Brave New Earl

by Jane Ashford

  “I told her you were a wicked stepmother, and you were beating me,” said Geoffrey out of the darkness. “I told her she could hide in the house and watch you do it. She wanted to tell Papa. So he wouldn’t like you anymore.”

  “A wicked stepmother?” Had they fallen together into a fairy tale?

  “She said you’d be one, but I knew you wouldn’t.”

  “Mrs. Wandrell said I would be a wicked stepmother?” Jean’s brain was slowed by her fear.

  “I knew you wouldn’t be,” Geoffrey repeated.

  “No, I won’t.” Her voice wanted to tremble, but she didn’t let it. “I promise.”

  “She wanted to scare me. I could tell.”

  “Could you?”

  “Yep. But I don’t get scared.”

  “I do, sometimes.” The admission popped out before Jean could catch it. She bit her lip, wishing she could call the words back.

  “You don’t have to worry. I’ve been in here lots.” His voice was astonishingly cheerful.

  He wasn’t afraid, shut up in the darkness. He wasn’t like her. Jean might have envied or resented his insouciance, but she was only glad. “If we just had a light,” she said.

  “There’s a candle.”

  “There is?” She was pathetically grateful to hear it.

  “Yeah. I didn’t tell her. But I use it when I come down here.”

  “Why would you come down here?” Jean couldn’t conceive of a reason.

  “There’s interesting stuff. Wait a minute.”

  After an interval of scrabbling sounds, Jean heard the welcome scrape of a tinderbox striking. And then there was the miracle of light. She raised her head—and found herself face-to-face with a black-and-scarlet, wild-eyed, fanged creature, glaring at her out of the dark. She screamed.

  “It’s all right.” Geoffrey stepped between her and the horrific vision. He held a stubby candle in a metal holder. “It’s all right,” he repeated. He reached out and patted her arm. “It’s just one of the old lord’s devil masks.”

  Jean leaned against the door, waiting for her pounding heart to ease.

  “My mother had some of the scariest things carried down here before I was born. She didn’t want me to see them.”

  “How do you know that?” Jean gasped.

  “I heard old Frank say so, before he died. That’s how I knew about this storeroom. So I hunted for it.”

  Jean’s pulse was slowing. She took deeper breaths and looked around. They were in a low chamber piled with boxes and bits of things no one wanted. Several masks hung on the side wall. Now that she knew what they were, they were only unsettling. “Mrs. Wandrell will tell somebody where we are,” she said. Her voice was still a little choked; she fought the tremor. “Eventually. I suppose she’ll take her time.” She certainly would. To punish Geoffrey. And Jean wanted out before that.

  “We don’t need her,” replied Geoffrey scornfully.

  Jean looked at him—a small boy with golden hair and angelic features who seemed to have the personality of a marauding Viking.

  “The door was barred and locked when I found it. I got in another way.”

  “Is there an entrance into the house?” Jean looked around eagerly.

  “Well, there is, but there’s a pile of barrels in front of it on the other side. I dunno why. Everybody’s forgot about this room.”

  This was not good news.

  “Everybody but me.” Geoffrey smiled proudly up at her. “I looked all around until I found a drawer full of old keys. I tried ’em all, and one of them worked! But it broke in the lock. So I just use the bar now.”

  “But you said you got in another way.”

  He nodded. “Here, hold up the candle.”

  She took the holder and did so.

  Geoffrey climbed a pyramid of cartons in the front corner of the room. When he reached the top, he sat on the uppermost box, feet dangling, and began to tug at a panel. Jean realized there was a tiny window near the ceiling—just a horizontal slit really, covered with an ancient shutter rather than glass. It was barely large enough for Geoffrey to slither through. He looked down from his perch. “It doesn’t work very well. I don’t want to break it, ’cause then anybody could come in here.”

  “No one else in the household would fit,” Jean pointed out.

  “Oh.” He thought this over before nodding. “But squirrels or mice might.”

  Or rats, Jean tried not to think. She banished the idea of spiders as well.

  Geoffrey pried and levered with small fingers. The old shutter creaked. Jean didn’t tell him to hurry, much as she wanted to. Should she try to climb up and help? She doubted the pile of boxes would hold them both. Minutes passed. The candle flame swooped and danced.

  Finally, with a screech of rusted hinges, the shutter came open. Geoffrey bent to wiggle through. “I’ll go out and open the door,” he said.

  “Good.”

  He squirmed out, and Jean was alone. Only for a minute, she told herself. She held on to the candlestick like a talisman.

  One of Geoffrey’s hands reappeared, grasping the edge of the shutter. “I have to shut it,” he called down.

  “You can do that later.”

  “No, now.”

  He tugged and coaxed, his new position much more awkward for maneuvering. Seconds plodded by like turtles.

  “Leave it for now, Geoffrey.”

  “I can do it,” he insisted.

  She wouldn’t shout at him, Jean thought, less fearful than she had been at first. Yes, he was in a great deal of trouble over what he’d done to Mrs. Wandrell, and he must face the consequences. Yes, she was desperate to be out of this dark hole. But now was not the time.

  After endless minutes, the shutter grated closed. “Got it,” the boy cried triumphantly.

  More time passed. Not so very much, Jean knew, but it seemed ages before the bar grated against the door panel. Jean put her hand on the door, more than ready to push it open.

  There followed a series of thumps and scrapes and finally what sounded like a kick on the lower part of the door.

  “She’s put it on all crooked,” said Geoffrey’s muffled voice. “I can’t make it move.” Another thud suggested that he’d kicked the door again. “I have to get a stick.”

  She was not trapped in the dark, Jean told her accelerating pulse. She had a light. Geoffrey was out and could tell someone where she was. “Go and find help,” she called.

  “I can do it,” he answered.

  “Geoffrey! Fetch Tom.” He wouldn’t mind telling Tom, and that resourceful lad would have the bar off in no time.

  There was no answer. He’d gone looking for a stick, Jean realized.

  Silence closed over her. Shadows shifted in the candlelight, making the masks look as if they were laughing and grimacing, mocking her weakness. Geoffrey didn’t understand what this felt like to her, Jean thought. He couldn’t be blamed if the time seemed short to him as he worked away at solving a problem.

  Knowing this didn’t help a great deal.

  She would get out, Jean told herself. Hadn’t she always gotten out? Hadn’t she found her own way to a wonderful new life? She need only be calm and patient. Geoffrey was not going to run off and forget about her.

  At long last, there were sounds outside the door. “Geoffrey?”

  “I got a good stick with a pointy end,” came the answer. “I’m just going to—” Something scratched on the outside of the door, followed by scraping and skittering like a wild creature clawing at the panels. Then finally a splintering sound.

  There was a pause. Geoffrey spoke. Jean couldn’t hear him. “What?”

  “The stick broke behind the bar,” he said louder. “I made it worse.” He sounded remorseful.

  “That’s all right,” Jean called back. “Just go and get some
one to help you. Get Tom.”

  There was a short silence. “He’ll be cross with me,” said Geoffrey in a small voice that Jean could barely hear through the door. “I expect everybody will be cross with me. Won’t they?”

  She couldn’t deny it. But she wasn’t sure what to say with him on one side of the door and her on the other.

  “You think I was wrong to put that lady in there.”

  If she agreed, would he leave her here? Jean’s history told her that he would. He would storm off and abandon her. Her candle would fail; she’d be alone in the dark. Despair rose in her throat. Her breath quickened. The light trembled in her hand.

  But this was a little boy, not her erratic mother. A boy she’d vowed to care for. He’d endured a great deal, and he shouldn’t be lied to. That was far more important than her lingering fears. “It was a mistake,” she said. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

  The silence that came after this seemed very long.

  “I ruined everything,” Geoffrey wailed then. “It was all right, and I ruined it. The lord will be angry. He’ll stop speaking to me again.”

  “No, Geoffrey! That isn’t true.” The door was a maddening obstacle between them. “You made a mistake, and you’ll have to make amends. That’s true. But I’ve made mistakes. So has your father. Everything isn’t ruined.”

  The reply, when it came, was very low. It sounded as if Geoffrey was leaning up against the door, almost speaking to the panels. “You promise?” he said.

  “I promise,” Jean replied, filling her voice with conviction. “On my word of honor.” The boy said something she couldn’t hear. “What?”

  “An honorable gentleman makes things right,” Geoffrey repeated.

  “An honorable person,” Jean answered. “We will make things right.”

  Cloth brushed against the outside of the door. “I’ll get Tom.”

  “Good. Yes, get Tom.” Jean heard nothing more, and it felt as if Geoffrey was gone. She took a deep breath and settled herself to wait. Surely it wouldn’t be too long.

  Nineteen

  Benjamin had left his horse at the stables and was heading wearily toward the house when he saw his son trotting along a path at the back of the building. Geoffrey was streaked with dust, which was not unusual. “What have you been up to?”

  Geoffrey winced, stood still, and gazed up at him. “I was going to get Tom,” he said.

  “Planning some adventure?” Benjamin looked forward to a soft seat and a warm fire. “Mrs. Wandrell is home again,” he added. “I just got word. It seems she marched in, covered in dirt, and declared she wanted a bath before she spoke to anyone.”

  The boy simply stared at him. He seemed more tentative than usual.

  “I imagine she’ll have quite a story to tell. I can’t wait to hear it.” Benjamin wanted Jean. She would appreciate the news, and perhaps cosset him a little. He’d enjoy that. “I must go and tell Jean.”

  “She’s…” Geoffrey began, then stopped.

  Benjamin waited, but when his son said nothing more, he moved on. He was nearly to the kitchen door when he heard, “Papa.”

  The word brought him to a standstill. Geoffrey had never used it in his hearing before, and the simple sound touched something deep inside. Benjamin turned and looked at the small, grimy figure. Was that distress in his expression?

  “I want to be an honorable gentleman,” Geoffrey said. His voice caught on something remarkably like a sob.

  “That’s good.” Benjamin moved closer to his son. “Is something wrong?”

  “I made a mistake. Does everybody really make mistakes?”

  “Yes.” He drew his son over to a garden bench, lifted him onto it, and sat down next to him. “What was your mistake?”

  Geoffrey shifted on the seat. He looked apprehensive. Or perhaps despondent? Benjamin didn’t recognize this expression. “Is Miss Saunders going to be my stepmother?” Geoffrey asked.

  Benjamin felt a touch of real unease. The boy wasn’t acting like himself. “Yes. But that’s just a word, you know. Real stepmothers are nothing like in the fairy tales.” Most, Benjamin amended to himself. No need to go into that.

  “You know about the wicked stepmothers?”

  “I do. The old tales seem to be full of them.”

  “That’s what she…” Geoffrey began, then stopped.

  Was she Jean? Benjamin waited, though he wanted to push. When his son said nothing more, however, he added, “Jean isn’t wicked. She’d kind and gentle. You know that, don’t you?”

  Geoffrey nodded.

  “She came here to help you, and she ended up…rescuing both of us. She made us into a family.”

  The angelic little face creased as if tears were imminent. Geoffrey still looked just like Alice in outline, Benjamin thought. But the specifics were all his own.

  “She’s stuck in a storeroom,” Geoffrey blurted out.

  Benjamin stiffened on the bench. “What?”

  “I can’t get the bar off the door. It’s jammed.”

  “You locked her in?” He stood.

  “I didn’t. It was the lady.”

  “What lady? Never mind. Take me to her at once!” Benjamin remembered the stories Jean had told him about her childhood. She must be terrified.

  Geoffrey raced off along the path. Benjamin ran after him, his boots crunching on the gravel. At the far corner of the house, Geoffrey plunged into a clump of bushes. Mystified, Benjamin went in after him. When he caught up, the boy was pushing at a bar set across a low door. “It’s stuck,” he said.

  “Geoffrey?” called a muffled voice from beyond the panels.

  “Jean?” said Benjamin.

  “You’re here! Thank God. The candle burned out.”

  Setting his son aside, Benjamin gripped the bottom of the bar and pulled. It resisted, then gave way with a scrape and clatter. He cast it aside and yanked open the door. Jean fell out into his arms. He held her, hands searching for any injury. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said. But her arms were very tight around him. And she was trembling. Benjamin looked down at his son. Geoffrey looked back with Alice’s celestial-blue eyes and his own wary resignation. “What the deuce—” began Benjamin.

  Jean reached out with one arm and pulled Geoffrey into their embrace. The boy was trembling, too, Benjamin noted. He set aside his questions to simply hold them both. And Geoffrey let him.

  It felt good. Wonderful, really. Like redemption, and peace, and the hopeful future. Benjamin might never have let go, but a tiny iridescent beetle dropped from one of the branches onto Geoffrey’s golden curls. Benjamin brushed it off. Jean pulled back a bit. And the embrace was finished, for now. “Come along inside,” he said. “And tell me how this came about.” He felt Geoffrey flinch.

  Jean gazed at him. Something serious, Benjamin gathered. That was the bad news. They would deal with it together. That was the good.

  • • •

  Geoffrey stood before Mrs. Wandrell in that lady’s own parlor, hands behind his back. He was dressed in his best clothes and scrubbed to shining perfection. “I am very sorry for what I did,” he said.

  Benjamin, posted behind his son, approved the tone. Geoffrey sounded contrite, unforced. He looked sincere. Jean would have been proud. They’d agreed she shouldn’t come along, however, because of Mrs. Wandrell’s disappointment over their upcoming marriage.

  “It was wrong,” Geoffrey continued. “I want to make a-mends.” He stumbled slightly over the last word, even though it was his choice. “What shall I do?”

  Mrs. Wandrell’s eyes flicked up to Benjamin’s, then down again. “Are you asking me to set your punishment?”

  Geoffrey nodded. Benjamin reserved judgment. They’d see what she said.

  “Huh.” The lady’s frosty demeanor eased slightly. “You told lies. And yo
u shut me up in that dreadful place. For hours!”

  Benjamin thought of pointing out that she wouldn’t have been locked up if she hadn’t been trying to wreck his engagement. Maliciously. After trying to frighten a little boy and poison his relationship with his future stepmother. But he waited. Jean would have wanted him to wait. He was surprised that Geoffrey did the same.

  Their reward came when Mrs. Wandrell added, “I wasn’t…entirely blameless. Still, what you did was very bad indeed.”

  Geoffrey nodded again.

  The boy was using his solemn angelic look, Benjamin noted. It was usually effective.

  But Mrs. Wandrell seemed to recognize the expression as well. She did have children of her own. “What is your favorite thing to do?” she asked.

  “Ride Fergus. My pony.”

  She nodded. “All right. No rides for…two weeks then.”

  Geoffrey started to frown, but stopped himself.

  “No visits to the stables, even. Not so much as an apple or a bit of carrot taken out to Fergus.”

  This clearly hit home. The lady knew her punishments, Benjamin thought.

  “He’ll forget about me!” said Geoffrey. “Can’t I just go and talk to him?”

  “No. As far as Fergus is concerned, it will be as if you were locked away in a dark room.” Mrs. Wandrell glanced up at Benjamin again, then down. He waited.

  The boy gazed at her. He appeared to be working things out in his mind. “Fergus’ll miss me,” he said finally.

  “I expect he will,” replied Mrs. Wandrell.

  “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “No. But he is affected by what you decide to do.”

  “Af-fected?”

  “Things happen to Fergus because of what you do, the choices you make.”