Chapter 1 #2
The top looked like an overlarge, stiff, stark-white piece of posterboard was slapped against her body on an angle, the edge by her neck slightly curled inward.
This concoction had long sleeves, gave a tunic feel and went down to her knees.
Beyond those knees was a pair of flowy, wide-leg, black pants.
On her feet she wore black leather Mary-Jane flats with a separation stitched in between the big toe and the rest of them. They were not attractive in the slightest (I never understood that toe thing in shoes). But my guess, they were comfy.
And they totally rocked with that wild outfit.
Her makeup was as severe as her hairstyle. Very pale skin, heavily drawn brows, and dramatically dark raspberry lipstick. And the expertly smoked black liner that lined her upper and lower lashes made her unusual light gray-green eyes seem incandescent.
This was as far as I got in my impression before Lady Prudence Talyn cried out, “You’re here!” and immediately, as well as shockingly, threw herself at me.
After I avoided having my eye poked with that curled edge of her top, I rounded her with my arms, surprised by this greeting.
I’d been to England before and had met English folk back home. They didn’t tend to be affectionately demonstrative.
At least not on first meeting.
That said, Prudence and I had struck up a friendship after I reached out to the steward of The Downs about the letters I found. He’d forwarded my email to Prudence.
And that friendship wasn’t all about my books (books she’d already read before I reached out) and my desire to write one that historically, though fictitiously, involved her family.
Almost since the beginning, we emailed each other every day.
As such, she’d become a daily touchstone for me, and I could tell the same happened for her.
So perhaps this wasn’t that strange.
On that thought, I settled into her embrace.
Almost the instant I did, she popped back with as much exuberance as she’d jumped me and tossed out an arm to the gentleman standing with us, nearly knocking him in the chest.
With practiced ease, he avoided the blow while Prudence introduced, “This is Fitzgibbons. Our butler. Fitzy, did you meet Vivienne?”
“We were just getting to that, Lady Prudence,” Fitzgibbons replied.
As she regarded him, Prudence’s face shifted to kindly severe, something I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen anyone pull off with such aplomb, not even moms of two-year-olds.
“Vivienne doesn’t live with staff,” she informed the butler with more than necessary weight, not something I liked all that much.
Not the part about her sharing openly I was not of their class.
Not many were, and undoubtedly “Fitzy” knew that about me already.
It was the dire tone and what came next that seemed ominously weird to me.
And what came next was, “We’re going to have to look out for her.”
“Of course,” Fitzgibbons murmured.
I had no chance to ask after what seemed like a warning.
Prudence turned to me and instructed, “This means they’re going to get your luggage. And park your car. And unpack you. And all sorts.”
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.
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.
But among these were a few bouquets of flowers, all much like the one in the foyer: unusually but gorgeously arranged.