Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
“At least now we can be more vigilant and communicate. You can tell me what you see and hear, like Danny taking a walk in the early hours of the morning, and I can do the same.”
“Right. But I have to say, I’m going to try to talk Lou into leaving. She has chronic migraines, but this is crazy. I think Portia is stressing her out. She needs to go home.”
“Agreed.”
“So it seems the game is afoot, Lord Alcott.”
“It seems it is, Miss Ryan.”
I was looking up at him. He was looking down at me. We were cuddled together. We’d slept in the same bed.
It was the perfect time for a kiss.
And it happened.
It was just that the kiss was Ian pressing his beautiful lips to my forehead.
Ah well.
That felt nice too, I supposed.
He pulled away but tipped his head toward the tray. “Get something to eat. Lou checked in a little bit ago. She seemed better, said she had a hint of a headache, but that happens after a migraine. She was going out to take a walk.”
“Okay,” I replied, pulled away and was loading up a croissant with butter and jam when there was a restrained knock on the door.
“All right?” Ian asked me.
I looked over my shoulder at him and nodded.
“Yes?” he called.
The door opened and Laura stood there.
She studiously avoided looking at me when she announced, “Lady Alcott would like for you both to meet her in the Sherry Room at one o’clock.”
There was resignation in his voice when Ian said, “We’ll be there.”
Laura nodded smartly and strode out.
The door clicked.
I totally got what he meant about her. She was so formal, she was borderline creepy.
“Always the ceremony,” he muttered under his breath, taking my attention back to him.
So that was what had him resigned. That it couldn’t be Lady Jane knocking on the door, or, in a place this huge, sending a text.
No.
She had to dispatch Laura.
“What’s that about, do you think?” I asked.
“We’re going to find out,” he answered, taking the bit of croissant I’d prepared and popping it into his mouth.
I frowned at him.
He smiled while chewing.
Fortunately, Bonnie put three croissants on the tray, so I smeared butter and jam on another section and enjoyed.
Sixteen
THE SHERRY ROOM
I’d already figured out the Sherry Room was the countess’s room.
Her office, of sorts.
Although decorated in a lot of wood and heavy, dark-green velvet curtains, the stain of the wood was lighter than other rooms on that wing. And there were deep slashes of buttery yellow, not to mention the walls above the wood wainscoting were a mellow linen to soften the darkness and drive home the feminine in a wing like the one above it, both of which veered masculine.
The main feature of the room was the beautifully carved writer’s desk that had inlays of ivory.
This was gross now, and it was gross then, but that didn’t stop the desk being made in another age when they did that kind of thing. Nor did it stop it from being a testimony (but not an excuse) to why so many elephants gave up what they were forced to give to create such beauty.
This was the showstopper, but there were also two large and extraordinary paintings that looked like Turners (and very well could be), and as such, they were stormy and turbulent and morose.
Along with its beauty, there was a melancholy to that room.
And at one o’clock that afternoon, standing at the window looking out to the late autumnal desolation spreading to what seemed forever at the front of the house, I wondered if the spirits of Virginia and Joan, and even Margery somehow permeated the atmosphere.
Past countesses (and a countess’s daughter) who suffered for their status.
Suffered for Duncroft.
Ian was sitting on one end of the yellowish-green velvet couch sipping an espresso, Lou on the other side looking nervous.
She, too, had received a summons from Lady Jane.
This was weird, but then again maybe it wasn’t. When everything seemed weird, when did weird stuff stop being weird and just become the norm?
I’d had croissants and yogurt, and then for about an hour, I’d chilled out and quietly hung with Ian while he worked, before I took my bathroom tray and headed out, going to the Rose Room to take a shower and prepare for the day.
When I got there, I was grateful to see someone had taken away the bouquet.
I hadn’t seen Portia or Daniel yet that day, but after I paid this respect, whatever it was about, to Lady Jane, who had been really cool with me last night, I was finding Portia and sharing a few things.
Then I’d work on Lou.
In other words, I had a packed afternoon planned of fun and revelry.
Not.
However, that morning, Ian had passed his laptop to me, and I’d checked. There was a train headed to Leeds from a town about half an hour away that left at four. And from Leeds, Lou would be in London in two and a half hours.