Page 25 of The Mad Marchams

“I doubt it.” Mabel grinned at him. “I’m not exactly a history expert.” She half-turned back to the doors to the house. “Do we need to help clean up?”

“I don’t see why,” Colin said with that supreme upper-class confidence of someone who always had people to pick up after him. “They ate all the damn cake.”

He leapt over the balustrade and offered her a hand. “Short cut?”

“Why not.” Mabel clambered up onto the stone and let him lift her down. “I haven’t seen this part of the backyard yet.”

“Backyard.” Colin chuckled. “I love it. Just don’t let my grandmother hear you call it that. The gardens have been her life’s work.”

Mabel couldn’t even imagine what that meant and chose to nod wisely. They walked hand in hand across sloping lawns with perfectly cut grass that took them away from the house in gentle swings and dips.

“At one point there was a whole cascade of water features and fountains along this avenue.” Colin pointed back the way they’d come. “Eventually, the plumbing failed and when nobody could work out how to repair it, they filled it in during the war.”

“And I thought it might have once been a rollercoaster,” Mabel joked as she mimicked the rise and fall of the landscape down the slope with her hand. “It must have been a pretty impressive sight from the house.”

“Yes. They used to light it up at night as well. If we make millions opening up this place, maybe I should restore it.”

“Maybe start with the roof and the useful plumbing first,” Mabel suggested.

“I thought Americans were all about the big spectacle?”

“Not this American. Earlier, Mrs. Reynolds told me that they’re running out of buckets at the big house to catch the drips coming through the ceilings.”

“That bad, eh?” Colin sighed. “It really is going to be a massive job.”

“Yup.”

He paused and drew her close. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to, you know.”

“Trying to get rid of me already?”

“You know I love you being here, but I’m just saying that this isn’t your fight, and I would totally understand if you want to bail on me.” He gazed steadily into her eyes. “I’m not exactly fun right now.”

“You were fun before?” Mabel fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I can’t say I noticed.”

“That’s because you were too busy admiring my⁠—”

“Accent.” She kissed his nose.

He lowered his head and kissed her very thoroughly until she wrapped her arms around him and held him close.

“I’d love you to stay,” he said softly.

“Then I will.” She reclaimed his hand. “How far away is this place?”

“Just across the lake.”

“You have a lake now?” Mabel teased.

“Of course, we do. Although it’s artificial and horribly grown over. It once had boats on it and there’s an island with some kind of statue thing in the centre.”

Eventually, they came to stop in front of a body of water with a green tinge that made the entire lake seem murky. “It’s a bit creepy,” Mabel said.

“Yes, like everything else here on the estate, it definitely needs a makeover.” He pointed to the right as if eager to get away. “The temple’s up that way. It’s sited on a rise to take advantage of the view over the valley.”

“Oh cool!” Mabel shaded her eyes against the glare as they turned up the slope. “Wow, it’s way bigger than I thought it would be.”

“There are photographs of my grandmother and her mother-in-law taking tea out here with about twenty friends.” He grinned. “They absolutely loathed each other, of course, but back in the day appearances still mattered.”