Page 61 of Counting on a Countess
“But what shall us poor males do if we’re not needed to wave our swords around and feel important?” Kit asked.
“We’ll just have to find other uses for our swords,” Lord Marwood said with a roguish smile.
At last, they reached the basement, and Lord Marwood made his way past the kitchen and pantries. He took them to a heavy door. After removing a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door and pushed it open. Cool, slightly damp air rushed out, reminding her of the caverns beneath Chei Owr.
“Enter, my friends,” he said magnanimously, directing them forward. “The spirits you will find inside are of the benevolent variety.” He strode in, then set the candelabra on a low counter, illuminating the space.
It was a square, windowless room, roughly ten feet by ten feet. Shelves lined two of the walls, on which stood a proliferation of bottles filled with various shades of amber liquid. Tamsyn estimated the value of the cellar’s contents at hundreds of pounds, if not thousands. No wonder Lord Marwood kept the key on his person.
“Ah, I almost forgot!” Their host darted out of the cellar and returned moments later with four glasses, which he arrayed on the counter beside the candelabra. “We won’t pretend to be pirates and drink straight from the bottles.”
He walked to one of the walls covered in bottles and studied them like a man in a circulating library. “Where to begin...” he mused aloud. “Ah!” He pulled a bottle from its spot on a shelf.
Lord Marwood poured two fingers of amber liquid into each waiting glass, then handed them around with the genial air of a taproom host.
Kit lifted his glass. “To the ladies,” he announced. “Whether they need us or not, we need them.” His gaze held hers, and she basked in the tenderness in his look.
“To the ladies,” everyone repeated. The glasses clinked together with a chime.
After studying her whisky for a moment, enjoying the color of the drink, she brought it to her nose and inhaled. “Smells of... green apples and... honey,” she said between sniffs.
“So it does,” Kit agreed.
Everyone took a sip. The rich, creamy whisky lingered long on the tongue and warmed gently on the way down.
“This is from a distillery on the Dornoch Firth,” Lord Marwood explained. “North of Inverness.”
“I taste a bit of chocolate,” Lady Marwood noted, and her husband nodded in agreement.
“If given a choice between drinking cordial water every day or having just one sip of this for the rest of my life,” Kit declared, “then give me this.”
The others also drank the last of their whiskies, and in short order, Lord Marwood returned to the shelves to make their next selection.
“This one’s from Islay, an island in the Hebrides.” He brought a bottle forward.
“How have you amassed such a collection, Lord Marwood?” Tamsyn asked.
“Got a man on retainer who searches for spirits far and wide and brings ’em back to me every few months. Malcolm Ross—a genuine Scottish laird with an ancient but poor lineage. Met him one wild night in Edinburgh. Of course, I was a bachelor at the time. But he had such a skill with finding the best bottles, I hired him on the spot.” He poured out four deep golden glasses. “I take my hedonism seriously.”
“Surely you could find sellers of quality liquor here in London,” she objected, stunned by the extravagance.
“He could,” Lady Marwood answered. “But there’s no fun in something so ordinary. Right, my love?” She winked at her husband.
“What astonishes you, Lady Blakemere?” Lord Marwood asked. “The cost or my eccentricity?”
Tamsyn glanced at Kit, who watched her carefully. She chose her words with deliberation, perceiving that her answer meant a great deal to him. “One has to weigh something’s price against one’s happiness.”
“Which wins?” Kit asked, his look penetrating.
“It has to be assessed case by case,” she answered after a moment.
His jaw firmed and he glanced away.
She sensed her response didn’t quite satisfy him, and it made her wonder if he was thinking of something in particular when he’d asked his question. But what could it be? She longed to peel away the many layers of her husband to find the man behind the playfulness.
“This one smells sweet,” Lady Marwood said, interrupting the silence. She delicately sniffed her glass. “Like molasses.”
After taking a sip, Tamsyn noted, “Yet it tastes smoky.”
