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Laura nodded smartly and strode out.
The door clicked.
I totally got what he meant about her. She was so formal, she was borderline creepy.
“Always the ceremony,” he muttered under his breath, taking my attention back to him.
So that was what had him resigned. That it couldn’t be Lady Jane knocking on the door, or, in a place this huge, sending a text.
No.
She had to dispatch Laura.
“What’s that about, do you think?” I asked.
“We’re going to find out,” he answered, taking the bit of croissant I’d prepared and popping it into his mouth.
I frowned at him.
He smiled while chewing.
Fortunately, Bonnie put three croissants on the tray, so I smeared butter and jam on another section and enjoyed.
Sixteen
THE SHERRY ROOM
I’d already figured out the Sherry Room was the countess’s room.
Her office, of sorts.
Although decorated in a lot of wood and heavy, dark-green velvet curtains, the stain of the wood was lighter than other rooms on that wing. And there were deep slashes of buttery yellow, not to mention the walls above the wood wainscoting were a mellow linen to soften the darkness and drive home the feminine in a wing like the one above it, both of which veered masculine.
The main feature of the room was the beautifully carved writer’s desk that had inlays of ivory.
This was gross now, and it was gross then, but that didn’t stop the desk being made in another age when they did that kind of thing. Nor did it stop it from being a testimony (but not an excuse) to why so many elephants gave up what they were forced to give to create such beauty.
This was the showstopper, but there were also two large and extraordinary paintings that looked like Turners (and very well could be), and as such, they were stormy and turbulent and morose.
Along with its beauty, there was a melancholy to that room.
And at one o’clock that afternoon, standing at the window looking out to the late autumnal desolation spreading to what seemed forever at the front of the house, I wondered if the spirits of Virginia and Joan, and even Margery somehow permeated the atmosphere.
Past countesses (and a countess’s daughter) who suffered for their status.
Suffered for Duncroft.
Ian was sitting on one end of the yellowish-green velvet couch sipping an espresso, Lou on the other side looking nervous.
She, too, had received a summons from Lady Jane.
This was weird, but then again maybe it wasn’t. When everything seemed weird, when did weird stuff stop being weird and just become the norm?
I’d had croissants and yogurt, and then for about an hour, I’d chilled out and quietly hung with Ian while he worked, before I took my bathroom tray and headed out, going to the Rose Room to take a shower and prepare for the day.
When I got there, I was grateful to see someone had taken away the bouquet.
I hadn’t seen Portia or Daniel yet that day, but after I paid this respect, whatever it was about, to Lady Jane, who had been really cool with me last night, I was finding Portia and sharing a few things.
