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They were heading upstairs now, and they turned on the third floor, but heading in the opposite direction she would take to her room. Like her wing, doors lined the hall, but Alec didn’t stop at any of them.
“This was the children’s wing,” he said. “That was my room,” he added, pointing to a door, “where I’d stay when I returnedfrom school for holidays. Before that, I was in the nursery, like every other Sherbourne infant before me.” They’d reached the end of the hall, and there was another staircase, and they took it up to one more floor. There were narrow windows in the stairwell, and more windows on the upper landing. Three doors opened off the landing. He opened one of them. “And this was the nursery, where the Sherbourne babies were raised, until old enough to be moved into a proper bedroom. Next door was the nanny’s room, and the third door opens into the school room.”
“Can I see the school room?” she asked.
He opened the door, turned on a light, and the room was more spacious than she imagined, or maybe that was the sloped ceiling that gave it a sense of volume.
“Is this the attic?”
“Part of. Some space was grabbed from it to create a larger school room when my grandfather was a boy. There were four Sherbourne boys, my great uncle Frederick being the youngest, and they needed more space.”
Cara wandered around the room, taking in the large old-fashioned blackboard. On another wall was a framed map of England. There was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, a globe, four desks, and a larger teacher’s desk.
“Frederick was the last Sherbourne to be educated here,” Alec said. “Like his brothers, he went to Eton, but he didn’t go until he was almost ten. My father was sent to Eton around the same age, and Emma had a governess come to Langley, but they didn’t use these rooms. The governess taught Emma in one of the downstairs rooms, so my grandmother could listen to the lessons.”
They left the school room, went back down the stairs, and then the hall of children’s bedrooms, down the circular stairs to the second floor and across to a long wide corridor.
“Have you seen the portrait gallery yet? Now that you’ve learned a little more about the Sherbournes, you might find it interesting.”
“Yes, please.”
They walked along the portrait gallery, paneled walls covered with huge gold-framed canvases, dozens of them. In the oldest portraits, the men were wearing white wigs, starched ruffled collars, black velvet-looking jackets. The clothing became more modern, and some of the poses became more casual, and then they ended with a portrait of Alec. He was the final portrait. The one immediately to his left must be his father.
Cara glanced at him. “Your dad?” she asked.
Alec nodded. “Yes.”
“How long has he been gone?”
He didn’t answer right away. Silence stretched and then Alec drew a quick breath. “He is still alive, but he’s… infirm. As I’m in London most the time, my father is in a facility close to me. I see him several times a week.”
“He doesn’t want to come home for Christmas?”
“He’s not well enough to travel. Physically, he’s confined now to a bed or chair. He doesn’t recognize anything around him anymore—including me.”
Cara’s heart fell. “I’m sorry.”
“The last time he was here for Christmas was several years ago.” Alec couldn’t meet her gaze. “I drove my father home, but he was confused. He didn’t know where he was, and he found it very upsetting. I had thought that being at Langley with his sister, and being in his former home, might have jogged some memories, but it instead distressed him so that we haven’t tried it since.”
Cara heard the raw note in his voice and she ached for him. “And that is why you carry on for him,” she said firmly, “and for your family. Because I’m sure that if he understood what washappening, your father would be very proud of you. How could he not be? You’re remarkable.”
*
He was remarkable?
Her compliment played in Alec’s head, as they sat down to dinner, the rest of the tour having to wait, and he was fine with that.
He needed the break, welcomed a change in conversation. He shared too much with her every time and he didn’t know why. Family secrets were family secrets, but her sincerity touched him. She was a kind person. She was just herself, with absolutely no expectations, and it was so refreshing to just be himself, in his home. Usually people deferred to him, and others gave a respect he wasn’t sure he deserved. He hated having to be someone, whether it was the viscount, or head of Langley Investments, hated that everyone looked to him as if he always had the answers. He didn’t.
So no, he wasn’t remarkable, but Cara’s warmth made dinner easy and, when they’d finished, he asked her if they should finish the tour with a look at the library, his favorite room.
“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “I heard from Mrs. Booth that the books have been acquired over hundreds of years.”
He nodded, leading the way. “Every generation of Sherbourne has spent significant time in this room. One of my great-great-great-great-grandfathers was a well-known scholar and avid book collector.”
Reaching the library, he opened the tall heavy door and stepped back so she could enter.
He watched her expression of awe as she entered a room that was two stories tall, with books on the balcony level, too. Years ago, during the second war, when the house was repurposed asa school and then hospital, the library had been packed up, the books moved to a safer location. Sadly, the safer location proved to be anything but, as a water leak flooded the storage area, and as no one knew, the books sat damp for a long period of time, and the damp turned to mold and some books were saved at great cost, while others couldn’t be. Alec’s grandfather spent a small fortune trying to salvage the best books, but the sheer expense of it, forced him to make very hard decisions.
