Page 40 of Brave New Earl (The Way to a Lord's Heart 1)

When Benjamin sent for Geoffrey the next morning, to discuss his transgression and arrange for the official apology, the boy was nowhere to be found. He’d apparently sneaked out of his bedroom in the night, after Lily was asleep. As no doors or windows had been unbolted, he had to be in the house, but a search turned up no sign of him. Even Tom couldn’t find him, which he thought odd. “Reckoned I knew all his hidey-holes,” the lad said.

Benjamin organized a more systematic sweep of the house, beginning at the bottom and working up, but the dearth of staff made this a slow process. By noon, he’d begun to worry.HadGeoffrey gotten outside? Standing in the empty front hall, Benjamin reviewed the possibilities. No, not without leaving the exit he’d used open. Benjamin had been an inquisitive child here himself; there were no secret passages or escape tunnels at Furness Hall.

Miss Saunders came through the doors to the reception room. “Still no sign?”

Benjamin shook his head.

“I shouldn’t have scolded him,” she said, practically wringing her hands.

She reviewed the story of Tab’s release, as she’d done more than once, despite Benjamin’s reassurances. She was overly concerned about a sharp remark, as he was just a bit weary of telling her. Benjamin headed for the stairs. He felt better when he kept moving.

He walked an upper corridor, wondering what to do next. There was nowhere else to look. Every box and trunk in the attic had been opened and examined under his supervision. They’d peered under beds and behind sofas. They’d shaken each drapery and ransacked every cabinet. Perhaps his son, like cats, could walk through walls.

Struck by a sudden impulse, Benjamin went over and opened a door he never opened. The bedchamber beyond was barren—with the requisite furniture and draperies, but no ornament. He’d had Alice’s room cleared out a week after she died. The sight of her clothes and trinkets—the mere knowledge that they existed—had lacerated him beyond bearing. He hadn’t thought that Geoffrey might want some of them. He hadn’t thought at all, actually. “Did I do wrong, Alice?” he said aloud.

A small sound, a seeming response, startled him. Had he really heard it? And was he in the presence of a ghost? For months after his wife died, he’d half hoped for a visitation. Futilely, of course. Was he to receive one now? Preposterous. But he couldn’t help saying, “Alice?”

The soft, slithery sound came again, and this time he traced it to the cupboard at the top of the wardrobe. Which he knew to be locked; the key was in his jewelry case with his cuff links.

Benjamin went over and pulled at the cupboard door. Locked indeed. But a sudden flurry of movement from inside was not the least ghostlike. He knocked sharply. “Geoffrey?”

“Go away!” came the muffled reply.

Not bothering to argue, Benjamin went to fetch the key. He was not astonished to find it gone. Back at the wardrobe, he said, “Come out of there at once.”

“Won’t!”

“Then I shall have to break the door. That would be a shame.”

There was a short silence. Then the key turned in the lock. One of the cupboard doors opened, and Geoffrey peered down at him.

Benjamin opened the other, revealing a chamber pot sitting next to his son. He didn’t care to imagine using it in such a confined space. There was a clutter of stuff in the back of the cupboard as well. “Come down,” he said, holding out his arms.

Geoffrey didn’t jump into them. He climbed down, using carvings on the wood of the lower doors as handholds. “I fell asleep. I’m hungry.”

“You’ve no one to blame but yourself for that.”

The boy scowled. “This is my mama’s room.”

“It was. How do you know that?”

“Cook told me.”

The cook was a testy creature and often impatient with Geoffrey, though an artist with viands. Not the best source of information, Benjamin thought. He should have realized that the servants would talk about Alice, even if he didn’t. He should have realized a number of things.

“She died in here,” Geoffrey added.

Benjamin braced himself for questions, reproach, tears. What should he say? Geoffrey’s expression was bland, uninformative. “Yes,” Benjamin said. He’d hated this room for so many months. Now, it seemed just empty.

“The old lord died in your room. His wife died in the one across the hall from here.”

Startled, Benjamin gazed down at him. “Are you keeping a list?”

“I ’spect people have died all over this house. It’s old.” Geoffrey said this with a certain relish.

“Yes.”

“The lord with the long curls in the picture gallery broke his neck on a hunt. Over a regular rasper. Bradford said so.”

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