“Our bedrooms, the family’s,” he quickly corrected, “are upstairs in the southern wing. There’s warmer exposure. There are fourteen rooms in the northern wing, all various sizes. My parents had frequent guests.”

“And you don’t?”

“Occasionally. Who knows? This house is so large there might be some still left from months ago.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Of course,” he said. “But we’ll see.”

He turned me to the stairway, and we started up. As I walked, I ran my hand over the smooth rosewood balustrade. Lucas came hurrying toward us when Garland turned us toward the south wing. Right there stood a suit of armor on a pedestal. Now I really thought I had entered a castle.

“Oh. Another relative?”

“Still inside,” he joked.

Lucas had softly lit the hallway ahead, giving me the sense that he had done this before when Garland had brought in a young lady for a tour. I caught a quick smile. He was more like a fellow conspirator.

I looked to my right and down. “I’ve never been in a house with bedrooms so high up.”

“Yes. My father used to say our stairways either conditioned us to live longer or killed us off younger than expected. There were definitely a few heart attacks up here,” he added.

“Really?” I said with nearly a gasp, even though he didn’t sound upset.

“Have you heard about elevators? I’m seriously thinking about getting one installed.”

“Yes. I heard my father mention them when he was talking about investments in new commercial buildings, but I had never heard of a house having one.”

“Exactly. I’d probably be the first in Virginia. Shall we continue?”

We walked a little farther before stopping at the open doorway of a large room.

“Take a peek,” he said. I stepped in through the doorway.

There were at least a dozen heads of various animals on the walls.

“Not much here yet. I haven’t been at it as much as my father, but I intend to add to our collection in the foreseeable future. Hunting,” he added when I didn’t respond.

“Oh.”

“It’s sort of a trophy room.” He studied my reaction to some of the heads, the eyes frozen in what I thought was anger. “You don’t look like you approve.”

“They look like they’re all staring at us with rage.”

He laughed. “Who could blame them?”

He took my arm again, and we continued until we reached a set of open double doors.

“This is my room.”

It was at least two, maybe even three, times as large as my parents’ bedroom. An ornately carved cherrywood bed was at the center. It had hand-carved posts topped with a white canopy. The bed was covered with a spread of quilted satin. There were two large white pillows with hand-crocheted pillowcases.