged. “Daddy’s a prince .”

“It’s Corbray Hall.” Gibson’s tone was utterly uncompromising. “And your father is certainly not a prince. Castles are fortified against a common enemy. There is a ruin of Norland Castle on the other side of the estate, but Corbray Hall was built well after Cumbria was settled. It is a civilized place.”

“Not Camelot,” I murmured with a smile, remembering Monty Python . “A silly place.”

“What’s that, miss?” Gibson’s tone was clearly irked.

I cleared my throat. “Er, nothing. Go on, please.”

“As I was saying, there once was a castle here, as this land has been the seat of the Duke of Kendal since the time of William the Conqueror.”

I swallowed. “The seat? So…there is more than one…er…place at the table?”

“Residences?” Gibson sniffed with his large nose. “Of course. His Grace owned four others, including Parkvale House in London, a hunting lodge in Scotland, a second country estate in York, and the house in Bath to winter. Corbray Hall, however, is the jewel of the dukedom and has been since it was built in the late eighteenth century. People come from all around to tour it on Friday afternoons. It is a Georgian masterpiece.”

I swallowed. That was…a lot. Xavier and his family owned at least five priceless pieces of property and some of the oldest holdings in England.

I barely owned my handbag.

Wait. Lived. Owned. Past tense. Gibson clearly wasn’t talking about Xavier but about his father.

“And the current, er, His Grace?” I stumbled. “Where does he, ah, winter?” I couldn’t quite get my mouth around using seasons like verbs.

“The current duke,” Gibson said in a tone that practically spat derision, “does not privy the staff with his whereabouts. He has not been seen in Kendal since the passing of the last duke.”

“What the heck does that mean?” Sofia demanded. “My daddy is the duke. How can there be a past one?”

Gibson’s beady eyes landed on Sofia through the rearview. “Yes,” he said in a tone that really sounded like “no.”

Gibson pulled around a circular driveway of the same pea gravel up to the manor’s front entrance, where a pair of double doors carved with lion heads opened to reveal Elsie, holding her ever-present clipboard and wearing her faithful penny loafers. I grinned. In the midst of all this grandeur and Gibson’s tour, Elsie’s no-nonsense person was a welcome sight.

“Elsie!” Sofia squealed, not waiting for Gibson to walk around to open the door. She catapulted herself out of the car and sprinted across the gravel into Elsie’s waiting arms.

“Thank you for the ride, Gibson,” I told him as he opened my door for me to exit. “Er…”

He looked at me with beady eyes. “Yes, miss?”

I glanced at Elsie and back to him. It was common to tip porters and drivers in London, but I wasn’t sure about what to do with my boyfriend’s estranged staff. What was the protocol for that?

“I’m sorry, here,” I said, taking out a five-pound-note from my wallet and handing it to him. Better safe than sorry, I supposed.

Gibson just stared at it, eyes suddenly afire. “Certainly not, miss,” he declared, then abruptly moved to the trunk to unload our two small suitcases.

Crap. I guess I was sorry after all, although something told me either way, I couldn’t have avoided it.

“Hello, loves,” Elsie greeted me while she stroked Sofia’s hair from where she was wrapped around Elsie’s hips. “Sorry I couldn’t be the one to meet you at the station. Gibson here doesn’t like to drive, but Ben had a cold this morning. He’s feeling better, though.”

Gibson just sniffed. “Please request that Benjamin move the car to the garage, Mrs. Crew. I have things to attend to.” He turned to me with a stiff tip of his head. “Miss.”

Without waiting for an answer, he angled around us with our weekend bags and strode off into the manor. Sofia and I turned back to Elsie.

“Why does he call you ‘miss’?” Sofia asked once Gibson had left us. “You’re not a little girl. That’s what Elsie calls me.”

I smiled. As ever, my girl was possessive of her family.

“I think because I’m not married, peanut,” I told her. “Although I’m not sure I’d want to be ma’am either. That just sounds like what the butcher calls Nonna back home.”

“Yeah, that won’t work. Nonna’s grandma .” Sofia’s button nose wrinkled. “Why can’t he just call you Frankie, like everyone else?”

I shrugged. “That’s not how they do things here, bug.” I grinned at Elsie. “Right, ‘Mrs. Crew?’”

Elsie just snorted and patted her gray bob as we all started to walk toward the house. “Don’t mind Gibson. He’s a terrible snob. He’s just mad I made him pick you up since Ben couldn’t do it. Thinks it’s beneath him to drive a car.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because he’s the butler. Very few houses have them anymore, but Gibson has been for, what, thirty years now? Since Xavier was a boy. His Grace, I mean,” she corrected herself when another staff member passed by. “They like things formal up here,” she whispered conspiratorially.

I looked around the imposing entry hall as we walked inside the manor. “I can understand why.”

Elsie followed my gaze while Sofia returned to my side, as if she too had suddenly become aware of the grandeur of our surroundings.

It felt more like a museum than a house—which, I realized, was probably accurate. A huge staircase crisscrossed up at least three floors, with enormous wood banisters carved with what looked like the history of the estate. The stairs were padded with a sumptuous carpet that appeared to continue down arched corridors in nearly every direction from where we stood. Each was lined with richly polished doors and a variety of priceless antiques, along with gilt-framed portraits of people who looked like royalty from nearly every major era of English history over the last several hundred years. I looked up at a particularly large portrait that hung probably ten full feet above a grandfather clock in the entry hall. It was of one of the previous dukes, I assumed, based on his pose and stature. Xavier might have inherited a lot of his mother’s features, but it was very clear where he got his imperious blue eyes, prodigious height, and long nose that his ancestors enjoyed looking down.

Xavier’s family, I realized, was Sofia’s family too.

“I’ll give you a proper tour this evening if you like,” Elsie said. “But for now, I’m here to take you to Xavier. Poor boy, he’s just swimming in papers.”

“What exactly has been going on?” I wondered, taking Sofia’s hand so she wouldn’t accidentally “explore” something along the way into pieces.

“It’s his uncle Henry,” Elsie said as she led us up the main staircase.

“Yes, Xavi said he’d had another stroke. Is he able to speak?”

“In a manner,” Elsie said, veering to the right at the top of the stairs, where we passed another parade of painted relatives. “He woke up screaming, apparently, about some sort of deal that had to be signed today. The boy can tell you more if he wants, but the short of it is that Henry invested a great amount of the estate’s money into something that will ruin everything if it’s not taken care of this week.” She gave a few disapproving tsks. “Likely tip of the iceberg, if you ask me. Where there’s one, there’s a whole mountain below.”

“That sounds…stressful.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. I didn’t exactly have a head for business, nor did I understand in the slightest what went into maintaining a place like this.

“It is,” Elsie said shortly. “He’s in here.”

With a sharp knock, she pushed open a heavy-looking wood door the color of almost-burned caramel. It opened into a room with windows that looked out onto the gardens, sunlight streaming over a collection of leather furniture built to last, and a fireplace that stood empty in the summer afternoon. The walls were covered with tartan wallpaper and more imperious paintings than I could count, with a wall of priceless books on the other side begging to be read.

But I barely noticed any of it. Because there, sitting in the middle of the room, looking more like the duke he was than ever I’d seen him, was Xavier.