The Games the Earl Plays

by Eleanor Meyers

  "Aunt Hawthorne, I really did go through a lot of trouble to secure those items—whatever they are—from the chimney. Could I please see them? What if they are actually the treasure that we've been searching for?"

  She could see Aunt Hawthorne deliberating, and finally, she handed one of the figurines to Caroline, muttering something about the other one being completely unfit for an unwed girl and that it would simply give her ideas.

  "Aunt Caroline, a woman of twenty getting ideas is far from the worst thing that could happen."

  She knew that she wasn't going to win that one, however, and so she turned her attention to the ivory figure in her hand, drawing out her handkerchief to clean it further. When she put away the handkerchief to look at it, she saw it a sylph-like female figure depicted in ivory, and that yes, it was very naked. The figure was meant to recline back on one elbow, one knee up, and the expression on the tiny face was sensuous.

  Caroline blinked.

  "Oh, I think I know what these are."

  "How could you?" asked Aunt Hawthorne, taken aback.

  Caroline shook her head.

  "No, nothing dirty, Aunt Hawthorne. These are doctors’ aids, for modest patients. In the Renaissance, modest patients could use them to point out their problems rather than speaking of the parts in question or showing them."

  Aunt Hawthorne huffed.

  "Well, I suppose that's some good use for such odd things at least."

  "They're interesting, and no doubt valuable, but they cannot be the Massey treasure."

  Caroline looked sadly at the lovely little sculpture and wondered if the ancient figurine was giving her a look of pity.

  "And I was so sure that I had it this time."

  She checked to make sure her dress was mostly clear before sitting down on a nearby chair.

  Aunt Hawthorne, who had been inspecting what Caroline guessed was the male figurine, put it aside and came to sit next to her.

  "You still found something, my dear. Why, who knows who would have found these, er, models, if you hadn't looked."

  "I know, and I would rather have them than not, but they were not what I was looking for. It just felt so close this time. This time, I was really going to find the Massey treasure."

  "I should never have told you that old story when you were just a little girl. It put thoughts in your head."

  "Dreams, Aunt Hawthorne. Dreams and a love of family history."

  "Your mother never cared for it, but your father thought the world of your interest."

  "Papa did. Sometimes, when I'm researching or hunting for the treasure, it feels as if he's right next to me, searching as well, and that Mama is making sure we have a sturdy lunch to come home to when the search doesn't pan out yet again."

  Aunt Hawthorne stroked Caroline's arm gently, her eyes soft.

  "My dear, it does not do to dwell on the dead."

  "I know," Caroline said with a sigh. "I must stay to the matter at hand. I need to go back to the diaries."

  "No! At least not tonight! I swear, you will send yourself blind if you keep on looking at those dratted books."

  "But, Aunt Hawthorne..."

  "No. You need a break from your quest. Even Lancelot had to take breaks from his search for the Grail."

  "Did he?"

  "I'm sure he must have. Why don't you go to the village and see if my embroidery floss has come in? It should have been in last week, so it should be there now."

  Caroline grinned, because the idea of walking to the village was not unappealing, even if the wind was whipping up and making the shutters rattle.

  "All right, Aunt Hawthorne. Like the great Lancelot before me, I will interrupt my most holy quest to venture to Evansfield and fetch your thread."

  Aunt Hawthorne shook her head.

  "Like your father, you think you are far funnier than you are, but at least you have his good heart. Go quickly before the rain comes, and hurry back."

  * * *

  It was less than two miles to Evansfield. A young lady in London might have shrunk from making the trip alone, but Caroline knew she was as safe on the road between Shawly Grange and town as she was in her own bed. In deference to the weather, she pulled on her old gray woolen cloak and turned up the hood.

  As she walked, she thought about the latest disappointment. A pair of slightly obscene doctors’ aids might be a fine historical curiosity, but they were hardly the prize she had been hunting, and it was a ridiculously poor reward for close to ten years of looking.

  Maybe Aunt Hawthorne is right, and it is time to give up the search. It is possible that the treasure is long gone, or perhaps it is so well hidden it will never be found.

  However, she rebelled against the idea. The Massey treasure was real, and it was somewhere on Shawly Grange. Her father had believed it to his dying day. If her father could search with hope for all his life, Caroline refused to give up after only ten years.

  As she walked, Caroline considered where her search was going to take her next. It was time to return to the diaries, she decided, the records kept by the house managers and inhabitants of the property. Perhaps something would turn up, something that had escaped her, her father, and all the treasure-hunting Masseys who had come before them. Caroline shrugged her cloak a little closer around her shoulders. There were already a few fat drops of rain falling. It was proving to be a rather wet spring, and she thought she likely would not be able to get home without a drenching after all.

  She was so lost in thought that she didn't hear the steady hoof-beats coming toward her or see the sharp turn off the river road that led to Evansfield.

  Right as Caroline was about to make the turn, a man on horseback came around the bend, his presence covered by a thick stand of bushes close to the road. One moment Caroline was walking peacefully along the road, and the next, an enormous horse reared up in front of her, hooves the size of melons flying at her head.

  Caroline stumbled backward, and as luck would have it, her foot caught in a rut on the road, sending her down hard on her rear.

  The man on the horse swore and seized the horse's reins, fighting the horse back and back. If the horse came down, it would crush her where she lay, but somehow, the man steered the horse, turning it away from her before its hooves hit the ground.

  Caroline rolled clear and climbed to her feet just in time to see the horse land on all four feet. She started to call out a thanks and an apology to the rider, but then the horse, a bright bay that seemed to glow even in the dimness of the day, decided that it had had enough of being man-handled.

  The man shouted again, this time in surprise, as the horse's head ducked down low toward the ground and its rear legs kicked out hard. This sent the man tumbling hard to the ground in front of the horse, where he groaned and then went still.

  Oh, my god. Caroline rushed for the man. I've gotten him killed...

  * * *

  2

  CHAPTER

  TWO

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  The first thing Brandt was aware of was the fact that his entire body ached. From crown to foot, he throbbed distantly, as if everything had decided to hurt at once for no good reason.

  But there was a reason, wasn't there?

  As he lay on what felt like a very comfortable bed, Brandt remembered his horse shying, and then he had simply been thrown. He’d flown through the air, but his memory fortunately cut out just then, sparing him what must have been a bone-jarring thud as his body hit the ground.

  That explained his aches and pains, at least, and it was almost enough for him to simply sink back into blessed unconsciousness. Then he remembered that he needed to figure out where the hell he was, and he bolted upright in the bed.

  That proved to be a mistake. As he jerked to a sitting position, the ache in his head ramped up to a shrill chorus of pain, and he groaned.

  "Oh, can't you stay quiet? It's so lat
e!"

  The cross words made him blink, and he turned in the bed to the corner of the little room, where a young woman sat in a tall chair, a blanket wrapped around her to the neck. From the night cap covering her hair and the sleepy way she was blinking, he realized that she had been sound asleep.

  "I'll be quiet as soon as someone tells me where the hell I am," he growled.

  Her eyes widened.

  "Oh, you're awake. Thank goodness!"

  "Well, if by awake you mean conscious and feeling as if the very devil's kicked me over the cliffs, then yes, I am awake."

  "It certainly beats being dead and having the devil kick you about in hell, doesn't it?"

  Brandt stared at her in shock.

  She covered her mouth, apparently having even surprised herself.

  "Oh, my gosh, that just popped out. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to imply—"

  "Well, you wouldn't be the first. Please. before you actually consign me to perdition, will you tell me where I am?"

  "Oh! Of course, I'm so sorry. You're at Shawly Grange."

  Brandt looked at her closely. He remembered Rowan rearing up and a flash of unnatural red in front him, as well as a face of astonishing prettiness. He wondered if he had imagined that red, but the face looked right.

  "Are... Are you the girl who ran in front of my horse?"

  "I did no such thing! I was just walking to Evansfield, and suddenly there you were, riding about like Wellington on the march."

  "Yes," Brandt said dryly. "It was all my fault for riding along the road. Where the horses and riders go."

  In the dim candlelight, the girl blushed, and Brandt, despite his aches, couldn't help but notice how lovely she was.

  "Well, perhaps we shall share the blame three ways then," she suggested.

  "Three ways?"

  "One part yours for riding recklessly, one part your horse's for being a contrary brute, and one part mine for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

  "Well, I suppose that sounds fair," Brandt said, endeavoring to sound sarcastic, but she only nodded, pleased he saw the way of it.

  "So, what happened after I was thrown?"

  "Well, you scared me half to death. You lay so still I was afraid that you were… you know..."

  "Dead and in hell," Brandt supplied.

  She gave him an impatient look.

  "Will you let that go? I was afraid you had been badly injured. I ran to the village, where you were put in a cart and then brought to Shawly Grange, which is where you are now, to answer your earlier question."

  Brandt frowned.

  "Why was I taken here and not back to the inn at the village?"

  The girl looked away, her hands clasped nervously in her lap.

  "Er, well, I suppose that was my fault."

  "Again?"

  "No, not again! But I was so frantic for the doctor to see you, and he lives on a farm just beyond the Grange, you see. I sent a boy with a swift pony to fetch the doctor, and then he met us halfway here. So, it was really just all in the interest of getting you the help that you needed as soon as we could."

  "I see. And what did the doctor have to say?"

  "Oh!"

  For a moment, he thought the strange girl was actually going to run for the doctor, but instead, she hopped up and made her way to the bed. Brandt flinched with surprise and then held himself still as she laid a small white hand against his forehead and then against his cheek.

  "Hmm. You don't feel overly warm. The doctor said that if you awoke with a fever, then we should call for him right away, but if you were as cool as you should be, we could let it be until tomorrow afternoon."

  She looked at him with a sweet smile, obviously relieved, and he found something touching about that.

  There was something so very lovely about her, something about the way she smelled of marigolds and cream, that Brandt couldn't resist. As she touched his cheek, he turned his head and planted a soft kiss on her hand.

  Any gently brought up girl in London would have shrieked and perhaps ran, but instead, this girl, whoever she was, only stared at him with wide eyes. It was too dim to see what color they were. Probably blue or green, given her pale coloration, but right now, it mattered less than the way she hadn't pulled her hand from his face.

  "What are you...?"

  If anyone had asked Brandt if he was up for kissing a pretty girl a few minutes ago, he would have said no. His body ached, he had somehow ended up at the house that he was supposed to possess, but everything else had gone wrong.

  A few minutes ago, however, he hadn't known how soft this girl's hand was, or how she smelled, or the soft sweet sound she made when he pulled her toward him on the bed. She made a soft sound of surprise as he tilted her head back for a kiss. Instead of pushing him away, she knotted her small hand in his shirt, holding herself steady as he kissed her.

  "God, you taste like heaven," he murmured against her lips. "So perfect..."

  She murmured something that sounded like agreement, and he slid the fingers of his free hand along the edge of her nightcap, pulling away the fabric to touch her hair underneath.

  Then the tip of his tongue parted her lips, and when his tongue touched hers, the jolt of electricity that went between them shocked him. The powerful pleasure struck him right down to his very core, and it seemed to do the same for the girl, because she suddenly cried out in surprise, pushing away from him.

  Of course, that would have worked better for her if she hadn't been perched so precariously on the edge of the bed. Her shock at being kissed became her shock at slipping off the bed, and somehow, her heel caught on the covers as she went down. Brandt lunged for her, but he was too late. She landed on the floor on her rear, her legs sprawled up like a thrown doll. He caught a tantalizing glimpse of pale thigh before she squawked and shoved her nightdress down, still on her back on the floor.

  "Oh, ow, ow..." she moaned, climbing to her feet. "And if you don't think that makes us even, I really don't know what to say to you. Why are you looking at me like that?"

  Her hair, tidied into a plait for bed, was that same unlikely red he had seen right before his accident. His body still ached, but over it all was the need to touch her, to push his fingers through her hair and find out if she felt the same as he did.

  Then he realized with a wince that he had nearly tumbled the maid of Shawly Grange, and that she was probably right on his likely post-mortem destination.

  "I'm looking at you like that because I'm a terrible man who shouldn't be left alone with young girls who don't know better."

  "I beg your pardon, but I know plenty!"

  "All right. Let's start with the basics. Do you know how to summon the mistress of Shawly Grange, or is the hour too late and she is already abed?"

  She gave him a dry look, and he wondered if she wasn't a maid as much as a lady's companion or something of the sort. She certainly didn't have a maid's deferential nature or fear of losing her place.

  "Oh, she is still up. But who shall I say is calling at this late hour, and what is your business?"

  Brandt shrugged. She would have to find out sooner or later that she would need to find a place. An errant thought flitted through his mind about offering her a place in his household, or perhaps more appropriately, in a household of her own, at a discreet London address where he could call on her. He shook the thought off. Maybe the fall had addled his mind after all.

  "I'm the Marquess of Ellerston, and I am here to take possession of the estate."

  He thought the girl would pale, but instead, she only crossed her arms over her chest, looking at him with something that could only be termed tolerant amusement.

  "Oh, yes, and I am the Queen of England. That's a fine joke, sir, or perhaps you were hit on the head more firmly than we thought."

  A frown marred her forehead.

  "Oh, wait, were you? I'm going to have Willie run for the doctor—"

  "No, let poor Willie sleep. And what's wrong with you? I am
in fact, the Marquess of Ellerston, and Shawly Grange belongs to me. I was coming here to look it over when you appeared out of nowhere, and I was thrown from my horse."

  "I was walking on the track the way anyone may do. And that is impossible. Shawly Grange belongs to the Masseys; it has been part of the Massey family estates for more than three centuries!"

  "Be that as it may, the Earl of Wensley lost it to me in a game of cards. Unfortunate, perhaps, but entirely legal. This place is mine now, from the top of the roof to the cows in the shed."

  The girl's face turned almost as red as her hair, and even if she was in her nightdress, she took on a surprisingly imposing stance.

  "Well, I am Lady Caroline Massey, and I say that you will take possession of nothing!"

  * * *

  3

  CHAPTER

  THREE

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  Caroline was certain that Shawly Grange had never hosted a more awkward breakfast. They were dining in the family hall, and somehow, the large table that could comfortably seat six felt far too congested with her at the head, Aunt Hawthorne at her right, and the Marquess of Ellerston at the foot.

  The footman served silently, the food plain and bracing.

  Aunt Hawthorne did her best to break the silence.

  "Well, I am very glad to see you recovered so well from your fall." She peered at the marquess over her spectacles. "Will you be staying with us long as you recover?"

  The marquess gave Aunt Hawthorne a narrow look and shrugged.

  "I had come to examine the property—"

  "Surely, you'll stay with us for at least a few weeks," Caroline said. "The rains began last night, and travel will be treacherous for at least that long, especially if you were going to return to London."