But there was nothing to discuss.
I owed Louisa Butchart an apology.
And nothing more.
An hour later, I sat at a grand table in one of the two dining rooms of Whitehall Court Castle. I was at the head of the table. My family and childhood friends surrounded me.
It astonished me how nothing had changed in the years I was gone. Down to the plaid carpeting, carved wooden furniture, candelabras, and floral wallpaper. The walls were sodden with memories.
Eat your greens or end up in the dumbwaiter.
But, Papa—
No Papa. No son of mine will grow up to be pudgy and soft like Butcharts’ kids. Eat all your greens now, or you’re spending the night in the box.
I’ll throw up if I do!
Just as well. Vomiting would do your portly figure good.
As I looked around me, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Cece and Mother—even more than I was for myself. At least I went and built myself another life. They stayed here, burdened by my father’s godawful temper and never-ending demands.
“So, Devon, do tell us all about your life in Boston. Is it as dreadful and gray as they say?” Byron demanded, chewing loudly on shepherd’s pie and meatloaf. “I’ve heard it isn’t much different from Birmingham.”
“I suppose the person who told you that has never been to either,” I said, swallowing a chunk of shepherd’s pie without tasting it. “I rather enjoy the four seasons of the city as well as the cultural establishments.” The cultural establishments being Sam’s gentleman club, in which I gambled, fenced, and smoked myself to death.
“And what of the women?” Benedict probed, well into his fifth glass of wine. “How do they chart in comparison to England?”
My eyes met Louisa’s from across the table. She didn’t shy away from my gaze but didn’t offer any type of emotion either.
“Women are women. They are fun, necessary, and an overall bad financial investment,” I drawled. I was hoping to convey I was still the same, no-good tomcat who’d run away from England to avoid marriage.
Benedict laughed. “Well, if no one’s going to address the elephant in the room, I might as well do so myself. Devon, don’t you have anything to say to our dear sister after leaving her high and dry? Four years, she waited for you.”
“Benedict, enough,” Louisa snapped, tilting her chin up demurely. “Where are your manners?”
“Where are his?” he crooned. “Someone has to call him out on this, since Mum and Dad can’t.”
“Where’s the Duke of Salisbury and his wife?” I asked, realizing for the first time they hadn’t attended the funeral.
There was a beat of silence before my mother cleared her throat. “They passed away, I’m afraid. A car accident.”
Christ. Why hadn’t she told me?
“My condolences,” I said, looking at Louisa rather than her brothers, whom I still hadn’t considered to be on the same evolutionary scale as me.
“These things happen.” Byron waved a dismissive hand. Clearly, he was too enamored with being a duke these days to care about the price of his new title.
There was another short-lived silence before Benedict spoke again.
“She’d told all of her friends you were coming back to her, you know. Louisa. Poor bird went to see venues for engagement parties all across London.”
Louisa gnawed on her inner cheek, swirling her glass of wine and looking into it without drinking. I wanted to drag her somewhere secluded and private. To apologize for the mess I’d created in her life. To assure her I fucked myself over just as much as I fucked her over.
“Gawd, do you remember?” Byron cackled, slapping his brother’s back. “She even chose an engagement ring and everything. Got our father to pay for it because she didn’t want you to think she was too demanding. You properly mugged her off, mate.”
“That was not my intention,” I said through gritted teeth, finding no appetite for my dish nor the company. “We were both children.”
“I do believe this is something Devon and Louisa shall address privately.” My mother tapped the corners of her mouth with a napkin, although there was no trace of food on her face. “It is inappropriate to broach this matter in company, not to mention at my husband’s funeral dinner.”
“Besides, there’s so much more to talk about,” Drew, Cece’s husband, exclaimed with faux excitement, grinning at me. “Devon, I’d been meaning to ask—what are your thoughts about Britain’s mortgage boom? The inflation risk is quite high, don’t you reckon?”