Page 36 of The Earl's Wrangler
“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 WASmore 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, likeTom SawyerandWalden.”
“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.
