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 she was wearing…
I didn’t know what she was wearing.
I just knew Moira Rose would like it very much.
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.