The Games the Earl Plays

by Eleanor Meyers

Brandt started to pull her to safety, but then they both felt it. The stone underneath him shifted, crumbling and sending pebbles down to the ground.

  “Brandt!” Caroline's shout was desperate.

  He gritted his teeth.

  “I am not letting you go,” he growled, and taking a death grip on her wrist, he simply threw himself backward.

  It was a terrible risk. He could have sent them both stumbling down the staircase or off the side of it. It might have caused the entire staircase to collapse. Instead, they only slid a few steps down the staircase, Caroline as neatly into his arms as if she belonged there. For a stunned moment, all Brandt could do was breathe.

  “Are you all right?” he managed to ask.

  “I think so... and I've won, Brandt.”

  He started to ask her what in the world she meant, but then Caroline fainted dead away.

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  16

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

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  Brandt felt as if the entire world was spinning around him. The only way he could keep it still was to stay as close to Caroline as possible. She hadn't opened her eyes since he had brought her from the tower hours ago. Now, tucked into her bed, she looked absurdly pale and small under the covers.

  The doctor said that she was only exhausted, worn from having her muscles locked for so long in the cold, and that she would wake up in her own time. Brandt had wanted to strike the man down with one punch for being so careless with his examination.

  Instead, he sat down by Caroline's side, holding her hand in his and trying not to think about the bell-tower. He knew that he was going to have nightmares about that place, and every time, it would be the same. He wouldn't catch her, and her scream would haunt him.

  The door opened, making Brandt look up with a frown.

  “Don't be so riled, it's only me.”

  At first, Brandt thought that Caroline's aunt had a baby in her arms, but then he realized it was a heated stone. She tucked it under the covers at Caroline's feet, and she stood watching her grand-niece for a long moment. Brandt wondered whether he should say something comforting to her, but then she spoke, not looking at him.

  “So, when do you want us off the place?”

  Brandt blinked.

  “I beg your pardon, Lady Hawthorne?”

  “Do not make the mistake so many others have made in assuming that just because I am old, I am also deaf, Lord Ellerston. I wish to know how much longer I have in my home.”

  “You heard us, then.”

  “You hear a great many things in this house. The walls are thin, you know, and you and my grand-niece have a penchant for shouting at each other. I know all about the bargain you two struck.”

  “The bargain we struck gives you another three weeks or so,” Brandt said reluctantly. He was beginning to regret ever having struck that damned deal with Caroline.

  “I see. Well, it will break her heart, you know, but her heart will heal. Even from such a wound as you.”

  “Lady Hawthorne?”

  “My goodness, a marquess and still barely wet behind the ears. Forgive me, Lord Ellerston, for I am old and apt to ramble.”

  “Lady Hawthorne, if you have something to say, you should just say it. Caroline, that is, Lady Caroline, led me to believe that you would be devastated by the loss of your home.”

  “Oh, I am sure I will be. I have lived at Shawly Grange my entire life, but you must also remember that I have spent much of it as a poor relation. We are always ready to move when our betters tell us we must, when we become inconvenient.”

  “Caroline didn't tell me that,” Brandt said with surprise.

  “I'm sure she didn't. Nor did she tell you about the servants she keeps on here, the ones who have no other place besides the Grange.”

  “Is that why they are all so old?”

  “It comes to all of us, if we are lucky, but yes. My dear niece could be living the high life in London if she did not feel compelled to look after us old relics. I suppose in a way, I should thank you for freeing her of us.”

  “But... Caroline will hardly be pleased to be free.”

  “No, not at all. Shawly Grange was her place, the place where she and her father bonded the best, you know. When her father died, and Edwin took over, she clung to Shawly Grange. He wanted to send her out, give her a season and no doubt dangle her in front of dukes and marquesses, but she wouldn't have it. I believe she told him she would turn any dress he bought her to rags and that she would spit in the eye of every peer he brought her close to.”

  “That sounds like Caroline.”

  “It does indeed. Shawly Grange is her heart, Lord Ellerston, but I doubt she told you.”

  “Why wouldn't she?”

  “Well, what would you have thought if she'd made an impassioned plea to you when you first met?”

  Brandt flinched.

  Caroline's aunt nodded.

  “I can't imagine it would have went well. Of course, that is the past, and now all we can do is move forward. What will you do now, I wonder, now that you know you hold my grand-niece's heart?”

  Brandt realized he knew the answer to that. When Lady Hawthorne left the room quietly, he turned back to Caroline, asleep and so small on the bed. He willed her to wake up, but she didn't respond. At least her breathing was deep and regular. He timed his own to it, and still seated on the chair, he leaned onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

  When he woke up, strong morning light streamed into the room, and of course, the bed was empty. Brandt felt a moment of panic overtake him, and then he stood up. She couldn't have gone far, and after his talk with her aunt, his course was clear. If he had his way, he was never going to lose her again.

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  17

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

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  Caroline felt as if she had tripped and fallen down every single stair in the bell-tower when she woke up. She realized wryly that if she had, she likely wouldn't be waking up at all, but that didn't make her any less sore. She was startled to see Brandt by her bedside, snoring softly, his hair as dark as ink on the turned white sheets.

  Hesitantly, she reached out a hand to touch his dark hair. It was surprisingly silky, and she had to pull away before she did something she regretted. All she wanted to do, as the morning light grew brighter, was stay in bed and touch Brandt, to talk with him, to tell him thank you for the rescue the night before. However, she had business to take care of, and she told herself that Brandt would probably prefer that business being done to her petting his hair.

  Stealthily, she sneaked out of the bed and padded over to her closet. Her dress and her working smock were hung up after her misadventures. One of the maids had brushed them both out for her, but otherwise they were untouched. Her heart was in her mouth until she felt the bulging bag that was tucked into one of the deep pockets of her smock. In her nightdress and a soft wool wrap, she retrieved the bag, and she resisted the temptation to look at it until she was safely in the library.

  She spread the contents of the bag over her desk, and for the first time, she thought about what it all meant. This was the Massey treasure, the holy grail she and her relatives had been chasing for generations.

  Caroline had thought about what it might be like to find the treasure. She'd imagined shouting for joy and rushing to tell the world. She'd imagined her father's excitement. There was none of that, and everything was very different now.

  The treasure meant something different today than it would have months ago. In the weeks before, it had been a mystery to solve and a legacy to uncover. Now it was going to be a payment for her home. What in the world could it be in a few weeks after that?

  “I wonder what the treasure was to you,” Caroline mused, thinking of Hester
Massey. She hoped that the discovery of the long-lost treasure helped her dead ancestress rest easy.

  Caroline looked up when the door to the library opened.

  “It is customary to knock,” she said with a slight smile.

  Brandt shot her a decidedly unimpressed look.

  “It's also customary to avoid high and unstable places in the rain, but I don't see you obeying custom all that strongly. Also, if you ever do anything like that again, I'll make you wish you hadn't.”

  “Words, words, it's all talk with you,” Caroline said lightly.

  Brandt started to respond, but then he saw what was laid out on the desk. His eyes widened.

  “Is... that what I think it is?”

  “It is. The Massey treasure.”

  The desk was scattered with at least three dozen sapphires. The smallest was still the size of Caroline's pinky nail, and the largest, which sat at the very center of the desk, was almost as large as a hen's egg. They were faceted in an archaic style, but they all had the deep almost blood blue of the finest of their kind.

  “These are incredible,” Brandt said, picking one up. “Azure, Cobalt's Fire, and Lapis Bright. The colts from the studbook were all blues, like the stones.”

  “There's a theory that the treasure was picked up by a Massey ancestor on Crusade. There are many theories for us to consider.”

  “But why were they hidden? How in the world did you find them?”

  “They could have been hidden for any number of reasons. To keep them from an interloper marrying in, to keep them from being taken in a raid; it could have been anything. My father thought the treasure was hidden from the Crown for one reason or another. And as to how they went from the house to the abbey...”

  Brandt listened intently as she told him about her talk with Aunt Hawthorne, and she felt a pang go through her. The hunt for the Massey treasure was at an end, and so was her time with Brandt.

  She took a deep breath after her explanation.

  “And now they are yours.”

  “Caroline...”

  “Fair's fair, Brandt. You made the deal, and somehow, it has paid off. I'd wager there's enough gems there to buy Shawly Grange a few times over. I've won. Or perhaps you have.”

  Brandt studied her for a long moment, long enough to make her shift. He picked up one sapphire and then another before settling on one that was cut into a round shape, rolling it between his fingers.

  “I'm a gambling man at heart,” he said, setting it down again. “I want to make another bet.”

  Caroline grinned, shaking her head.

  “I'm afraid I'm not you or my brother, and I hardly have the stakes to go head to head with you.”

  “Hear me out. After running after you for the last little while, you have a love of risks that I can't compete with. Here's my bet. I bet you, let's say, all of the sapphires on this table that I can make you happy for the rest of your life.”

  She blinked at him. There was a slight smile on his face, and that familiar glint of recklessness in his eye, but there was something vulnerable about his expression as well. He was watching her with every bit of his keenly-honed senses, scanning her face as if they sat at a faro table.

  “Brandt?”

  “No, listen. Always listen to the terms of a bet before you say yes or no. I propose that we get married. We'll go to London, we'll honeymoon in Italy, we can go to Egypt if you want to go treasure hunting in the sand, and we'll return here, to Shawly Grange, where your heart lives. We'll have children, we'll watch them grow, we'll show them that they should always make the right bets and hunt the right treasure.”

  “Brandt...”

  “And if, at the end of all that, you think I have not made you as happy as you can be, well, I'll hand over the sapphires and go on my way.”

  “What do you get if you win? If you do make me the happiest woman in the world?”

  “Then I get something far, far more precious than sapphires. I get you.”

  There was a lump in her throat. She wanted to speak, but if she did, she might dissolve into tears. Brandt came around the table toward her, and he took her hand with a gentleness that was nearly humble. He went down on one knee, and when he kissed her hand, he never looked away from her eyes.

  “Take the bet, Caroline. I love you. Marry me.”

  Finally, the tears fell, and Caroline nodded hard.

  “Yes, yes, I will marry you.”

  He rose, taking her in his arms.

  “Say you love me.”

  “Of course, I love you! I think I've loved you from the first day you came treasure-hunting with me.”

  “I am going to win this bet. I can feel it.”

  * * *

  EPILOGUE

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  “All right, my lord, my lady, you can take a break.”

  “Thank God,” growled Brandt, “I thought my legs were going to fall off from lack of use.”

  The artist, well used to Brandt's irritation at this point, ignored him.

  Caroline laughed.

  “So fussy,” she teased. “Your son is calmer than you are, and he's only seven months old.”

  “Alexander gets to sleep through all of this. I would be happier if I was being painted in bed, too.”

  As if he knew he was being spoken of, Alexander kicked in his crib, announcing his awakening with a loud cry.

  “Oh, my darling, did your father wake you up? How terribly loud he is,” Caroline cooed, lifting her son up and into her lap.

  “Stop defaming me to our child,” Brandt said, but he grinned as he said it. “Here, I'll take him.”

  Caroline handed Alexander to Brandt, who stood and balanced the baby against his hip. She took the opportunity to stretch out herself, touching the gleaming necklace of sapphires and diamonds around her neck. Brandt had had the necklace made for her when she told him she was pregnant with Alexander. The rest of the Massey treasure was locked away, in preparation, Brandt said, for whenever they had daughters.

  The painting was the first they had sat for as a family of three. They'd had one done in Italy when they were visiting on their honeymoon, painted by a world-famous painter, but Caroline had a sneaking suspicion she would love this one even more.

  Brandt paced back and forth, murmuring nonsense to Alexander, who listened with wide eyes. He glanced at Caroline, a slight smile on his face.

  “You look thoughtful, my love.”

  “I was just thinking that some point, maybe when he's a little bigger, we should take Alexander to Egypt. There's so much wonder and history there, I just have a feeling he'll fall in love.”

  “We could certainly do that. I have some business concerns in Alexandria, and we could rent a house there. Our son could have a world tour before he's in long pants.”

  He paused, letting Alexander tug his hair for a moment. Alexander had his hair, dark as a raven's wing.

  “So, how am I doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want to know if I'm winning our bet.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, as a matter of fact, if I am to be entirely fair and equitable about it—”

  “I certainly hope you are. I do not enter into bets with dishonorable people.”

  “-I would say yes. You are winning our bet by a long margin. No sapphires for me, I'm afraid.”

  “Good,” Brandt said, and he leaned down to give her a kiss with their son between them.

  * * *

  THANK YOU

  for reading my book

  Hope you have enjoyed reading the novella that served as a special treat just for you.

  The The Games The Earl Plays is Book 2 in the series.

  The next book in the new series targeted release date will be 16th May.

  In the meantime . . .

  If you have enjoyed reading The Games The Earl Plays, I believe you will enjoy reading the previous book.
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  I have enclosed a sneak preview of the previous book in the series.

  Check it out below . . .

  It is currently priced at $0.99 (around 330 pages)

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  April 21, 1790

  London, England

  But, oh! What would our world be were there not a father to the fatherless? And how I have been blessed to be a mother to the motherless. Each child who comes into my home is a gift from God. I thank Him every day for the chance to bring light into their world and lead them in a path that will hopefully make them builders of their communities.

  But truly, my heart aches for them, for it seems that my time and my love are not enough to take away their pain. Each passing face leaves an everlasting impression on my heart, and today a new face arrived.

  With this being the twenty-first of April, I have named the orphan girl after Saint Alexandra, the wife of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who stood on her faith and died because of it. A woman who left this world with dignity.

  That is what I saw in sweet Alexandra as I held her today—dignity. Her clear gray eyes shined like the purest diamonds and her beautiful black curls glittered like obsidian stone.

  She looks just like her father, the Viscount of Wint. How unfortunate for them both that they’ll never know each other.

  Alexandra’s mother left her with little other than a clean blanket. She had nothing else to give and left to resume her duties as a maid in a great house.

  But I will give Alexandra something.