Katie’s Hero Read Online Free Page B

lordship were out of the way made wandering the halls all the more tempting.
    Katie slipped down the corridor that led to the front of the house and walked quietly across the checkered floor of the entrance hall.
    She opened the first door she came to, a well-appointed reception room with a view across the drive. She moved to stand by the huge fireplace and stared up at the massive oil painting above it of a magnificent horse, almost life size, in a stiff, dressage pose. Katie studied its sleek chestnut haunches and cropped tail, marveling at the painter’s skill.
    The edge of the room was lined with large sofas with curved polished legs, but not much other furniture. She supposed she could be in a waiting room where guests gathered before heading through the double doors on the other side.
    She padded quietly across the carpet to see if those doors led anywhere exciting, hoping that she wouldn’t find them locked. The doors were tall and narrow, each one intricately paneled. She put her hand on one of the crystal doorknobs, and turned it. It creaked open and she looked inside.
    She gasped with pleasure and surprise. It was a real ballroom with a beautiful parquet floor and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Along one wall hung tall windows, curved at the top, at regular intervals, each letting in a shaft of sunlight. On the other side — echoing the windows — were tall, gilt-framed mirrors as elegant as the windows. Drawn in by the sheer loveliness, she took a few tentative steps into the room before she noticed the ceiling. A domed, painted ceiling depicted the heavens, again with shafts of light coming down. She turned slowly and gazed in wonder. The colors were vivid and spectacular — a bright blue sky with delicate white clouds where baby angels peeped down.
    What a delight it must have been to dance here! This place put the railway hotel in the shade, for sure. Katie turned around and around, her feet spinning easily on the mellow golden floor. She allowed herself to imagine the music — a string quartet perhaps, playing something light and flirtatious. She could hear the sound of the guests’ laughter, champagne glasses tinkling during toasts, and the rustle of silk taffeta. The men, handsome and witty, all looking out for a pretty girl who’d let them write their name on her dance card.
    “Do you like to dance?”
    “Yes,” she breathed, though she had sworn she’d never like it again after Tom, and then her heart lurched and she opened her eyes.
    This was not an imagined conversation.
    His lordship was by the door. She had not heard him wheel in.
    “So do I,” he said, and in those three little words she heard such inexpressible sadness that she could feel his pain in her own heart.
    What could she say? She faltered, feeling like a fool.
    “Forgive me, sir, I opened the door and when I saw the ceiling I just had to have a look.”
    “It’s my favorite room in the whole house.”
    He seemed almost human, Katie thought, not a bit like the unreasonable individual she’d met yesterday. She glanced up again at the extraordinary ceiling. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Beauty beyond compare.”
    When she looked back at him, he had a look in his eyes she couldn’t read — a faint hint of amusement, perhaps?
    Then an idea struck her. “Why don’t you use it as your room, sir, then you could lie here and look up at that every day?”
    As soon as the words escaped, she knew she was being much too forward. She shouldn’t be talking to him like that, telling him what to do. He was not a man you could order around.
    And yet, he didn’t rebuke her. He was silent for a moment, and then he spoke. “Because I like to remember this room as it once was, before the war.”
    She nodded. She could understand that.
    Katie could see that he would have been tall if he had been able to stand. His hair, cut into a classic short back and sides, was fair. The longer locks of hair that swept back from his