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I opened my mouth to argue but found I couldn’t. It was true—Francesca and I had been playing with fire all summer. She was on the pill, yeah, but she’d forgotten it plenty of times over the course of chaos—not to mention it was a complete ball-ache to get a refill while on a waiting list for a GP. Meanwhile, I had a box of Durex in my nightstand I hadn’t even opened. Best intentions flew out the bloody window the second I saw that woman naked and willing.
And maybe Jagger was right, too. Maybe there was a part of me that wanted it. Wanted more with her. Wanted everything. I’d bought a ring after all—the pink diamond cluster I’d carried it everywhere, even after she’d left.
Fuck me. I still had it even now in my jacket pocket, a sad talisman of my complete and utter failure.
“She’s only a few hours away right now, you know,” Elsie prodded.
I turned. “What?”
“Italy. For her brother’s wedding, remember? She sent you her schedule last week so you could keep up your FaceTime dates with Miss Sofia.”
I blinked. All the communication with Francesca, since she had fled England last month, was a blur between too much drinking, mourning my uncle, and bruising my knuckles nightly on my heavy bag. I hadn’t missed a FaceTime with my little girl, but only with Elsie’s help.
“She’s in Italy?” I repeated.
Elsie nodded. “A quick plane ride away. And I happen to know the Parker jet is available at the Kendal airstrip just now.”
Jagger lifted one brow expectantly and helpfully took my near-empty brandy glass out of my hand. “Go on, Xav. We can entertain the suits. Go get your girls.”
I was moving before I even realized my decision, jogging through the garden and up around to the front of the estate to avoid the crowd. There were things that needed to be done. Papers to sign, deals to make, projects to finish that Henry had started.
They could rot in the lake for all I cared.
“Xavier! Where in the world are you going?”
I stopped at the great entry to face Georgina. The dowager duchess—my father’s widow who had been a thorn in my side for years—stood at the bottom of the front steps in her funerary finest, including a hat approximately the size of Germany on her perfectly set, light brown hair. Her pearl earrings dangled softly in the breeze, but her face was pinched sharp as an arrowhead.
I took another deep breath and held it long enough for my fists to unclench before I faced her.
“You can’t leave,” she said. “We’ve still guests here. You’re expected to welcome them properly, as the duke.”
For now,her tone suggested clearly as if she’d said it aloud.
After all, wasn’t that what she wanted?
“I have to go, Georgie,” I said. “I’ve some business with my family, and now that the funeral is over, I need to tend to it.”
There. Short and sweet, and I’d even managed not to rip her head clean off.
I turned to leave, but she hurried up the stairs to catch me by one of the coat tails, like a spoiled little girl grabbing her kitty’s tail.
“What is it, Georgina?” I practically roared after she jerked me backward. “What the fuck do you want from me?”
So much for sweet. Deep breathing could only go so far when it came to this one.
“How dare you speak to me that way. I demand respect!”
“You,” I said, thrusting a finger in her face, “can fuck right off. How’s that for respect?”
“Xavier!”
“Don’t Xavier me,Duchess,” I snapped. “I’m leaving now to fix the mess you made. Do you think I don’t know it was you who sent Ces and Sofia home? Do you think I don’t know you’ve been working for months to have my title stripped in the House of Lords? Do you think I don’t know all of it?”
It came out like a waterfall of bitterness, and just like that, my fists were clenched back up, tight as rocks. God, when I thought of what she’d done, I wanted to burn the place down. And her with it, like the witches of the old days. In my frame of mind, I really thought she deserved it.
Heartless, I know. But I never claimed to be a good man. I wasn’t going to start now.
Georgina’s overly plump mouth fell open as she took another step backward, like she sensed the pending threat. “I—it doesn’t matter now. This family has appearances to keep up. You can’t justleave.”
