When Clare first heard the word 'castle', she imagined an old crumbling ruin or a Victorian-style mansion fitted for a Dracula's movie set, but what she encountered was the exact opposite.
Their cars navigated through a long stretching road that seemed to pierce through a grove of oak trees. Afterward, they reached the stone walls covered with evergreen hedges and went through a wrought iron gate embedded with a golden shield of the family coat of arms.
The gate opened automatically for the Roll-Royce Phantom, and it crawled smoothly over the cobblestone driveway. Clare was fascinated by the view of intricately varied grounds as they passed a wildflower meadow, a fairly large pristine pond, and the garden groves. Shirley told Clare that some of the trees were imported from Portugal, Spai
