Cecily eagerly agreed and followed alongside the Duke.
“I do not know if Greta has told you anything about the mansion,” he said. “Would you like for me to describe some of it to you as we head outside?”
Cecily’s eyes widened. Just days before, she has vowed to never ask him to do that for her. Now, he was describing everything to her, and he seemed more than happy to do it.
“That would be wonderful, Val,” she said.
Val chuckled softly.
“Well,” he said. “We will begin with the hallway that intersects the one that will take us to the back servant’s entrance.”
Cecily was thrilled. She knew that was where many portraits and paintings usually hung in the grand homes of nobility.
“That sounds lovely,” she said.
Val led her gently around some tables that Greta had already described to her. She could smell the gardenias, which were replaced every day, on each one, and how they mingled well with Val’s sandalwood cologne. She could hardly believe how happy she was, when she had been so sad just hours before.
“We are entering the hallway just off the entryway now,” he said. “The rug is rich crimson, and it extends the entire length of the hallway. Which is, I would estimate, about the length of seven downtown London blocks.”
Cecily felt chills as she imagined what he was describing to her. At last, a picture of her home was forming in her mind.
“I bet it is lovely,” she said. “What colour is the wood of the walls?”
“Brown,” Val answered patiently. “And the trim is white.”
She shivered with delight and grinned.
“Please, continue,” she said.
Val paused for just a moment, and she could feel his intense gaze. She blushed as he went on describing their surroundings.
“We organised our paintings in a specific way,” he said. “The family portraits are on the left wall, apart from my father’s, which is in the study. And on the right are the landscape and ocean view paintings.”
Cecily nodded.
“I can almost see them now,” she said.
Val chuckled.
“The first painting is of my grandfather,” he said. “He was ten years older than I am now when he was painted, which made him forty years old. He is wearing a blue suit with a white frilled undershirt, and his expression says he would rather be doing anything else.”
Cecily giggled.
“I bet that is amusing,” she said.
Val patted her hand.
“You do not know the half of it,” he said, laughing. “Now, on the right, there is a painting of a lovely pasture dotted with wildflowers. In the middle are two cows and a bull. Given their respective sizes, I assume they are mother, father and offspring. The parents are munching grass, and the calf has its head lifted, and a monarch butterfly is perched on its nose.”
Cecily laughed with delight.
“How spectacular,” she said. “I can see it now, the young calf trying to understand what the butterfly is and how to make it go away so that it can eat with its parents.”
Val laughed. Cecily quickly realized that she loved that sound even more than any music piece in existence. She hoped that their bonding and learning about one another would never stop.
“I love your imagination,” he said. “I always imagined that it wanted to eat the butterfly. Perhaps because I watched a cow eat a butterfly when I was a boy. It just happened to be on a blade of grass as the cow ate. I do not think it was intentional, but it was certainly a sight.”
Cecily giggled.
