“If you don’t mind, Mrs. Brody, could you just show me the Lady’s Bedroom? I find I’m extraordinarily tired from our journey.”
A little lie, but surely one for which she’d be forgiven. She didn’t want to see the nursery wing just then, didn’t want to think of the future when it was so uncertain.
The housekeeper looked aghast. “Forgive me, my lady, of course you’re tired.”
She opened the third door in the hall, then stood aside for Veronica to precede her. “If you’ll note the poppy seed heads in the plasterwork detail, Your Ladyship. That dates from the time the house was first constructed.”
“It’s quite a lovely room,” she said, looking around her. The bed was smaller than she’d expected, more space being given up to the two armoires and vanity. The wallpaper, ivory with gold flowers, was lovely. The floorboards were covered in an ivory carpet with the same flowers replicated at intervals. A room fit for a Scots princess.
She was, at least, a Scot.
Mrs. Brody opened the door to the Lady’s Private Room, which turned out to be three rooms: a bathing chamber and lavatory, a dressing room, and a small sitting room connected to the sitting room adjoining the Best Bedroom. Evidently, if a wife wished to communicate with her husband, she needn’t leave her chamber and walk down the hall to do so.
“What an unusual arrangement,” she said.
Mrs. Brody nodded. “Doncaster Hall has many secret corridors as well, Your Ladyship,” Mrs. Brody said. “I would be more than happy to show you those as well. Shall we say tomorrow?”
She nodded her agreement. Doncaster Hall was like something out of one of her novels, complete with a handsome prince and hidden passages.
Clasping her hands together, she turned to face the housekeeper.
“It’s a lovely suite, Mrs. Brody,” she said.
“Perhaps you would like to join me in the attic tomorrow, Lady Fairfax. We’ve stored a lot of the furniture there. If you’d prefer something more to your taste. Of course, we employ carpenters as well. Or you might wish to have something brought from Lollybroch. Or even London. A great many of our furnishings have come from London, Edinburgh, and even Paris,” she added proudly.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” she said honestly. “Not one thing.”
After Mrs. Brody left her, she walked back into the sitting room. The wallpaper in the room was a blue-patterned silk, while the furnishings were overstuffed in a pale blue fabric, similar in hue to the shade the servants had been wearing. Was it called Doncaster Blue?
She stood at the window, gazing at the green sloping banks leading to the River Tairn. A gray horizon hinted at a coming storm. She’d missed a Highland storm.
She’d missed everything about her home, from the sound of the language, to the winds of the Highlands, to the feeling of belonging. Her accent wasn’t unusual here; she shared a common ancestral history. She felt about this land the same way her countrymen did, as if there was something magical in each hillock, in each gentle swell of glen.
In a few months, all the surrounding trees would drop their leaves and prepare for the long winter but not before a dazzling display of autumnal color. The river would grow slower, then one morning it would boast a layer of ice. There’d be frost on the hills first, followed by snow. Spring would come gradually, creeping up on winter unawares. The air would grow warmer, then the green shoots and leaves would appear.
This was Scotland, her home.
This house could be her home as well.
On their quarterly visits to Inverness with her family, she’d seen Doncaster Hall from the main road. She’d been intrigued by the sight of the great sprawling house and thought it had looked unbearably lonely.
Yet the moment she’d walked into Doncaster Hall, she’d felt welcomed, as if the house hadn’t been lonely at all, merely waiting for her. As if this place, in all of Scotland, was just where she should be.
Amazingly, she was the chatelaine of Doncaster Hall. She’d gone from being a poor relation to the wife of the man who owned this magical, wonderful house.
She was to live here, to share her life with a complicated, mysterious man who was beginning to fascinate her. She was invariably curious, but never more so than about Montgomery Fairfax.
Would any of her questions about him be answered? Was it even wise to want to know more?
Chapter 13
Montgomery headed for the hallway door beneath the first soaring arch of the oval staircase, Edmund following. If he was correct, the library was at the end of the corridor, overlooking a series of terraced gardens.
He smiled as he entered the room, with its deep-set mullioned windows and recessed ceiling. The walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and each shelf stuffed with well-worn volumes. Stucco medallions adorned the ceiling, and incised scrolls had been carved into the white mantel and fireplace surround.
The room was almost identical to the one he’d known so well.
The desk was different, of course, larger and older, the mahogany surface scarred from years of use; the blotter stained with ink. An oil lamp sat on the corner, adjacent to a silver pen holder and silver inkwell, both revealing a patina from decades of service.
