A Day Like This: A Novel by Kelley McNeil

Author:Kelley McNeil [McNeil, Kelley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2021-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

All around the mulberry tree, the monkey chased the weasel . . .

The phone rang, jostling me from jet-lagged sleep and interrupting the song as it drifted back into my dreams. I turned my aching body over, silencing the ring as I focused on the interior of the hotel room with its high ceilings and crown molding. The room was laden with airy blues and amber, with a combination of period furniture replicas and modern comforts. For a moment I’d forgotten I was in London.

I sank farther into the deep pillows. Piper had made the travel arrangements for me, and when I’d checked in to the hotel, the staff recognized me, greeting me by name and sending me to my “usual suite,” which had made me shake my head with a sad smile of disbelief. Graham and I had last been in London many years ago, and I’d had fun introducing him to the city. We had visited the hotel where I now slept, and he’d been captivated by its history and the pedigree of its architecture, still under renovation at the time. The hotel had once been considered the most beautiful hotel in all the world, we’d learned. Sitting conveniently adjacent to St. Pancras station, its Victorian-Gothic architecture had been a spectacular creation when it was first unveiled in London. It featured lobby windows towering more than fifty feet and finely painted ceilings.

“Look at this, Ann.” I can see Graham pointing excitedly upward toward a magnificent stone staircase. “The architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott, once said that he designed this so that it appeared to defy gravity while snaking upward toward a starry painted sky.”

I smiled, recalling the way he’d turned his head this way and that, and how much I’d loved him in that moment. And the way he’d turned toward me and taken my hand, sneaking us off into a small corridor off the main staircase, pulling me into his arms and kissing me deeply, the two of us intertwining and making out wildly.

“Someday, when this hotel is finished, I’ll take you upstairs, and we’ll stay in one of the suites, and I’ll make love to you all night long,” he whispers into my ear, his lips brushing my neck.

We hadn’t been able to afford to go back, but apparently now it was no problem, and I wondered if in our new life, the two of us had ever ended up staying here together, or if I was always on my own.

I thought of the history of the suite I was now in, and the people who might have once stayed within its walls. I was sure there were other trendier or more private hotels in London, befitting the famous artist I had apparently become. But I liked that I had remained true to this one throughout the years.

“After its opening in 1873,” I can hear Graham reading from a brochure, “the hotel remained a gem in London’s crown, where champagne and ball gowns flowed, until 1935, when it was forced to close.

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