Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

S ofia got up sometime past six and scampered off to find Xavier, but I found it hard to sleep in on my own, despite knowing I could. Sometime over the past month, I’d gotten used to the big, warm body lying next to me, so when he wasn’t there to snuggle into as the rays peeked through the curtains, something felt off.

Eventually, I did get up to find the view of the countryside glowing out the window as the new sun danced off the lake below the manor and off the tops of hills rising in the distance. Corbray Hall might have been stuffy, but Cumbria really was magic.

I found something to wear and ventured downstairs in search of sustenance and my family, only to find Sofia and Elsie, but not Xavier, sitting in the dining room at a table dressed with just about every breakfast food I could want.

Sofia looked up at the end, where she had discarded a plate still half full of pancakes and strawberries in favor of watching Elsie draw something on a napkin.

“This is England,” Elsie said as she moved the pencil. “That’s where London is. That’s where we are. And all the way across the big blue ocean, love, that’s New York.”

“Where I’m from,” Sofia added. She grinned at me. “Hi, Mama. You better have some breakfast. It’s important for your muscles. Elsie says.”

I smiled as I poured myself a cup of tea, then took a seat next to her. “She’s right about that. I don’t know about all this, though.”

“May I assist, miss?” I looked up to where Gibson had brought a plate for me.

“I got it,” I told him. “Thanks.” He sniffed and walked back to the other side of the room, where he was busy doing…something. Watching us? It was kind of weird.

“Where’s Xavi?” I asked Elsie as I spooned some fruit and a flaky croissant onto my plate. “It’s only eight. Is he already in his office?”

“Oh, the boy had to tour the alfalfa farms south of town,” Elsie told me. “Up at the crack of dawn, poor child. But he said he’ll be back at lunch and left this for you.”

She passed me a note from Xavier and went back to drawing something else for Sofia.

Ces—

I meant what I said last night. It’s up to you to decide what you want to do. But since I can’t give you the British library, maybe ours will help. I’m told it’s got a few treasures.

First floor, through the second drawing room. Don’t lose the key.

Xavi

I picked up the key, which, rusted and nearly as big as my palm, looked about as ancient as Britain itself. That man. Just like the beast, he’d gone and given me a library. Again. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to see it.

“Elsie,” I said. “Er, would you mind?—”

“Go, go,” Elsie interrupted with a smile. “He’ll want to know you explored it first thing. I thought Little Miss and I might visit the sheep down by the pond.”

“We have sheepies?” Sofia’s blue eyes were suddenly as big as the sky outside.

“Yes, and if you like, you can feed them.” Elsie waved a hand. “Gibson, we’ll need some feed for the sheep, all right?”

And with that, I was effectively dismissed for the morning. I smiled, stuffed the remainder of my croissant in my mouth, then picked up my tea to take with me to the library. But before I left, I stopped, another thought in mind.

Xavier had offered an olive branch. I could do the same.

“Er, Elsie?”

“Yes, love?”

“Perhaps we should arrange for some nannies to interview,” I said. “I know you’ve got a job to do, and this one isn’t helping.”

Elsie smiled again, this time gratefully. So Xavier wasn’t wrong about that.

“I’ll have inquires sent out this afternoon,” she said. “Go on.”

Part of what made Corbray Hall so fascinating was the way multiple generations of building melded into each other. I’d done some cursory research on the place on the train ride here, discovering that the original Corbray Hall was built as a small manor during the fifteenth century, but most of it had been deconstructed and replaced with newer, more modern sections in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the estate grew.

The library was located in the part of the house that I would have guessed was built during the late seventeen hundreds, when it was fashionable for one large room to lead directly into another without even a hallway to join them. I strode through a drawing room, a sitting room, and what looked like a music room with a very beautiful old piano in the corner, then found myself confronted with yet another pair of twenty-foot doors fastened with an extremely old lock. I procured the key out of my dress pocket and tried it. Open sesame.

The British Library it was not, but it was no less magical. A quick look out the French doors on the far side told me the library was almost directly under the bedroom I’d been assigned, as it opened onto the gardens, with a distant view of the lake beyond them.

I might have been entranced by the view alone if it hadn’t been for the books. The room had to be at least forty feet long with twenty-five-foot ceilings, all of them completely stacked with floor-to-ceiling built-in shelves chock-a-block with books accessible by rolling ladders. With a fireplace at one end suggesting endless nights of reading in the cozy club chairs and the enormous wooden table at the other side providing studying capacity for at least ten, it was too easy to imagine myself hibernating here for however long we were staying in Cumbria and never seeing an inch of the surrounding countryside, beautiful as it might be.

Forget the family. Forget needing a purpose.

Everything I’d ever want was right here, so long as the books were good.

And good they were. A brief perusal of the shelves revealed this wasn’t a collection of one particular duke in one lifetime, but of many, many people who had lived within these walls. A walk around the room revealed a sampling of some of the most famous works in the English language, from John Donne to Mary Shelley, and too many first editions to count. There was an entire shelf of several Victorian photo albums bound in leather still bearing the original prints scrapbooked between newspaper clippings and postcards, and another held a collection of seventeenth-century cookbooks. A row of children’s books and schoolbooks sat close to the study table. One entire wall bore a book recording the Duke of Kendal’s entire genealogical records going back to before the Norman Conquest.

This wasn’t just a library. It was a family’s intellectual history. A bona fide treasure trove.

And Xavier had given it to me.

I pulled out a selection of books to look over and set them on a side table next to one of the club chairs. Before I sat down to read, however, I noticed another shelf near a writing desk where the books were made of what looked like worn black leather but bore no titles embossed on the spines.

“Hmm,” I said, ambling over to where they stood. “What do we have over here, Your Grace?”

I plucked the first small book off the shelf and recognized it immediately as a journal of some sort—the kind I’d learned about in one of my classes years ago. I’d done a bit of archival research in graduate school for a class on Early American Literature. I wrote a research paper on the differences between American and British correspondence that had me plucking through similar books in the basement of the New York Public Library for a week.

When the first page noted the date as 14 July 1744, I immediately looked around for kid gloves to wear so I wouldn’t damage the book. Finding none, I put it back and made a mental note to request some from Xavier or Gibson. And maybe some boxes to store the more valuable manuscripts and treasures here. And climate control, if the library didn’t already have it. I wasn’t an archives librarian, but even I knew these things were basically decomposing by the second with this kind of air exposure.

The diaries weren’t terribly organized, but it was quickly evident that they were generally kept by whoever was acting as steward of the estate. Some were more typical, noting only a daily sentence or two about things like weather, crops, tenants, and things like that. Others, however, clearly correlated with the taste for literature that ran through Xavier’s family tree. I opened up one to find the author—the eleventh Duke of Kendal—was something of a poet.

“Oh!” I gasped, leafing through the book.

The former duke wrote not only the daily business reports, but also full narratives of his interactions in the house. He was, apparently, a bit of a gossip too. And definitely suspected all sorts of things of his family members.

I set the book aside, fully intending to go over it some more, but was quickly waylaid by several more books just like it—all of them written by many other dukes or their brothers. The Parker family had been storytellers, many of them writing what could only be termed nonfiction “novels” about their own lives. And they had been doing it for centuries.

This wasn’t just a little family discovery. It was a research coup.

I needed something to do, I’d told Xavier only just last night. And right here, right now, I could see exactly what that was. I’d yearned to get back into research for years, wanted to put my brain to more use than figuring out the best way to teach multiplication tables to third graders and reading Sofia Cat in the Hat for the five hundredth time. Leafing through these books, I could see the paper title now. Maybe even a dissertation. Early Narrative Building of the English Gentry .

Okay, not the most exciting title. But I was excited. More than I’d been in a while.

Maybe staying at Corbray Hall wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I had a potential future here after all.

I pored over the journals for what must have been hours, settling myself at the study table after locating some paper and pens to take notes as I read. Really, though, I was just enjoying myself, lost in the process of discovering a text—many texts—for the first time. So much that I barely looked at the time and was completely startled by a voice suddenly in the room with me.

“Oh, hello.”

I jumped at the table, then looked up to find the double doors open again as Georgina entered the library.

She hadn’t been at breakfast, though I assumed she and Frederick were at home. She looked as perfectly pressed as she had yesterday, from her blown-out brown hair to her coordinated white pantsuit and the heirloom jewelry glinting from her ears and fingers.

“Hello, um, ma’am?—”

“Your Grace,” she corrected me with a snip in her tone. “I am still a duchess, even though my husband has passed. The correct address is Your Grace, the same as the current duke ought to be addressed.”

Her comment was pointed. Clearly, she had heard me calling Xavier by his first name and did not think it was appropriate. Or perhaps it was just me who wasn’t appropriate.

I bobbed again nervously.

“And for goodness’ sake, you don’t have to curtsy. I’m not the queen, you know.”

I found myself wanting to bob again but restrained myself. “My apologies, Your Grace. I’m still learning the appropriate nomenclature and customs.”

To be honest, I’d thought I was fairly familiar with them from all my reading. Clearly, I was not.

I glanced at an ornate clock, noting it was nearly time for lunch. Good lord, I’d spent nearly the entire morning in here. Well, it would be easy to make my excuse to leave, at least…

“That clock,” Georgina said, following my gaze. “It’s working again.”

I blinked. “It wasn’t before?”

Her brown eyes shot back to me. “You don’t know its story?”

I didn’t know what to say. It was like dinner all over again, where conversations were constantly had about things I was expected to know but obviously couldn’t, given the fact that I had never actually been to Corbray Hall before that morning.

“There is a legend around that clock,” she said. “They say a witch tied its chime to the health of the Duke of Kendal a very long time ago. Now, when the duke passes, the clock is stopped and broken. And when his son takes up the title and the seat of the family, he fixes it—or has it fixed, really—and returns it to its rightful place.” She eyed me suspiciously. “That wall has been empty for nearly five years. Did you know that?”

Again I blinked. “I—no, I did not, Your Grace.”

Georgina sniffed. “Yes. It was broken when my husband passed away. And they tried to give it to Xavier. But he wouldn’t take it. Now it’s back, just yesterday. And working again.”

We both stared at the clock for a long time, and suddenly, I realized I recognized its carved edges and inlaid gold. It was the clock that Xavier had pointed out at his apartment just a few days earlier. The clock his uncle had sent to him, apparently—a bid to return as the duke he was.

And now it was here. Working.

Had Xavier made a decision about his future here that I wasn’t aware of?

I wasn’t sure how to react to the story. It was the first I’d heard of this tradition, but more than that, it seemed like she was blaming me for something. It was a good thing, if Xavier wanted to take up his inheritance, right? Regardless of how I felt, it couldn’t change the fact an estate like this needed an owner. The people who had written the journals I’d read were passionate about their family’s lineage. They were passionate about everything Kendal symbolized: prosperity. Propriety. Endurance.

A clock, as it were, seemed a fitting token.

A clock that Xavier had returned.

“So, you like…books, do you?” Georgina peered around as if just seeing the library for the first time.

“Oh! Yes,” I said, grateful for something else to think about. “Xavier offered me the key to the library. I used to study English literature, you see, and he thought I might?—”

“Dusty things. So very dirty. I always thought we should store them elsewhere. This would make a lovely sitting room.” She nodded toward the door, where Gibson was entering with a tray of what looked like lunch. “On days like this, I prefer to take lunch in here to enjoy the gardens. It’s absolutely wasted otherwise.”

I frowned. “Aren’t there already several sitting rooms?” My tour of Corbray Hall had been brief, but I recalled at least two we’d visited throughout dinner last night and another I’d passed on my way in here.

Georgina snorted. “I meant a private sitting room. Not one to be shared in tours, of all things.” She turned to the butler after he had set up her lunch on a small table near the French doors. “Gibson, have you the papers? I’d like to take a look.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Gibson reached under his arm and procured a stack of the day’s newspapers for Georgina.

She took them but made no move to sit down or dismiss the butler, who hovered near the library entrance, clearly waiting for her instruction. He did not, I noticed, ask if I needed anything. As far as he was concerned, I wasn’t even here.

“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” Georgina commented as she flipped through the broadsheets. “Ridiculous republicans, more royal gossip—oh, look, dear, there’s something about you. Again.”

Her annoyance wasn’t exactly subtle, but I ignored it again to accept a few pages from a paper called the Daily Mail . Sofia and I weren’t front page news—not like American celebrities or the party politics. But in a country that followed gossip about its royals like the weather, the combination of a handsome duke-turned-chef-turned-father was apparently catnip to local readers.

“Why are they so interested in us?” I wondered as I perused the paparazzi pictures taken of Sofia and me a few weeks ago when Xavier had accompanied us to London Bridge.

“Why, indeed?” Georgina murmured as if—but obviously not—to herself as she looked through the other dailies. “Oh, look, here’s another.”

She tossed the paper at me so hard I could barely catch it. This one was a smaller publication called The Reporter , which appeared to be a regional paper that covered most of Northern England—not national, but not completely small town either. This one included an interview along with the headline.

Is she even his?

The Duke of Kendal’s so-called “daughter” and her mother were spotted arriving in Kendal yesterday on the afternoon train, following the duke’s arrival earlier that morning. Dressed down in jeans and trainers, the American and her daughter were picked up by a member of the duke’s staff and transported to Corbray Hall directly from the station.

Fellow passengers reported that the duke’s daughter, reportedly named Sofia, and her mother spent the train ride pointing out simple sights along the way like cows and sheep. They were reportedly amazed by the most common livestock.

“They were friendly enough,” said a man from Liverpool who was next to them on the train. “But the little girl was loud and very American. What’s more, when someone else asked her mother about the rumors the girl isn’t actually the duke’s daughter, she didn’t say a word. I thought it was very suspicious.”

The duke’s representatives had no comment either when The Reporter reached out for a response. Is it possible the duke doesn’t actually have a daughter, just an American trying to get her hands on the wealthiest estate in England outside the crown?

I slapped the paper on the table harder than I probably should have. Georgina looked up from hers, and a triumphant smile flashed across her aquiline features before she fixed it back in its dour position.

“Something the matter?” she asked.

“I—”

“Ces?”

Before I could answer, the doors opened again, and this time Xavier entered, clearly looking for me. I was more than a little satisfied by the expression of disappointment and outright contempt when he caught sight of Georgina. Clearly, he had hoped to find me in here alone.

Georgina, however, didn’t seem to notice.

“Hello, darling,” she greeted Xavier. “Your ‘friend’ and I have been reading through the news.”

“Look at this,” I told him, handing him the paper.

He glanced at the headline and batted it away before placing a kiss atop my head. “Ces, I told you. Don’t pay attention to the tabloids. It’s all rubbish.”

“It’s rubbish that’s libeling our kid and me,” I told him. “Again. Xavi, they think we’re only here for your money. They actually suggested that Sofia isn’t even yours—just a child I brought to make you think you owe me something!”

The idea was so infuriating it made me want to scream.

Georgina, however, looked like the cat who had just located the motherlode of cream.

Xavier was obviously stressed after his morning surveying farms, his Oxford shirt wrinkled down the front, shoes tipped in dirt, and the knees of his jeans showing signs of dust. He obviously didn’t want to be talking about this right now.

“Ces,” he tried again. “Just let it go. It doesn’t matter.”

“I wouldn’t say that, darling,” Georgina put in as she unfolded another newspaper.

Xavier rubbed his face, then turned to his stepmother. “And why is that, Georgie?”

She grimaced at the name. I fought the urge to laugh.

“Well,” she continued. “I don’t have to tell you how important this Season is for Frederick.”

Xavier huffed. “Georgina, I don’t care whether or not Frederick makes a good impression on some stuffy peers or an heiress.”

“You should if you want Freddy to become the new steward once he finishes with university, as you suggested last night,” Georgina put in. “Running an estate like Kendal—and the others belonging to your title, I might add—is much like running a large corporation. You need the respect of your community, your peers, to do it well. Henry refused to take part in socializing, and you’ve seen the state of the books.”

“That’s because of his strokes, the doctors said,” Xavier argued. “Not because he didn’t go to a bunch of ridiculous parties.”

“Nonsense.” Georgina slapped her paper onto the little table, but it was the only sign of her frustration. “You own an empire of restaurants, darling. Don’t you need the cooperation of influential people to make them a success? Kendal doesn’t exist as an island any more than the Parker Group does. Connections are everything. You know they are.”

Xavier opened his mouth to argue, but it was obvious he couldn’t. Even I could imagine how much he depended on style influencers, restaurant critics, food suppliers, investors, and so much more for the Parker Group to be a success.

So maybe Georgina was right. Maybe the aristocracy functioned in a similar way.

Which meant, I realized with a sinking feeling as I glanced again at the headlines, that if Sofia and I were perceived as a scandal, we could also be Kendal’s downfall before Xavier even had a chance to save it.

“Sofia’s my daughter,” Xavier said. “Not a social liability.”

Relief washed over me like a cool ocean wave. Take that, you bitch.

“Of course she is,” Georgina concurred. “No one is doubting that. No one of importance. Yet.”

Well, someone was , I almost pointed out.

“So what are you suggesting?” Xavier asked irritably. “I’m not sending Francesca or Sofia back to New York, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Of course not,” Georgina purred. “Wouldn’t dream of it. I was only considering the future, really. The Season has started, and Frederick, well…” She tipped her head as if she was just coming up with the idea. “Imogene did suggest last night that you attend a few of the local events, perhaps the Garden Party next week. At the very least, the Ortham Ball might continue to put you in good graces with the viscount and his sort, not to mention what the Troop’s Cup might offer. Everyone will be there.”

Xavier gaped. “With everything there is to do around here, you want me to dress up like a penguin and sip tea and play polo with a bunch of stuffed shirts? With Henry only so ill and things a mess here?”

Georgina only offered a sweet smile and pushed a paper bearing yet another salacious article his way. “The estate needs these connections, darling. It’s not about tea, it’s about money. You’ll go, satisfy people’s interest in you, make Frederick’s introductions, and secure your family’s continued success before you trot back to London to live your life, just as you please. Don’t you think that’s what Henry would want rather than us sitting over here mooning over him? Don’t you think he would wish for you to preserve his life’s work?”

Xavier eyed the papers, then me, then looked back at Georgina. “I—” He sighed. “I suppose.”

My eyes widened. Really?

Xavier avoided my gaze.

“Good. It’s settled, then. I’ll have my assistant send our responses.” Georgina practically gleamed at the idea, then eyed me carefully. “And you, my dear, may want to stay in here. Or better yet, in London. Terribly boring, these things. No place for an American.”

“No,” Xavier cut in fiercely. “If I have to go to these things, Ces comes with me. That’s all.”

I found myself standing up proudly, eager to be tugged next to him, to take my place beside Xavier, as he said he just wanted. His hand curled around my shoulder, and I found the urge to stick out my chest like a puffed-up pigeon.

Take that, lady. You’re not getting rid of this American so fast.

My sisters would be proud.

Apparently, even Georgina knew when not to push the current Duke of Kendal on his will. Once again, she looked me up and down, as if trying to determine exactly how to pull a particularly large weed in her beloved garden.

“Well, then,” she said at last. “We’ll just have to make do, won’t we?”