Those rooms would be stripped to the bare necessities and revamped entirely.
If this was to be my home, as I assumed it would be given that lords usually lived on their estates and Alexander’s business was based in London, it was going to be one exorcised of ghosts.
So, when I found a room decorated in the soft mauves and nearly translucent blues of a dawn in a tropical paradise, I designated it as Giselle and Sinclair’s future escape when they visited. Then again, when I found a bold black and red room with an oriental theme that seemed strong and bold enough for my Elena, and once more with the small, but beautifully cozy room abutting a long-ago used nursey that I knew would perfectly suit Mama.
On my third pass, I barely opened my eyes. I counted the marble steps as I took them, feeling the cold, smooth rock under my feet, the way my hand fit perfectly to the carved curves of the bannister as my palm slid across it. I breathed in the yeasted, damp scent of the kitchen and the wet, close air of the greenhouse perfumed with hundreds of exotic flowers and the slightly acrid tint of the pond water there. I imagined scenes of laughter in the den where I’d once played chess with Noel, transposing an image of Alexander and I playing there instead, shedding our clothes each time we capitulated a piece to the other. I thought of the massive Douglas fir Riddick would cut down for us from the forest in the back that we would decorate for Christmas and place in the corner of the main living room, and of the stockings we would hang from the famous black marble fireplace with its demons and angels intertwined up the columns.
When I reached the kitchen, I stopped in the doorway to watch as Douglas gave a sound little speech to some of the new staff Alexander and Riddick had already hired.
“I run a tight ship, lads and lasses.” Douglas gestured grandly to his kitchen wearing the bandage over his cut head like a crown. “This is a serious place of business because food and pastry are serious undertakings. I won’t have any of you cocking up my schedule, so adapt quickly or you’ll be sent packing, you hear? The duke and duchess have been through…a lot in the last fortnight, or really, in the last two decades. They don’t need willful or imbecilic servants making a shambles of their happily ever after.”
A young boy, no more than sixteen, tentatively raised his hand. “’S true that the lord killed his own father in the back garden, then?”
Douglas’s boyish face contorted with a glare as he rapped his wooden spoon over the boy’s knuckles where they lay on the table. “Ask another impertinent question again and you’ll be gone from here. There will be no idle gossip about the master and mistress of Pearl Hall, not where I can hear you if you know what’s good for your knuckles and your bellies, and not where his Grace can find out, if you know what’s good for your safety and your pocketbooks.”
I was tempted to laugh at Douglas’s threats, but instead, I arranged my face into a polite mask and stepped up to say, “Chef O’Shea is correct about one thing.” I waited as the staff all whipped toward me with varying awed and terrified expressions. It was clear they had all heard about Noel’s and Rodger’s deaths, about the pall over Pearl Hall, but I wouldn’t have them being scared of Alexander and me. “He is a fearsome beast when he’s angry.”
I winked at them, and they all shifted awkwardly in their seats, sharing looks that questioned whether they were meant to laugh or not.
Douglas stepped in with a shake of his wooden spoon at me. “You’re one to talk. I’ve not met a woman so grumpy as you when you’ve not eaten.”
I shrugged. “Happily, you keep me well fed.”
Douglas preened for me, and I laughed, moving over to press a kiss to his rosy cheek. I’d always been affectionate, but in the wake of the latest events, I found myself unable to see Riddick and Douglas, two of the knights who had risked their lives to help me, without touching them. It was only one of the myriad of ways I sought to show my gratitude and love for the next few decades.
Some of the staff looked horrified by my closeness with Douglas, so I decided to nip that in the bud before I continued my tour of the house. I sat on the edge of the table even though Douglas swatted at me and smoothed my robe so that it covered my legs as if it was a priceless gown.
“Listen, I’ve no doubt you heard the stories about what has happened at Pearl Hall recently…and maybe not so recently. As with any place of history, there are many stories here, both good and bad. What I want to promise you is this: there will be no more bad stories here. At least, not while Xan and I live. The past is done and, quite literally, buried. If you wish to stay on at Pearl Hall, know that you do it not just as a servant but as part of a family. We will expect you to do your duties, but we also expect you to contribute to the positive atmosphere of the home. You see, we have loads of new memories that need planting in these gardens and hanging on these walls. If you don’t feel you can keep mum on the past and any strange goings-on you may find happen here, then no hard feelings, but please leave. If you think you’d be happy in a home, however grand Pearl Hall may seem, please stay and I’ll be so happy to know you as the opportunities arise.”