Page 102 of Brave New Earl (The Way to a Lord's Heart 1)

“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 tellher. 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 barredandlocked 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.

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