Chapter 27

TWENTY-SEVEN

I left the garden as soon as I could in search of Xavier, but he was nowhere to be found. He was no longer with his uncle. The office was empty, his bedroom too. He wasn’t exactly prone to using any of the sitting rooms, drawing rooms, or the library on the estate, but I checked all of them regardless. Nothing.

What I wanted to say, I wasn’t exactly sure. Mostly, I was full of questions.

Why hadn’t he told me that he and Adam were somehow related? Did that have anything to do with the animosity that so obviously burned between them, even in New York, when they’d pretended to barely know each other in front of me? Why the lies? Why the deception?

More than that, however, I wanted to know if Xavier was aware of the plan to…what? I honestly wasn’t sure of the word here. Dethrone him? No, he wasn’t royalty. De-duke, then. Did he know that several members of his own family were actively working to undermine his authority and inheritance? What was he doing about it?

Or maybe, that was the reason he had stayed away all these years anyway?

I honestly didn’t know. But I needed to find out. More than that, I needed to know how I fit into all of it myself.

“Gibson!” I called when I spotted the butler laying out silverware in the dining room. “Do you know where Xavier is?”

There were nine places in all—three for us, another for Elsie, and likely two for Frederick and Georgina. I assumed Imogene had gone home, but was Adam staying? Was it for his mother? Her husband too? No doubt, it would be the world’s most awkward dinner.

“His Grace chose not to partake of dinner today,” said the butler with a wrinkled nose, answering my silent question. “He wished to prepare it himself instead.”

It was clear by the way he said it that he could not be more mortified by the idea of a duke doing his own cooking. But all I could think was of course . Xavier was stressed. And what was more therapeutic for him than food? What brought him more peace than that?

“Thanks, Gibson,” I said, then turned on my heel before stopping almost immediately. “Er, could you point me toward the kitchen? I don’t know where it is.”

I swore the butler rolled his eyes. It was hard to tell since that was basically his perennial expression.

“Of course, miss,” he said, setting down the last salad fork. “Follow me.”

There were actually two kitchens at Corbray Hall, a fact that shouldn’t have surprised me. A smaller, modern one had been constructed about twenty years ago just below the family’s main living quarters, outfitted with the few things a duke might need to make himself a midnight cup of tea or something like that. One glance told me that not only was Xavier not there, but he also never used it. The cupboards were stocked with all types of diet foods, nonfat milk in the fridge, and bits and pieces of highly processed snacks I’d never known Xavier, the ultimate food snob, to eat. This was clearly Georgina’s domain.

Gibson then led me to a cavernous space in the bowels of the estate, which was really more like three kitchens in one, though I doubted it was used that way unless they were hosting a truly enormous gathering.

Multiple Wolf stoves and ovens lay around the periphery of the kitchen, while an island the size of Ireland covered with soapstone sat in the middle. My daughter was sitting atop that, hands in a bowl of something she was mixing with her father.

“Thanks, Gibson,” I murmured to the butler, who hurried off as if to avoid sullying his eyes at the sight of the duke up to his elbows in flour.

Xavier stood next to Sofia, kneading a lump of dough firmly into the soapstone.

“Don’t want to overdo it,” he told her as he worked. “You want the dough light and fluffy, but the gluten still needs to activate.”

“Got it,” Sofia announced as she mixed her “dough” in her bowl with a spatula. From where I stood, it looked more like flour and maybe salt or sugar mixed together. “Light and fluffy. Like a puppy dog.”

“That’s it. Now, see what I’m doing here? I’m pulling it apart to look for the window pane. Once the dough stretches enough to see through it but not break, you know it’s ready. Just a bit more.”

I leaned against the doorway, watching them interact. I hadn’t seen Xavier this calm in weeks, his voice taking on an almost meditative quality as he narrated his actions. Sofia didn’t really seem to take in much, but she mimicked him every so often as she mixed her own concoction. They were both clearly enjoying each other’s company and the act of being in the kitchen together. Somehow, in the depths of this overwrought palace, they’d found a corner to call their own. A place to feel at home together.

My heart ached with the desire to join them. Oh, I wanted to be a part of this. I wanted it so badly I could taste it.

But was it even possible anymore?

“What are you making?” I asked, startling them both to the point Sofia’s spatula went flying, and Xavier huffed loudly, causing a cloud of flour to rise into his face.

“Mama!” Sofia crowed. “You scared us!”

“Sorry,” I said as I walked into the kitchen and joined them on the other side of the island. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

“Sofia rescued me from the office,” Xavier mumbled as he went back to kneading his dough. “She was hungry after her nap, so I brought her down here. That all right with you?”

The slight sharpness in his tone had me on alert again.

“Of course it is. But Gibson is setting out things for dinner too. And isn’t there a cook on staff?” I looked around for said cook. I wasn’t expecting that Gibson was coming back down to prepare everything himself.

“Everything’s done and in the warmer,” Xavier said, not looking up. “I can make my own and finish everyone else’s myself.”

“Oh, do you really have to?—”

“I’ve got it, Ces.” He looked up then, blue eyes straight as arrows on the other side of the counter.

“We’re making man goo, Mama,” Sofia said proudly as she held up her bowl of something that roughly resembled sand.

“It’s manju ,” Xavier corrected, more to me than her.

“It’s a dessert,” Sofia added. “Like a cake. Or a cookie. Dad, which is it?”

Xavier just shrugged as he slapped the dough down on the counter, then used a pastry cutter to split it into smaller pieces. “It’s wagashi ,” he answered. “Sort of like a cake, I guess. With red bean paste inside.”

“Is this your creation?” I ventured, hopefully. Xavier’s concoctions were always really good.

“The dough is,” he said shortly. “The rest is traditional. Like my mum made it.” He offered a smile to Sofia. “Your gran, Sof. You would have liked her.”

He went to work, flattening each piece into a rough round. Sofia abandoned her mixture and crawled across the counter to watch him work with me. I opened an arm to help her snuggle against my side, uncaring of her floured mess rubbing onto my clothes. Her little warm body simply felt nice. I hadn’t known how much I needed a hug right then, even from my little girl.

We watched as Xavier dropped scoops of a dark paste into the center of each flattened piece he’d cut, then efficiently wrapped the dough around it and sealed it at the bottom. When he was finished, he had a dozen neat buns laid out on a piece of parchment, which he placed into a large bamboo steamer, then popped over a pot of water I hadn’t even known was boiling until that moment.

“All right.” Xavier turned back around and started the process of cleaning up. “Ten minutes and we’ll have a nice treat to ruin dinner.”

I smiled at his joke, but he didn’t appear to see it, focused as he was.

I picked up Sofia and set her on the floor. “Pea, why don’t you run upstairs and ask Miriam or Elsie if they can help you get dinner in the nursery. I’ll bring you up some manju when they are ready.”

Sofia, already bored with the idea of cleaning up, nodded, then scampered off in search of the nanny.

I turned back to Xavier, who looked at me warily as he wiped down the counter.

“I thought you were going to wait for me,” he said mildly.

“I did,” I told him. “But I didn’t want to hound you, so I went to the gardens to wait. And that’s where I ran into Frederick. And, ah, Adam.”

Xavier paused but didn’t look entirely unsurprised. “Did you?”

I sighed. “Were you ever going to tell me he’s your cousin?”

“That meddling fucking twat is not my cousin,” Xavier said fervently. “We are in no way related.”

“That’s not what Debrett’s says,” I countered. “Nor Frederick.”

“I don’t give a fuck what Debrett’s or anyone else says.”

“Big shock,” I replied, already weary of the sarcasm. “But you might, considering he wants to overthrow your entire life along with your stepmother.”

I proceeded to relay what I’d learned in the garden. It only occurred to me at the end that Adam hadn’t even tried to stop me when I left, that Xavier might not be particularly surprised to hear any of it. Indeed, he was watching me speak with an expression that more closely resembled pity than surprise.

“Is that the real reason you’ve been here?” I asked. “It wasn’t about your uncle at all, was it? It was about protecting your estate. Protecting your title.”

“It had everything to do with Henry,” he said. “I never lied to you. But Georgina has spent most of the last three months sniffing around in places she shouldn’t. Why do you think she suddenly enjoys the library so much? She wasn’t allowed to raid the office anymore.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what she thinks she’s going to find. My parents were married. End of. It’s time to move on.”

He didn’t sound very happy about it.

“Why don’t you just let them have it, if they want it so badly and you don’t?” I demanded. “You have your own successful business, and you and I both know this was never where you really wanted to be. If they want the title so much, why not just give it to them?”

“Because it’s not something I can bloody give, is it?” he exploded. “You can’t just give a title away if you don’t want it, Ces. That’s not how it works.”

“There isn’t some way to abdicate or something?”

I was floundering. Obviously, I didn’t know about British law and how it governed things like this, but Xavier couldn’t be the only duke in the history of England who didn’t want to be a duke.

“Not really,” he said wearily. “It’s not something I can choose. The title could lay in abeyance until I pass, but it would essentially mean throwing out centuries of work my family has done to maintain their standing. Am I supposed to be the one to end the legacy of Kendal?”

Yes , I wanted to say. If it made him so miserable, then he absolutely should. Clearly, the only person on this estate who cared about him at all was at death’s door. He didn’t owe anyone else a thing.

But before I could say as much, Xavier continued talking.

“Look,” he snapped. “It’s clear this life is not what you want. I thought maybe you could live with it, being the lady of the manor. Maybe even a duchess one day.”

My heart squeezed when he said it. It was the first time he’d even acknowledged such a future was on the table, only to rip it away.

“You like those bloody stories enough, maybe you’d want to live in one for a bit,” he continued bitterly. “Maybe even enjoy it. But now that you’ve learned it’s not all parties and dresses and what, it’s obviously not for you. I can’t blame you for that.”

My mouth dropped. “I can’t believe you just said that. That is not what my problem is here.”

“Oh, no? You hate the press, the gossip, my scheming relations. You’re lonely and sad, but I haven’t the time to give you enough. None of that will change, Ces. It’s part of the package.”

“You were busy with your restaurants too,” I countered. “I didn’t say anything then. You said yourself, you’re different here, Xavi. I don’t understand why we can’t just, I don’t know, teach Frederick to manage the estate like you wanted and go back to the way things were.”

“Because Frederick is not the Duke of fucking Kendal! I am!” The words themselves seemed to shake his whole body with fury. “I can’t change what I am, Ces. I know you want me to. Just like I spent years trying to ignore it. But the fact is, I am Rupert Parker’s son, and the more I run from it, the worse things get.” Xavier shook his head, shoulders sagging in defeat. “I’m the Duke of Kendal, and there’s nothing to be done about it. I’m sorry.”

And on that note, he turned, yanked the buns off the boiling pot, tossed the steamer onto the island with a clatter, and left the kitchen.

“Xavier, wait,” I called, but he sped up the stairs two at a time, leaving me alone in the basement with a basket of buns growing cold.

I took off the top and stared at the buns for a long minute, then back up the stairs.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” I told his invisible form. “We’re finishing this discussion this time.”