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But then I see it.
“Brianna, what are we doing here?” Edward’s voice rises. “I thought you’d solved my unfinished business, but we’re not going to bring me back to life by hanging out in this sepulchre.”
“Ambrose thinks you were murdered. He was certain because of what Ozzy said that someone pushed you out the window, and so he’s had us running around the country, chasing up centuries old leads and talking to the ghosts of all your friends.”
Edward pales. “You spoke to my friends?”
“Some of them. Most passed away peacefully, as the rich tend to do. But the Countess de Rothschild says hello.”
“Just hello?” His mouth lifts into a smirk. “She usually has so many uses for that tongue of hers.”
She says a lot more, but I’m not going to tell you that.
“Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that today, I figured something out. You weren’t murdered. Ozzy was mistaken, as we all were. But you and Hughdidargue right before you died. You argued about the wine.”
“That seems likely. Hugh was always trying to drink me under the table.” Edward’s smirk grows wider. “He never succeeded.”
“What the countess overheard wasn’t you and Hugh arguing about his letter. I don’t even know if he sent that letter to you, because otherwise, surely you wouldn’t have invited him to Grimwood? No, from the way it was all scrunched up and torn, I think Hugh wrote it and threw it away or hid it amongst his papers. I don’t think he believed those things he said at all, but I think he was feeling jealous and insecure because you were his brilliant friend, the Poet Prince, and you had just written the greatest poem of you life, and he was feeling a little insecure.
Edward frowns. “But what he said on the night I died—”
“Hugh was telling you that you were out of wine. He said, ‘that’s the last of it,’ as he heard a bottle smash downstairs. He was trying to tell you that the party was over, that you were all too trashed. But you said, ‘I’ll say when we’re done.’ You wanted to keep going. He said, ‘I won’t take it,’ meaning that he won’t deal with you in your current state. You had just told the countess that you wouldn’t run away with her. I think you were in one of your moods, and Hugh was trying to calm you. I think that Hugh was trying to get you back to bed, and you were insisting that you were the greatest poet and drinking from the bottle you had with you, and when Hugh left you there, you got up to get some more wine for the party. You moved toward your secret wine cellar, completely forgetting that you were on the second-storey.”
“I don’t understand. Why would it matter if I were on the second-storey? I would simply stumble to the cellar. I’d be more likely to fall down the stairs than out the window.”
“Look.”
I point at my feet, to where the stones on the floor don’t quite meet. Edward bends down and inspects the flagstones. “I still don’t see what some loose stones in a tomb have to do with me. Surely this is a matter for the groundskeeper.”
I take the pry bar and insert it between the stones. It takes a few goes since I don’t exactly have a lot of time between wrangling ghosts to get to the gym. I manage to lift the stone enough that I can slide it across, revealing a hole in the floor just large enough for a small person to fit through. A steep stone staircase curves down into the gloom, the passage bedecked with spiderwebs.
I hold my hand out to Edward. “Come on, then.”
“I won’t be going down there.” Edward shudders. “That’s no place for a prince. There might be spiders.”
“Toughen up.” I grin as I hold up the crowbar. “Whatever monster lurks down there, we can take it.”
But I swallow down my own fear as I take a step down. My boots kick up layers of dust. I glance back over my shoulder.
Edward takes a tentative step, then another. He screws up his face. “It smells strange.” He screws up his nose. “Very sweet. You don’t think it’s poison, do you? My cousin died from breathing bad air.”
“This room hasn’t been opened in nearly five hundred years, and if it was a cellar, it’s probably close to airtight. It’s going to be a bit musty. But look, I’m okay.” I grin at him. “Come on.”
I continue carefully down the staircase until my feet land on a cobbled floor. The stone is worn smooth from use. Edward must have had reason to come down here a lot. There’s a wooden door in front of me. It’s locked, but the door has rotted that one swift hit with the pry bar and the whole lock falls out of the door. I push the door open and step into the room beyond, and beckon Edward to follow.
Edward lands beside me. “Are you satisfied, Brianna? I have debased myself by crawling into this rat hole beneath my tomb, and I don’t see—”
“Can you see now?” I can’t help the grin spreading across my face as I shine my phone’s flashlight around the space.
The light’s beam illuminates a series of stone niches, each one containing rows upon rows of glass bottles. The light catches and shimmers, creating rainbow prisms that dance along the curved roof of the building. The room stretches back toward Grimwood, a long tunnel that appears to have no end.
And every inch of it is stacked to the brim with wine.
“My secret wine cellar.” Edward’s eyes widen as he takes in the rows and rows of dusty bottles. “I can’t believe you found it. I thought for certain I had drunk it dry, and that’s why I couldn’t remember it.”
He moves through the rows, his eyes widening. I hold up the light so he can read the labels on the bottles.
“This is a Bordeaux I got for the countess because the colour of it perfectly matched her favourite dress,” he says, and pulls out another. “And this…I had to hunt for ages for this. Hugh and I travelled to France and we rented this tiny castle in the south with a cellar full of this stuff. We wrote poetry and danced on the lawn and started a riot in the village. It was a hoot. I paid a king’s ransom for this but I managed to track down the exact wine for Hugh’s birthday.”
