“Great,” I muttered to myself as I kept going, hoping it would eventually connect back to somewhere recognizable, but it didn’t.
Instead, I found myself staring at a heavy wooden door set into the stone a little further down. While I knew I shouldn’t open it and that what I should actually do is to continue trying to find my way to Eliza, curiosity won the internal battle against logic and decorum.
I mean, come on. It’s a gigantic wooden door in an ancient castle. Who’s going to pass up that opportunity?
After a quick check that I was still alone in the possible-dungeon hallway, I reached for the handle and pulled the door open, revealing an enormous room on the other side. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the dimly lit interior, but once they did, my jaw nearly dropped.
Rows of wine racks stretched into the distance, bottles stacked with military precision. The air was cool and faintly damp, carrying that telltale, earthy scent of an old wine cellar.
I wandered a few steps inside, glancing at the labels like I knew what I was looking at instead of just stumbling upon this place after getting lost.On that note, I really should’ve asked Aaron for help.
But I hadn’t and now I was here.Might as well take a look around.
“Wow. This one looks expensive,” I said quietly to a bottle that didn’t care about my opinions. It was way too expensive for that.
Still, I was in the middle of examining a particularly dusty shelf when a voice suddenly spoke up behind me. “Are you lost?”
I nearly launched out of my skin as I spun around, finding myself face to face with an extremely severe-looking older woman. Her posture was straight enough to make a drill sergeant proud and the expression on her face would absolutely curdle milk. She wore a dark dress and, considering I hadn’t heard her approach at all despite the silence down here, she obviously moved like a ninja.
A ninja who had either appeared out of thin air or had been silently judging me for several minutes. Both seemed plausible, but the latter was probably correct.
“Yes,” I said immediately, raising my hands in surrender. “I’m lost. I’m so lost, I was just about to pick a bottle, down it, and use the cork to leave a cryptic message on the floor to explain to a future generation what had happened when they eventually found me.”
Jeez. That was a good Jesse. Although he already would’ve had at least one of these bottles open, so maybe not.
“American.” She studied me for a moment, oblivious to my internal ramblings. “You must be Mr. Westwood.”
“That’s me.”
Her gaze flicked briefly to the wine racks. “Exploring the cellar, were you?”
“I was looking for the outside,” I said. “I took a wrong turn somewhere, and honestly, I don’t know where I am.”
The woman nodded just once, her movements as stern as her features. “I’m Miriam.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Hey, you’re the head of housekeeping, right?”
She gave me a look that suggested she would have rolled her eyes if she was less civilized. Then she spun with the grace of a much younger woman. “Come with me.”
There was no room for negotiation in her tone, but I was happy to have a guide back to anywhere that wasn’t deeper into the dungeons. Or catacombs.Whatever this is called.
Within minutes, we were climbing a different staircase, and not long after, we reached the brighter, polished main halls of the castle again. I was just starting to feel like a functioning adult when I turned a corner and nearly walked straight into Eliza.
She stood in the hallway with the same two impeccably well-behaved, flat-coated retrievers sitting neatly beside her. Both dogs looked up at me with expressions of polite curiosity on their faces.
Holy hell. Even their dogs are more civilized than at least half of my brothers.
“Eliza,” I said, quickly bringing my gaze back up to hers. “Fancy meeting you here.”
She blinked a few times rapidly, her gaze finally shifting past me to look at something over my shoulder. “Miriam?”
“Lady Elizabeth,” Miriam said, but without the formal reverence Aaron’s voice had held when he’d said any of their names. This was far simpler and curt. “Mr. Westwood was lost in the cellar.”
Eliza glanced back at me, slowly arching an eyebrow. “Thewinecellar?”
Miriam folded her hands neatly in front of her and shrugged. “Yes, my lady.”
“In my defense, this place is huge,” I said, suddenly feeling the need to explain myself. “It’s pretty easy to get turned around.”
