Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
A woman in a pale blue dress and light cardigan.
She was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat even if there was no sun.
She had light-blonde hair, an abundance of it, all of it frizzy curls that poofed out under her hat, over her shoulders and down her back.
I couldn’t see her face due to the hat, and she had her back to me.
What I could see was a tall, sandy-haired, well-built, good-looking man was also in the garden. He was wearing jeans, a chambray shirt, and appeared to be measuring something on a rosebush. I knew this because he had a clipboard where he’d jot things down after he did whatever he was doing.
Oh.
And he snuck peeks at the blonde who was a good twenty yards away, seemingly oblivious to him as she deadheaded into one basket and clipped healthy blooms for another.
That certainly wasn’t Battle. I’d never seen a full-face photo of him, but I did know he had dark hair.
But I wondered if the woman was Temperance. Or Chastity.
“I’m sorry, madam?”
I turned at the voice to see the maid was in the room with me.
“Hi,” I greeted.
She smiled and asked, “Do you prefer your night creams to be on the bedside table, or in the bathroom?”
“Bedside table, thank you,” I answered then added, “I guess you know I’m Vivienne Dupree.”
She nodded, still smiling, as she walked to the bed. “I do. And I’m Mary. I’m the maid who’ll be taking care of your rooms.”
“Nice to meet you, Mary. And thank you in advance for taking care of me.”
Another nod from her, and she was going back across the room, saying, “We hope you enjoy your stay here.”
“I’m sure I will.”
And I was sure, in that moment.
I was hungry for tea. I couldn’t wait to meet Chastity and Temperance (though, Battle had been a bit of a pill before this excursion, so I was of two minds about meeting him). I was happy Prudence and I finally had the chance to get to know each other without a keyboard involved. And one of my favorite things was starting a book (also the writing of it, though, the finishing of it sucked since I’d miss it in that way you missed things you loved, but you knew you’d never get back).
So it was all good.
Very good.
I was on an adventure.
Another of my favorite things.
But I had no idea.
I had absolutely no idea all that was about to befall me in the seat of the Duke of Burleigh, The Inimitable Downs.
And all that was about to befall me would be a lot.
CHAPTER 2
THE SISTERS
The blue salon was, indeed, blue.
Ice blue.
This mingled with a continuation of the richly creamy creams of the entryway and was, as Prudence shared when she’d escorted me there, “Where we like to take tea because it’s cozier than any of the other sitting rooms or parlors. Except, of course, for the one where we have cocktails before dinner. But you can’t have tea and cocktails in the same place!”
After she said this, she’d giggled, like I knew this rule and the very thought of enjoying both beverages in the same room was a universal understanding of ridiculous.
However, once accosted by the room, I wasn’t sure she had a handle on the meaning of the word cozy.
Set in the central section (not in a wing), on the hall off the south side of foyer, that room was like all the rest I’d encountered: huge.
And like all the rest, it was a study of contrasts. Old and new. Antique and modern. Formal and relaxed. Stiff yet comfortable.
But all of it expensive.
The sisters were a study of contrasts too.
There was Prudence with her avant-garde clothes and auburn hair.
And then there was the blonde I saw out in the garden.
Chastity.
She’d taken off the cardigan and hat to have tea, and her blue dress was a sundress—pretty and as ethereal and delicate as she was (no way I’d garden in that dress, but I was not Lady Chastity Talyn). Her hair was wild and thick and chaotic and amazing. Her face had that pinched but pretty Nicole Kidman look to it. And her eyes were a startling, almost-hard-to-witness sapphire blue.
She was soft-spoken to the point every word she said was a whisper, hard to hear, and she never made eye contact.
Not even close.
Temperance, on the other hand, was seriously something.
Shining ebony hair falling from a middle part in loose curls along the sides of her exquisitely beautiful face, her hair tumbling further down over her shoulders and chest. Her cold gray eyes were watchful and calculating. Her skin was so pale, you could see the blue of her veins. Her lips were perfectly slicked with a bright crimson lipstick. And her body was covered in a pair of casual black slacks, a complicated, edgy, short-sleeved black blouse, and a pair of black patent leather, four-inch Louboutin heels, with the lipstick sole that matched her lips.