Chapter FourAfter a very sparse and, Safina thought, almost uneatable luncheon, the Duke suggested,
“Now I will take you around the house and you will see what I have to endure day after day!”
There was a bitterness in his voice that Safina realised was always there when he talked about his possessions.
He took her first into the rooms on the ground floor which, it was obvious, had once been as magnificent as those at Wick Park.
Now everything was faded or threadbare. Water had seeped through the ceilings, ruining those that were painted. Every room they visited needed repairing from the ceiling to the floor.
The only things that were untouched were the eighteenth century marble mantelpieces.
However, where the rooms had had fires, the ashes were still in the grates.
In the ballroom
