Chapter 1 #2
“Yeah, and Alex, that's the only kind of business I know. How can I be the duke of this place? I’ve visited Fairfax twice in my whole life, and even then, I was hardly welcomed.” I feel the frustration in me growing.
All day, I’ve found ways to stop it from erupting; gotten through the best I can, but here in this room with the one person I feel I can trust, I can feel all my defenses slipping.
“You’ll learn to find the balance. I’ll help you,” Alex reassures me. Taking the empty glass from my hand before I shatter it, and topping it up.
“I’m out of my depth. I’ve been a hidden secret for too long.
Warned, over and over again, to stay the fuck away from this place, and now I’m expected to step into the spotlight.
I can’t do it. I’m beyond fucking help, Alex.
” All I can feel is anger towards my father…
not just for dying but for leaving everything he owns, including his title, to that kid he could barely fucking look at.
The man has spent my entire life refusing to publicly acknowledge me; he continually exploited my eagerness to please him, and yet in death, he labels me his fucking heir.
“I get that you're scared, but your dad did all this for a reason.”
“I’m not scared, Alex, you know me. I don’t get fucking scared. I’m just… confused. All this feels like some kind of joke.”
“You’ll deal with it, the way you do everything else. Head on. You may not be used to all this, but you're smart, and you’ve got something that those people out there will never have.”
I wait for him to reveal what that magical something is because I sure as hell need it… “You're streetwise. Your dad never relied on that weak-assed son to get the real shit done…You got yourself to where you wanted to be out there, now you’ve just got to figure out a way to do it here.”
“How do you do it?” I shake my head and laugh. “Men like us, we live for the chaos, we like taking risks. We need the danger. Where the fuck is that edge we crave in all of this?”
“You’ve clearly never been to one of Elizabeth Winfield's garden parties.” Alex tries being smart, but I’m struggling to see any fucking humour in this situation.
“You want to know the truth?” Alex drops the clever grin from his face when he sees I’m not laughing and gets serious with me.
“I found somebody that I wanted to turn good for. She became my chaos, and I figured that the risk of losing her was one I wasn’t prepared to take.
” It’s unmistakable how much that girl has changed him; everything about him seems to soften when he talks about her.
“Yeah, well, as much as I appreciate hearing your little fairy story, I can tell you that it won’t be happening to me.” That is the one thing, right now, I can be sure of.
“We’ll see.” Alex shrugs as he starts making his way towards the door.
“Wait, where are you going?” I don’t feel like we’ve come close to finishing our conversation. There's still so much I need to ask him.
“I’ve got to get my duchess home.” He winks before seeing himself out, leaving me in the office that's suddenly feeling like a prison cell.
I stare at the liquid that's left in my glass as I swish it around, and when the door opens again, and Cecelia lets herself in, I feel all that rage bubble right to the surface again.
“You should be careful conversing with him.” She looks down her nose at me in that same way she always has.
I’ve always been certain that my father took the approach he did with her to keep her happy.
I wonder if she knows that, despite shunning me publicly, my father paid an interest in my upbringing.
I also wonder if she knows how much shit I’ve got her perfect, precious boy out of during his life.
“Alex Stanley may fool a lot of people, but he doesn't fool me. He’s a very dangerous man.”
I smile when I realise just how clueless the great Cecelia Ravenshaw is. My father may have never gotten his hands dirty the way Alex has, but he had no conscience about giving the orders. I guess having a bastard son had to have some advantages.
“Alex is a friend, and right now he’s the only person who understands me.
” I don’t know why I feel the need to explain myself to her, and I sure as hell shouldn't be showing her any weakness. Still, my father loved this woman; she’s familiar with this world, and I suppose it’s in my best interest to ensure we get off on the right foot, especially if I’m going to adhere to his wishes and allow her to stay here.
“Please.” She chuckles. “Don’t try to be the victim in this. You have everything you ever wanted. The house, the money, the title.” Her lip curls at the thought of it.
“If you’d ever taken the time to get to know me, you’d have learnt that this isn’t what I wanted from my father. All I ever wanted from him was his time, some acknowledgement. I wanted to see him standing on the side of the pitch when I played rugby, with everyone else's dad.”
“You had far more acknowledgement than you deserved. Your mother got his name on your birth certificate, that's more than what most whores get for their bastards.” She cold stares at me, just waiting for me to bite. This bitch can hate me all she wants; it's never going to change the fact that my father loved my mother. She wasn’t a whore, and I wasn’t the product of a one-night stand.
I was created from love, a forbidden, out-of-bounds kind of love which I saw in my father's eyes every time he looked at my mother. When I was a boy, she would tell me stories, stories that made me see the cold, stern man in such a different way. As I got older, I concluded that she’d made them up.
But the fact I’m here has me wondering if there was some truth in her tales.
“You don’t belong here, Jack.” Cecelia tries again to intimidate me, but it won’t work. I guess if her precious, perfect son Thomas hadn’t been in the car with my father when it crashed, she’d be contesting my father's final wishes, but without him, she hasn’t got a hope.
“My father obviously thought differently.” I smile calmly, resting back in my new chair, knowing that on the inside, she will be burning.
“Your father can’t have been in his right mind. He would never have made you his heir over our Thomas.” She pulls the tissue from her watch strap and dabs it to the corner of her eye while I roll mine.
“You heard what Albert said. Father made that will over ten years ago. This was always his intent.” I sit up a little straighter.
“You’ve lost a child. I can’t imagine how that must feel, and Cecelia, you have my deepest sympathy, but you have to accept that this is what he wanted.
” I’ve agreed to play along and pretend that I’m only in this position because Thomas died too.
Sparing a woman such humiliation seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do, and I guess, given the position I’m in, I’m going to have to get used to being one of those.
Tongues have been wagging enough since my existence was revealed; the last thing this woman needs is for word to spread that my father thought her son, the rightful heir, was incompetent.
“Albert is as big a fool as your father was for allowing him to do such a thing.” She turns on her heels, ready to make a dramatic exit, and I smile, knowing what I have to say before she leaves will piss her off.
“I’ll have the house staff move your things over to the east wing,” I call after her, causing her to halt and slowly turn her head.
“The east wing? But those are the guest quarters.” Her eyes search over me as if I’ve grown an extra head.
“Yes, and you are a guest in my home, at least for as long as you can tolerate me,” I remind her as I stand up to open the door for her.
“You're despicable.” She looks up at me with eyes of venom before storming off while I close the door behind her, pour myself another drink, and make myself comfortable at my new desk.
I may not feel as if I’m the man for the job, but my father must have seen something in me; something he was prepared to raise a scandal for.
The last thing I’m going to do is let him down…