Chapter 15
WILL
Iwoke up the next morning with the strange, lingering certainty that the kiss from last night hadn’t been my imagination. Or a dream. Or even a goddamn nightmare.
Which is very, very fucking inconvenient.
Because if it had been real, it had also been, without a doubt, the best kiss of my life, and technically, it hadn’t even been meant for me. But I shoved that thought aside and stuck to my routine. That seemed like the safest thing to do right now.
Routine. Normalcy. Getting back to my own life.
As always, breakfast arrived in my room courtesy of Aaron, who seemed invested in personally making sure I never had to pour my own coffee while inside the castle walls.
A tray appeared beneath the window overlooking the foggy woods and I ate while watching the grounds the way I had since I’d arrived.
As I devoured my eggs, toast, berries, and coffee, I kept my eyes on the tree line, waiting for Eliza to make her regularly scheduled appearance.
Gray morning light stretched slowly across the lawns, mist clinging to the woods at the far edge of the estate, but I found myself looking for three shapes in particular, a pair of flat-coated retrievers trotting faithfully beside their beloved owner.
Eventually, Holly and Maeve came into view, but instead of Eliza emerging from the fog with the dogs, it was a man in formal attire walking them across the lawn. I frowned. The dogs moved obediently at his side, but they looked less enthusiastic than usual.
“Who is that?” I asked Aaron as soon as I realized this was a man I’d never met before.
My footman looked out the window. “That’s Thomas, sir. His Lordship’s valet.”
“Right.”
That meant something was off. On my first morning here, Aaron had told me Eliza took the dogs out every morning, but she wasn’t out there today.
After that, I wolfed down my breakfast fast and shot into the bathroom to shower and change. By the time I was finished, Aaron had already left, taking my tray and the empty coffee mug with him. The absence of his cheerful hovering made the castle feel noticeably larger.
I left my room, determined to find Eliza. If nothing else, I wanted to make sure she was alright after last night. Not that she’d seemed upset about the kiss. Actually—
I shut that thought down too. Focus, Will. She’s Jesse’s goddamn fiancée. Not yours.
Halfway down the corridor that led away from my room, I remembered why I’d been dragging Aaron around with me for the last couple days. I still had no real understanding of the castle’s layout. This place wasn’t a house. It was a maze.
I’d barely made it down one hall before I ran straight into James. He stood near the main staircase with his coat already on while a footman held the door open behind him, and he blinked when he saw me, looking mildly surprised.
“Ah, Jesse. Good morning. You’re up early.”
“Morning,” I said, immediately noticing the suitcases being carried around him by a variety of staff members I’d also never seen before. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I’m afraid I’m just leaving for London,” he explained briskly. “I have some business to attend to, but I’ll likely be seeing you both off before you take Eliza to Chicago so she can acclimate.”
Acclimate.
Unfortunately, there was no time for acclimating in Alex’s wedding timeline. Even I was still having trouble wrapping my head around how accelerated it all was, and it wasn’t even my wedding. The entire thing was moving at a pace that made my brain itch, but I waved off the thought.
Now isn’t the time, and it’s not your problem, remember?
“Right,” I said. “Actually, before you go, do you know where Eliza is this morning?”
James was already halfway out the door, calling back to me over his shoulder. “We’ll talk later.”
Then he was gone. I felt vaguely defeated for a minute before I shook my head, turned, and started walking. At least I’d get to explore more of the castle while I was looking for her. God only knew when—if ever—I’d be back here, and the place was fascinating.
I passed through a long corridor lined with portraits of deeply unimpressed ancestors, stumbling upon an enormous library near the end of the hall. It was so impressive that I got sidetracked for a minute, just staring at the floor-to-ceiling shelves and rolling ladders.
Holy. Fuck. That’s cool.
If I hadn’t been on a mission to find my fiancée—my brother’s fiancée—I would have taken a look around for sure, but that ominous feeling I’d gotten when Thomas had emerged from the woods instead of Eliza was only intensifying.
Another sitting room appeared around the next corner, then another.
Honestly, there were more sitting rooms in this place than seemed even remotely reasonable.
How tired were Eliza’s ancestors that they needed to sit all the time?
But eventually, I pushed through a pair of tall double doors and stepped into a cavernous space that wasn’t a sitting room, but what was on the other side made me stop in my tracks.
The ballroom.
Except, it didn’t look much like a ballroom at the moment. Crew members were moving around with lighting rigs, camera tracks, and stacks of equipment cases. A group of people at the far end of the room were adjusting something that looked like a giant velvet curtain.
I’d only taken two steps inside before a firm hand grabbed my sleeve, tugging me straight back into the hallway. When I twisted to see who the hand belonged to, I wasn’t surprised to find myself staring into Miriam’s stern eyes.
“You’ll end up desperately lost and be very much in their way,” she said sharply. “Come. Let’s keep out of their hair, shall we?”
“Sorry,” I said immediately. “I was just looking for Eliza.”
She released my arm but studied me like I was a mildly suspicious child. “Well, she’s not in the ballroom.”
Yeah, thanks. “What’s going on in there?”
Miriam sniffed. “Lady Elizabeth opens the castle for production teams quite often. A TV show will be filming here off and on for the next few weeks. In fact, I’m turning over most of the bedrooms for the next few days to make room for the cast and crew.”
She grew slightly puffy about it, clearly not thrilled with the logistical nightmare. Then she fixed me with another pointed look. “So if you would be so kind as to stay out of the way—”
“You got it,” I said quickly. “I’ll stay away. Again, I didn’t mean to get in anyone’s hair. I really was just looking for Eliza.”
Her expression softened just a fraction. “I’m afraid her Ladyship is not feeling well this morning.”
My stomach twisted into knots. Those were not words I liked hearing about Eliza ever, but especially not after that kiss. I looked back at Miriam, hoping she’d take pity on me and just spit it out. “Where’s her room?”
She blinked at me like I’d asked for the crown jewels. “That is not information we typically hand out.”
“Right,” I said thoughtfully, then glanced down the hallway. “Well, in that case, I suppose I’ll just keep wandering. Inevitably ending up in the way. I’m also terribly clumsy.”
I tilted my head toward one of the massive porcelain vases resting on a freshly waxed antique table nearby. The thing looked priceless, and frankly, the table itself probably was too. Miriam narrowed her eyes, her lips pressing into a thin line.
Her answering sigh was long and deeply disapproving, but she swept out her hand in the complete opposite direction I was thinking of going next. “Follow me.”
Victory.
She marched through the castle with brisk efficiency, guiding me through hallways I definitely wouldn’t have found on my own.
Up one staircase and down another corridor.
We walked past yet another sitting room filled with sunlight and furniture so antique, it probably required its own insurance policy.
Finally, she stopped outside a large set of double doors and waved at them. “Lady Elizabeth’s rooms.”
Rooms. Plural.
She pushed one door open and stepped aside, motioning for me to follow.
I walked into what turned out to be a library that was all Eliza’s.
There were books everywhere, on the shelves lining the walls and stacks sitting on side tables, a few towers of paperbacks even leaning precariously near a window seat.
As I walked farther in, I scanned some of the titles. Romance. More romance. Fantasy romance. Romance with vampires and, for reasons I absolutely did not understand, romance with werewolves. There were a lot of werewolves.
It was only when I rounded a tall bookshelf that I finally spotted her, curled up on a couch beneath a tall window with an ice pack resting over her eyes and a blanket thrown loosely over her legs. She groaned when she heard my footsteps.
“I’m really fine, Miriam,” she said grumpily from under the ice pack. “I swear. If the production team is moaning about my absence, tell them I’ll be down shortly.”
I walked over and gently lifted the ice pack off her face. She squeaked, her eyes flying open and her cheeks turning bright red the second she realized it was me.
“Jesse.”
“Good morning,” I said quietly. “What’s going on?”
She stared at me like I’d materialized out of thin air, almost immediately trying to sit up, but it only lasted about half a second before she winced, turned slightly green, and sank back into the couch.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s not do that.”
She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead and screwed her eyes shut. “Ow.”
Relief nearly cut me down at the knees when I realized what was ailing her. “Ah. I should’ve known your lightweight, sugary drink tendencies would come to this.”
Although I again shouldn’t have been paying such close attention, I’d noticed she’d had three glasses of champagne last night. Evidently, that had been more than enough.
“I am not…” she began weakly but trailed off when I just arched an eyebrow at her. “I have things to do.”
“I’m sure you do, but you should stay here. Just lie down and have a nap,” I said. “What things?”
She sighed. “A walkthrough with the production team. Accounts for the west farm. Scheduling the grounds crew and reviewing next week’s tour bookings. That’s all I can remember right now.”
I nodded along like I was taking mental notes, but her eyes had drifted shut and her voice was sort of in and out. Eventually, she stopped talking entirely and I smiled when I realized she’d already fallen asleep.
Out like a light.
I stood there for another moment, just watching her breathe like some kind of creep, but then I finally managed to wrench my gaze away from my Sleeping Beauty and moved quietly around the room.
The curtains came first. I pulled them closed until the morning light dimmed enough to be manageable.
Then I adjusted the blanket, tucking it around her shoulders.
The ice pack was trickier. It refused to stay balanced on her forehead, sliding sideways every time I tried. Since I was at risk of waking her if I kept trying, I gave up and left it resting near her temple.
She didn’t stir once. Not even a little.
When I finally left the room, Miriam was standing at the door on the other side like a guard dog, her eyes flicking past me. “Is she—”
“Sleeping,” I said.
She nodded, looking back at me expectantly, but I rolled my eyes and shrugged out of my jacket, draping it over the nearest chair. Miriam frowned. “What are you doing?”
I rolled up my sleeves, smirking slightly. “I’m giving my bride a fucking break for once in her life.”
She studied me for another long moment before the corners of her mouth twitched just a bit. Then, to my complete and total surprise, she nodded. “Very well. I’d better get back to work.”
Leaving me where I was, she turned and left the suite, shutting the main door quietly behind herself.
I settled in to take over guard dog duties, absolutely determined to let Eliza sleep.
I didn’t know who was in charge around here with her dad gone and her asleep, but in the absence of any obvious choices, I was appointing myself.
At least insofar as it came to her.