AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“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 theDaily 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 calledThe 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 whenThe Reporterreached 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.
