Was it any wonder that his mother had been so distraught when she had been diagnosed, that she might leave behind her a family unit that was broken at the seams? He had a lot of ground to cover if he were to convince her otherwise.
‘What an amazing place,’ Violet murmured as the true extent of the sprawling mansion, gloriously lit against the darkness, revealed itself. ‘What was it like growing up here?’
‘My parents only moved in when my grandfather died, and I was a teenager. Before that, we lived in the original cottage my parents first bought together when they were married...’
‘It must have seemed enormous after a cottage...’
‘When you live in a house this size you get used to the space very quickly.’ And he had. He had lost himself in it. He had been able to escape. He wondered whether he had been so successful at escaping that a part of him had never returned. And had his mother indulged that need for escape? Until now? When escape was no longer a luxury to be enjoyed?
Not given to introspection, Damien frowned as he pulled up in the large circular courtyard. The house was lit up like a Christmas tree in the gathering darkness and they had hardly emerged from the car with their cases when the front door was flung open and Anne, the housekeeper who had been with the family since time immemorial, was standing there, waving them inside.
Violet wondered what her role here was to be. Exactly. Sitting by a hospital bed, she had known what to do and the impersonal surroundings had relieved her of the necessity of trying to act the star-struck lover. A few passing touches, delivered by Damien rather than her—more would have seemed inappropriate in a hospital room, where they were subject to unexpected appearances from hospital staff.
But here she was floundering in a place without guidelines as they were ushered into the grandest hall she had ever seen.
The vaulted ceiling seemed as high and as impressive as the ceiling of a cathedral. The fine silk Persian rug in the hall bore the rich sheen of its age. The staircase leading up before splitting in opposite directions was dark and highly polished. It was a country house on a grand scale.
The housekeeper was chatting animatedly as they were led from the hall through a perplexing series of rooms and corridors.
‘Your mother is resting. She’ll be down with Dominic for dinner. Served at seven promptly, with drinks before in the Long Room. You’ve been put in the Blue Room, Mr Damien. George will bring the bags up.’
Looking sideways, Violet was fascinated at Damien’s indifference to his surroundings. He barely looked around him. How on earth could he have said that a person could become accustomed to a house of this size? She had initially been introduced to Anne as his girlfriend and now, as though suddenly remembering that she was trotting along obediently next to him, he slung one arm over her shoulder as the housekeeper headed away from them through one of the multitude of doors, before disappearing into some other part of the vast family mansion.
‘An old retainer,’ he said, dropping his arm and moving towards a side staircase that Violet had failed to notice.
‘It’s a beautiful house.’
‘It’s far too big for just my mother and Dominic, especially considering that the land is no longer farmed.’ He was striding ahead of her, his mind still uncomfortably dwelling on the unexpected train of thought that had assailed him in the car, the unpleasant notion that the grand house through which he was now confidently leading the way had been his excuse to pull away from his brother. He had never given a great deal of thought to his relationship with Dominic. Was he now on some kind of weird guilt trip because of the circumstances? Had he shielded himself from the pain Annalise had inflicted on him when she had rejected his brother by pulling ever further away from Dominic? He should have been far more of a presence here on the estate, especially with his mother getting older.
‘It would be a shame to sell it. I bet it’s been in your family for generations...’ She was barely aware of the bedroom until the door was thrown open and the first thing that accosted her was the sight of a massive four-poster bed on which their suitcases had been neatly placed. While he strode in with assurance, moving to stand and look distractedly through the windows, she hovered uncertainly in the background.
‘Well?’ Damien harnessed his wandering mind and focused narrowly on her.
‘Why are both our suitcases in this room?’ Violet asked bluntly. She already knew the answer to that one, yet she shied away from facing it. She hadn’t given much thought to the details of their stay. In a vague, generalised way, she had imagined awkward one-to-one conversations with Damien and embarrassing economising of the truth with his mother, along with stilted meals where she would be under scrutiny, forced to gaily smile her way through gritted teeth. She hadn’t gone any further when it came to scenarios. She hadn’t given any thought to the possibility that the loving couple might be put in the same bedroom. She had blithely assumed that such an eventuality would not occur because surely Eleanor belonged to that generation which abhorred the thought of cohabitation under their roof. Eleanor was a traditionalist, a widow who still proudly wore her wedding ring and tut tutted about the youth of today.
‘Because this is where we’ll be sleeping,’ Damien replied with equal bluntness. His unaccountably introspective and dark frame of mind had not put him in the best of moods. Having questioned his devotion as a son and on-hand supportive presence as a brother, the last thing he needed was to witness his so-called girlfriend’s evident horror at being trapped in the same bedroom as him.
‘I can’t sleep in the same room as you! I didn’t think that this would be the format.’
‘Tough. You haven’t got a choice.’ He began unbuttoning his shirt, a prelude to having a shower, and Violet’s eyes were drawn to the sliver of brown chest being exposed inch by relentless inch. She hurriedly looked away but, even though she was staring fixedly at his face, she could still see the gradual unbuttoning of his shirt until it was completely open, at which point she cleared her throat and gazed at the door behind him.
‘There must be another room I can stay in. This place is enormous.’
‘Oh, there are hundreds of other rooms,’ Damien asserted nonchalantly. ‘However, you won’t be in any of them. It’s a few days and my mother has put us together. Somehow I don’t think she’s going to buy the line that we’re keeping ourselves virtuous for the big day.’ He pulled off his shirt and headed towards his case on the bed, flipping it open without looking at her. ‘We have roughly an hour before we need to be downstairs for drinks. My mother enjoys the formal approach when it comes to dining. It’s one of her idiosyncrasies. So do you want to have the bathroom first or shall I?’
Violet hated his tone of voice. It was one which implied that he couldn’t even be bothered to take her concerns into account. He was accustomed to sharing beds with women, she thought with a burst of impotent anger. In his adult life, he had probably slept with a woman next to him a lot more often than he had slept alone. It wasn’t the same for her. Did he imagine that she would be able to lie next to him and pretend that she was on her own? The bed was king-sized but the thought of moving in the night and accidentally colliding with his sleeping form was enough to make her feel like fainting.
‘I hate this,’ she whispered, filled with self-pity that the last vestige of her dignity was being stripped away from her. ‘You’ll have to sleep on the sofa.’
Damien glanced at the chaise longue by the window and wondered whether she was being serious. ‘I’m six foot four. What would you suggest I do with my feet?’ He raised his eyebrows and watched as she struggled in silence to come up with a suitable response. ‘I’ve spent hours driving. I’m