Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
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.
Prudence yanked me closer so that she was veritably leaning on me as she said earnestly, “I cannot tell you how glad I am you’re here. I almost went to London when you arrived so I could meet you live and in person…finally. But I thought that’d be too clingy.”
Before arriving at The Downs, I’d spent three days in London managing jetlag, seeing the sights and doing some preliminary research into the Talyns.
It was necessarily only three days because I had my advance, and I’d published seven books— four romances (my firsts), three historical fictions (the genre I was obsessed with at the moment)—so I was earning royalties.
That said, neither were enough to hang in an expensive London hotel for very long (and they were all expensive, if you didn’t just want a bed surrounded by an inch of floorspace—though you could get out of that bed and find yourself right in the bathroom, so they could be time savers, if you wanted to put a positive spin on it).
Sure, my sister and I had inherited a tidy sum from Mom and the sale of her house and car and stuff, but I wasn’t allowing myself to dip into my portion of that, because I was hoping to buy a house when I got home from England, and that was going to be my downpayment.
“That wouldn’t have been clingy. I would have loved it,” I told her.
Her eyes lifted to mine and they were shining with…
Dear God.
Were they tears?
“You’re so lovely,” she declared.
“As are you,” I replied quietly, taken aback by the strength of her emotion.
She beamed a smile at me and cried too loudly, “We’re here!”
And we were, after walking the length of the front of the house and a little down the north wing, where she was taking me into a room.
And…
Well…
Wow.
Candy red walls. White plasterwork. Arenberg parquet floors. A comfortable sitting area in front of a fireplace. A big bed, four-poster, curtained. Exquisite silk rugs under the bed and seating area. An escritoire against a wall. Cushioned benches strewn with toss pillows built in the three tall wide windows.
But like the entry, minimalism was the key to this room.
It wasn’t a showplace crammed full of antiques and priceless knickknacks picked up over the centuries, carelessly laid somewhere and forgotten.
The bold colors of the red juxtaposed with the white, just like the antique escritoire contrasted with the contemporary lines of the golden-yellow velvet couch in front of the fireplace, all this clashing exquisitely with petal-pink bedding heavily embroidered in magenta and gold.