Page 70 of The Viscount's Seduction
Chapter 16
Later that day, Sirena crossed the threshold into the most magnificent bedchamber she’d ever seen.
“This will be yours.” Perry linked arms with her. “It’s a bit outdated, not having been redecorated since the last century, but the housekeeper keeps it fresh. It is our grandest suite, even comparing it to Father’s. What do you think?”
The fawn-colored brocades all but glittered in the rosy light of early afternoon. It was all opposite to her room at home in Glenmorrow, where truly she had never got out of the nursery.
The bed that graced this chamber was so high a staircase had been set to it. Once they arrived at the top, the bed would easily accommodate her and Bakeley.
That thought warmed her. “It is indeed grand,” she said.Too grand for me.
“Come, and we’ll see the rest, and then you may decide.” Perry led her through a door into a sitting room decked out with cabinets and wardrobes. “This room is rather dark, I think.”
Sirena viewed the heavy violet covering the one small window. “Lighter curtains would help.”
“You see, already you have ideas for making things better. Now come.” They continued through another door.
Dark green curtains and wallpaper, and dark, heavy furniture made clear that this was the man’s chamber in this suite. And this bed was even bigger and higher than the lady’s. “This one has been redecorated more recently, a few years ago when we added the bathing chamber and the water closet.”
Sirena’s head jerked up. “You have a water closet?” She had seen one at her neighbor’s estate, but that was a lowly affair stuck near the kitchen scullery.
“Come and see.” Perry’s eyes sparkled under her spectacles as she tugged Sirena to yet another door. “Bakeley put it in when he had repairs done to the house, before Father returned. Isn’t it marvelous?”
A monstrous wooden tub held center stage in the small room, with pipes leading to and from an enormous metal container.
“Isn’t it marvelous?” Perry asked again.
Perry’s raptures demanded a response, but she didn’t have one.
“Bakeley installed a cistern so the servants don’t have to haul up the water for bathing. You must agree it is marvelous.”
No water to heat and haul in buckets, and then to scoop and haul away again. Each time Lady Jane bathed, she, Barton, and Molly had been put through their paces. “Indeed. I’m awestruck.”
Perry detached herself and went to open a door. “Voila. The water closet.”
“Bakeley did this?”
“It was his idea, yes. He spent considerable time redesigning the piping and drainage, and pressing the Commission of Sewers for better maintenance in the street. He has plans to install these at Cransdall also, but Father said we must wait a bit.”
His father was a demanding, overbearing, interfering man. She must keep that fact in mind.
Perry turned a valve and water rushed into the tub.
Sirena put her hand under the flow of water. “It’s cold.”
“There’s a heater for the holding tank.” She closed the valve and the water stopped. “Is it not amazing? One of these in every building, and we will solve half the problems of the poor. Bakeley agrees with me on this, though the cost…well, he’s been after Father to take up the problems of the sewer works with the Lords, and now we have Bink and Charley in the Commons. Besides the disease and vermin, it is so demoralizing for people to be dirty, do you not think?”
She nodded. Perry had lofty and fine goals, but Sirena doubted she’d had much experience of true dirt. She couldn’t imagine the bespectacled girl in the Shaldon stables, where the grooms rubbed sweat with their charges, or on the track having dirt kicked up at her. And the rookeries, and alleys, and the docks? She couldn’t imagine Perry had any more knowledge than the testimony of others.
Still, Sirena counted her as a friend, one that she would learn a thing or two from.
“Do you think they’ll be back soon?”
Shaldon and his two sons had gone off to some government office. Bakeley had taken her aside, assuring her he would report back to her, and telling her to wait at home until he returned.
She had said yes, but only because she’d been stunned and flummoxed by the man who wished for her to call him Father.
Upon arrival that morning, they’d invaded the breakfast room where Shaldon had greeted her quite formally, looking down his noble beak at her hastily twisted up hair and dun colored dress. When he’d spoken, though, it had been with a kind reassurance that the O’Brians were safe.
