Page 25 of The Earl’s Wrangler (Cowboy Nobility #3)

The sun had set and fatigue began to set in. The huge house was lit from the inside but seemed foreboding as they pulled up. Randall parked, and they went inside and into the rooms he used. The rest of the place was locked up tight and closed up for the night.

“Does it seem strange to have part of your house not really open for you? Like it’s off-limits or something? The domain of tourists?”

Randall shrugged. “I still have access to the rest of the house, and I’ll show it to you in the next few days.

But having it open is an agreement with the National Trust. We still have inheritance taxes here, and they are hefty, so when my father inherited the property, he negotiated a deal that as long as the home was open to the public for a certain amount of time each year, the tax bill would be deferred.

Now there are two of them that were deferred, because I’d have to pay as well.

Otherwise I’d probably have to sell the contents as well as the house itself to pay them, and where would that get anyone?

The tenants would be thrown into chaos, and it would be a mess not just for me, but the entire community. ”

“So you’re doing what you have to do,” Sawyer said and Randall nodded slowly.

They settled in Randall’s sitting room and listened to the rain pelting the windows.

Sawyer was tired and wondered what arrangements Randall had in mind for them.

He yawned and checked the time. It was barely nine o’clock, but dark with fog close to the ground.

“Tomorrow I’ll show you through the house,” Randall told him, and Sawyer closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before Randall guided him out of the seat, took his hand, and led him upstairs to bed.

SAWYER WAS all turned around. He had slept deeply and it was definitely morning, but his body wasn’t ready to get up.

Still, he got out of the bed, scratching his hip on his way to the bathroom.

He took care of business and found Randall in the bedroom with two mugs of coffee.

He handed him one, and Sawyer sipped, groaning in sheer appreciation.

“You are a god, you know that?”

“I try,” Randall said. “And you’re naked.

” Damn, Randall’s gaze slid down him. Sawyer put his mug aside and began dressing.

Once he was done, he finished his coffee and joined Randall in the sitting room, where a tray of meats and cheeses with more coffee was set on a table.

He settled in a chair and ate while Randall worked on his phone.

“I got two emails from the tenants. One says that the plumbing in their cottage is really bad, and another says that their lights aren’t working properly.”

“What are you going to do?” Sawyer asked, but Randall was already on the phone. He arranged for a plumber and an electrician to pay visits to the cottages that day. Then he ate a little and jumped to his feet.

“When we’re done here, I’ll give you a tour of the house. This afternoon we need to go to the village. I want to be there when the tradesmen show up so that the village will know that I meant what I said in the pub. Do you want to go with me?”

“Sure. Then can we go for a ride?”

“I don’t see why not,” Randall agreed. Sawyer finished his coffee and the cheese and meat. Then Randall took the dishes to his small kitchen and left them in the sink, and they headed out to start the day.

SAWYER WAS more than a little overwhelmed as they wandered down the portrait gallery. Randall held his hand, and Sawyer leaned against him when they stood in front of Randall’s portrait. “You can definitely tell that’s you. That glint in your eyes is still there sometimes.”

“Really?”

Sawyer turned to Randall. “Oh yes. I see it when you look at me sometimes, and it’s always special.” He leaned, closer and Randall kissed him. “Why did your father have the portrait painted when you were so young?”

He shrugged. “My father never explained much of anything. He just told me I had to stand for it. I remember hating every moment of the ordeal. And in the end, I don’t like it.”

“I do. I think it’s pretty amazing.” He drew closer. “It’s a wonderful painting.” He stepped back, and they continued on down the hall before entering a dining room set to receive royalty.

“Queen Victoria and Prince Albert stayed in the house for one night in the 1850s. This is a recreation of the table as it was set for their dinner. It’s a bit of a miracle that the tablescapes weren’t sold at some point, but they stayed intact.

The dishes and the glassware are all the ones used at that dinner.

You can see the glasses with VR inscribed on them are the ones actually used by the queen and the prince.

Most of the furniture in here is original as well. ” He motioned to the next room.

“This is wonderful,” Sawyer said as they moved into a delicately decorated room. “Is this for the women?”

“Yes. It’s the ladies’ parlor. After dinner, the women would come in here for conversation while the men would either stay in the dining room or retire to the library for port and cigars.

My great-grandfather decreed that the men always stay in the dining room.

He hated cigars and didn’t want his books to smell like them.

In fact, few people ever smoked at all here out of respect for him. ”

Every room was breathtaking. Sawyer couldn’t imagine living this way, especially with so many rooms with a particular purpose. “I grew up in a house that was small enough to fit inside some of these rooms.”

Randall sighed. “I didn’t grow up in these rooms either. They were already being used for tourists when I was a boy. Though I loved to sneak into the rooms while the tours were going on, or I’d hide in the passageway and pop out behind people to scare them.” He chuckled.

“You were naughty.”

“I was a kid, and I lived in this huge building where most of it was off-limits.” He led the way back to the great hall.

“By far my favorite room in the house is the library. If I could, I’d take it off the tour so I could use it myself, but it’s far too important.

” He opened the door, and Sawyer stepped into the room he’d seen the day before.

“There are over ten thousand books in two levels of cases. There are also a number of additional books in the antelibrary, which is in my portion of the house. We have books that go back almost seven hundred years in this room. Again, it’s a miracle that some of them weren’t sold. ”

“Who is that?” Sawyer asked of the portrait above the fireplace.

“It’s a period portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. The story is that a friend of the third earl needed some money, so he sold him the portrait. It’s one of the most important pieces in the house. There was talk of it being sold some years ago, but thankfully it never happened.”

“It must be interesting to have your entire family history laid out all in one place,” Sawyer said.

“I don’t know much about my family. I knew my grandparents on my mother’s side.

They helped take care of me when I was young.

But they died before I was six. I don’t know if my father spoke to his parents.

I don’t remember ever meeting them, and there certainly aren’t pictures of them lining a room somewhere.

More like photographs in some long-forgotten attic.

” In a way, he was a little jealous of Randall.

If nothing else, he knew where he came from.

All Sawyer had was himself. Sawyer drew closer and began looking at the books in the cases.

“I’ve heard of some of these.”

“Yeah. The sixth earl was a reader. He claimed to have read almost every book in this library. At least the ones that were here at that time. He also loved American books, so there are copies of some of your classics, like Tom Sawyer and Walden .”

“Excuse me,” Celeste said quietly from the doorway. “The first tour will start in ten minutes.”

Randall nodded. “Thank you. We’ll be out of here before then.”

She stepped into the room. “I wanted to ask you—would you be okay with adding an additional tour? We have sold out the next three days and are turning people away. It would only be for the next week or so. It’s been very busy.”

“That’s fine. Of course. Go ahead, as long as you have people to lead it.”

“Thank you,” she said and left them alone.

“Do they always come to you with questions like that? Shouldn’t they be able to make those kinds of decisions on their own?” Sawyer asked.

Randall shrugged. “I suppose they should, but there’s a sort of bounty of riches.

I could open the house to more tours, but then with that many people coming through, it wears on the house itself.

Lots of people with their damp breath, heavy shoes, touchy hands.

All of it affects the house. So we limit the number of tours and have limits on the number of people per tour.

I don’t want to impact the house too greatly, but… .”

Sawyer nodded. “I get that.” He expected to go through the hidden door to Randall’s rooms, but Randall took him by the hand and led him out and up the main stairs to the second floor. “There have to be ways to generate a little extra money without impacting the house itself.”

“There probably are, but I haven’t….”

Sawyer squeezed his hand. “I wasn’t criticizing, just thinking out loud. Not that I have any answers.” They paused at the top of the stairs to peer down at the great hall before taking a right down the hallway to a room with an open door. “What’s this?”

“The tour includes some of the bedrooms as well as a few of the servants’ rooms on the third floor, but I thought you might like to see this.

It’s where Queen Victoria and Albert slept on their visit.

We don’t have pictures of what it looked like, but we do have the house records, so we set the room up to appear as it might have when they arrived.

” Randall drew closer, his scent nearly overwhelming, making Sawyer want to tug Randall down to the other end of the house, close the door to the room they were using, and take him.

He shook his head to get control of himself.

“So a queen slept here.” Sawyer snickered.

Randall rolled his eyes. “Anyway. Yes, she did. It was a huge deal at the time and helped propel the family into the upper echelons of society. There are records of how much it cost to host them, and let me say it was no bargain-basement visit. By all accounts the visit was a success, and the queen even wrote a thank-you note. It’s in the case. ”

Voices gathered below, and they continued down the hall, where they peered into rooms and then continued on. Some were furnished while others were empty. “What do you do with all these?”

“I’m not sure. Most aren’t on the tour, so we leave them empty.

They get cleaned periodically, and every room is checked daily to ensure that there isn’t an issue.

” They continued on and through a door at the end of the hall, and found themselves back outside Randall’s bedroom.

Sawyer did his best not to yawn, even though his body told him he should still be asleep.

“I think we should find something to do until your meetings in the village. It’s either that or I’m going to go back to sleep. I’m all messed up.”

“Then come on. How about we kill two birds with one stone? We can saddle up the horses and ride into the village, maybe have lunch in the pub, and we can meet the contractors afterwards.”

Now that sounded amazing to Sawyer. He found his boots and pulled them on.

Then he checked that he looked okay before following Randall down and out the front door, to the delight of a group of tourists.

Granted, Sawyer knew he was just part of the scenery.

A few people asked Randall to sign their tour books, but a few of the girls asked him for selfies, and he obliged.

It took a while to get over to the horses and get them saddled. “These are different.”

“They’re English saddles. They sit a little differently, but I’m sure you’ll get used to it pretty quickly.” Randall finished checking everything over, and then they mounted up and took off across the estate. “Since we have time, I want to show you one of my favorite places.”