Autumn's Wild Heart (Seasons #4) - Laura Landon Page 0,14

fluttered up her spine. He’s spoken her name only a handful of times so far, very formally, with little warmth. But today the way it spilled from his lips was so natural that she was quite taken aback, as if he’d just paid her a high compliment.

“I thought I would ask Mrs. Pendleton to show me the house, if that’s agreeable with you.”

“Of course,” he answered. “This is your house now, Petronella.”

“Please,” she interrupted. “I prefer Nella.”

It was positively ridiculous to interrupt him, but the way he spoke her name Petronella as if she were some sort of Greek goddess stirred her in ways that induced a constant raging blush.

“Nella, then.”

Drat. Entreating him to use her shortened name proved no less stimulating.

“If there’s anything you see that needs to be done, or anything you’d like to change, feel free to change it.”

She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with the linen cloth.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Nothing’s been changed at Colworth Abbey since my mother was alive.”

“Then I must say your mother had elegant taste. So I think I’ll wait until I have a feel for our home before I make any permanent changes to the house.”

He stopped fiddling with his fork and took a sip of his coffee. “That sounds like a wise decision. Are you always this cautious?”

She considered his words. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I only mean, you don’t seem like a person who makes rash decisions.”

No, she was not prone to make rash decisions. Nella lowered her gaze. Except for the night she chose to rush to his rescue. That had certainly been her most rash decision ever.

~■~

Nella followed Mrs. Pendleton as she led her through each floor of the house. The third floor was made up of rooms for the servants, female staff members in the east wing and male staff members in the west.

In the east wing on the second floor, Nella was surprised to see the nursery, a playroom filled with toys and games and even a white wooden rocking horse with big brown eyes and lashes, and a bedchamber for the nurse. The west wing revealed several guest bedchambers.

Nella’s suite of rooms as well as her husband’s rooms made up the entire east wing of the first floor. The entire west wing of the first floor was lined with several more guest bedchambers, with a glass-ceilinged solarium at the end of the hall.

“Were all these bedchambers in use?” she asked Mrs. Pendleton. “Did Lord Danvers entertain much in the past?”

“Yes, my lady. He had guests in the house quite regularly. They were mostly gentleman friends of his and they would stay a week or more at a time. It was grand,” she finished.

Nella thought of what her husband’s life had been like before they married. She’d always known he had a multitude of friends, so she should have realized that since he had an estate not that far from London, he would naturally entertain his friends here.

She wondered if he would continue that tradition, or if he would live like a hermit as she had suggested she wanted to live.

She walked out of one bedchamber and looked upward. A rich oak balcony surrounded the outer rooms on each floor that looked down on the pink marble-tiled foyer. Above the foyer rose a domed ceiling with a round stained-glass window set at its center. The beautifully-worked glass allowed colored decorative panes to cast the foyer in a vibrant rainbow. The formal entry was rather breathtaking from this vantage point.

She turned in circles, marveling at her beautiful dwelling and wondering how she’d been so fortunate as to have a home so magnificent. A long moment later, Mrs. Pendleton walked to the stairs and led her to the ground floor.

“This wing is where his lordship spends most of his time when he entertains,” the housekeeper said, then crossed to the right, to the west wing. The first door she opened was definitely a drawing room designed for the comfort of male guests. The colors were dark, the woods richly stained, and there were several decanters scattered throughout the room.

“This is the Blue Drawing Room.”

“It’s handsome,” Nella said, not wishing to step into the very masculine domain.

“Next to it is the Rose Drawing Room.”

“Oh, how lovely,” Nella said, realizing that this room was decorated in more quiet colors.

“And next are the Billiard Room and his lordship’s Gaming Room.”

Nella stepped inside the first room and took in the large billiard table set with balls ready to