AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Empty,” I said. “My God, you two really are idiots, aren’t you?”
Before they could answer, more footsteps thundered up the stairs, and we were quickly joined by several police officers as well as Xavier’s driver, Ben.
“Thank God,” I murmured. “It’s theirs. And it was empty,” I said as I handed one of them the gun and immediately pulled Sofia to my waist, keeping my girl close.
“Frankie!” my mother called as her hands were cuffed behind her back. “Frankie,please!”
But her cries fell on deaf ears as I huddled with my daughter.
Bledsoe was being read his rights to silence while his brother was being revived for the same purpose. Eventually, all of them were shuffled toward the door, my mother the last to leave.
“We’ll need your statements, Your Grace,” said one of the policemen.
But Xavier just turned to me and extended a hand. “You’ll have to take them at my flat in Mayfair,” he said. “I’ve got to get my family home safe.”
THIRTY
Everyone else saw it happen on TV. Maybe through one of the many tabloids. It was like something out ofClue(The butler did it! By kidnapping the duke’s daughter with a gun!). One of Xavier’s actual mothers-in-law, a supposedly loyal staff member, plus a crooked brother committing a heinous crime in a twisted act of love and greed. There were photos of the three of them being cuffed and led from the Croydon flat by the police. Other pictures of Georgina being escorted into another police car from Parkvale House, Frederick looming behind her with a bemused expression.
We didn’t read any of the headlines. I would remember my mother’s cries for mercy for the rest of my life, just as I would remember ignoring them. Apparently, I had finally found my line. Xavier and I had both discovered when enough was enough—it was when you hurt our kids. When you messed with our family.
In light of the arrest of Georgina Parker and her sister, Caroline Klein, for harassment along with a surprising charge of conspiracy to kidnap a minor (according to Bledsoe’s brother’s confession, both women had been tacitly encouraging the butler’s ideas on the matter for weeks), the House of Lords had canceled Xavier’s hearing and had thrown out the entire question of his legitimacy, given that any evidence submitted by the dowager duchess was fully compromised in light of her designs against the duke.
Photographers were camped out in front of Mayfair for several days while we treated the flat like our own private bunker, recovering just the three of us in warmth and privacy. After they were reassured of Sofia’s safety, my family shockingly left us alone, and Xavier’s staff seemed to understand the need for space as well.
This world, composed of the three soon-to-be four of us, suddenly seemed so precious. And so we revisited the tentative home the three of us had made together earlier that year. A place that wasn’t steeped in a thousand-year lineage or a shabby little house my brother had given me out of a sense of charity, but a home, luxurious as it was, that had been completely redesigned around our needs, even if for a short time.
Xavier cooked for us each night. I read in the evenings fromThe Secret Gardenand basked in the delicious sound of Xavier’s rare, full-throated laughter when he heard my horrible Yorkshire accent. Sofia drew pictures of unicorns, slept in herMoana-inspired bedroom, and received more hugs than she knew what to do with. Xavier and I visited the rooftoponsenmore than once while our daughter slumbered (well, he got in while I dangled my feet, dreaming of when being pregnant would no longer keep me from a nice long soak). We made love next to the steamy waters and afterward whispered about futures together we’d barely hoped for in the past.
Places we’d like to visit. Dates we’d like to have. Names of our future child.
There was something about the peace that felt, if not permanent, more solid than before. As though our little trio knew we’d been through just about everything together and could survive anything else.
Including a visit from Lord Ortham nearly a week after Sofia’s rescue.
“I’d say I can’t believe it, but I was there,” he said cheerfully after accepting a nightcap from Xavier’s private store. “When she told me what she was planning for the committee, at least, I thought even that was ridiculous. But I never imagined a duchess would be taken away by the police on charges of kidnapping, of all things.”
Sofia had gone to sleep long ago, and Xavier and I had just been considering going to “sleep” ourselves while a storm rolled in from the north. My husband had been pouring himself a glass of water when the concierge called up to announce Lord Ortham.
Now, we all sat in the living room around the fire crackling in the enormous grate—me curled up into Xavier’s warm body on the sofa, Lord Ortham swishing his glass of port appreciatively from one of the oversized armchairs.
“And might I take the moment to offer you both my sincerest congratulations and best wishes on your marriage,” he added after a healthy drink. “Not surprised you didn’t want the fuss of St. Paul’s. Bunch of pomp and circumstance, that. Better to keep it quiet in the family. Though I should have liked to have been there. Stand in for your father and uncle, you know.”
I smiled at his genuine warmth. “Thank you.”
To my surprise, I found I quite liked the viscount. We had barely interacted all summer, and most of my impressions of his family were linked to his stuffy wife and insufferable daughter. Alone, however, he wasn’t stifled by their sense of propriety. Between his horsey laugh, obsession with inane historical details, and blunt sense of humor, he was almost down to earth, like an uncle I’d never had.
“I am leaving for Kendal in the morning. But I realized I couldn’t go without saying something.” His speech was suddenly a bit awkward as he set his glass on the coffee table. “Once I discovered what Imogene had done—” He broke off, shaking his head with obvious shame. “Appalling. Just appalling. Xavier, I really am so sorry.”
“It’s all right, Bernard,” Xavier said as he stroked my shoulder. “It’s in the past.”
“No, no, it’s not,” he said. “For my own child to act with such impropriety—as if she had any right to you in any way, when you have a family of your own, for God’s sake—horrible, just horrible. The strain it has put on our families’ long friendship…”
Xavier just remained quiet as he sipped his water, while I glanced between them, somewhat confused. I understood some of this, of course. Various Orthams showed up in the Kendal journals for around two hundred years, which I gathered was about the age of the title. But Lord Ortham spoke with a lot more feeling than a simple neighbor and fellow peer.
“Rupert’s death…and now Henry’s…” The viscount shook his head again. “We’re not supposed to show it, but it really was quite hard. We all grew up together as boys, you see. They were…family to me. And so were you, Xavier. Especially to my Lucy. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”
Xavier stared at the man for a long time, blue eyes icy and opaque. But his hand braced on my arm told me that he was feeling more with the man’s words than he wanted to show. Only he and Lucy would ever know how and why the unlikely bond had formed between them, but I knew him well enough to see that part of it had been from common grounds of isolation and loneliness. One of many family members he’d lost too young.
