Giving Griffen a sidelong glance, I said, “We need to put the cottage at the top of the list once we deal with the bedrooms and the kitchen. Savannah has Nicky. They need more space than this.”
“Shit, you’re right. I forgot Nicky,” Griffen said with an apologetic look at Savannah.
“I have an air mattress,” Savannah said. “Nicky loves sleeping on it, feels like he’s camping, so we can make do for a while.”
Griffen nodded in agreement. “All the same, once this place is livable, we’ll make the cottage top priority. This room makes a better office than bedroom.”
“And speaking of bedrooms…” I said, knowing we had to deal with them eventually. Every single Sawyer would be here on Tuesday, and we had no clue if there was anywhere habitable to put them. At the very least, Savannah had a metric ton of laundry on her hands.
When seen from the front courtyard, Heartstone Manor appeared to be a simple rectangle of a building. The original architect had cleverly hidden the east and west wings, angling them out from the back of the house, camouflaged by trees, so the shape of the house was more of a V with a flat bottom, that bottom being the front. The west wing held the garages on the first floor and guest rooms above. The east wing was for family. On the first floor were Prentice’s office, two sunrooms, the card room, billiards room, and the family gathering room. Above were the family apartments.
In the kitchens, we were on the opposite side of the house from the family bedrooms we’d need to inspect. Just walking around the house was going to keep me in shape.
I turned to head back to the closest staircase, following Griffen back up the main level and further still to the second floor. As we walked, he said over his shoulder, “Keep an eye out for any improvements or modernizations we need. Your mother might be able to give you ideas. If there isn’t a laundry room on the second floor, you need one.”
He had a point. As far as I remembered, the laundry was on the lower level, past the kitchens. That was a lot of stairs considering the amount of sheets and towels Savannah would be hauling around.
“I can live with it for now,” Savannah said as she made notes on her list, “there’s a few dumbwaiters and laundry chutes off the main hall.”
Griffen let out a surprised chuckle. “I forgot about those. We used to drive Miss Martha crazy trying to take rides in the dumbwaiters. And once, I threw all of Avery’s dolls down the chute and they got stuck. I got a hell of a spanking for that one.”
The staircase let us out just where the west wing joined the main house. Savannah stopped in the hall, studying the faded wallpaper in the dim light. After a moment, she reached out and hooked her fingers through a hidden loop of wire, pulling to reveal a door. We stepped into a utility room, the bare bulb on the ceiling flickering, the shelves stacked with sheets and towels that appeared clean enough, if a little musty.
With a look around, Savannah said absently, “We could put in a washer and dryer here. There’s plumbing in the mudroom below us.” She scribbled notes on her pad. “And enough linens to get started.”
We exited into the hall, the door disappearing behind us as if part of the wall. I turned to study the wallpaper, squinting until I could see the faint lines of the door and the tiny round handle hidden in the design of a flower.
Reaching out, I ran my finger over the seam in the wallpaper. “I never knew this was here.”
“Heartstone has all sorts of secrets,” Savannah said, half to herself. I’d known she’d be a good choice because she’d grown up in this house, first as a child, then as her mother’s helper, and later as paid staff herself. Savannah probably knew more about Heartstone than anyone, excepting Miss Martha.
We crossed the hall that ran along the back of the main house from the west wing to the east, passing the main staircase on our right, windows looking into the formal gardens on our left. I only glanced that way once. Once was enough. I’d been right. If the front courtyard was an overgrown mess, the formal gardens were worse.
In the family wing, a wide hall ran through the center, closed doors all the way down on both sides. The sconces in the wall were half burned out, the wallpaper just as faded as the rest. The first door we came to had a cockeyed, hand-painted sign tacked to the door. Keep Out, That Means You!
Savannah sighed.
“Sterling,” she said, gingerly turning the handle after a brief double knock. The three of us stood in the doorway, no one willing to venture in any further. Calling it a disaster would have been too generous. Sheets half torn off the bed. Piles of dirty clothes almost knee-high. A not-so-faint odor of spoiled food and stale vomit.