The Games the Earl Plays

by Eleanor Meyers

  Brandt supposed that despite what she had said about chimneys, they would be peeking into unused rooms and storage spaces on the admittedly sprawling manor, something a bit like a child's scavenger hunt. Instead, it seemed like Caroline had something different in mind.

  They passed Aunt Hawthorne on her way to the solar to get some better light for her embroidery.

  "Oh dear, that outfit," she said, clucking her tongue at her grand-niece. "Are you going to the attic again?"

  "No, Aunt Hawthorne. I thought I would try the wine cellar."

  "Ah, well. Good luck, my dear, and even if you must make yourself a mess, please try to mind the marquess’ clothing." She turned t

  o Brandt. "Do not let her bully you into crawling in with her. Parts of this house are deplorably filthy."

  "I certainly won't, Lady Hawthorne. Thank you for the advice."

  As he followed her, presumably to the wine cellar, Caroline shook her head.

  "She simply will not forget about the time I almost got Henry stuck in the eaves."

  "Henry?"

  "Our footman. He's gone home to live with his grandchildren now, but he was always so helpful when I needed some height and a better grip."

  It was true that Shawly Grange had a wine cellar. At the very least, it had a small room hollowed out beneath the enormous and still slightly medieval kitchen that was lined with stone and much colder than the rest of the house. As they went down, the ancient cook pressed some bread and cheese wrapped up in a cloth into Brandt's hands, and he wondered exactly what kind of expeditions Caroline usually went on.

  "All right, I spent last night going over some of the notes that my grandfather, Aunt Hawthorne's brother, made. He suspected that the wine cellar might be promising, but there are no records of him actually examining it."

  "Perhaps because he looked down into it, realized it was actually just a wine cellar, and moved on with his life?"

  Caroline shot him an unimpressed look.

  "If you would like to join Aunt Hawthorne as she covers the world with embroidery, I'm sure she would welcome you."

  Brandt watched with interest as Caroline pulled a thin knife from the pockets of her smock.

  She handed him a small notebook and a stub of pencil.

  "Please keep track of what I say. This could be important for people who might come after."

  Bemused, Brandt took the notebook and pencil from her. The candelabra she had brought down for light gave some precarious illumination, but it allowed him to take notes as she started tapping each and every damned stone with her knife.

  "Working my way along. Hmm, this must be the west wall; all of the stones sound solid. They are made of sturdy stone, and by my guess, have been here for at least two hundred years."

  Brandt took her notes dutifully, but in between her mutterings about moisture and rock and history, he found it far more engaging to watch her. She looked a bit like a strange doll in her exploring get-up, but there was something strangely adorable about her regardless. Unlike the statuesque beauties of the ton, she was lithe and gamine, her hands fast and clever.

  Almost absently, he started to sketch her, the curve of her cheek, the engaging little red curl that had escaped her kerchief. He shaped her frown in graphite, the little quirk of her lips, how round she looked in her smock when she crouched down to examine the seam between the wall and the ground.

  "Are you getting this? This may be important!"

  "Oh, of course, I am," Brandt said, hastily flipping to a new page in her notebook. "But do you seriously think anything is going to come of this?"

  "Maybe not."

  "Then why are we down here?"

  "Because sometimes you need to know where not to look so you can figure out where to look. If all we do today is rule out the wine cellar, it'll be a good day."

  "Really? You're willing to call a day spent underground tapping rocks a good day?"

  "Well, what's a good day for you?"

  Brandt shrugged.

  "Waking up after a decent night's sleep. Riding. Seeing my investments pay off, perhaps hunting, perhaps some time at the gambling tables. Things that young ladies ought to know nothing about. Nowhere on that list does crawling in cellars appear."

  "Well, that's just unimaginative," Caroline said dismissively.

  Brandt had to swallow back a laugh.

  "Come on, Caroline. Let's give this up for the day. Cook gave us some food, but perhaps something sturdier."

  "Unless you have completely mistaken what we are doing here, may I remind you that I am trying to save my home!"

  Caroline turned around toward him, her face fierce. She turned so quickly that the knife flew out of her hand and clattered against the stone wall close to Brandt's waist. They both stared at where the knife had fallen.

  "Oh, my goodness, Brandt, I am so sorry. I certainly did not mean to nearly impale you."

  "First, if you really mean to impale people, you need to work on your aim, and second, did you hear that?"

  "Hear what?"

  In response, he picked up her knife and used it as she had, tapping along the stones close to where it struck. On the third stone he tried, there was a distinct sharp hollow sound instead of the common thump.

  Brandt looked at the stone in surprise. He genuinely hadn't thought anything would come of this. Caroline was already sitting cross-legged in front of the stone, bringing the candelabra near to examining it and the stones around it carefully.

  "Oh, well done, Brandt," she said without a trace of her normal sarcasm. "Look, the mortar around this stone, and the three below it, is all newer than the rest. And it's terrible mortar, too, mostly sand, I can almost brush it away. Here, let's see..."

  From the voluminous pockets of her smock, she pulled out a small pick and started digging into the mortar around the stone. In a matter of minutes, she had removed the first stone, tugging it back and heaving it away so she could resume her work.

  "Oh, there's a space back here, cut right into the earth! Brandt, this could be exactly what we've been looking for!"

  Brandt had a moment to think about how good his name sounded on her lips, and then he looked askance at the second stone that she drew back, and then in short order, the third.

  "You certainly know this house better than I do, Caroline, but those stones look terribly large and… structural."

  "It should be fine," she said. "They were removed and then put back. Look! Isn't it marvelous?"

  "It looks like a hole straight into the wall," he said. "We should get a pole, something with a crook in the end, perhaps."

  "Oh, no need for that."

  Brandt started to ask her what her idea was when Caroline dropped to her belly and squirmed into the hole. She moved so fast that only her ankles were sticking out by the time Brandt knelt next to her.

  "Caroline, you come out of there this moment. You've removed a half-dozen stones, and that entire damned tunnel could collapse on you at any moment!"

  "No, just give me a tick. There's something here! I think we've found the Massey treasure."

  Brandt glanced down to see that Caroline's feet, clad in sensible leather shoes, were practically tapping with delight. In another world, he would have loved to take the moment to trace a finger along one delicate ankle, to lift her skirt lightly and tease, but somehow, those needs were entirely subsumed by the sudden urge to get her out of that damned hole in the wall.

  "Caroline, work faster."

  "I am; no need to get all impatient! I am fine. I've almost got it..."

  Brandt couldn't take it any longer. All his instincts were telling him to get her the hell out, and Brandt was a man who followed his instincts. He took a firm grip on her ankles as she chattered about something being loose, and with a mighty yank, pulled her entirely out of the hole.

  "Brandt!"

  Her shout of indignation was nearly drowned out by a subterranean rumble, and just as her head cleared the hole, the tunnel collapsed in on itself, all
the dirt and rock giving up and closing the ancient space.

  They both stared at it, Brandt feeling a kind of horror he had never experienced before as he looked at the place where Caroline had been just a few moments before.

  "Well," she said. "That was certainly unexpected."

  "Was it? Was it not possible that moving certain structurally important rocks might disrupt an ancient wall, causing it to fall down on the person who disrupted it?"

  Caroline didn't look fazed in the least, either by his words or her near brush with being crushed like an ant underfoot.

  "You sound like Aunt Hawthorne. I'm fine, see? And!"

  She hefted up a package wrapped in cloth and secured with string. It was about the size of his two fists held together, and Brandt had to confess a certain amount of curiosity over what someone had gone to such trouble to bury.

  "The treasure of the Masseys," Brandt mused, and he wondered why it was disappointing.

  "Yes. Come upstairs. We need more light when we open it."

  Brandt helped her replace the rocks as best they could after the cave-in and reminded himself when he took possession to have a professional mason come in to see to it.

  In the kitchen above, Cook was having a nap, giving them the space to themselves. The package was placed on the table between them.

  Caroline offered Brandt her small knife.

  "It'll go to you anyway. You should do the honors."

  Brandt found himself oddly touched by the gesture. Whatever else he thought about her mad quest, Caroline was in dead earnest over it. This might be the culmination of her work and her research, hers and her ancestors.

  With the appropriate gravity, he cut the cords holding the fabric in place, pulling the cloth away gently from whatever it had held for the last who-knew-how-many years. He wasn't sure what he was expecting as he peeled away the cloth, but it wasn't what he found.

  "What the hell is it?" he asked in confusion.

  The large pale lump was hard but easily scored with his fingernail. When Brandt peeled away the last bit of cloth, he unleashed a strong pungent smell that made him think of...

  "Is... is it cheese?" asked Caroline, just as confused as he was. She held her fingertip to the surface of the cool lump, and when she drew her finger away, it was oily.

  "Who the hell bricked up cheese in Shawly Grange's wine cellar?"

  "Cheese?"

  Cook had awakened at their confusion and came over for a look. It occurred to Brandt that all the servants at the grange seemed to be on the elderly side.

  She took the questionable lump in her hand with absolutely no trepidation at all, turning it over again and again. Finally satisfied, she set the lump down on the table again.

  "That's not cheese, that's antique butter."

  Brandt was pleased that Caroline also looked slightly appalled. This was genuinely strange, and not just a matter of him being from London.

  "Cook, what in the world do you mean?" Caroline asked.

  "You see it more in the north, where my family comes from, out in the bogs. Sometimes, you dig up enormous lumps of butter, covered in hide. Something about butter, you keep it cold enough and out of a draft, and it just... stays butter. Looks like someone did something similar in the cellar, though I am afraid I couldn't say why, Lady Caroline."

  All three of them looked at the lump of ancient butter on the table between them. Brandt had a horrible feeling they were all thinking the same thing.

  "Do.... do you think we can eat it?" asked Caroline, her tone hushed.

  "No," Brandt said, shaking his head. "No. Under no circumstances. Caroline, for the love of God, we found it in the wall..."

  Cook, completely indifferent to his civilized entreaties, simply pulled a small knife from her pocket and shaved off a sliver of the butter. As he watched in shock, she popped it in her mouth.

  "Ooh, but it is rank, isn't it? Safe enough, I would say, Lady Caroline. Bit like strong cheese if you made it stronger."

  Caroline hesitated, glancing at Brandt.

  "It really is your, er, antique butter."

  Brandt shook his head.

  "I renounce all claim to my butter. Do whatever you want with the cursed thing."

  As Caroline carefully shaved off a piece of her own to try, Brandt realized that he was probably going to give in to curiosity as well. He had always been a gambling man, and risk was a part of that. He just had no idea that today, risk was going to involve trying butter that might be more than a hundred years old...

  * * *

  5

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

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  That night, in the library, Caroline wrote copious notes on what they had done that day in her journal.

  "Now, my lord, could you describe for me what the antique butter tasted like to you?"

  Brandt was sprawled on the chaise located close to the window, one arm thrown over his eyes.

  "First, it's 'Brandt,' not 'my lord,' and second, do you really need me to relive it? You ate some of the damned thing yourself. You did it twice."

  "My father always said that you try things twice, first to see what you thought, and second to see if you were wrong. I already have my observations written down here, but I would like yours as well. It's for posterity, Brandt."

  "Yes. I have three titles, several properties in England and the Americas, my lineage goes back to the conquest, and what I want to be remembered for is what I thought of eating rancid butter."

  "Well, if you want to be left out..."

  "Fine. Against my better judgment, I, Brandt Landsdowne, Marquess of Ellerston, etcetera, on this date in the year of our Lord 1813, helped a madwoman dig a piece of ancient butter out of the wall of her wine cellar. I, Brandt Landsdowne, was somehow persuaded against sense and logic, to try some of said ancient butter. Upon first impression, the substance was utterly awful, and upon shaving off a piece thin enough to see light through, I put it in my mouth. Somehow, I did not spit it out, and instead actually swallowed it, something that I continue to be utterly shocked did not kill me."

  "It was hardly as bad as all that, Brandt."

  "This is my account, and I feel I should be allowed to craft the image I want to follow me into posterity, as you say it. It tasted a bit like a piece of cloth soaked in rotten whey, while having a texture similar to that of a lump of, oh, let's say whale blubber without an ounce of the appeal."

  "Are you quite done?"

  "I think so. Please note that while Cook and I satisfied our sense of curiosity with one taste, you went back for a second one, just to make sure it was still disgusting."

  "I already noted that. Do you know, I think it's something you could get used to? I mean, not right away, and perhaps you had to be a child eating it."

  "No. No one is getting used to it. Stop."

  "All right, Brandt," said Caroline, hiding a small smile. Really, when the man wasn't banging on about turning her and her aunt out of house and home, he was surprisingly tolerable. Of course, then he had to ruin it by lifting his arm and glancing at her.

  "Were you always like this, by the way?"

  "Like what, my… Brandt?"

  "Your Brandt. I suppose I could get used to that. But like this. Diving into holes. Eating butter that belongs to a different age. This surely cannot have been something that children are born with. The entire human race would have wiped itself out of existence."

  "Well, I don't think it's normal for men to bet the lives and livelihoods of others on a throw of the dice, either, but that happens, and no one questions that."

  "I firmly believe that if we were back on some prehistoric Eden, and there were two men there, they would bet their handful of berries on which leaf would drop a raindrop first. But we're not talking about me. Were you really always so reckless?"

  To Caroline's surprise, she could detect no animosity or mockery in Brand
t's voice, only curiosity and something warm.

  "I don't remember being different," she said honestly. "We grew up out here, my brother and I. Edwin wanted to go to Town as soon as he could, for the fast horses, the shops, the plays. I went to London a few times, and I found it... big and dirty and indifferent."

  "It is that," Brandt agreed. "It feeds some, starves many others."

  "Yes. I didn't like that, even as a child. Out here, people in the village might be hungry, but no one starves. My mother always made sure of it. There was always food to go around."

  "That was good of her. And I take it when there was no work, they came to work here?"

  Caroline gave Brandt a wary glance.

  "They may just be servants to you, but things are different here. They're like a part of the family, and you must not mock them."

  "I would never dream of it," he promised her. "But none of this explains why you seem to be dreaming of the day you can crush your head under a wall or suffocate up a chimney shaft."

  "Well, it's a little isolated here. I knew some girls from Town, but as you can see, it's a bit of a distance. My mother fretted, but from a young age, I was always my father's little assistant, following along behind as he investigated the house and turned over stones, looking for the Massey treasure."

  "Both your parents are gone, then, I take it?"

  "Yes, within a year of each other. They had my brother and I late, and neither were very strong, I think."

  Caroline sighed, leaning back in her chair.

  "But that is ancient history. I don't know why you would want to know that."

  "I suppose it is, but you do, don't you? Your love of history both of this place and your family comes through in every word you say."

  "I'm glad," Caroline said after thinking about it for a moment. "It is good to present yourself as you are."

  Brandt was sitting up and watching her now. By the light of the hearth, there was something intent about him.

  "God, what a wonder you would have been with a proper season. Was there no money to send you?"