Page 1 of Last Comes Fate

PROLOGUE

Xavier

Iwas becoming something of an expert on funerals.

This one was rather nice, so far as they go. Smaller than the grand procession organized for my father, but there was still a line of cars that snaked through the village following the chapel service. Henry was buried in the old churchyard on the day autumn arrived. A chilly breeze skimmed off the lake, forcing us into overcoats, but the remnants of summer flowers still floated about the air, reminding everyone of better days. The estate hosted a wake afterward for the peers and MPs and other aristocratic fools who were there more to hobnob with each other than to bid farewell to a man they only ever knew as the brother, then uncle, to much more influential people.

In other words, they were there to see me.

I ignored every one of them.

The service was short. Henry was never much for a lot of words. He preferred a brief, dry joke and a stiff upper lip, as they say. So I offered a few quick remembrances without meeting the eyes of a single supposed mourner. Listed, with the help of Elsie and Frederick’s notes, a few of his accomplishments and other contributions to his community.

I actually found out a lot about him. That his favorite food was cook’s roasted lamb, and when he was a boy, he dreamed of being a chef himself. Like me. I learned he took particular pride in the little sheep herd we maintained at Kendal and submitted them from time to time to local fairs or shows. He even took first place ribbon at Findon when he was a boy.

What was more than clear was the way he loved Kendal like nothing else. Despite being the second son, he’d been the estate’s caretaker for nearly his entire life, since my grandparents both passed when he and Rupert were still just lads. But while Rupert had been more interested in polo and parties, Henry had quietly revolutionized Kendal’s means of income over the past thirty-five years. He had seamlessly translated the estate’s holdings into a digital economy, yet somehow maintained its status as a modernized country dukedom, complete with farms and tenants that others thought belonged to a different age. A truly hybrid operation that was much more innovative than I’d ever given him credit for when he was alive.

It was understandable, then, why he’d never had children. Kendal was his family. It was the only thing that had ever mattered to him.

The love was clearly returned. The village church was small but packed with locals who cried genuine tears on his behalf. Remaining tenants too. Various businesspeople who had conducted affairs with him outside the ranks of the House of Lords. Friends, family. Even some extended cousins who, yes, included my stepmother, her sister, and the other distant Parkers waiting for my imminent demise as the reluctant Duke of Kendal.

Gone was the only person who’d ever believed I could actually fill the shoes of this ridiculous title.

I couldn’t look at any of them. Couldn’t fathom this entire congregation who had known and appreciated my uncle, and by extension my father, and therefore me—someone who knew so little about what they had done and was now forced to take it on or let their hard work wither on the vine.

Henry deserved better than that. He deserved better than me.

By the end of the service, I had the outright shakes as I escaped to the garden. I yearned for a drink in peace without a thousand people wondering about the future plans for the estate. It was maybe a little early for brandy, but I was past caring. Anything to quiet the storm that was threatening to split me into pieces.

Unfortunately, the garden was anything but a refuge. The camellia bush at the southeast end was starting to bloom. Amid the browns and yellow and burnt siennas of autumn, the bright pink stood out like a herald.

The color of deepest longing.

The color of my utter regret.

The color of Francesca.

It was everything I could do not to call her after Henry passed and beg her to come back. I did everything through the service to keep her from my mind, knowing I’d have smashed my fist through the lectern if it had come to that.

But with that pink flashing like a strobe through the falling leaves and garden greenery, the memories of her sweet scent, the soft warmth of her body, the mischievous curve of her smile—each one cut through me like one of the rapiers mounted in the library.

She should be here. She’d know exactly what to say to put my head right. But more than that, she’d be grounding, a safe place for me to go when the rest of the world was pressing in, demanding their pound of flesh.

But now she was gone.

Because I’d cocked it all up.

“All right, mate?”

I turned to find Jagger and Elsie—otherwise known as the only other people in the world I could trust—approaching slowly, as if I were a wild animal. Elsie, my mother’s best friend and my executive assistant, wore a black version of her typical jumper, wool skirt, and Balmorals—the same uniform she’d had since first meeting my mum in a library nearly thirty years ago. The consistency was, as always, a particular comfort.

Meanwhile, between a designer suit, diamond-encrusted cufflinks, and a manicured goatee, Jagger, my best friend and business partner, was a bit too flash for a gentry funeral. It was something I loved about him, though. You could take the boy out of Croydon, but never Croydon out of the boy. Like me, there was a side of Jag that would always indulge no matter how successful our empire of restaurants became—the part of him that still remembered what it was like to have nothing. Maybe had a hole, deep down, that could never be filled.

They were a bit of an odd pair, standing there in the middle of the garden. But right now, they were everything I had in the whole fucking world.

I yanked at the lapel of my morning suit. To be honest, I was quite annoyed that I had to wear this thing at all. Henry hated fuss, but he did like propriety. Georgina insisted that as the head of the family, I’d be expected to dress like it. And so, to the tailor I went to make my very best impression of an emperor penguin.

Elsie offered a rueful smile as she popped onto her toes to adjust my collar. “Only a bit longer, dear, and then you can leave.”

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