Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(152)

“This is… how old is this house?”

He drew himself up, his eyes twinkling. “Sixteen seventy.”

“What? No!” I breathed, following the perfectly papered walls through another set of open double doors. A grand piano was lit to blinding brilliance in the corner by a bank of stained glass windows. Every wall was panelled in some kind of deeply aged wood.

“Declan this is…”

“Magnificent,” he finished, nodding as he came up behind me. He looked around with pride, his hands hung on his hips as though he had built the place himself. “It’s one of a very few remaining in the whole country in this condition. I had to practically knock off the prior owners to get my hands on it.”

Wouldn’t put it past you, buddy, I said silently as I touched every surface with my fingers trembling. Years in museums had trained me not to touch things that were this obviously fine and rare. Some voracious beast in the pit of my soul wanted to lick the moulding, though, if I’m being honest.

I darted through another door to another small parlor, this one papered in a rich, hand-painted brocade. Gilded borders trimmed the upper parts of the tall walls, while panelled wainscoting in a buttery shade of yellow stretched along the bottom.

“I’ve never been in a three-hundred-fifty year-old house before,” I mused. “Boy, these people really knew how to live.”

“As do I,” Declan crowed.

I laughed, finding myself more and more eager to explore. “The staircase?” I inquired, gesturing down.

“Oh, yes, go! You’ll love it!”

Suppressing the urge to slide down the thick bannister like probably hundreds of derrieres before mine, I made my way to the lower level into a gorgeous, marble-tiled kitchen. Huge stainless steel appliances lined one wall, flanking a wide, arched fire-pit.

“Amazing,” I muttered.

“All restored where possible… Improved where prudent,” he intoned, sounding like the announcer on one of those luxury home tour shows. “Even the foundation was replaced. These canal homes require a certain amount of investment to keep them serviceable.”

“Oh sure,” I nodded. “A few hundred years of water probably does a number on the foundation.”

“But it’s fantastic for the property value. And now...” he said solemnly, his arm extended toward the glowing, glass-encased room adjoining the kitchen. “The second-best part.”

I stared at him in exaggerated awe and anticipation, then pattered over the marble slabs toward the enclosed conservatory. One of the few furnished rooms so far, it had sumptuous wicker garden furniture arranged for conversation among a half dozen lush, potted palms. Through the glass, I could see a wavy, distorted garden. I just had to see it.

I heard Declan’s appreciative noises as my fingers found the door handle and pushed open the conservatory door. A wave of humid, peaceful air surrounded me, perfumed by flowers.

“Oh my gosh,” I whispered, grinning madly. It was a perfect, pristine, precise garden. Set in terraces of carefully sculpted hedges, layers upon layers of room-like areas nested with a beautiful sculpture as the centerpiece of each. It was like a fairy tale.

“Now this is an artist’s garden,” he drawled. “Not like that mess at Giverny.”

“It really is,” I agreed breathlessly.

He winked at me, his cheeks flushed. “I just knew you would love it,” he nodded.

I nodded back, carefully saying nothing. Why did he care what I thought?

“It’s looks like every painting I ever saw,” I laughed, practically beside myself. Flowers bloomed in pots and along borders and draped over stone arches. I could have spent a week there.

“Well then let me show you the best part! Come on!” he exclaimed and I heard him turn. When I looked, I saw just the back of his shirt disappearing through the kitchen.

“Hey wait!” I laughed and ran after him. His enthusiasm was irresistible. How could someone not be excited about all this beauty?

Going just as fast as I dared on my weary wedge heels, I jogged through the kitchen and up the stairs, then back through the ground floor parlours. I heard him on the steps and ran to the foyer and up the front stairs, pausing at the landing of what looked like living quarters. But still I heard his steps above my head and ran down the hall to another stairway that climbed for a while, becoming steeper as it went. When I finally made it through the short, rustic door, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

White plaster walls stretched to the peaked ceiling, crossed and crossed again by aged timber beams. A fire crackled merrily in the center of the big wall behind an enormous spinning wheel that looked like it belonged in the Smithsonian.