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He hadn’t only been testing me and giving me shit to see what stuff I was made of, he hadn’t been taking me seriously.
Now, he was taking me seriously.
He held an arm out toward the hall that led to the Pearl Room.
I only approached him and fell in step beside him when he started talking.
“There’s a lot to that story that isn’t on Wikipedia.”
“And that would be?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because Dorothy was having an affair with David. She was also having an affair with William, David’s younger brother.”
“Oh my,” I mumbled.
Tangled web.
And it would seem for Dorothy, poisonous spiders.
“Indeed,” he agreed. “It’s my understanding you’ve already seen the Pearl Room?”
“Yes.”
He walked us to the other side and opened the door to the room across from it. “The Emerald Room.”
It was much like the Pearl Room, except decorated in the rich jewel tones of that particular green stone.
“Every room on the ground floor of this wing is named and decorated for precious stones,” he explained. “Sapphire, ruby, jade, amethyst, aquamarine, opal, pink topaz, garnet, moonstone, lapis lazuli, peridot, cat’s-eye, and at the end with the turrets, diamond.”
I was looking forward to the Cat’s-eye Room.
“Are there themes on each wing?” I asked.
“Mostly, yes. The rooms in the wing your bedroom is in are all named after flowers. Carnation, rose, orchid, jasmine, daisy, poppy, dahlia, tulip, iris, narcissus, etcetera.”
We’d moved out of the Emerald Room into the one next to it, what appeared to be the Aquamarine Room.
“What other themes are there?” I queried.
“The opposite wing of bedrooms from yours, trees. These have been converted into suites as it’s the family wing. Mostly flowering trees. Dogwood, cherry, magnolia, hawthorn, jacaranda. I’m in Hawthorn, by the way, the exact opposite of your room, actually, on the southeastern side.”
“Unnecessary information,” I said, and he chuckled while leading me out of Aquamarine and across the hall.
“The opposite of this wing on the ground floor, as you may have guessed by now, are the wines and spirits. The Wine Room, Port Room, sherry, whisky, viognier, Bordeaux, brandy, chartreuse, starting the wing, obviously, is Champagne. As you know, the dining room is on that side. It used to be called the Chardonnay Room, but my great-grandmother, who detested chardonnay, thought that was common. So she commissioned custom china and had it repaneled. Underneath the tapestry that hangs there now is apparently an extraordinary hand-painted mural. But she loved turquoise, and even if it didn’t fit in that wing of the house, she made it happen.”
We were now in the Moonstone Room, and so far, it was my favorite.
“Mum’s in the Cherry Room,” he told me. “The turret room at the end of our wing. Dad’s in Dogwood.”
I stopped and stared up at him. “They don’t share a room?”
He shook his head. “Not since the first time he fucked around on her.”
I kept staring.
