Comes The Dawn (The Wonderland Series: Book 5)

by Irina Shapiro

  Chapter 28

  I gripped the seat of Simon’s SUV as it sped down the motorway toward London. I tried not to let Simon see my nervousness, but I was breaking out in a cold sweat as my heart fluttered against my ribcage. It had been years since I’d been in a car or traveled at such a speed, and everything inside me seemed to rebel. Oncoming lights all blurred into one continuous stream, overwhelming my senses and making me feel dizzy and confused. I felt the bile rise in my throat as Simon swerved to avoid a car that had barreled into our lane without so much as using a turn signal.

  “Simon, can you please slow down?” I pleaded.

  Simon gave me a look of surprise, but seeing my panicked face eased his foot off the gas pedal. “Are you all right?” he asked, realizing that I was anything but. I felt clammy and nauseous.

  “I’m just a bit overwhelmed, that’s all. It’s been a while.”

  “I’m sorry, I should have realized. Perhaps it would help if we talked of mundane things,” he suggested.

  “At this moment, nothing seems mundane. I’ve been gone for over three years, which might not seem like a long time, but believe me, it feels like a lifetime. I hardly know where to begin reclaiming my life after all this time. And then there are the children. Can you imagine what it will be like for them when they awake tomorrow?”

  Simon nodded. “Children are very resilient. As long as you remain calm, they will believe that everything is all right. Turn it all into a game,” he suggested, surprising me with his wisdom.

  “Been studying child psychology, have you?” I joked.

  “No, but growing up at Everly Manor with frosty Lady Everly, her wily husband, and my mum, taught me a lot about adult behavior. No one ever told me anything, least of all the truth, so I learned to gauge the situation by listening less and studying their body language. Sometimes, that which is left unsaid actually speaks volumes.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I just need to remain calm and try to make this transition fun for them.”

  “I’d start by going to the zoo. Children love animals, and since your children have never seen any exotic animals, they’ll be too mesmerized to notice that they are in a different world.”

  “That’s a great idea, Simon, but getting them to the zoo might be a problem. They’ve never seen a car or a bus, or electric lights, for that matter. The trip to the zoo might overwhelm them,” I said, trying to envision the journey step by step. Valentine might be lured by the promise of seeing animals she’d only heard of, but I was sure that Michael would have an absolute meltdown in the face of London traffic and blaring noise.

  “Why don’t we start slow then? I’ll spend the night in London, if that’s all right with you, and tomorrow we’ll take the kids for a little drive. We’ll show them the sights, perhaps visit a toy store, and feed the ducks in the park. Finish that off with a slice of pizza and they’ll think they’ve landed in an enchanted kingdom,” Simon said with a smile.

  “Simon, thank you,” I said. “You’ve been amazing. Why do you even want to bother with us?” Grateful as I was for Simon’s help, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what made him so eager to lend a hand. He’d spent the night at Everly Manor after his wedding escapade, but other than providing him with food and shelter, we’d done nothing out of the ordinary. I suppose he felt he owed us something, but he’d already done more than I could dare hope for.

  Simon looked pensive for a moment, his eyes on the road as he considered his answer. “Neve, I made the biggest mistake of my life when I ditched Heather at the altar. I thought that I’d lose my freedom and never have any control over my life again, but it was after I came back and Heather wasn’t there anymore that I realized what a fool I’d been. I had a woman who loved me for who I was and was willing to dedicate her life to me and our future family, and I acted like a complete wanker. All I did was prove what Heather already suspected, that I’m a selfish and spoiled child who isn’t even man enough to tell the truth and accept the consequences. I ran away and hid like a frightened toddler, and I am ashamed.”

  “Have you tried to get her back?” I asked, already guessing the answer.

  “I did try to talk to her and beg for forgiveness, but she wouldn’t listen. She was too hurt to see my side of things,” Simon complained. “So, I’ve kept my distance.”

  “Will you try again?”

  “What’s the point?” Simon shrugged. “She’s done with me, not that I can blame her. I hear she’s seeing someone. He’s older and a bit more settled. Probably ready to settle down and start a family. He took her on a holiday to Morocco. We were meant to go there on our wedding trip. I see she wasted no time in doing it with someone else,” he added bitterly.

  I refrained from pointing out that he’d been the one who bolted, not Heather, and that she was entitled to go to Morocco or anywhere else under the circumstances. But I didn’t really see what Heather’s new relationship had to do with Simon’s desire to help us. Did he think he was atoning for his mistake in some way by playing the Good Samaritan?

  “I’ve done a lot of soul searching these past few months,” Simon continued, dismissing Heather’s love life. “On reflection, I realized that I’d never done anything for anyone. I took and I took, but I hardly ever gave anything back. I resented my mother for never telling me who my father was until it was too late, and left as soon as I could afford to live on my own. I never bothered to understand what she might have been feeling; I was too angry. So, I’ve been spending a lot more time at the manor, helping her deal with the estate and the museum. And even with Max, I accepted his friendship, his money, his support, but I never really went out of my way to do anything for him.”

  “Are you helping us because you feel that in some way you’re repaying Max?” I asked, needing to understand Simon’s motives.

  “Yes and no,” he replied, his expression pensive as he tried to put his feelings into words. “Neve, you are really brave. You gave up everything for the man you love, a man you knew could have been arrested and executed at any time. You remained by his side without any thought to your own safety or comfort. I suppose what I am trying to say, very clumsily, is that I admire you both. I know that Max would have wanted me to help you, so I will do everything in my power to make this easier for you. It’s too late for me to do anything for Max. He’s gone, and I can never go back and rewrite our relationship, but I can turn over a new leaf and help the people he cared about. And you know what?” he added, his eyebrows lifting in surprise, “it actually feels really good to do something without expecting any kind of return on investment. It feels noble.”

  I reached over and squeezed Simon’s hand for lack of anything to say. He was about my age, but in some ways he was so achingly young, so immature. A man his age in the seventeenth century would be very different, and a lot less selfish. It was a different life, and it bred different men. I suppose that when human life was as fleeting as it was in a time when a reasonably healthy person could be carried off within days from some infection or unexpected illness, people valued love more. Modern medicine, uninhibited travel, and the internet had inadvertently managed to strip away some values of the past.

  A man who might have had only a handful of eligible women to choose from in a seventeenth-century village now had thousands of women at his fingertips, and could travel much farther afield if the situation called for it. Having so much freedom of choice made people callous and fickle. They were always searching for the next best thing and failing to see the specialness of the people in front of them. It was easy to give up on someone when you never fully committed to them. Few people married their first loves anymore, and even fewer people were willing to make significant sacrifices for someone they thought of as disposable. Perhaps Heather would take Simon back after enough groveling, but he’d be absolutely fine if she didn’t. There were plenty of fish in the sea, and Simon’s bout of remorse wouldn’t last long. It’d only been a few months since his aborted nuptials. Simon might roma
nticize our situation, but despite his inherently good nature, he didn’t have the moral compass or nobility of spirit that separated the men from the boys in times past.

  I felt great relief when we finally parked the car and carried the children upstairs to Simon’s flat. They were still sound asleep, having been lulled into even deeper slumber by the motion of the car. It was a relief not to have to deal with their reaction to the big city at this moment. It would come soon enough, but for now, I was tired and on edge, and the only thing I truly craved was a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

  The flat was rather posh, with windows the whole length of the living room, and a spacious bedroom with a king-sized bed and flat-screen TV. Everything was very modern and minimalist. There wasn’t an ornament, family snapshot, or a book to be seen, the only decoration being the colorful abstract prints on the beige walls. I took off the children’s shoes and tucked them in before following Simon into the kitchen. The granite counter gave off a dull gleam, as did the stainless steel appliances; so clean, they looked as if they’d never been used.

  “Tea?” Simon asked.

  “I’m exhausted,” I replied, yawning. “I think I’ll turn in. I’ll just sleep with the children. Would you have a T-shirt I can borrow?”

  “Of course. Bottom dresser drawer. I’ll take the couch.”

  Simon walked over and put his arms around me in a brotherly way which reminded me of Archie and nearly made me cry as a sharp-edged pain suddenly sliced through my already sore heart. I knew that for a long time to come, I would constantly think of Archie and Frances and try to envision what they were doing on the other side of the veil of time, going about their business as if they didn’t die hundreds of years ago. In time, the pain would dull, and I would learn to live with the separation, but at this moment, especially since I’d just been torn from Hugo, it was as visceral as a sudden death.

  “It will be all right, Neve.”

  I nodded into his shoulder, unwilling to let him see my tears.

  May 1689

  Surrey, England

  Chapter 29

  Frances pushed aside the bed hangings and slid out of bed. She felt achy, tired, and out of sorts. Her sleep had been fitful, disturbed by dreams of Neve and the children as they tried to reach out to her and cried pitifully for help. Frances had woken up several times during the night, her cheeks wet with tears. She tried to shake off the feeling of dread by telling herself that all was well, and the Everlys were safe in that faraway world that she couldn’t even begin to imagine. She hoped that wherever they were spending this first night, they were all together and well looked after, and would awake to a new dawn — one that was filled with possibilities and choices.

  Archie came in sometime after one, having delivered Max’s casket to the gravediggers and overseen the burial. He’d felt no great pity for Max, given the role Max had played in all their lives, but even Archie, stoic as he was, couldn’t help but be affected by what he saw. He refused to tell Frances about it and tried to feign sleep, but she could just imagine what it must have felt like to stand by and watch the desecration of a corpse.

  Frances despised Max with single-minded passion after his ill-fated kidnapping attempt in Paris, but at this moment, she felt nothing but pity for the poor, misguided man. He died under mysterious circumstances far from home and anyone who might have loved him, and even in death, he would not be given a Christian burial or sent on his final journey in his own name. No one except Frances and Archie would know the identity of the man buried this night, and sadly, no one would care. Max would be swallowed by the earth, and quickly forgotten.

  She didn’t want to think about it, but all she could see in her mind’s eye was the eerie light of the three-quarter moon spilling onto the crossroads as the gravediggers drove a sharpened spike into Max’s heart. The gravediggers were coarse men and would have made jokes at Max’s expense, deriving whatever pleasure they could from their gruesome task. Tales of the burial would be told at the tavern for weeks to come, the details relished with ghoulish delight by villagers who’d known Lord Everly all their lives and had benefited from his kindness. Frances was sickened by the thought that everyone believed the desecrated corpse to be Hugo. His reputation was in tatters, his legacy now forever tainted by whatever took place in the Tower the night Max died. Hugo was gone now, but she knew him well enough to know that he would carry the shame in his heart for the rest of his life, and chafe at the helplessness he’d feel at his inability to tell the truth about what really happened to Max.

  Frances was relieved when dawn finally came and she was able to abandon all hope of rest and get out of bed. The house was deathly quiet on this Sunday morning, the first of many mornings when the Everlys would no longer be there at the start of the day.

  “Come back to bed, Franny,” Archie called out softly. “It’s early yet.”

  “I know, but I just can’t lie there anymore,” Frances replied irritably. “I must do something.”

  “What do you need to do?” Archie was sitting up in bed now, watching her with concern. He would miss the Everlys too, but unlike Frances, he would just bottle up his feelings and place them on the highest shelf of his mind, the bottle left there to collect dust until he eventually forgot about its existence. It’s not that Archie was unfeeling, but he simply had a different way of dealing with loss. Archie would see giving in to melancholy as having little point. His expression did soften with compassion as he watched her. He understood.

  As soon as Watson discovered that Neve and the children were gone, all hell would break loose, so Frances had to find a way to distract him for as long as she could.

  “What would you have me do, Franny?” Archie asked as he swung his legs out of bed and reached for his shirt.

  “Just tell Mark Watson that Lady Everly is too upset by the events of last night and has taken to her bed. That will buy a few hours.”

  “And the children?” Archie asked as he continued to dress hastily.

  “Mark Watson never even looked at the children. He’ll just assume they are with their mother. Give the servants the same excuse,” Frances added, considering all aspects of her plan.

  Archie planted a kiss on Frances’s lips and left the room. Frances chose her most somber gown, dressed, pinned up her hair, then slipped out of the room, dashing toward Neve’s bedroom before any of the servants could see her. She locked the door then pocketed the key. If anyone went in search of Neve, they’d assume that she’d locked herself in, giving vent to her grief.

  Frances considered going downstairs, but she had no appetite this morning, and had no desire to deal with the servants. Archie would take care of all that. Instead, she retreated back to her room and pulled a chair up to the window, throwing it open to get some fresh air. She felt queasy and weak, probably due to her restless night. The fresh air felt good on her face, the smell of grass sharp in her nose. Frances took deep breaths until she began to feel marginally better. Today would be a difficult day, but tomorrow would be the beginning of the new normal, and in time, she would learn to accept her loss and begin to move forward. After all, the most important person was still here, and she owed it to Archie not to give in to her grief. The Everlys weren’t dead, just gone, and who knew, maybe one day they would return.

  Frances finally rose to her feet with a sigh, shut the window, and headed downstairs. Mark Watson looked sleepy and confused after his drug-induced slumber, but a scowl appeared on his face as soon as he saw Frances on the stairs.

  “Lady Everly best be ready to go to church this morning. If she ain’t, I’ll break down the door and drag ‘er out by the hair. Ye can just tell ‘er that,” he spat out. Mark Watson had clearly recovered from his fright of the other night. Once he escorted Neve to the church for the trial, his duties as guard would be over, but Frances had no doubt that he’d be first in line to build a pyre or throw a rope over a stout branch if she were condemned to death.

  “She’ll be ready,” Archie replied as
he came out of the dining room. “And if you speak to my wife disrespectfully ever again, we’ll just see who will be dragged out by the hair,” he added, his tone menacing. Despite her general misery, Frances couldn’t help rewarding Archie with a smile of gratitude. It still amazed her how readily he always came to her defense, and how loved and protected it made her feel. The knowledge that Archie would be there to look after her for the rest of her days was the only ray of sunshine on a day which promised to be trying at best, awful at worst.

  Frances turned her back on Mark Watson and made her way to the kitchen. The queasiness had passed, and she was suddenly hungry. She’d need a little something to get her through the morning. The servants were all gathered around the wooden table, their demeanor subdued as they broke their fast on porridge and buttered bread. Frances could hardly blame them for feeling glum. Their future was uncertain, and would become even more so once they found out that Lady Everly and the children had fled, and Clarence Hiddleston would be coming to take possession of the estate. He might decide to keep them on, or he might just dismiss the lot and leave the running of the estate to Godfrey Bowden, visiting Everly Manor only to collect rents and review the books. At seventeen, Clarence had little use for the house itself. He currently resided at his estate in Kent, and might continue to do so until he took a wife.

  Frances had never met Clarence, but she heard enough about him from Jem to share some of the servants’ trepidation. She didn’t imagine for one moment that Clarence Hiddleston would welcome her and Archie. He’d known Archie when he was a boy, and viewed him as nothing more than a servant and Hugo Everly’s puppet. Their days of living in the manor house were over, but Frances didn’t mind in the least. Now that the family was gone, there was no reason to remain. Once Archie saw to any outstanding business, they would leave and set up their own household.