Page 64 of Legacy of Roses

He followed, his brow creased. “I’m sure it wasn’t empty before. I would have remembered that because there weren’t any completely unfurnished rooms.”

“So the Legacy emptied it?” Rosalie’s interest returned. “Why would it do that unless it had some purpose for the space?”

She looked up and down the room again, finally noticing one lone stack of furniture. But the padded chairs piled in onecorner were hardly of interest. She examined the walls instead, frowning as she realized there were windows on both sides.

“Isn’t that an internal wall?” She pointed at the row of windows that were covered with drawn curtains.

“Yes, you’re right, it is,” he said. “So where are those windows looking into?”

He pulled back the closest curtain, his hand still grasping it as he leaped back in startled astonishment. “What in the kingdoms?” he muttered.

“Is that…a theater?” Rosalie stepped up to the edge of the window and pressed her fingers against the glass.

Impossible as it seemed, the window appeared to reveal the inside of a lighted theater. The rows of padded seats were filled with audience members, but none of them appeared to notice the window behind them or the two people peering through it. She could only assume that was because none of it was real. It certainly looked real, however.

“Sitting here would feel just like attending the theater,” she breathed. “How marvelous.”

She ran down the wall, pulling back the curtains on the next interior window.

“An opera!” she cried, once she’d taken in the sight before her.

The high notes of the singer on stage rang through the room, the noise clashing with the actor who had begun the play’s opening monologue in the first window. She moved on to the final set of curtains.

“An orchestra!” she called back to Dimitri as the sounds of the instruments mingled with the operatic singing and the declaiming actor who was still completing his monologue.

Dimitri clapped his hands to his head. “What a cacophony. I don’t think you’re supposed to open them all at once.”

Rosalie grinned but obediently closed the curtains on the opera, cutting off the singing. Dimitri did the same for the play, leaving only a pleasant orchestral background to their conversation.

“It’s a more marvelous entertainment room than anything I ever imagined!” Rosalie said.

“You’ve never heard of anything like it?” Dimitri asked. “If it’s here now, there must have been something similar in the histories.”

Rosalie hesitated, a distant memory sparking. “Actually,” she said slowly. “I think I did read a mention of an entertainment room in the histories about the original Beast’s castle. That part was full of nonsense about reflections on mirrors, so I didn’t really pay much attention. I thought one of the original historians must have gotten fanciful, so I skipped right over it.”

“You only used to pay attention to the bad bits, didn’t you?” Dimitri accused.

“Not only the bad bits! Roses aren’t bad, are they?”

“Certainly not to me.” Dimitri smiled. “But you’ve never seemed taken with them.”

Rosalie rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t that I focused on the bad bits. I was interested in the relevant parts—the elements the Legacy kept recreating. I’ve never heard of it recreating an entertainment room like this.”

“That does sound like you,” Dimitri said. “Too practical for romance.”

Rosalie looked away. She hadn’t been too practical to fall for Jace and his deception.

“Let’s watch the play,” Dimitri said suddenly, pulling the curtain closed on the orchestra and moving down to open the first window.

He ushered her over to it, fetching two of the chairs from the stack in the corner. Rosalie watched him surreptitiously. Had he noticed and understood the dip in her mood?

It was kind of him to try to cheer her up if so. And even kinder to do it so subtly. Dimitri had been doing a lot of kind things since she came to the manor.

The play turned out to be even more entertaining than she’d hoped, and she laughed until her sides hurt. When it finished, they closed the curtain over the play’s window and wandered from the room.

As they walked down yet another corridor, they fell into conversation. Ostensibly, they were still exploring, but they did little beyond poking their heads into the storage rooms, sitting rooms, and bed chambers they passed. Rosalie’s main interest was the doors—she wanted to identify all the ones that could lead to more than one place, but so far she had only found three.

“What about your sisters?” Dimitri asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about them.”

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