Valentine Nook: Chapter 3

Asnail is crawling across my desk.

“Max!” I yell loud enough that I know he’ll hear me.

A silvery trail crosses the document I need to read, along with tiny nibble marks around the edges. And while many documents are probably only fit for eating, this one I do actually have to sign and send back to my solicitors. Picking up the snail, I open the window and carefully place him on the ivy outside.

“There. Now go and find something else to eat.” I turn back to my study and yell again. “Max?”

“Yeah?” he replies from the doorway, leaning against the frame just like his father does, wearing the same expression of pure insolence. Except I rarely see his father dressed as Spider-Man.

“Not yeah, yes. And what have I told you about snails in the house?”

Spider-Man shrugs. “Sometimes they come in without me. I’ve told them they’re not allowed, but that must have been a particularly naughty one.”

“Hmm.” I narrow my eyes, but he holds my stare without blinking. I swear this child will grow up to be either a barrister or a dictator. A leader of something at the very least, which suits me fine. “Well, perhaps you need to have another word with them.”

“I will.”

“Where’s Birgitta?” I ask, just as I remember Wednesday is her day off, though Max’s nanny is rarely around when she should be. “Never mind, where’s your father?”

“Churchill got out of the field again.”

I tut loudly. That bloody goat is a better escapologist than Houdini.

“Where’s Granny?”

“Don’t know.”

“What about Auntie Clemmie?”

“Did I hear my name?” asks Clementine, appearing at the door as stealthily as Max had and peers down at him. “Ooh, I didn’t know superheroes were coming for breakfast. How exciting. What’s going on?”

“Uncle Lando’s still in a bad mood,” Max replies, his eyes rolling just like Hendricks, or rather, Miles.

Given Hendricks and Miles are identical twins, Max has annoyingly inherited all of Miles’s equally annoying habits, including his ability to shit-stir.

“I’m not still in a bad mood. I’m not in a bad mood,” I say, holding back the irritation I know will make an appearance if I let it. “I’m fine.”

Max and Clementine stare at me until they’re joined by Dolly, one of the Labradors, who also stares at me.

“What? I’m not in a bad mood,” I repeat. “I just don’t want snails in the house, and no one seems to be concerned that Max is going to be late to school.”

One look at Max and it’s clear I’m the only one concerned about his tardiness.

“I’m taking Max to school,” Clementine answers in a level of calm that directly correlates to my mood and only serves to irritate me further. She turns to Max. “Come on, Spider-Man, go and get changed. We need to leave in five minutes. We can have a second breakfast in the car.”

Max groans but decides against protesting and trots off, followed by Dolly.

I slump down in my chair with a sigh only to find Clementine still staring at me. I don’t bother to ask her why she’s staring at me because I know. Just like I know I can’t escape the conversation about to happen because it’s been a daily occurrence for the past week.

“Come on, Lanny, you can’t seriously keep this bad mood up. Go and meet her. You’ll like her.” ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ find⁂novel.net

“I don’t need to like her. She’s my tenant. It’s a business transaction and nothing more. As long as she pays the rent every month, I never have to see her.”

“She doesn’t know anyone.”

“Then she shouldn’t have moved here, should she?”

“Lando—”

“Clementine, I’m not having this discussion again. Bluebell Cottage belongs to me, just like this house belongs to me. I did not give you permission to rent it out, but you and Mum did it anyway. And if you think I’m going to endure the pair of you ganging up on me for the next six months, then you can both move out tomorrow. Bluebell still has two spare rooms.”

Okay, maybe I am in a bad mood.

The cause of it is standing opposite my desk, blue eyes squinting, arms crossed over her chest while she taps her foot on the floor. She’s one of the causes, anyway. The other is my mother because I seem to be related to the two most infuriating women in England.

Once more, I curse the day I ever met Caroline Montague. Along with the day I was stupid enough to ask her to marry me.

It didn’t take me long after we broke up to realize how badly suited we were. Or that my entire family despised her.

I was too blinded by a woman who perfectly fit the role of the future Duchess of Oxfordshire. I ignored every one of the tiny niggles that constantly followed me and all the giant red flags waving in my face.

I’m still boiling with rage that it got to the night before our wedding for me to see what should have been obvious. My best friend—ex-best friend—and my fiancée—ex-fiancée—were having an affair.

I’d spent the evening with my groomsmen, including Jeremy and my three brothers, Alex, Hendricks, and Miles. We’d played poker, had a delicious dinner, and overall, it had been a relatively sedate and early night.

For reasons I can’t explain, when Miles left to go home, I decided to walk back across the fields with him. He lives next to Bluebell Cottage, where Caroline was sleeping the night before our wedding while I was staying at Burlington.

I hadn’t planned to go in and see her because, after all, it’s bad luck. But as I passed, the gate had been open and so was the front door. Being naturally curious and wanting to make sure the cottage was shut for the night, I walked up the path.

I was only halfway down when I heard them.

Groaning, deep moans, and breathless panting. They’d been so desperate to get to each other they hadn’t even had time to close the door behind them. At first, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was seeing, except as the light adjusted, all I could make out was my fiancée’s legs wrapped around someone who wasn’t me.

When Jeremy and I were eighteen, we went to Thailand on a boys’ trip with a group of our friends. It was to be the final vestiges of freedom for me before I officially took over the dukedom I inherited when my father died.

I doubt there was a sober moment for any of us, and one afternoon, Jeremy lost a bet. His forfeit was a tattoo on his arse. He chose the Superman logo.

Now, everyone knows the rules of tattooing is you have to wait before getting your skin wet. But Jeremy was eighteen, drunk, and the temperature was a scorching forty degrees Celsius. The minute he arrived back at our villa, he forgot about the still drying ink and jumped straight into the pool.

From that day forward, he was the not-so-proud owner of a permanent red and yellow smudge on his left arse cheek.

As I stood there in the doorway of my cottage, that smudge burned into my retina.

Before I knew what I was doing, I punched Jeremy square in the face before calmly walking away without another word.

Our wedding had been hours away. The entire country was primed to watch the spectacle that had been tabloid gossip for months—how much the flowers had cost, where the honeymoon was, who would be attending—and canceling everything didn’t seem like an option. Instead, I got blind drunk.

If Alex hadn’t found me and taken charge of the situation while my mother and James dealt with the fallout, I would now be in a very unhappy marriage.

I have no intention of making that mistake again.

“I saw Agatha yesterday, you know . . .”

My molars grind as my jaw clenches. I open my desk drawer and rummage around for no other reason than to show Clementine I’m ignoring her.

“I was with Holiday . . .”

I stop what I’m doing and take a deep breath. Holiday. What a stupid name.

Really, I should feel sorry for the woman who’s become an unwitting pawn in my mother’s attempt to get me into a relationship, but all it’s done is solidify an idea I’ve been toying with for a while.

Renting out my cottage was the final straw.

I’ve asked my mother a thousand times to stop setting me up on dates, yet each request has fallen on deaf ears. The time for politeness is over.

Hence, the paperwork. Pulling out a tissue from the box on my desk, I wipe as much of the snail goop up as I can, but it’s already dried. No matter, everything will still be legal.

Picking up my fountain pen, which had once belonged to my father, I’m ready to scrawl my name along the dotted line at the bottom of the page, except I remember I need a witness.

I’m not going to waste my breath by asking my sister.

She wouldn’t do it anyway.

Clementine hasn’t moved when I glance up.

“We’re not ganging up on you, Lando. We just want you to be happy.”

“I’ll be happy if you stop trying to push me into a new relationship.”

“We’re not⁠—”

“Clem—”

“I’m not, at least. Holiday Simpson moving into Bluebell has nothing to do with you. Mum didn’t want it sitting empty with bad memories for you, and as you weren’t going to do anything about it, she did. Holiday was the perfect candidate.”

My eye roll is thick and heavy, just like my scoff. The manure in the cow pasture smells less like bullshit.

“Fine. As long as we’re all clear I am not interested in anyone. Including the American you’re such a huge fan of.”

“We’re clear,” she snaps. “Can I go now?”

“I was never stopping you.”

Her hair flicks behind her as she turns and marches away without another word. I hear her yelling for Max to hurry up and slump back in my chair. It’s not even nine o’clock, and I’ve already had a day of it.

Sometimes I wonder how my father managed.

I pick up the phone and hit the button that takes me straight through to James Winters’s desk—the only person I do want to speak to this morning.

After my father died when I was fourteen and I inherited the dukedom, James and my father’s other advisers took me under their wings and taught me everything I needed to know about running a multibillion-pound company. That was twenty years ago, and I could never have done it without him.

The Burlington Estate Group was established in 1511 by the first Duke of Oxfordshire, and over five hundred years later, it owns approximately six hundred thousand acres of land across the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia Pacific, and North America, as well as business holdings in property, technology, and sustainability.

As the current—and eleventh—Duke of Oxfordshire, I am the head.

At thirty-four years old, I’m responsible for the salaries of close to twenty thousand people globally. While there’s a CEO for the Burlington Estate Group, along with CEOs for each of the subsidiaries within the business, I prefer to stay closer to home.

I have the legacy of Burlington to keep intact, which includes fifteen thousand acres of Oxfordshire countryside and Valentine Nook.

It keeps me immensely busy, and I want to be able to concentrate on that instead of who I’m going to marry. Or not marry.

Legacy is exactly the reason I’m calling James, along with why I’m a little more tense than usual this morning.

“Good morning, Your Grace.”

“Have you got five minutes?”

“Yes, now?”

“Yes.”

“Certainly. I’ll be right over.”

One of the best things about James is his appreciation for a sense of urgency.

I imagine him jumping into the Land Rover outside the staff offices on the other side of Burlington Estate, zipping around the track, and passing the polo fields and the dairy before reaching the lane, which takes him straight to Burlington Hall’s side door.

By my estimation, he’ll be here in less than fifteen minutes, which gives me enough time to get a coffee.

Walking into the kitchen, I find Alex sitting on one of the stools at the breakfast counter, a piece of toast dangling from his mouth as he turns the page on the Financial Times. It’s the first time I’ve seen him this morning. He usually comes over much earlier for breakfast before heading to the estate offices to check on the staff, but he’s leaving for Hong Kong this afternoon.

While all of my brothers work for the family in some capacity, I work with Alex most closely. He manages our overseas portfolio across Europe, the Americas, and Asia Pacific, making investments globally and primarily acquiring land for sustainable agriculture. His trip today will be to check on the progress of our work in the Far East, as well as the quarterly earnings reports.

“Anything interesting in there?”

He shakes his head, removing the piece of toast from his mouth as he does. “Not really.”

I pick up a cup set out for breakfast and pour out a coffee. I’m toying with whether to tell him what I’m planning, but I don’t want to be talked out of it.

“Where’s Mum?”

“Not sure. In the garden probably.”

I peer out of the window, thinking I might catch a glimpse of her, but I don’t see anything.

“Morning, James,” Alex booms, and I spin around and see James striding in.

“Good morning, my lord,” he replies and turns to me. “Your Grace.”

“James.”

He stands there staring at me, but he knows better than to ask what I need him for, especially with Alex present.

“By the way, I passed Lord Hendricks on the way over. He said to tell you he’s gone to check on the new calves.”

We’re coming to the end of birthing season. Over the past two months, one hundred of our heifers gave birth, and only a couple are due over the next week or so. Hendricks, along with half the farm staff, have been working through the nights as the calves have arrived. Thankfully, they’ve all been healthy and sound. Once I’m done here, I’ll pop in to check on them too.

“Did he find Churchill?”

James nods. “Yes, he was in the orchard again. I’ll get the fencing around there checked today.”

“You’d be better having Mrs. Winston’s fencing checked. That’s where he escapes from.”

“Don’t curb his freedom,” Alex mumbles, stuffing the last piece of toast into his mouth. “He’s having fun. Mrs. Winston’s so boring, and he’s all on his own there. Goats need company.”

“Then it’ll be up to you to deal with Mum when she discovers all her trees have been stripped,” I grumble.

“Hmm.” Alex ponders. “On second thought⁠—”

“Exactly.”

I gesture to James that we leave before Alex asks what we’re doing, but he’s gone back to his breakfast and whatever he was reading in the paper.

James follows me into my study and silently takes the document I pick up from my desk to hand him.

“I need you to witness me signing this.”

If he notices the silvery snail trail, he doesn’t say anything, although perhaps that’s why he’s frowning. It could also be a frown of concern because I know what’s written on the document in his hand will come as a surprise to him.

“Lando—”

“I just need you to witness me signing it. I don’t need a lecture or your approval,” I snap. James raises one of his thick brows. “And I don’t need you to try to talk me out of it.”

“Of course.”

It’s the way he elongates the vowels that has me answering the question he didn’t ask.

“It’s none of my mother’s business. I’m the duke. I get to say who inherits my title.”

James drops his head with a shake, and his eyes scan over the words again. “You know there are rules in place to prohibit this from happening.”

“Which is why I want to change them.” I flick the paper he’s still holding that says exactly that and let out a loud sigh, scratching through my beard.

As much as I love my “fuck you, Caroline” beard, I have to admit it’s become itchy. It needs a trim at the very least.

“Lando—”

“If something happens to me, Alex is next in line to inherit, but he’s only two years younger than I am. We need the next generation to be cemented in before we’re too old and decrepit to do anything about it. Max should be the rightful heir after me. He’s the first grandchild.”

There. I’ve said it out loud. This plan kills two birds with one stone.

Confirms the heir to Burlington and, by doing so, gets my mother off my back.

If an heir is in place, I don’t need to find a wife like we’re still living in the sixteenth century.

Does it seem drastic? Probably. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Have you spoken to Hendricks?”

“Not yet.”

This particular part has my usual nerves of steel jittering slightly. Out of all my brothers, Hendricks is the most laid-back, the least unruffled—you’d have to be with Miles as your twin—but I’m certain this will likely get his blood boiling.

Still, needs must.

“Don’t you think you ought to? Legally, you have to, seeing as Max is his son.”

“Yes, and I will. But I wanted everything in place first.”

He stares unblinking. I can tell he’s concerned, and truthfully, as the closest thing I’ve had to a father in the past twenty years, I’m amazed he’s not already yelling at me that I’m making a mistake.

“You’re writing off your future.”

Close enough.

“I’m not. I’m taking the pressure off all eventualities and buying myself some peace and quiet. If I ensure the future of Burlington and hand it to Max, then everything else is irrelevant.”

James drops the document on my desk. “This is imprudent.”

“I disagree.”

“Look, consider sleeping on it a little longer. Please, Lando⁠—”

“No. If you won’t sign it, then I’ll find someone who will.”

He remains silent but pulls a pen out of his blazer pocket. I’m aware of his disapproval with every letter I scrawl at the bottom of the page, and the moment I’m done, he snatches it away and signs on the dotted line next to my signature.

“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it. “Would you please courier it to Arthur?”

Arthur is our family solicitor. Just like everything else at Burlington, we’ve inherited him from his father and his father before him. His firm has served our family for one hundred and fifty years. I see him once a month when I head to London for monthly meetings, but I was there last week to collect this document, and I have no plans to leave Valentine Nook again quite so soon.

“Certainly.” He turns and walks out without another word.

That went about as well as could be expected, though I really hope he doesn’t mention it to my mother before I do because that wouldn’t be ideal.

My cheeks puff as I exhale loudly and turn back to the windows. Following the much-needed rain yesterday, the sky is cloudless and a glorious shade of blue. The stacks of papers on my desk are crying for my attention, as are the dozen unreturned calls—most likely about the summer fair—but after the last hour, I need to reset my day.

I’m tussling what to do when my phone beeps from an incoming message.

JEREMY: Can we talk?

I stare at the screen, fighting the urge to punch something. It’s been six months since I last spoke to him, and even then, it was only a cursory fuck off.

Instead of reiterating my stance, I take a deep breath, delete it, and change into a pair of running shorts.

I’m definitely not doing any work now.

Five minutes later, I’m sprinting down the drive. Cutting through the first field on my left where Thunder has been turned out, I stop to give him a quick scratch and a Polo, then continue on my way. Aside from working Thunder around the land, running is the best way to check on my property.

I can go where the Land Rovers and tractors can’t. I can see where hedgerows need repairing or fences are down. Where the cows can sneak out or goats can sneak in. It helps me feel more than a CEO when I’m actively contributing to Burlington’s mammoth upkeep.

I run until I arrive in the one place I come when I need to be alone.

Just as I’ve always done since I was a child, I strip off completely and dive into the water until I touch the pale pink rock that’s in the middle of the pool. It’s a little ritual I’ve had whenever I swim here and the first thing I do.

If anything could convince me magic exists, it’s this place. The water should be freezing cold, yet it’s not, even in the winter. It’s crystal clear, and as it’s quite warm, I stand under the waterfall, allowing its power to pummel my shoulders, releasing the persistent tension I’ve been carrying. It also helps me think.

I have a lot of thinking to do—about my life, my future, about whether I’m doing the right thing. About what my father would have done and whether I’m living up to his expectations. Whether he would be proud.

It’s where I came to grieve after he died.

It’s where I came to lick my wounds after my marriage ended before it began.

Unfortunately for me, I don’t get to think today.

Suddenly, my peace is shattered by a loud gasp followed by a deafening screech.

A blond woman is on the other side of the pool frozen in place, hand clasped to her chest with blue eyes as wide as dinner plates as they scan over me in horror.

Her hair is scraped back from her face and wrapped in a messy knot on top of her head. Loose wisps of gold catch the light and pull my attention to her immaculate bone structure, peachy smooth skin, and full, plump mouth that’s currently dropped open.

She’s wearing the tiniest white bathing suit I’ve ever seen; the material is cut so high on her thighs that it makes her legs go on forever. Toned bronzed skin that, even from this distance, I can see how soft it is, how lithe she is.

She’s fucking beautiful.

I’ve never seen another person here in my life. For a split second, I wonder if she’s real or if my brain is short-circuiting through the haze of spray.

As I wipe the water from my eyes, I remember I’m stark naked. Before I can say anything or cover myself, she darts away back down the path leading toward Bluebell Cottage.

So that’s my tenant.

Fan-fucking-tastic.