He gave her a quizzical glance before speaking again.
"There is no need. I am simply here to—"
"It was truly unfortunate that you took the fall you did," said Caroline, blithe as a bird in spring. "However, it has been a long time since Shawly Grange has had visitors of any sort. While you may find us a poor kind of company here in the West Country, I believe our hospitality is unrivaled. I do hope you give us the excuse to exercise it."
The marquess frowned at her.
"Lady Caroline, I hardly see—"
"We are looking forward to having you."
Aunt Hawthorne looked at her grand-niece with some dismay.
"My goodness, Caroline, won't you let the poor man get a word in edgewise? My lord, what were you saying?"
While Aunt Hawthorne had turned to look at the marquess, Caroline caught his eye with her own. If she could have channeled the gorgons, who turned men to stone with a single glance, she would have done so.
Do not say a word. Do not. If you do, I swear I will bury my egg spoon in your heart.
The marquess gave her a long look, and then turned to Aunt Hawthorne.
"I was simply saying that I am sure I will enjoy your hospitality, Lady Hawthorne. I have spent some time in the West Country when I was a young boy, and I have been looking to purchase some property here for hunting and the like."
"Oh, how splendid," said Aunt Hawthorne with a bright smile. "May I ask what you are looking for? There are so many fine estates nearby that could so use a decent owner in residence."
"I was thinking of a property close to the river, something large and rather antique as opposed to modern. Something rustic but with a farm attached for some additional income might be nice."
"How very like Shawly Grange that sounds," said Aunt Hawthorne.
"How very like," said Caroline, unamused.
"Oh, dear, don't be ungracious. Lord Ellerston will think we are all backward rustics if you are like that. Now let me see, the Cannanby estate meets many of those requirements, and it has been looking to let for quite some time now, and of course, the Appletons have been considering moving to London for years now..."
As Aunt Hawthorne rattled on about the various properties in the area, Caroline met the marquess’ gaze and held it steadily. He looked back at her, more questioning than angry.
I will want an explanation, his expression seemed to say.
And I'm going to give one. Just leave my poor aunt out of it.
After breakfast, Caroline kissed her aunt on the cheek and suggested she spend the day embroidering in the ladies' parlor.
"Oh, but weren't you planning to do your research in the library today?"
"I am, but I am sure that Lord Ellerston can keep me company. And I know how the dust in the library affects your nose."
"Well, I am not at all sure that is proper, but I suppose you know best. Until lunch, then, my dear. Lord Ellerston."
The marquess bowed politely to Aunt Hawthorne, and they both watched as she took herself off to the parlor.
When the marquess would have spoken, Caroline shook her head.
"Come on," she said. "Business is done in the library."
* * *
The library was one of Caroline's favorite places at Shawly Grange. She could still remember playing in the shadows while her father dealt with tenant farmers and magistrates at his desk. When she sat down at the desk now, she wondered if it would ever feel as if it were truly hers.
Bemused, the marquess took a seat at one of the chairs across the desk from her seat.
"Far be it from me to side with the woman who remembers Cromwell, but isn't this a little improper? You are an unmarried lady of, what, twenty?"
"Twenty-three, actually."
"And I am an unmarried man of near thirty. In Society, your ears would already be scorched by the Society matrons for entertaining me like this."
"Then thank goodness we are not in Society then," Caroline said with a shrug. "I'm afraid we take things a little less seriously here in the west."
"You are less finicky about the social niceties, then."
"More like I cannot personally be bothered by what someone in London thinks when I am so far away. Now, you need to tell me what in the world is going on. Shawly Grange is my home, and you come in telling me that you think you own it?"
"Not think I do, I am afraid. Here."
He handed her a leather cylinder. It was capped and water-proofed to protect the materials inside, and Caroline could feel something flip in her stomach when she saw it. As if she were standing someplace far distant from herself, she pulled out the documents inside. They were official, drawn up in London, and she paused on the final one.
"This is my brother Edwin's signature."
"It is."
"This is a deed giving you ownership of Shawly Grange and all attached properties. This is giving you all of Shawly Grange."
The marquess said nothing. Caroline was grateful. She felt as if the world was shifting underneath her, making her feel unsteady. She touched the desk and was vaguely surprised that it was not tilting like the deck of a boat.
"Tell me how this came about."
The marquess shrugged.
"You will not like it, but this is the truth. I met your brother in a game of cards at the Vulpine, a gambling club in London. We were playing rather deep, and rather than be forced out of the game, your brother put down Shawly Grange on a final hand."
Caroline winced. She supposed she had been hoping for a story she could poke full of holes, that would tell her that this man had no good claim to her home. Unfortunately, that sounded exactly like something her brother would do.
"I see. And he... lost everything he could lose."
"I verified that the properties he lost were not entailed from the throne. As a matter of fact, this was the only property registered to your family that was not."
Caroline laughed, a harsh sound.
"Of course, it was. He lost Robinswood two years ago, and Martindale not long before that. I... I had hoped he had finally learned his lesson."
"I'm sorry to say that he has not. I am not a savage, I will not turn you out tonight or any such nonsense. Perhaps a month or even two, to contact your relatives..."
"You may keep your kind condolences, Lord Ellerston. They are not wanted.”
"No?"
"No. Because you are not taking Shawly Grange. This is my home, mine and Aunt Hawthorne's. We are not leaving."
The marquess frowned at her as if she were a particularly irritating type of gnat. For some reason, she found she preferred his irritation to the pity he was trying to give her before.
"I have no interest in taking possession of Wensley's poor relations in addition to the property."
Caroline bridled at his words, laying her hands flat on the desk in front of her. if she kept them there, she would not be tempted to reach for the letter opener and stab him.
"I beg your pardon, my lord, but I am no poor relation."
"Are you not? You are hanging on to the grange as if it is your last hope in the world."
"I am the sister of the Earl of Wensley, and I am in possession of three thousand pounds a year from the investments my father left to me. I, sir, am no one's poor relation."
"Good. I was afraid I was going to have to feel guilty about turning you out. You can run back to your brother now that you can no longer play house, and I'm sure you'll be quite at home."
Caroline knew a tide of red was rising up in her face. Aunt Hawthorne said that she looked like a tomato when she was upset, but Caroline hardly cared about that now.
"Of all the high-handed and arrogant scoundrels!"
The marquess waved his hand at her, almost indolently dismissive.
"You may save your rage and ichor for your brother, Lady Caroline. I was not the one who lost you Shawly Grange."
Caroline glared at him.
"I could drag your name through the mud. You kissed me last night�
�"
The moment Caroline brought up that kiss, she regretted it. Speaking of it summoned up the thrill she had felt when he touched her the night before, as if somehow that kiss lived in her skin now and would not be removed. The marquess grinned, a lazy sensual thing, and he leaned back in his chair, resting his ankle on the opposite knee.
"Would you like to talk about that kiss? Perhaps we should start with why a gently-brought up young woman was alone in the room of a notorious rake? And then why she was in his bed, touching his face all unasked for."
"You absolute… Our maids are in their sixties, and they deserve their rest! I was simply seeing to the needs of a guest."
"By all means, explain that to the Society matrons. I'm sure they'll understand the circumstances and be forgiving toward you."
"That's not fair."
"Neither is your threatening me, but I thought I would cut to the chase rather than point that out."
Caroline sat at her father's desk, feeling as if she were drowning. Was the desk part of Shawly Grange that she would need to give up? It was unbearable.
The marquess was shaking his head.
"I have no interest in going around in circles with you. Shawly Grange is mine, recognized by both Crown and law. Your brother, of course, should not have bet your home out from under you, but that is no business of mine."
"Are you quite without a heart?" she asked hopelessly.
He gave her a strange look before shrugging.
"It's a lack that has been noted before. At the very least, I have no vulnerable organs in that direction for you to prey on."
"So, you have no heart... but you do like money?"
"I was led to believe that most people do?"
"What would you do if I were to tell you that there is a treasure hidden at Shawly Grange?"
"I would say that you were grasping at straws and trying to sell me a story. Also, that if you were going to pull a story out of nowhere, I would think that you should do better than that."
"There is a treasure. I know there is. It's the Massey legacy. It's supposed to be tremendous."
Caroline felt a surge of relief upon seeing the interest spark in the marquess’ eyes. Perhaps all was not lost after all.
"Is it really? Convince me."
"All right. I am convinced there is a treasure hidden here at the Grange. As you can see, Shawly Grange is quite old."
"I was planning to put in some modernizations when I took ownership, yes."
"You'll do no such…" Caroline looked a little closer and saw the hint of humor lurking in the marquess’ eye.
"Ah, you are baiting me. Stop it. Anyway, it's very old, and Masseys have lived her for centuries. Parts of it go all the way back to the 1400s. Masseys lived and died here, and some two hundred years ago, some kind of great treasure went missing. What it was had never been recorded, but it was reputed to be a great loss, one that sent the entire family into a frenzy. We've been looking for it ever since."
"And what does this family story mean to me?"
"If you are willing to hold off on taking possession of Shawly Grange long enough for me to find the treasure, I will give it to you in exchange for ownership of my home."
The marquess gave her a long look.
"So, what you're proposing is that I hold off on taking ownership of a decent money-making property on the off-chance that you find a treasure that has been missing for centuries? That sounds insane."
But he hadn't rejected it outright, and Caroline seized on that sliver of hope.
"You won the Grange without expecting to, my lord. You can hardly already be relying on the income. And honestly, if my brother had to stake Shawly Grange, you cannot have been playing for pennies. What will it cost you to wait a few months for me to find the treasure and to give it to you?"
He gave her an unimpressed look.
"I could just turf you out and search myself."
"Not without the diaries that are mine by right. Not without the years of work that I and Masseys before me have committed to the search. I have done all the work, my lord, and I am close, I know I am. If you want to go crawling into every chimney the way that I have, you are welcome, but I will tell you that the odd bat is a terrifying thing to encounter."
The marquess blinked at her.
"You went into the chimneys yourself?"
"Every. Single. One. And if I cannot find the treasure in, say, six months, you take possession as you would have anyway, and I and Aunt Hawthorne leave without a peep."
"Lady Caroline, I have known you for less than a full day, and the idea of you doing anything without a peep already sounds unlikely in the extreme. But all right. I'm a gambling man, after all, and I've made stupider bets for smaller prizes. But I have a few conditions."
Caroline braced herself.
"All right."
"First, you have one month."
"But that's far too little time!"
"You were the one who said that you were close, and six months is you stalling, not the time you need. One month, take it or leave it."
Caroline gritted her teeth and nodded. It wasn't as if she had much of a choice.
"Second, you let me come with you on your search."
"But why?"
"So I can make sure that you are not using the opportunity to simply sabotage the place out of spite before I take possession."
Caroline looked at him with indignation.
"What a nasty mind you have, my lord! Shawly Grange is my home, and I would never—"
"Third... you stop calling me 'my lord.'"
"Why on earth would I do that? You're a marquess."
"I'm also damned tired of hearing it out of your mouth for some reason. I liked it better when you thought I was some random man who had crashed upon the road. My name is Brandt, and I would like you to call me that."
For some reason, Caroline didn't want to, or perhaps she wanted to too much. When she called him by his proper form of address, it built a solid wall between them. What would happen when that wall disappeared? She thought back to that kiss and tried to make the blush recede back from cheeks.
"All right. It is very strange, but it should be no such hardship."
"Try it now."
"I beg your pardon?"
"My name. Say it."
He was watching her with those bright blue eyes of his, as intent as a cat after a bird.
Caroline swallowed hard.
"Brandt." She had meant to say it carelessly and with some impatience, but instead it came out almost as a sigh.
"Thank you. That's far better."
"If you say so. Is that all of the conditions?"
"It is."
"And one more of my own."
"You are hardly in a place to be making conditions."
"It doesn't matter. Don't tell Aunt Hawthorne that you are going to be turfing us out, as you so kindly put it. If it has to be done, let me do it."
The marquess—Brandt—gave her an impatient look.
"You can hardly shield her from the reality of the situation."
"That is not your business. That is a family affair. Don't you have family of your own to consider?"
His face closed like a door.
"Not a thing I have ever cared about."
"Well, we Masseys tend to be a rather more tender-hearted group."
"Bad at gambling, too."
That struck home a little too harshly, and Caroline shook it off.
"Just let me be the one to tell her if it has to be done, all right?"
"Fine. And is that all?"
Caroline sighed.
"I suppose it must be. If you'll let me get changed out of my breakfast clothes, we can start on what I had in mind today."
"All right, Caroline. I'll wait for you here."
She stared at him.
"Who said you could call me by my Christian name?"
He grinned at her, and oh, she wished she liked that grin a little less.
"It seemed only fair. And it felt strange to call you Lady Caroline as well. Go on, get changed. You have a treasure to find, after all."
* * *
4
CHAPTER
FOUR
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Brandt wasn't sure what he was expecting. When he had come to Shawly Grange, he’d had some vague idea of keeping it for a hunting property, or, if it proved to be too much trouble, selling it off, perhaps even back to Wensley if the man had the blunt.
He certainly hadn't expected to be thrown from his horse or to enter into some ridiculous bargain with the girl playing at being the lady of the house. He thought that it was as likely for them to be kidnapped by the fairies as it was for them to stumble across some fabled family treasure.
This wasn't even a gamble, it was a game, but it was hard to deny the appeal of playing games with Caroline Massey.
He wasn't sure he had ever seen her like, not in London Society or in the less reputable parts of the world he had traveled to. At first, he thought it was just that remarkable red hair and her coffee-dark eyes, but it had only taken a library meeting with her to prove him wrong. It was pride, he decided. She walked with a pride carried by queens and princesses, and finding it in a West Country girl who had never had a season was fairly incredible. Despite her slender frame, Caroline was beautiful, but that seemed almost secondary to the pride she wrapped around herself like imperial regalia.
Of course, it was a bit harder to see that beauty when she showed up wrapped in a dust-colored linen smock and her hair entirely wrapped up under a kerchief.
"You look like a baker's brat," Brandt said before he could stop himself.
She gave him an unimpressed look.
"And you look like an inveterate gambler who has come to take my home away from me. Shall we continue?"
"Yes, by all means."
The Games the Earl Plays Page 23