Rejection Runs Deep (The Canleigh Series, book 1: A chilling psychological family drama), Carole Williams [ebook reader 8 inch .TXT] 📗

Richard looked at her thoughtfully and then scowled.  “Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid.  I hope she’s not going to hang onto him for long.  I don’t think he is going to prove a good bet somehow …  and by the way, Miss Barrett,” he smiled with appreciation, eyeing her up and down, “You look simply stunning and that dress is perfect.  You’re going to dazzle the family this evening, that’s for sure.  Come on.  Let me show you round some of the ancestral pile before dinner.  Knowing how interested you are in art, I have no doubt you’ll appreciate our vast collection.”

They moved down the grand central staircase, bathed in warm evening sun from the massive domed skylight above and on reaching the entrance hall

Richard stopped and turned to her.

“Just to prepare you for the tour, all the ceilings and fireplaces are by Robert Adam.”

“Ah, yes,” murmured Ruth, “the famous Scottish architect.  I have always admired his work,” looking above her head at the intricately designed ceiling with ornate plasterwork.

“And apart from the amazing chandelier in the Italian room, all the rest are Waterford crystal.”

“How wonderful,” Ruth exclaimed.  Not having had the honour of a personal tour of a grand stately home before, she was really beginning to enjoy herself.

“Now, I’ll just explain the layout of the house,” continued Richard, warming to his theme, as they stood facing the front door.  “If we go through the door on our left, we enter the west wing, which I will show you tomorrow.  The east wing, where we are going now, is through the door on our right.  Firstly, we enter the green drawing room, followed by the Italian room and the gold drawing room.  Then there is the ballroom, the turquoise drawing room, the dining room and music room and finally the library, which is directly behind where we are now standing and is where we all tend to congregate and where Father uses as his study.

“And that’s just the east wing,” stated Ruth incredulously.

Richard nodded and grinned.  “Now, follow me and I’ll take you on a clockwise tour which will bring us back into the library.”  He looked at his watch, “at just about the right time for pre-dinner drinks.”

He strode across the entrance hall to the door to the right of the front door and opened it, standing aside to allow Ruth to enter the green drawing room.

“This was mainly used by the gentleman in times gone by so they could smoke in peace well away from the ladies, who tended to congregate in the turquoise drawing room on the other side of the ballroom.

Ruth liked the green drawing room very much.  It was cosy, with large, comfy looking brown leather sofas positioned near to the marble fireplace.  There was a tall, loudly ticking, long case clock in one corner and Chippendale occasional tables were dotted around the room on which stood vases of freshly cut white chrysanthemums and photographs of the family.

“Is this …?” asked Ruth, studying a picture in a gold frame of an attractive older man with features similar to Richard’s.

“Yes.  It’s Father.  Taken just before Mother left us.  I don’t like it much.  He looks strained … tense.  He’s quite different now … much more relaxed these days now he spends so much time in Scotland … you’ll see when you meet him.”

Ruth looked again at the photograph, liking what she saw.  Although the Duke did show signs of tension, he was … solid looking  . . .  a reliable kind of man, the sort of person to turn to in a crisis and who would do all he could to help.  She remembered Hardy’s assurances.  The butler must be right.  According to what Richard had told her, Hardy had worked closely with the Duke for many years and would know him extremely well.

Ruth had a quick look at the remainder of the photographs.  A very young Delia was astride a Shetland pony with a serious expression on her face; there was another of her as a teenager holding the reins of a white pony and in the third, she was an adult, sitting on a dark horse with flaring nostrils.  In all three Delia had a haughty, ‘don’t mess with me’ air about her, which, for some reason made Ruth feel inadequate and insecure.

There were also photographs of Richard as a child.  He wore black-framed glasses, giving him a somewhat studious appearance.  He had told Ruth how as a teenager he had researched contact lenses and eventually managed to persuade his father to allow him to be fitted for a pair before his graduation day.  The resulting photograph of a smiling Richard, proudly holding his degree, was a quite different looking young man.

“God, I hated those glasses,” he said, following Ruth’s gaze.  “You don’t know what a relief it was to be able to wear contacts, although I do wear glasses at the flat in the evenings … but they have nice gold frames now,” he grinned.

Ruth smiled back and then turned to have a look at the last few photographs on a nearby table.  They were of a tiny Victoria, looking cute in a ballet tutu and pink ballet shoes, then slightly older at the wheel of a Rolls-Royce grinning gleefully and finally as a teenager posing playfully in a swimming costume beside a swimming pool.

“The swimming pool is just outside,” remarked Richard.  “You’ll see it through the windows of the gold drawing room and in much more detail when we swim in the morning.”

“That will be lovely,” remarked Ruth, looking forward to it.  He had told her to bring swimwear so she was all prepared and from the photograph, the indoor heated pool with floor to ceiling windows on the two longest walls looked amazing.