"Do you know," Grayson said, his voice quiet.
She waited.
He looked at the estate — the stone facade, the iron gates, the particular imposing quality of a building that had been designed to communicate power and had done so consistently for a very long time. His expression was the one she had come to associate with him arriving somewhere unexpected and taking note of the coordinates.
"It looks different," he said.
"The estate?"
"From out here." He looked at it for another moment. "I've always approached it from inside. From the study, the courtyard. The perimeter." He turned his head and looked at her. "I don't remember the last time I stood outside and looked at it."
She looked at it with him. It was an extraordinary building — she had thought so from the first day. Stone and iron and centuries of deliberate authority.
"It still looks like a fortress," she said.
