Although I’d never “lived with staff,” I could have guessed this.
I didn’t share that, and not only because, at once, I found the keys in my fingers whisked away and offered to Fitzgibbons, who took them.
Prudence then hooked her arm in mine, and with strength I’d never guess someone of her stature could possess, she dragged me into the house.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go. I was dying to get inside The Downs. There were pictures of the outside, but not one to be found of the interior.
It was just that she dragged me there.
And she did this talking.
“Rest assured, like I promised, we’re turning the house upside down. Anything we can find, we’re putting out in great-great-grandmama’s studio.” She looked up at me as she continued to drag me into and through the entryway. “That’s out in the north garden. It’s a very nice space. I think you’ll love it there. It’ll also give you privacy.”
I was listening. And even if I wanted to hear what she had to say, I also wanted to be in this moment where I was finally in the presence of someone who, until then, had been nothing but emails in my inbox: however, she was still a woman who’d become a friend, and then a good friend, and now, we were finally together.
However, I couldn’t quite concentrate due to what was assailing my eyes.
The front hall was massive.
No, that didn’t describe it correctly.
It was colossal.
The walls were beautifully creamy and only adorned with two massive portraits hanging on opposite sides of the floor-to-ceiling (and that ceiling was two stories up) windows at the back of the space.
The windows gave a view of the courtyard gardens. They were situated beyond a central stairwell. After the first grand sweep of it from the floor at the center of the hall, that stairwell split into flights that rose gracefully off to each side.
And above those flights were the portraits.
One was a man in a uniform, a sash across his chest, many medals pompously displayed, standing holding a hat with an ostentatious plume under his arm. He had a disapproving look on his aristocratic face.
Opposite him was a portrait of a seated woman in a filmy, white dress with cerulean satin ribbon detailing, swaths of crimson satin wrapped shawl-like around her arms, and she had auburn curls around her forehead and temples and very rosy cheeks. Her doe eyes were blue, and her lips formed a small smile.
He looked terrifying.
She looked hopeful.
They graced not only those creamy walls but also the acres of buttermilk marble floors that spanned the space, the two seating areas (left and right) in front of two fireplaces, the intricate white plaster moldings, and the stairway railings, finely wrought black iron topped with blindingly shining elm wood.
Last, there was an enormous crystal chandelier that hung like a threat from the middle of the ceiling. It dipped very close to a gleaming, circular table that had an unusual arrangement of delicate flowers and trailing greenery that didn’t rise much from the low, wide bowl they were in. But the foliage did creep out along the wood of the table to drip over the edge in a manner it looked like the flora actually grew from the table.
It was supremely cool.
However, presently, we were around the table and going up the stairs as Prudence kept gabbing.
“We’re set to have tea in about half an hour, all us girls. Tempie and Chassie cannot wait to meet you. After that, Battle wants to talk to you. He’d like to see you at three thirty, in the study.”
That got my attention.
“The duke is here?” I asked.
We went left at the landing, and as we did, through that tall window, I got a swift gander at just how prolific and extraordinary the garden was.
It was already a riot of color and greenery, and it was only April.
“Yes,” Prudence answered, waving her hand in front of her dismissively. “He wants to finalize the agreement.”
Well, that would be good, since I had an advance from my publisher to write this very book, and a deadline, and if I had to pivot at this late date, I’d be screwed and I’d have a publisher who was none too happy, and an agent who would be unhappier.
