Chapter 11
WILL
Iwoke up slowly. No alarms, or emails, or Jesse-related emergencies that Alex or Nate needed to discuss with me right this minute.
It was just quiet, without even the vague sounds of traffic or horns blaring in the distance.
My eyes blinked open to gray skies and thick clouds outside, the early morning light weak and inoffensive.
I stretched my arms above my head, rolling over with the pleasant thought that this might’ve been the best sleep of my life, but then someone walked across the room.
Surprise smacked into me, jerking me the rest of the way into consciousness. I sat up, alarmed to find a man in a dark suit calmly moving around the stately bedroom like it was completely normal behavior.
To be fair, the room itself looked like something out of a historical drama, with tall windows overlooking the wooded back corner of Eliza’s estate, thick curtains pulled halfway open, and furniture that was probably called things like antique mahogany writing desk instead of desk I bought online at midnight.
So maybe it was normal here, having someone in your room when you woke up, but I frowned anyway. Because it sure as hell wasn’t normal to me.
The man set a tray on the small table beneath the window. Then he straightened and turned to give me a pleasant smile. “Good morning, sir.”
I blinked a few times, fighting the urge to rub my eyes just to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. “Good morning?”
Even though it came out sounding like a question, the dude’s polite smile didn’t falter. He had the composure of someone who’d done this a thousand times before as he took a short step forward. “My name is Aaron, Mr. Westwood. I’m the footman assigned to you during your stay.”
Assigned to me. A footman. Wow.
It was starting to look like this castle ran on a staffing system I’d last seen in Downton Abbey when I’d watched that single episode with Jane while she’d been ill. I rubbed my hands over my face, but when I looked up again, he still hadn’t disappeared.
A footman. Okay. He’s really here.
“Thank you, Aaron,” I managed, not even making it sound like a question this time. “I’m W—Jesse, and this is already the nicest way anyone has ever woken me up.”
He smiled again and motioned toward the tray he’d set down. “I’ve brought breakfast.”
I glanced at it, realizing the tray held coffee, eggs, toast, and some fresh fruit arranged neatly on different plates. My mouth practically started watering as I registered it all. “Please tell me that’s for me.”
God, what a way to start the day. It occurred to me then that I’d drawn the curtains last night, which meant he’d even opened them for me. Talk about emotional waking-up support.
He inclined his chin in what I assumed was an enthusiastic nod for a staff member of distant royalty. “Yes, sir. It’s for you.”
“It’s official. You’re my favorite person today,” I said without even having to think about it. “Seriously, man. Thanks.”
Aaron looked amused but didn’t comment. Instead, he straightened the tray slightly while I climbed out of bed and crossed the room, trying to look like this was normal to me. Waking up in a castle, happy to find another dude already in my room.
I ducked into the bathroom to change, relieved that I’d grabbed a shower last night, and when I emerged, he was still there.
When I sat down at the table, he took a polite step back and I wondered suddenly how this all worked.
I picked up my cutlery, figuring I might as well ask.
Before I made a fool of myself outside of the room too.
“Hey, so I met Dudley last night,” I said, spearing some kind of berry on my fork. “He said he was a butler?”
“Yes, sir,” Aaron confirmed, but didn’t give me any further information or call me by my name.
Well, my brother’s name, but still. It looked like sir did it for him.
“He seems like a very dignified man,” I offered, still trying to make conversation in the hopes that he’d explain how the hierarchy worked around here.
Aaron inclined his chin again. “Yes, sir. He is.”
“I felt like I should apologize for existing when I met him,” I muttered. “How’d he get to be so…”
Aaron coughed lightly when I trailed off. I suspected it was his version of laughing. “Dudley has been in the employ of the Rodericks for many years, sir.”
“Sure.” I popped the berry into my mouth and chewed it, surprised by the burst of intense flavor that followed. “Wow. This is good.”
“Grown right here on the estate, sir,” Aaron said proudly. “The eggs are from our chickens as well.”
Impressive.
After swallowing a bite of the eggs as well, I picked up my lifeblood—coffee—and got back on track. Clearly, there was a lot more to this estate than I’d realized, but I had to start somewhere, and right now, that place was at the people. “Alright, so you and Dudley. Who else is there?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Well, I mean, there’s you, the footman, and Dudley is a butler. I’m assuming it’s not only the two of you keeping the estate functioning like a well-oiled machine.”
His chest puffed out a bit. “No, sir. There’s also Miriam. She oversees the housekeeping staff.”
“I haven’t met her yet,” I said thoughtfully. Then I looked back up at him. “Have I?”
“No, sir, but you likely will this morning.”
I nodded slowly and took a grateful sip of the coffee, swallowing and immediately wondering how I’d gone without this all my life. The coffee was as amazing as the eggs and berries—and it’d been brought to me before I’d even woken up.
I could get used to this. “Is there a valet lurking somewhere I should know about?”
“Lord Roderick has one,” Aaron said. “Thomas.”
Lord Roderick? Shit. I forgot how uptight they are about titles around here.
I’d picked up on it when I’d visited with Jesse all those years ago, but the only other times I’d ever spent time with aristocracy had been in much less formal settings. Clubs in London. Meetings back home.
I was also starting to realize there was an entire ecosystem of staff I was only beginning to understand, but it seemed important to learn about them. Refocusing on Aaron, I noticed that while he was there and paying attention to me, he wasn’t staring, a real skill as far as I was concerned.
“Okay,” I said. “So we’ve got Dudley, the butler, Miriam, the housekeeper, Thomas, the valet, and you, my personal guide to not embarrassing myself.”
Aaron finally allowed himself a ghost of a smile. “I’m here to assist, sir.”
“Excellent. Because I have a very important question.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Where does Eliza normally eat breakfast?”
Aaron winced. It was subtle, but I caught it anyway. For a beat, I thought it was because I’d referred to her so casually, but as soon as he responded, I realized it hadn’t been that. Or at least, not only that.
“Lady Elizabeth doesn’t usually join the household for breakfast,” he said carefully. “She keeps a very regimented schedule.”
Sounds about right. But it still didn’t tell me where I could find her. “A very regimented schedule? What exactly does that mean?”
“She takes her coffee in her room, then goes for her walk. After that, she returns to the castle to work.”
Work. The way he said it made it sound like the word had at least twelve different meanings. “Work doing what?”
Aaron hesitated for a second before offering another very diplomatic answer. “She oversees quite a lot of the estate’s operations.”
A polite way of saying she runs everything, then. Tours. Film crews. Staff. Finances. The entire machine.
I had a sudden urge to ask if she was paid for the amount of work she clearly did around here, but something told me that question would open a door I wasn’t ready to walk through, so I kept eating instead. Halfway through my breakfast, however, movement outside the window caught my eye.
Fog hung low over the lawns outside, curling around the trees like something out of a Gothic novel, but there she was. Eliza stepped out of the woods at the edge of the property with two dogs trotting happily beside her.
She was bundled in a coat, her golden brown hair pulled back loosely, the dogs weaving around her legs as they made their way across the grass.
I just watched her for a beat, not missing how serene she looked out there.
The entire scene was so peaceful, so unlike the chaos my own life had become, that it kind of made me jealous of my brother.
“Does she walk every morning?” I asked, abruptly turning back to Aaron. This wasn’t the time for jealousy. It was time for action.
“Yes, sir.”
I watched her for another second, taking in the serenity on her features and the way the dogs moved around her like she was their center of gravity. Then I stood up. Aaron looked mildly surprised but immediately snapped to attention.
“Change of plans,” I said, grabbing a jacket from the back of a chair and sliding it on.
Aaron frowned. “Sir?”
“I’m going to go catch her before she comes inside.”
He blinked hard but nodded as soon as I started toward the door. “Very good, sir. I’ll be here if you require anything.”
I nodded, but even as I headed out, I wondered why the first thing I wanted to do this morning, after the best sleep of my life, was chase my fake fiancée across a foggy English estate. Five minutes later, however, I’d realized three things.
First, you actually had to know where the other person was to chase them. Two, English castles were unnecessarily confusing. Three, I was lost. So lost that I had no idea where Eliza was anymore.
This had not been the plan. The plan had been simple. Leave my room, find the back door, intercept Eliza before she came inside, and casually suggest a walk around the grounds to get to know each other better.
Instead, I’d taken a turn somewhere near a hallway that had looked identical to the last hallway, descended a narrow staircase that definitely hadn’t been there a moment ago, and now, I was standing in a dim corridor that looked significantly older than the rest of the castle.