“I’ll be off to England for the remainder of the week, as I mentioned—” he began, but now it was my turn to catch him off guard.
“Dude. I’m not going to need you until next month, if at all. Share your schedule with someone who cares.”
I shoved him toward my front door. Normally, moving a tall, built man of his size wasn’t that easy. But since his pants were still half-done, he lost his footing and stumbled backward a little.
“You’re as refined as an alley cat,” he said with great satisfaction.
“I’m not the one who threw a half-asleep person into a cold shower.” I gave him another shove.
He made a show of pretending to bite my hand as I pushed him. “I regret nothing, Sweven. It was a pleasure to fuck you.”
“And a one-off,” I reminded him, opening the door behind him and giving him a final thrust. “Also, don’t try to make Sweven happen. We’re not those people.”
Outside, in the communal hallway, half dressed and laughing gruffly, still hopping from side to side as he pulled his pants on, he gave me the most devastating smirk I’d ever seen. I had to remind myself that he was a flirt and a rake. A man who, despite his beautiful face, had an ugly rap sheet with the ladies.
“You don’t know what kind of person I am. But you’re about to find out.”
The bad news was that I’d accidentally made it to my father’s funeral.
The good news was that I was so happy to spot Mum and Cece, not even the fact I was there honoring my father managed to put a damper on my mood.
The original plan was to arrive a day after the funeral. They must’ve conducted the funeral a day early, seeing as they did not need to accommodate my schedule any longer. I showed up during the last act, when the casket was lowered into the ground.
My father was buried in the back of Whitehall Court Castle, by a deserted church, where his ancestors had been buried. Where, presumably, I would one day rest for eternity too.
My childhood home was a grand fortress. With medieval-style turrets, Gothic Revival architecture, granite and marble, and an unholy amount of arched windows. The castle was surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped garden at the front, and an out-of-service old church around the back. There were two barns, four servant cottages, and a manicured walkway leading to a wild forest.
On a clear day, you could see the French coast from Whitehall Court Castle’s rooftop. Memories of my younger self, lean and bronzed, daring the sun to burn me alive and melt me into the stone I’d lain upon, chased one another in my head.
I strode toward the thick cluster of people in black, mentally ticking off the attendance list in my head.
Mum was there, dainty and dignified as ever, patting her nose with a wad of tissues.
My sister, Cecilia, was there with her husband Drew Hasting, whom I’d met multiple times when they visited me in the States. Though I skipped their wedding in Kent, I made sure to gift the couple a lovely studio apartment in Manhattan so they could visit me regularly.
Cecilia and Drew were both plump and tall. I suppose to the naked eye, they looked like twins. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder but did not acknowledge one another. Though I had tried very hard to like Hasting for the sake of my sister, I couldn’t ignore how staggeringly unimpressive his entire being was.
While he did come from good pedigree and a highly connected family, he had been known around gentlemen clubs in England as a rather dull, dim-witted man who couldn’t hold on to a job if one chained itself to his leg.
Byron and Benedict were standing on the far end of the throng. They were in their mid forties, both looking bloated and wrinkled. It was as though they had spent every waking moment since I’d left drinking and smoking themselves into their current state.
And then there was Louisa Butchart.
At thirty-nine, Louisa had managed to become agreeable to the eye. She had hair as dark as my soul, short and shiny, scarlet lips, and a fine and graceful bone structure. Her trim figure was clad in a double-breasted black coat.
A woman any respectable man of my position and title would want on his arm.
I had to admit if it wasn’t for the fact I needed to reject her on principle, Louisa was sure to make a man like me very happy one day.
I tucked a rollie into the side of my mouth and lit it up as I made my way to the gaping hole in the lush green grass. I stopped when my chest bumped into Cecilia’s back. I leaned forward, my lips finding her ear.
“’ello, Sis.”
Cecilia turned to me, her blue eyes swimming with shock. I kept my gaze on the coffin as little by little, piles of dirt concealed it from view. For a moment, I was acutely aware of the fact that everyone’s attention had drifted from the casket and focused on me. I couldn’t blame them. They probably thought I was a hologram.