Oscar peppered the steward with questions: What were the acoustics in the ballroom? Was there a wine cellar? How soon could the east wing be converted into a music room? Nancytried, and failed, to picture her life here. It felt more like an inheritance than a home.
At the conclusion of the tour, Oscar turned to her. “What do you think?”
She weighed her words. “It’s… grand.”
“But?”
“But the children would likely find it stifling. And so would I.” She flashed a smile. “It’s not the house’s fault. I was simply not born to so much symmetry.”
Oscar’s lips twitched. “We will try another.”
The second house was a little better, though its charms were more subtle. The gardens were impressive; the library even more so, stocked with volumes so old the mere act of reading them would constitute an act of vandalism. Nancy noted the proximity to the village—a point in its favor, at least. But again, everything felt staged, preserved, as if the last family to live here had been pressed like flowers between the pages of history.
Oscar examined the study. “A bit small,” he pronounced.
Nancy eyed the window seat, large enough for two children and an errant fox, and said, “I think it would do.”
The steward, a new one with an even more prodigious mustache, asked if they cared to see the scullery. Oscar declined. Nancy agreed to the tour, if only to prolong her escape from the judgment of all those ancestral portraits glaring down from the walls.
They met up again in the foyer.
“Any favorites so far?” Oscar inquired.
Nancy shrugged. “Do you mean the houses, or the stewards? Because I have a soft spot for the last one’s mustache.”
He nearly smiled. “The next property is somewhat less traditional. I suspect you will despise it.”
“Is that why you saved it for last?”
“It is not last. There is one more after.” He offered his arm. “Come, Duchess. Let’s see how much you can endure.”
She took his arm, and they braved the cold together.
The third house was a folly, in the architectural sense. It looked as if someone had taken the blueprints for six different stately homes, mashed them together, and then given the result to a builder with a fondness for surprises.
Nancy tried to keep a straight face as they passed through a hallway painted entirely in sky blue, complete with fluffy clouds and, inexplicably, several cupids. Oscar watched her, waiting for her to break.
She did, at the sight of the dining room: a rococo nightmare with gilded chairs shaped like harps.
“It’s—” Nancy started, then faltered, at a rare loss for words.
“Hideous?” Oscar supplied.
She grinned. “If we ever require a set for an opera, I know exactly where to come.”
The steward—a wraith of a man with a lisp—tried to interest them in the ballroom. “It’s the only room not currently occupied by peacocks,” he said, with no apparent irony.
Nancy and Oscar toured it, but neither bothered to pretend.
On the way out, Nancy couldn’t resist. “Your taste in houses, Duke, is even stranger than your taste in acquaintances.”
Oscar regarded her sidelong. “You have only yourself to blame. You married me.”
Nancy’s laugh echoed in the stairwell, bright and unguarded.
The steward gave them a look, something between horror and amusement. Nancy caught it and shared it with Oscar, and for a moment, they were simply two people, bonded by mutual skepticism and a sense of cosmic irony.
By the fourth house, Nancy had lost all hope of finding anything resembling a home. She tried to lower her expectations accordingly. The carriage wound up a narrow, rutted drive, through a stand of copper beeches, and then—quite suddenly—the house appeared.
