Chapter Six

The bad news was that I’d accidentally made it to my father’s funeral.

The good news was that I was so happy to spot Mum and Cece, not even the fact I was there honoring my father managed to put a damper on my mood.

The original plan was to arrive a day after the funeral. They must’ve conducted the funeral a day early, seeing as they did not need to accommodate my schedule any longer. I showed up during the last act, when the casket was lowered into the ground.

My father was buried in the back of Whitehall Court Castle, by a deserted church, where his ancestors had been buried. Where, presumably, I would one day rest for eternity too.

My childhood home was a grand fortress. With medieval-style turrets, Gothic Revival architecture, granite and marble, and an unholy amount of arched windows. The castle was surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped garden at the front, and an out-of-service old church around the back. There were two barns, four servant cottages, and a manicured walkway leading to a wild forest.

On a clear day, you could see the French coast from Whitehall Court Castle’s rooftop. Memories of my younger self, lean and bronzed, daring the sun to burn me alive and melt me into the stone I’d lain upon, chased one another in my head.

I strode toward the thick cluster of people in black, mentally ticking off the attendance list in my head.

Mum was there, dainty and dignified as ever, patting her nose with a wad of tissues.

My sister, Cecilia, was there with her husband Drew Hasting, whom I’d met multiple times when they visited me in the States. Though I skipped their wedding in Kent, I made sure to gift the couple a lovely studio apartment in Manhattan so they could visit me regularly.

Cecilia and Drew were both plump and tall. I suppose to the naked eye, they looked like twins. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder but did not acknowledge one another. Though I had tried very hard to like Hasting for the sake of my sister, I couldn’t ignore how staggeringly unimpressive his entire being was.

While he did come from good pedigree and a highly connected family, he had been known around gentlemen clubs in England as a rather dull, dim-witted man who couldn’t hold on to a job if one chained itself to his leg.

Byron and Benedict were standing on the far end of the throng. They were in their mid forties, both looking bloated and wrinkled. It was as though they had spent every waking moment since I’d left drinking and smoking themselves into their current state.

And then there was Louisa Butchart.

At thirty-nine, Louisa had managed to become agreeable to the eye. She had hair as dark as my soul, short and shiny, scarlet lips, and a fine and graceful bone structure. Her trim figure was clad in a double-breasted black coat.

A woman any respectable man of my position and title would want on his arm.

I had to admit if it wasn’t for the fact I needed to reject her on principle, Louisa was sure to make a man like me very happy one day.

I tucked a rollie into the side of my mouth and lit it up as I made my way to the gaping hole in the lush green grass. I stopped when my chest bumped into Cecilia’s back. I leaned forward, my lips finding her ear.

“’ello, Sis.”

Cecilia turned to me, her blue eyes swimming with shock. I kept my gaze on the coffin as little by little, piles of dirt concealed it from view. For a moment, I was acutely aware of the fact that everyone’s attention had drifted from the casket and focused on me. I couldn’t blame them. They probably thought I was a hologram.

“Devvie!” Cecilia threw her arms over my shoulders, burying her face in my neck. “How we’ve missed you! Mummy said you wouldn’t be here until tomorrow.”

I wrapped my arms around her, kissing the top of her head. “Lovely girl, I will always be here for you.”

Even if I have to honor the wanker who gave me life.

“My goodness. I almost had a heart attack!” Mother cried out. She hobbled toward me, her heels sinking into the muddy ground. The air smelled like English rain. Like home. I collected her in my arms and squeezed, kissing her cheek.

“Mummy.”

Mourners began huddling toward us, curious glances on their faces. It made me pettily content, knowing I’d yet again stolen the limelight from Edwin, even on his last journey.

Mum reared her head back, placing her frozen palms on my cheeks, tears making her eyes glitter. “You’re so handsome. So … so tall! I keep forgetting your face if I don’t see you over a few months.”

Despite myself, something between a grumble and a laugh escaped me.

I’d been so adamant not to return to England as long as my father was alive, I almost forgot how much I had missed Mother and Cecilia.

“You managed to make it, ay? Good on you, mate.” Drew clapped my back.

Still hugging my mother, I felt a hesitant hand on my arm. When I swiveled my head, I caught Cecilia smiling shyly, her skin pink, fragile as lightbulb glass.

“I’ve missed you, Brother,” she said quietly.

“Cece,” I growled, almost in pain. I stepped out of the embrace with my mother and gathered my sister into my arms. Her yellow curls tickled my nose. I was surprised to discover she still smelled of green apples, winter, and the woods. Of a childhood with too many rules and too little laughs.

Regret ripped me open.

I’d all but deserted my younger sister. Left her to fend for herself when she was a teenager.

Mum was right. Coming back to England did resurface old memories and unsolved issues.

“Will you be staying for a while?” Cece pleaded.

“I’m staying for a few days.” I stroked her hair, glancing over the top of her head and making eye contact with Drew, who shifted from foot to foot, looking anything but happy to have another male in the house. “At least,” I added meaningfully.

She quivered in my arms, and suddenly, I became furious with myself for not being more involved in her life. Growing up, she’d always needed me, and I was always there. Yet somehow my hatred toward my father made me miss her wedding three years ago.

“Are you happy with him?” I mouthed into her hair so only she could hear me.

“I—” she started.

“Well, well,” Benedict said, with Byron on his heels. He squeezed my shoulder. “I thought I’d see pigs fly before I caught sight of Devon Whitehall back on British soil.”

I disconnected from Cecilia, shaking his and his brother’s hands.

“My apologies, but the only pigs I know are right here on earth, and looking like they could use a trip to rehab.”

Benedict’s smile collapsed. “Very funny.” He grit his teeth. “I have thyroid issues, for your information.”

“And you, Byron?” I turned to his brother. “What issues are preventing you from looking like a sober, functioning member of society?”

“Not all of us are so vain as to mind their appearance as much. I hear you’re a self-made millionaire now.” Byron smoothed his suit with his hand.

I finished off my fag and flicked the bud toward the grave. “I get by.”

“Being known for your accomplishments is such hard work. Better to be known by your last name and inheritance.” Benedict cackled. “Either way, it’s good to have you back.”

Thing was, I wasn’t back. I was just a visitor. A bystander in a life that was no longer mine.

I’d built a life elsewhere. It was tied to the Fitzpatrick family, who took me under their wing. With my law firm, and my fencing, and the women I wooed. With a new twist in my story, Emmabelle Penrose, a girl who had more demons than gowns in her closet.

As people engulfed me from all directions, demanding to hear about my life in America—my mates, my partners, my clients, my conquests—I noticed only one person stayed away, on the other side of the dirt-filled shallow grave.

Louisa Butchart studied me from a safe distance under her lashes. Her mouth was curled in a slight pucker, her back arched, as if flaunting her new assets.

“Come now.” Mother laced my arm in hers, tugging me toward the sprawling manor. “You’ll have plenty of time to talk to Lou. I cannot wait to show you off to all the servants.”

But there was nothing to discuss.

I owed Louisa Butchart an apology.

And nothing more.

An hour later, I sat at a grand table in one of the two dining rooms of Whitehall Court Castle. I was at the head of the table. My family and childhood friends surrounded me.

It astonished me how nothing had changed in the years I was gone. Down to the plaid carpeting, carved wooden furniture, candelabras, and floral wallpaper. The walls were sodden with memories.

Eat your greens or end up in the dumbwaiter.

But, Papa—

No Papa. No son of mine will grow up to be pudgy and soft like Butcharts’ kids. Eat all your greens now, or you’re spending the night in the box.

I’ll throw up if I do!

Just as well. Vomiting would do your portly figure good.

As I looked around me, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Cece and Mother—even more than I was for myself. At least I went and built myself another life. They stayed here, burdened by my father’s godawful temper and never-ending demands.

“So, Devon, do tell us all about your life in Boston. Is it as dreadful and gray as they say?” Byron demanded, chewing loudly on shepherd’s pie and meatloaf. “I’ve heard it isn’t much different from Birmingham.”

“I suppose the person who told you that has never been to either,” I said, swallowing a chunk of shepherd’s pie without tasting it. “I rather enjoy the four seasons of the city as well as the cultural establishments.” The cultural establishments being Sam’s gentleman club, in which I gambled, fenced, and smoked myself to death.

“And what of the women?” Benedict probed, well into his fifth glass of wine. “How do they chart in comparison to England?”

My eyes met Louisa’s from across the table. She didn’t shy away from my gaze but didn’t offer any type of emotion either.

“Women are women. They are fun, necessary, and an overall bad financial investment,” I drawled. I was hoping to convey I was still the same, no-good tomcat who’d run away from England to avoid marriage.

Benedict laughed. “Well, if no one’s going to address the elephant in the room, I might as well do so myself. Devon, don’t you have anything to say to our dear sister after leaving her high and dry? Four years, she waited for you.”

“Benedict, enough,” Louisa snapped, tilting her chin up demurely. “Where are your manners?”

“Where are his?” he crooned. “Someone has to call him out on this, since Mum and Dad can’t.”

“Where’s the Duke of Salisbury and his wife?” I asked, realizing for the first time they hadn’t attended the funeral.

There was a beat of silence before my mother cleared her throat. “They passed away, I’m afraid. A car accident.”

Christ. Why hadn’t she told me?

“My condolences,” I said, looking at Louisa rather than her brothers, whom I still hadn’t considered to be on the same evolutionary scale as me.

“These things happen.” Byron waved a dismissive hand. Clearly, he was too enamored with being a duke these days to care about the price of his new title.

There was another short-lived silence before Benedict spoke again.

“She’d told all of her friends you were coming back to her, you know. Louisa. Poor bird went to see venues for engagement parties all across London.”

Louisa gnawed on her inner cheek, swirling her glass of wine and looking into it without drinking. I wanted to drag her somewhere secluded and private. To apologize for the mess I’d created in her life. To assure her I fucked myself over just as much as I fucked her over.

“Gawd, do you remember?” Byron cackled, slapping his brother’s back. “She even chose an engagement ring and everything. Got our father to pay for it because she didn’t want you to think she was too demanding. You properly mugged her off, mate.”

“That was not my intention,” I said through gritted teeth, finding no appetite for my dish nor the company. “We were both children.”

“I do believe this is something Devon and Louisa shall address privately.” My mother tapped the corners of her mouth with a napkin, although there was no trace of food on her face. “It is inappropriate to broach this matter in company, not to mention at my husband’s funeral dinner.”

“Besides, there’s so much more to talk about,” Drew, Cece’s husband, exclaimed with faux excitement, grinning at me. “Devon, I’d been meaning to ask—what are your thoughts about Britain’s mortgage boom? The inflation risk is quite high, don’t you reckon?”

I opened my mouth to answer, when Byron cut into the conversation, raising his wine glass in the air like a tyrannical emperor.

“Please, no one cares about the housing market. You’re talking to people who don’t even know how to spell the word mortgage, let alone ever had to pay one.” He slammed the wine glass on the table, its carmine-red contents spilling over on the white tablecloth. “Instead, why don’t we talk about all the promises Devon Whitehall hasn’t kept throughout the years? To our sister. To his family. How reality has finally caught up with Lord Handsome, and he now needs to make some serious concessions if he wants to keep whatever’s left of his previous life.”

Louisa stood up and slapped her napkin over her still full plate.

“If you will excuse me.” Her voice trembled, but her composure remained perfect. “The meal was fantastic, Mrs. Whitehall, but I am afraid my brothers’ company was not. I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”

She turned around and stalked off.

My mother and I exchanged looks.

I knew I needed to rectify the situation, even though I wasn’t the one to create it.

But first, I had to deal with the two clowns occupying my dinner table.

I speared Benedict and Byron with a glare.

“While I’m sympathetic to your recent loss of your parents, this is the last time you speak to me this way. Like it or not, I’m the lord of the manor. I choose whom to entertain, and more importantly, whom not to entertain. You’ve crossed the line and made your sister and my mother upset. Next time you do this, you’ll be met with a bullet to the arse. I may be a rake of few scruples, but as we all know, I am a damn good shot, and your arses are an easy target.”

Byron and Benedict’s smug smiles evaporated into thin air, replaced with scowls.

I stood up and stormed in the direction in which Louisa went. Behind my back, I heard the Butchart brothers droning a half-hearted apology about their behavior, blaming the wine for their poor manners.

I found Louisa in my old conservatory room, surrounded by exotic plants, big windows, and mint-colored wood. Her fingertips moved over an assortment of colorful roses in an expensive vase. A gift from a French viscount, which dated all the way to the nineteenth century.

Rather than touch the velvety petals, Louisa played with the thorns. I stood on the threshold in awe. She reminded me of Emmabelle. A woman who was more charmed by the pain of a beautiful thing than the pleasure it offered.

Louisa prickled the tip of her index finger. She withdrew from the thorn unhurriedly, sucking the blood, showing no signs of distress.

I closed the door behind me. “Louisa.”

She didn’t look up, her neck turned downward like a graceful swan. “Devon.”

“I believe an apology is in order.” I rolled a finger along a wood panel, finding it to be layered with a thick blanket of dust. Jesus Christ. Whitehall Court Castle was usually flawless. Did my mother and Cece have money issues?

“To me or to your family?” Louisa returned to caressing the thorns, and I found myself unable to look away from her.

She seemed so calm. So accepting, even after all these years.

I strode deeper into the room, the overwhelming humidity and heavy sweetness of blossoms suffocating me. “Both, I suppose.”

“Well, consider yourself forgiven by me. I’m not one to hold a grudge. Though I’m not too sure the same could be said about Cece and Ursula.”

“We get along fine,” I clipped out curtly.

“That may be so, but they’ve been very lonely and sad since you left.”

My throat clogged with self-loathing.

“What’s the situation with my sister and mother?” I asked, taking a seat in front of her on the armrest of a green upholstered couch. “Whenever I see them, they look happy and content with their lives.”

Then again, I made a habit of housing them in the best apartments, taking them to the best restaurants, and treating them to the most lavish shopping sprees whenever they came for a visit.

“Mr. Hasting is positively skint. He hasn’t a dime to his name and hasn’t been pulling his weight in this household, which, now that your father’s money is held up in the will, might pose an issue.” Louisa furrowed her delicate eyebrows, grazing a thorn with her stung finger. “Cece is quite miserable with him, but she feels she is too old and not pretty or accomplished enough to divorce him and look for someone else. Your mum and Edwin had a less than ideal marriage, and I suspect she’s been very lonely, especially in the last decade.”

I stood up, ambling over to the glass and propping an elbow against it. A flock of ducks waddled across the lawn. “Does Mum have any support?”

How did I not know the answer to my own question?

“She’s stopped taking social calls in recent years. It seems pointless. With her younger daughter married to a fool, and her older son being the most infamous rake Britain has produced, she never has any good news to share. Though I try to visit her whenever I’m in Kent.”

Even as she said this, Louisa didn’t sound particularly accusing or antagonistic. She was the exact opposite of Emmabelle Penrose. Soft and pliant.

“Cece never had any children,” I mused.

“No.” Louisa came to stand in front of me, her modest cleavage pressing against my chest. I noticed her fingers were full of broken flesh, bruised by thorns. “I doubt Hasting has a taste for more than gambling and hunting. Children are not high on his to-do list.”

Her body pressed harder against mine. The game had changed between us, and Louisa was no longer the timid little girl who’d begged me to throw crumbs of attention her way.

Run away again, her eyes said, if you dare.

No part of me wanted to move. She was attractive, attentive, and interested. But I couldn’t take my mind off Sweven. The woman who snuck into my dreams like a thief, flooding them with desire and need.

“And what about you, Lou?” I curled my fingers around the back of her neck and drew her an inch away from me. Her skin pricked with goose bumps under my touch. “I heard you lost your fiancé. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well.” Louisa licked her lips, smoothing my suit with a dark chuckle. “I suppose you could say I’ve never had the best of luck when it comes to men.”

“What happened to us had nothing to do with luck. I was a selfish wanker who ran away from responsibility. You were always collateral, never the main objective.”

“I never held a grudge, you know,” she murmured, her voice calm, collected. It surprised me. I imagined heads would roll if I were in her position. “Anger just seems like such a wasteful feeling. Nothing good ever comes of it.”

“That’s a lovely way of looking at things.” I smiled gravely, thinking, If people let go of their anger, us solicitors would be left with no job.

“You’re back now.” Her dark eyes met mine, daring me again.

I took her hand, which was on my chest, near my heart, and pressed her cold knuckles to my warm lips. “Not for good.” I shook my head, my gaze holding hers. “Never for good.”

“Never say never, Devon.”

After stuffing drunken Benedict and Byron into their Range Rovers and instructing their drivers not to stop until they were on the other side of the island, I kissed Louisa farewell. I promised to call her next time I was in England, a promise I had every intention of fulfilling.

When our guests were gone, I snuck into the garden and smoked three rollies in a row, checking if I had any text messages or phone calls from the States. Specifically, from a certain American vixen. I did not.

She is too bloody broken, and you aren’t in any danger of winning any sanity awards anytime soon either. I trudged back into the sprawling, dark mansion through the back kitchen, passing Drew snoring in front of the telly in one of the drawing rooms and Cece sitting at the grand piano, staring at it silently without playing.

Fuck her, impregnate her, and forget about her.

Things were looking dire on all fronts.

I headed to what used to be my father’s office. My mother was there.

She looked to be in her natural habitat behind his Victorian desk, scribbling in the margins of some documents while typing numbers on a calculator next to her. It reminded me what I knew to be the truth for years—that my mother was indeed the operating force behind the Whitehall empire. My father was a rake with a title, while Ursula was her father’s smart and resourceful daughter. Tony Dodkin might’ve been a common earl, but he was a math genius and a real estate mogul who knew his way around a good deal. Mum took after him. She was extremely capable.

Which begged the question, how had she not known that he was abusing me? But opening that old wound wasn’t going to do much help.

“Devvie, my love.” She let out a little sigh, putting her pen down and tilting her head up with a smile, like a flower stretching and opening for the sun. “Do sit down.”

I took a seat in front of her, gazing at the portrait behind her: Papa and myself, when I was a boy of maybe four or five. We both looked so utterly miserable and out of place, the only thing connecting us was DNA. Our sharp Nordic features and glacial eyes.

“The conservatory is dusty,” I drawled.

“Is it, now?” She licked her finger before flipping a page on the document in front of her. “Well, I must tell the cleaners to pay extra attention to the room tomorrow.”

“Are you having financial issues?”

She was still frowning at the number splayed on the paper. “Oh, Devvie. Must we talk about finances? It’s so very common. You just got here. I want us to brunch and to catch up properly. Maybe catch a horse race.”

“We’ll do all of that, Mummy. But I need to know that you’re taken care of.”

“We’ll survive.” She looked up, offering me a wobbly smile.

“When’s the reading of the will exactly? Tomorrow or the next day?”

“Actually…” she finished writing a sentence on a document, setting her pen down “…the reading of the will, will be severely delayed, I’m afraid.”

“Severely?” I arched an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Mr. Tindall is currently abroad.”

Harry Tindall was my late father’s trusted solicitor.

“And you failed to mention that before I boarded a plane?”

She smiled thoughtfully, staring at my hair like she wanted to swipe her motherly fingers across it lovingly. “I guess you could say the opportunity to see you presented itself, and the human that I was, I yielded to temptation. I’m sorry.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “Terribly so.”

That soothed my anger. “Shush, Mum. I’m here for you.”

I reached across the desk and grabbed her hand. She was frail under my touch.

“I’ll wire you money to tide you over until the reading of the will,” I heard myself say.

“No, darling, we couldn’t possibly …”

“Of course you could. You’re my mother. It’s the least I can do for you.”

For a moment, all we did was stare at each other, drinking every new line and wrinkle we’d accumulated in the last year.

“I hear Drew leaves much to be desired in the making Cecilia happy department.” I sprawled in my seat, crossing my ankles over the desk.

My mother picked up her pen again and scribbled on the edges of the file, gnawing on her lower lip, as she did whenever my father was up to no good and she knew she was about to clean up his mess. “Quite.”

“What can I do to help?”

“There’s nothing you can do, really. That is for your sister to handle.”

“Cece is not used to taking care of such things.” Understatement of the fucking century. When we were kids, I got into hot water on a daily basis to save my sister’s arse.

Mum tugged at her lower lip, mulling this over. “All the same, it is time for her to start learning how to hold her own. The only thing you can do for me now is refrain from providing us with any scandalous headlines. We certainly don’t need those.”

In that moment, my mother looked so broken, so tired, so weathered by the tragedies life had thrown at her, I couldn’t crush her completely. Not when there was so little hope left for her.

Which was why I couldn’t tell her I was planning to impregnate a ditzy burlesque club owner out of wedlock, who, by the way, was sprawled on billboards all over the East Coast positively naked.

But Belle wasn’t even pregnant. What was the point of telling my mother about this? This situation could be revisited in three, four, or five months, when the dust on my father’s grave had settled.

No need to give my mother more bad news.

“No scandalous headlines …” I grinned back at her. “Promise.”