They reached it by strolling through elaborate, well-maintained gardens. Torie was left with the impression that the gardens had been designed to bring tranquility to anyone traveling through them so that when they reached their final destination, they would arrive with a sense of peace. Like everything else Torie had seen at Hawthorne House, the mausoleum was magnificent. It sat in a clearing, its stone spires competing with the surrounding trees for height. Stained-glass windows adorned and brought muted and colored sunlight into the cold building. Torie thought it was probably the marble tombs inside that held the warmth at bay. Several lined the walls, each providing a place where an intricate carving of a man lay next to that of a woman—both exhibited in their prime even if death had not arrived until long past that moment. A kindness to those housed within and to those who would visit their ancestors—who were always displayed at their best. In the center of the building were the resting places of the fifth Duke and Duchess of Killingsworth, who’d been taken from this earth much too soon.
