Unexpected Rendezvous

Welcome to Hell

I was awoken by the sound of my alarm. It was quite surprising that it was so gloomy and dark outside. I frowned at the possibility that it might rain and that I needed to go to the Hammond Manor that day. The alarm had marked that it was 7 o' clock in the morning. I stood up from my bed and took a long hot shower. I put on a silver short-sleeve shirt accompanied by a black pants. I took out my signet ring, as well as my customized Patek Philippe that had my crest on it.

I sat on the desk at the edge of my room and gazed out to the window once more. After a while, I took out my phone and sent Rowena a text.
"Good morning, love. I hope you slept well. Bryan will pick you up at 8, so I guess I'll see you then."

I went down to my dining room and had my breakfast and coffee before heading back to my study room. My mind was out of place and I felt like I was doing everything as if I was on autopilot. It was now marked 07:30 and I needed to make a call to my bank to authorized a payment for the British Heart Foundation. I feel ashamed that I didn't give them any donations under my name, so I did. What I didn't even realize was that the verification process would take very long and complicated. I must have been so caught up with all of the process, I didn't even realize that it had been an hour since I was pacing back and forth in my study. I groaned out of frustration when I heard a knock on the door. I turned to see who it was and there was Rowena.
She was peeking through the door and gave me a grin.

Rowena was wearing a dark blue sleeveless dress and her hair was braided. She seemed fresh and very lively. I smiled as I hung up the call and walked towards her, giving her a quick kiss on the lips.
"You look marvelous, love."
"And so are you," she grinned widely.
"Did you have breakfast? I think there are still some toasts and eggs downstairs if you want any," I said while holding her hands.
"As a matter of fact, I did have breakfast at home. I bet it's nothing compared to what Esmeralda had prepared, but oh well," she gave me a light shrug.
I shook my head and gave her a chuckle, "well then, are you ready to go?"
Her expression turned serious all of the sudden and she finally said with a heavy sigh,
"I am. Let's go."

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We took my black Mercedes to go to the manor. The Hammond Manor was located in Wiltshire, approximately around 91.1 miles from London. I spent most of the time focusing on the road while Rowena was staring out the window, we passed through the buildings that soon turned into a green scenery. The only sound echoing in the car was the classical music from the radio. Neither of us had said anything, and I knew that we were both nervous to see my father - for obviously different reasons.

We had been driving for almost 2 hours and the scenery had changed drastically. The houses grew even more apart and the size of the houses had doubled from what we saw 2 hours earlier. There were more greens on both of our sides, and once in a while you could see a vineyard as we passed by. We finally came to a stop in front of a big gold gate. It had a circle in the middle of the gate that had the letter "H". I pressed the button on a small grey box and soon there was a voice coming out of it.
"Who is it?"
"This is Alexander Hammond," I replied absentmindedly.
"Master Alexander? I'll buzzed you right in," the voice replied.

The gate soon parted and I drove in. The road was now smaller, forming a two ways path; and on both side, you could see nothing but big trees. It was an odd feeling seeing those trees, I remembered I used to play hide and seek with my maids around these areas and mum would sometimes join us. After a few minutes of driving on the pathway, the view had changed drastically. There were no more trees and in front of us stood an enormous yellowish building. It had the typical English architecture model and to the right side of the main building, one of the other smaller building had a glass roof. The manor had a letter U driveway and a fountain in the middle of it. Once I stopped my car, I took a glance at Rowena. She seemed to be looking around and didn't even notice that I was looking at her.
"Are you alright?" I asked.
She never left her gaze at the manor and its surrounding, but eventually she said,
"Alex, this is... huge... I think I'm going to be lost in here..."
"You'll get used to it... eventually," I said and placed a hand on hers.