Page 11 of Valentine Nook (The Valentine Nook Chronicles #1)

Normally, however, the staff is too busy to hang around.

Not today, it seems. It’s like everyone suddenly decided to pick up a sweeping brush or fill the buckets with water, although on closer inspection, three-quarters of the staff I can spot are female.

Which has everything to do with Miles being here.

I don’t know why I haven’t banned him from the yard because I’m convinced productivity drops by fifty percent when he’s around.

On the flip side, I don’t need to ask anyone to bring us coffees because they’re already being brought over by someone who’s going to trip on something if she doesn’t stop staring at Miles instead of paying attention to where she’s going.

“Coffee, Your Grace, my lords.”

“Thanks.” I nod to her with a smile, though she’s obviously not looking at me.

“This is perfect. Thank you.” Miles flashes a smile that is way less professional than I care for, and I swear she swoons.

She’s walking away, backward, mind you, because god forbid she wastes an opportunity to stare at Miles when he calls her again.

“Also, could you call over to the yard and let them know I’m running a little late?

Ask them to get Chester ready. I want to stick and ball with him. ”

“Oh yes, absolutely, sir. No problem. I’ll do it now, sir.”

Foxleigh Park, the polo yard that Miles runs with his own team of stable hands, is a couple of miles across the fields and where you can find him when he’s not causing havoc elsewhere.

Amazingly, even though Miles is chaos personified, the polo yard is run with an unarguable attention to detail. There isn’t a speck of hay out of place. The ponies are treated like Olympic athletes. Their diets are closely monitored, and their exercise schedules are strictly regimented.

“Thank you,” he replies, watching her as she hurries off as quickly as possible without breaking into a run.

The number one rule of any yard is no running. You never know what will be coming around the corner.

Bringing the cup to my lips, I sip while my to-do list floods my brain. Calving season might be over, but that just means something else moves to the top.

“Hey, I ran into Eddie this morning,” Miles says, and I groan because I know where it’s heading. “He wants to know if you’re playing in the cricket match at the summer fair. Henners and I are on The One True Love team this year, and Al is playing for The Cupid’s Arrow.”

The Valentine Nook Summer Fair is held in the field next to the cricket pitch. It’s an eventful weekend with a hive of activity from music and food to games and competitions. When the weather’s good, we can get ten thousand visitors across the weekend.

However, the summer fair, like the Christmas fair, is run by a committee, overseen every year by one member of my family. It’s my least favorite thing about Valentine Nook, and no matter how often I’ve tried to change it, I get voted down every time.

But this year, I really really don’t want to head it up. Because this year was supposed to be Caroline’s year. Her first time as my wife and an official member of the Burlington family.

Six months on and the looks of pity still haven’t stopped. Nor have the sympathetic head nods and understanding smiles.

I see them every time I’m walking down the high street, and people stop me to ask how I’m doing. I hear them whisper as I pass. Even though I try my best to block it out, late at night, I wonder how many of them knew about her and Jeremy.

And the summer fair will bring it all back a thousand times over.

I shake my head in disappointment. “I can’t?—”

“Lando—”

“I’m head of the committee this year,” I interrupt before Miles starts up his usual argument about how I’m too weighed down in duty to have fun.

Easy to say when you’re the youngest son with zero responsibility.

I peer between my brothers with pleading eyes.

“But I’ll give you ten thousand pounds if you swap with me. ”

“Nope. I did it last year.”

“C’mon, Milo. You’re way better at judging all the competitions than I am. ”

“I know, but I’m still not doing it.” He grins. “I want to win the cricket match. Ask Alex. When’s he back, by the way?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Max is entering Sherbet in ‘Best Turned Out Pony,’” Hendricks says, leaning against the wall. “We had to order red wraps because he wants him to match his Spider-Man costume.”

It’s amazing how quickly my bad mood can appear these days. “Well, if I’m judging, you’ll need to warn Max he can’t expect favorable treatment.”

Even Hendricks, who’s usually too laid-back to react to anything, is momentarily taken aback by my snapping. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Lando’s still sulking because of the starlet in Bluebell, remember?” Miles answers for me, unhelpfully and untruthfully, but I don’t bother correcting him. “Have you seen her yet?”

Hendricks shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Me either. Although I watched one of her movies with Clemmie the other night. It was good,” he says and turns to me. “What’s she like, Lan?”

You’d think I’d have gotten used to the really annoying face Miles pulls when he’s shit-stirring, but I haven’t. Especially when I’m the target.

“How would I know?”

“You’ve met her.”

“So—”

“So what’s she like?”

“She’s . . . I dunno. Blond. What do you want me to say?”

I know what he wants me to say.

He wants me to say that she’s the most insanely beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, with curves that Renaissance artists would have killed each other to paint.

That while it should be her dripping wet body I can’t stop thinking about, what’s really seared into my brain is the way she glared at me, arms rigid over her chest while enough anger blazed in her eyes she could have melted me if she’d glared any longer.

I was with Caroline for four years, and I never saw that level of emotion.

But I’m not telling Miles that. I’m not telling anyone. It will stay my secret until I’m dead and buried.

“Is she hot? Marriage material?”

“Marriage material? Jesus Christ, you sound like Mum.”

Miles throws his head back and barks out a laugh. “I just wanted to see if I could get that vein in your temple to pop.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Why are you such a dick?”

He doesn’t answer, just takes a sip of his coffee and leans back against the wall next to Hendricks.

The pair of them stare at me with their arms crossed, and it’s almost impossible to tell them apart.

In fact, very few can outside of situations where Hendricks is elbow-deep in a cow or Miles is galloping down a polo field swinging a mallet.

“C’mon, Lan, go back to what you were telling us before we got rudely interrupted by Elsa giving birth.”

To be honest, I can’t remember where I’d got to. The annoyance I’ve been feeling since she moved in is bubbling too near the surface of my skin to allow me to think clearly.

“Did I tell you about the waterfall?”

Hendricks’s eyes slice to Miles, and he’s doing his best to keep a smile in check.

“Waterfall?”

I nod. “Yeah, you know, the waterfall over on the edge of the village? You can cut through from the back pasture, but the path is pretty overgrown. There’s a track leading from Bluebell, which I used to use.

” I stop talking because the twins are staring at me like I’ve grown two heads, and Hendricks is no longer holding down his smile. “What?”

“Nothing. We just know the waterfall, is all. ”

I frown. “Why are you saying it like that? I’m talking about my waterfall.”

“It’s not your waterfall.”

Technically it is because it’s my land, but whatever. “I’m the only one who goes there.”

Hendricks shakes his head and laughs. “No, you aren’t. We used to go there all the time. It was our favorite party spot when we came home from school.”

“What? When? I wasn’t invited.”

“That’s because you’d have told us to stop.”

My gaze flicks between the pair of them.

Sometimes it’s impossible to tell when they’re joking, and it would be so typical of them to wind me up for no reason.

It’s times like these when the eight-year age gap feels so much bigger, and it takes so much more effort on my part not to resent their freedoms when my teenage years were spent preparing for leadership.

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly.” Miles clasps a hand to his chest, as dramatic as always. “The waterfall has a special place in my heart. It’s where I lost my virginity to Isobel Carruthers. It’s where I ended up with Mabel last Friday night.”

“What? Last Friday ?” I was there last Friday too. I squeeze my eyes tight shut and scrub a hand down my face. That is not a visual I want in my head. “Stop ruining my thinking spot for me.”

“You’re ruining my fucking spot. What about the next time I want to go? I’m going to get performance anxiety, thinking my big brother will walk in on me?—”

I spin around, checking no one’s listening. Even though everyone knows what Miles is like, he’s talking far too loudly for my liking. I try to keep some level of professionalism around here. “Milo?—”

“Kidding. I’d never get performance anxiety?— ”

“ Miles .”

“Sorry.” He sweeps an arm out in front of him. “Continue.”

I sigh so deeply I’m certain my bones rattle. I can’t even remember what I was going to tell them. They’d only laugh anyway.

“Why is she so under your skin?” Hendricks asks when I still haven’t said anything.

“Who?”

“Holiday Simpson.”

“She’s not.”

“Sounds like she is.” His mouth curves down in one of those I-don’t-give-a-shit pouts, and his shoulders jerk.

“Well, she isn’t.”

“Then why do you care whether Pierre teaches her how to cook?”

Fucking Hendricks. He was bloody listening earlier. He’s the dark horse to Miles’s bull in a china shop. Quieter, pays attention, but you don’t realize until it’s too late.

“Because he’s got enough to do, and I don’t want her hanging around the house.”

“In case Clemmie and Mum get the wrong idea?”