“This tour might be a tad bit different.I expect she will have loads of questions about everything and want to stop and take copious notes along the way.Please indulge her.”
“Then we’ll take our time, so you can ask all the questions ye want.We’ll start in the hall.”
The interior of the house is as stunning as the exterior.It looks like the Carrara marble quarry threw up inside the main hall, with blindingly white columns, statues and busts all popping against the beige limestone walls.The marble competes with the bright colors of the paintings, both on canvass and the murals in the dome.Which in turn in is competition with the furniture, with its gold details, embroidered fabric and intricate carvings.
And that’s just the hall.The rest of the rooms are more of the same, except with the addition of silk damask wallpaper so the walls aren’t bare.
Mrs.Garnett is as lovely as a tour guide as she is a person.She even uses the time when I’m writing notes to order us snacks, which means some poor footman follows us around with a tray of delectable baked goods and tea.I don’t know how I’ll go back to touring house museums without this service in the future.
Mrs.Garnett does tell me some good stories, like the secret passageway the second marquess used to get to his mistress during house parties.And the time he thought he put her in the blue room, but she was in the yellow and the earl’s wife in the blue room was only too happy to see a young, nearly naked marquess walk out of her giant fireplace.
I could think of another marquess I would like to see, naked, at my secret passage.
And wow, I did not mean for that to sound like that in my head.But also, maybe I did.
Leo has turned me into a sex fiend.Not a comfortable discovery to have while standing next to a warm, maternal-type, figure.The same maternal-type figure who raised the very marquess I’m lusting after.
In between moments of extreme lust, Mrs.Garnett gives me some great stories about this pile and the family who owns it, and I get great notes and less good (due to a lack of skill on my part) sketches.
This house is amazing.But that makes me wonder why I haven’t already heard about it.The thought brings my mood down, because there’s only one reason why I wouldn’t have heard of a house this nice, with a collection this significant.
It must mean Leo, or his descendants, don’t turn around the debt situation.And then the house must get destroyed, either by the natural process of decay making ruins or a fire sped along the process, the art and furniture scattered among the new rich industrialists.In the period right after World War II especially, a lot of country houses were abandoned and demolished due to lack of funds of the landed gentry, who were not prepared to keep up with a changing world.
Will my presence have changed that for him?His house information hasn’t updated in my head, as if I had learned it in school.But maybe I’m exempt from the effects because I’m not in the future when the change happened?Time travel is so complicated.
“Thank you for your time, Mrs.Garnett.For showing me around the house.”I subtly reach out my hand for some money from Anne.One of the (few) perks of service in these country houses, which is otherwise a difficult job, is that some employees gave tours to “polite tourists” (rich people) who come to see the houses, and they got paid tips.
“I’m not taking anything from such a close friend of Leo’s.”Mrs.Garnett folds her arms across her chest, giving me the most unfriendly look she’s given me thus far.
“Well Anne isn’t Leo’s close friend.And you showed her around too.So take it for Anne.”I know how much they both get paid.Not enough.She and Anne are going to take all the tips I can get Victoria to give me.
Mrs.Garnett begrudgingly takes it.“I’ll show ye to your room, and then whenever yer ready, ye can come down for dinner.”
She takes us to the Rose Room, with beautiful pink floral wallpaper and a giant painting of a pair of lovers behind a rose bush that looks Rococo.Anne, not impressed with Leo’s house as I am (living at a palace has really desensitizing her to excess), bursts into action once we get into the room.She opens my trunk and gets out a dress for dinner that I didn’t even know we packed.And makeup toiletries I was also unaware of.That probably have lead in them.
“We’re just having dinner with Leo…er, Lord Basildon.”Right.No first names.What a disaster what that would be, familiarity between the sexes.*hardest eye roll to ever roll eyes* “He knows what I look like without all of this.”I wave my hands about to encompass the items on the table.
Anne efficiently gets me to the vanity without responding to that, by luring me with my own notebook and promising I can take notes while she works.She gets no complaints from me after that.Well, little complaints.She is trying to apply poison to my face.
Once Anne’s made me “presentable,” Mrs.Garnett appears out of nowhere (probably those secret passages) to take me to the drawing room.
“There’s only the two of us.I don’t think we need the entire drawing room to dinner procession,” I say.But the room is nice.It’s the room designated for the women to gather, so it’s done in pastel colors, with a pink rose wallpaper, light green upholstered chairs, and wide windows partly obscured with light green curtains.
Mrs.Garnett gives me the same response Anne did.Not a verbal one, more ignoring my strangeness and lack of social propriety while sitting me on the couch with a drink in my hand.
“It is no use arguing with Mrs.Garnett,” Leo says as he walks into the room to sit next to me on the couch.“She is always right,” he whispers in my ear.
When he’s done whispering, he stays close, his eyes hot on me as they linger.
“Now why would ye whisper that last part?”Mrs.Garnett says, sighing like someone who has dealt with a lot of Leo’s shenanigans over the years.“Anne, come have dinner with us down in the servants’ hall.”Mrs.Garnett tugs Anne toward the door.
“But I should…chaperone?—”
“They’ll be fine.”Mrs.Garnett allows no argument as she drags Anne out of the room.And then closes the door on the rest of Anne’s argument.
Leaving us alone in a room plucked from my literal fantasies.
CHAPTER26
