Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
OLIVER
I wish it wasn’t such a clichéd drizzly, gray Scottish morning as we roll up to Glenwither Castle where my parents wait inside, presumably with expressions as inclement as the weather.
It’s a shame Lexi isn’t seeing the grand facade, with its huge arched windows and pointed turrets at either side, against a sunny, blue sky, with the grass around it all lush and green.
Only because I want her to portray it correctly in the book, of course. It doesn’t matter to me at all what she thinks about it personally.
The building might be old and not in the greatest state of repair, but it really is still a stunner in the right light.
Right now, however, as Dane drives our rented SUV, with Cole in the passenger seat and Lexi and me in the back, through the gates and up the long, straight driveway, it looks tired, damp, and sad.
“Wow, is it haunted?” Lexi leans between the front seats to get the best view possible.
Yeah, that’s not the impression I was hoping for.
“You don’t strike me as someone who believes in ghosts.” But she does strike me as someone who looks remarkably good after not getting much sleep on our overnight flight.
“Well, if I did believe in them, this would be the sort of grim-looking building I’d expect to find one.”
“It’s not that bad.” For some reason, I feel the need to defend the place I never enjoyed living in and spent most of my life trying to escape.
We pull up to the entrance, and two members of the household staff with broad smiles come trotting down the steps.
“You’ll like these two.” I nudge Lexi. “Flora and James have been with us since I was a kid. They’ll be on our side.”
“You mean some of the staff won’t be?”
“You’ll see.”
James opens the rear passenger door.
“Oh. Miss.” He does a good job of disguising his surprise. “Hello. Welcome.”
He shoots me a look as I get out of the car behind her.
“James, this is Lexi.” I rest my hand on her shoulder.
She gives me a sharp, questioning look. “Is no one expecting me?”
I shake my head.
There’s a flash across her eyes and her mouth opens to say something I imagine will not be complimentary, but James gets in first.
“I’ll get the bags,” he says, heading for the boot.
“So great to see ya, sir,” Flora says.
“You too.” It’s probably not the done thing, but I give her a hug anyway.
“But you shoulda told us ye were bringing this bonnie lassie with ya. Then we coulda prepared.”
“Yes, I’m surprised he didn’t tell you too,” Lexi says pointedly with an undercurrent of fury at me as she offers her hand to Flora. “But it’s lovely to meet you.”
“Any food allergies or anything we should know aboot?” Flora asks. “So I can let the kitchen know.”
“No, I’m easy. All good with anything.”
“Excellent.” Flora takes a step back to look us both over. “What a lovely couple the two of ye makes.”
Do we? I guess we might.
James reappears from the back of the car. “I’ll take your things upstairs, sir. Those guys can handle their own.” He nods toward Dane and Cole, who’re now standing on the other side of the SUV, surveying the grounds.
“Ye parents are in the garden room.” Flora trots up the steps ahead of us. “I’ll send in some extra tea and those chocolate finger biscuits ya like.”
I lean in to Lexi. “I think I said I liked them once when I was about twelve, and she’s never forgotten.”
“They seem nice,” she says, as we approach the front door.
“Hang on to that thought while we enter the Chamber of Doom.”
“Whoa.” Lexi’s head tips back in wonder as soon as we step inside, and she takes in the soaring arched ceiling.
“Careful.” I grab her arm and yank her toward me. It knocks her off balance and she tips into my side. Instinctively I put my arm around her and catch her around the waist.
“What are you doing?” She looks pissed off at being manhandled.
“Preventing you from walking into that.” I nod at the blue plastic bucket in the middle of the floor that she was heading straight for.
“Jesus.” She straightens and pulls away from me. “Why is that there?”
I point up at the ceiling that she was in awe of. “It might be beautiful, but it’s not exactly watertight.” Right on cue a large drop falls into the quarter-full bucket with an echoey plop.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell anyone you were bringing me with you,” she hisses.
“Would have caused too much drama.”
“And showing up with a strange woman no one’s expecting won’t?”
“Well, yes, it will. But the drama starts the moment I tell them. So better to leave it to the last minute and minimize the suffering.”
“Such boy logic,” she says. “You might have considered things would have been easier for me if you’d sucked that up so they weren’t as shocked as they’re about to be.”
“Ha. Bless your optimistic soul for thinking there’s a way to make anything easier for anyone around here.”
I lead the way through the long wood-paneled hall off the back corner of the entry.
“Are all these people dead royals?” Lexi indicates the paintings and Victorian photos lining the walls.
“Yup. Can’t even tell you who most of them are.”
At the end of the hallway, what’s officially called the garden room—although we’ve always called it the living room—starts to come into view.
Two walls consist mainly of mullioned windows that overlook the lawn and flower beds.
The other two are lined with dark wooden shelves bearing books, family photos, and mementos.
“Oliver!” my mother shrieks as soon as we walk through the open door.
She drops her embroidery and jumps to her feet, lifting her glasses to the top of her head as she bustles toward us, her blue skirt swishing around her knees.
My father lowers his newspaper a couple of inches and peers over the top. “Oliver.”
Even though there’s a couple of feet between me and Lexi, I sense her tense.
If she’s worried about an impending awkward hug, she has nothing to worry about. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mother hug anyone.
“Well, who do we have here?” She looks Lexi over from head to toe like she’s a taxidermied exhibit in the Museum of Natural History.
Dad hauls himself out of his armchair, tugs his brown buttoned-up V-neck cardigan straight, and joins her.
At least he offers me a handshake. “How was your journey?”
It’s the same opening small talk question I’ve heard my dad ask everyone at every event I’ve attended with him since I was about five.
“Fine, Dad. Yeah. A friend lent me a plane.”
“Ah, friends with planes.” He pats my upper arm. “Those are the friends to have.”
“Well?” Mum sniffs and looks from Lexi to me, like Lexi can’t possibly identify herself.
I rest my hand in the center of my fake girlfriend’s back.
“Mum, Dad, this is Lexi Lane. Lexi, this is my mother, Josephine, and father, Craig.” I dispense with their titles—Princess and Earl—partially because this is an informal family meeting where I don’t think we should stand on ceremony, and partially because I know it annoys my mother.
“Nice to meet you.” Lexi offers them a hand to shake, but the second she speaks, they jerk to attention, eyes as wide as a commemorative plate.
“American,” they say in unison.
“Yes,” Lexi says, her hand still hanging in midair. “Oliver and I met in New York.”
“Oh. I see.” Mum’s disappointed tone is more akin to finding out that she’s been disinvited from Trooping the Colour—the monarch’s official birthday bash involving hundreds of soldiers, marching bands, and glittering horse-drawn carriages—and replaced by a corgi.
Dad at least has the decency to take her hand and shake it. “Good to meet you. Lexi Lane. Sounds like a good name for a superhero.”
I press my lips together to try to stop myself from smiling. But it’s tricky.
“Lexi?” Dad continues. “Is that short for something?”
“Alexandra,” she says. “But please call me Lexi. Only my awful boss uses my full name.”
“Your boss?” Mum sounds like the idea of having a job is particularly grubby, and Lexi plummets even further on the approval scale. “What do you do?”
Finally she takes Lexi’s hand and gives it an obviously halfhearted shake.
“I’m a journalist.”
“Oh,” Mum and Dad say, again in unison, while they each take a step back as if they’re run by the same computer program.
“Gosh, I wouldn’t have expected that,” Dad says.
“Well, to be honest, we weren’t expecting anything at all, were we, Craig?” Mum doesn’t wait for my dad to respond before looking at me. “Why on earth didn’t you tell us you were bringing a guest?”
“Didn’t want any fuss.” I slide my hand up Lexi’s back and onto her shoulder. For some reason, the sensation of the ridges of her bra under my fingers catches me by surprise and makes my breath hitch. “You know, keep things simple.”
Lexi tucks into my side, fitting perfectly under my arm exactly as I knew she would, and wraps her arm around my waist.
“Yes,” she says. “No need to go to any trouble for little old me.”
“Would have been nice to know though,” Mum says, still looking only at me until her attention is caught by something over my shoulder.
“Giles, hello.” Her voice is filled with the relief of someone in mortal danger who spots a friend armed with a deadly weapon.
“Good morning, Your Royal Highness and Your Lordship,” he says with a deep respectful bow of his head. “And hello, Oliver,” he adds.
Ah, my parents’ private secretary, Giles Thorn, in all his black-suited, white-shirted glory. In a shocking turn of events his waistcoat is gray—how very daring.
I swear to God that clipboard is surgically attached to his arm. I don’t think I’ve ever once seen him without it, and I don’t recall a time when he wasn’t around to attend to and organize my parents.
“Hello, Giles,” I reply.
His eyes rest on Lexi. “I heard we had an unexpected guest, so thought I’d better pop along and…” The expression on his face would suggest the rest of that sentence is assess the damage.
“News still travels fast around here, then,” I say. “Giles, this is Lexi Lane. My girlfriend.”
I add the last two words pointedly as a poke in his eye. But, turns out, they slide deliciously off my tongue.
“Nice to meet you, Giles,” Lexi again offers her hand.
“Oh, American,” he says as if he’s still stinging over the Boston Tea Party.
“I am, yes. Where are you from?” Lexi asks. There’s no tone to suggest she’s already had enough of this rubbish. But I’m pretty sure that’s what her question means.
“Nowhere you’d have heard of,” he says dismissively.
“Anyway, I just popped along to let you know that, since Prince Oliver did not alert us to the fact he was bringing you, I’ve had Flora quickly make up a room.
I’ll show you there now. Follow me.” He turns toward the door. “We’re heading for the north tower.”
“Wow, that sounds very off with her head,” Lexi says under her breath.
I don’t even try to disguise my snort of laughter.
Also, fuck Giles. “Let’s not put her all the way over on the other side of the house with Dane and Cole.”
“How far is that from your room?” Lexi says softly as she wraps her other arm around my front so she’s now totally circling my waist, indicating she’s going nowhere.
“Virtually a different county,” I say.
My dad coughs and my mum wrings her hands.
“I didn’t realize we’d have to be in separate rooms.” This time, Lexi’s pouty whisper is clearly intended for everyone’s ears.
“Decorum, miss,” Giles says from over by the door. “Now if you’d like to follow me.”
“Can we really not be in the same room?” Her words are accompanied by a pinch at my waist and an imploring look that’s begging me to read her mind.
Shit. I see what she’s getting at. We need to be in the same room for her to interview me in private without anyone being suspicious.
“Of course we can,” I answer Lexi while glaring at Giles, who’s staring at me.
This is an opportunity for one of my favorite pastimes. Standing up to the bullshit in general and pissing off Giles specifically. “Shame you wasted Flora’s time. But you can bring Lexi’s luggage back over. She’ll be staying with me.”
“It’s all decided, sir.” He turns away again. “Follow me, Miss Lane.”
“You’ll be nice and cozy in the north tower,” my mother says.
“Not as nice and cozy as she’ll be with me.” And she does, indeed, feel nice and cozy snuggled against me right now.
“Sir.” Giles spins around to face us and lets out an exasperated sigh. “It’s arranged.”
“Not by me, Giles. I have arranged nothing.”
“No. And that’s precisely the point,” my mother says. “It would have been handy if you had made some plans. Like letting us know you were bringing your girlfriend with you. Or that you even have a girlfriend.”
How lovely of her to speak about Lexi as if she’s not here.
“It’ll be fine, Josie.” Dad pats Mum on the back like she’s an old friend who requires reassurance.
I ignore my parents since they are not the issue here—Giles is.
“Giles.” Somehow it’s easier to sound firm and confident with Lexi next to me. “Please have Lexi’s things brought to my room. Thank you.”
The fact I managed a please is quite the accomplishment under the circumstances.
“In the meantime, I’ll show her around.” I peel her arms from my waist, take her hand, and lead her through the door past Giles’s simmering face. “Come on, darling, I’ll give you the grand tour.”