Snowbear

A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction

Chapter One:

Sir Thomas Bertram glanced witheringly from the glittering glare coming off the harbour water to his son, who – donning an ornate silver mask fitted just above his nose and reaching all the way to his hairline – also slightly glittered; Tom seemed unable to focus, his wavery, light eyes staring through the two slits of his mask back at Nelson's Dockyard with the air of an overexcited hummingbird or an agitated bumble bee, which – given the present unfavourable circumstances – only frustrated Sir Thomas all the more.

"Tom!" He snapped his fingers in front of his son's face. "I need you to listen to me for nearly a full minute before you're seen off from this place which has brought so much misery to us both – can you do that?"

"Yes, of course, sir, as you like," he muttered.

"As I like." Sir Thomas' brow lifted sardonically. His voice dripped honeyed sarcasm. "How very accommodating you are, Tom. Although, if you had been doing as I liked this entire trip we should not be in the present predicament, now should we?"

He hung his head. "No, sir – indeed not – I readily own to some indiscretion."

"Oh, you own to it, do you? What would you deny?"

Tom's cheeks coloured and, although his mask did not hide them, his ashamed blushing was still somewhat concealed by the deep tan he'd acquired here in Antigua.

"What did I tell you when we first left England?" pressed his father. "What was the very first rule I insisted upon your following?"

"Not to pelt people with pebbles and make wagers about it?"

Sir Thomas looked disgusted. "After that – d'you not recall my sharp admonition regarding not incurring everlasting doom upon our family line?"

"I say! With all due respect, isn't that a going a bit far? Come now, Father, even you must admit it's hardly everlasting – it's not as if my curse is unbreakable – I inadvertently peeved off one little old woman who happened to have some manner of supernatural power." He smiled weakly. "It could have happened to anybody."

"It really could not." He sucked his teeth. "It would not have happened if Edmund had been with me, I daresay."

Tom bristled. Edmund, Edmund, Edmund. Always Edmund. Everybody acted as if his younger brother were a saint just because he never gambled or got into trouble of any kind. "How was I to know the blasted crone was an actual witch?" The old biddy hadn't exactly gone around wearing a placard.

"You did not have to insult her appearance," grunted Sir Thomas. "And certainly not thrice."

Tom grimaced. "Very well, I must concede, there I behaved badly." In his defence, he had drunk a great deal of wine that evening, but that would hardly be an excuse his father would accept; if anything, it would only make him angrier if he admitted to it now. "Still, it's hardly the end of–"

He was silenced with a look.

"Hem."

"I am sending you home early with two tasks," Sir Thomas said. "Firstly, deliver my letters assuring your sister Maria she may marry this James Rushworth she has set her heart on and your aunt Norris has assured me is an outstanding match for her. I only ask, and please do emphasise this on my behalf, they do not hold the wedding prior to my return. I should like to meet my son-to-be for myself.

"Second, straighten up and break this damnable curse, set right this wrong, before anyone finds out about the dreadful particulars of it."

Gnawing upon his lower lip, Tom pointed out the only way for him to do so was to marry.

"Then marry," snarled his father. "Quickly. I have often been sorry to think on how little likely you seemed to marry early in life and fix – now you have no excuse. You must marry, you must settle, and you must end this nonsense before it is too late."

"That is all well and good, sir, but how am I to travel?" His head swivelled both ways. "There is, hang it all, that little thing which must happen either during the day or at night..."

"I have told the captain you are to be locked in your cabin after sunset – will that suffice?"

"I hope the cabin door is made of iron," he sniffed, rolling back his shoulders. "Or steel."

"You shall behave yourself and make no trouble for the captain or crew, regardless of this curse – no breaking down the door even should it be made of paper – you will humiliate me no further than you already have – d'you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," he demurred, his shoulders slumping.

"Good – then let us end a conversation which has been disagreeable to us both," Sir Thomas clapped his son's shoulder in parting and turned to leave. "Now go. The tide waits for no man or beast."

As he stepped onto the gangplank, lifted his top hat, and waved goodbye to his departing father – though Sir Thomas wasn't even looking any longer – Tom muttered, "What a piece of work about a trifle – I'm not half so cursed as some of my friends, I'll have him know." He had one intimate companion in London who vowed up and down, to all who might ask, that a gypsy man who'd read his palm at a travelling fair the once had made it so he could never win at Billiards again. There – there was a proper curse for you. At least the crazed old witch hadn't done anything like that. "And another thing! If all goes to plan, it'll be over in seven years and I shan't be obliged to wear this ridiculous mask or hide away half the time any longer. And the blasted Bertram family name will be entirely unsullied and blameless then!"


Although Tom knew perfectly well his father would disapprove of such a dalliance, when he realised the captain had permitted – most unusually – his daughter, a comely lass with dark blue eyes and tousled russet curls only three or four years his junior, on board for the journey back to England, he invited her to visit him in his cabin the first afternoon.

His father wanted him married off as quickly as possible for the sake of the curse, did he not? How was he to find any sort of wife if he disregarded outright the first potentially agreeable girl he met? Of course, some sea captain's daughter wasn't the sort of bride Sir Thomas would have had in mind for his eldest son, the one in line for a baronetcy, but desperate times, what.

Unfortunately, Tom had not spent more than five clandestine minutes alone with the young woman, poured her a glass of wine and given her a friendly smile as he sat down across from her and leaned into the rocking, pitching motion of the ship, than he realised she was hardly the great love of his life he'd sort of offhandedly hoped she might be – on account of how convenient such a coincidence would have been – and as nice as her looks were she couldn't say anything remotely interesting, even when prompted.

The clinch, the final nail in the coffin, was her expressed dislike for horses.

All of them, apparently.

"What?" said he, dismayed, peering at her over his own glass of wine as she got up and moved nearer him, giggling as if she hadn't just wildly offended him by declaring his favourite creatures, his lifelong passion, to be odorous and dangerous. "Even ponies? I thought women loved ponies."

"My brother had a horse step directly on his head once – it caved in on the left side and everything." A pause. "His head, I mean, caved in, of course, not the horse." The majority of this speech, the parts wherein it was not muddled and confused, was delivered pertly, as if she were a great authority on the subject of dangerous horses of a sudden. "He has never – I think – been the same since."

"Well, he certainly wouldn't be – I suppose – not with the left side of his bloody skull caved in." He gave her a wry smile, certain she must be in jest.

Alas, nay, she was in earnest, perfectly serious.

"Why?" demanded Tom next, his expression changed in a twinkling, quite past being civil. "The devil did he do to spook the poor creature? Horses do not simply prance around snorting and scrapping their hooves in the dirt, smashing people's heads like overripe gourds for no reason, I'll have you know."

The captain's daughter, who ironically was a great deal less innocent than Tom (this was rather saying something, given his own motives were far from pure and shining, and though he himself was not a regular participant in such matters, being preoccupied with other vices, he had certainly seen a good deal of debauchery and looseness in London while gallivanting about town) and had had something of a different notion of what his invitation into his cabin entailed than he himself did, not yet ready to concede defeat, slung herself directly into his lap. "Why do you wear that heavy old mask even inside the cosy privacy of your cabin?

"Oh," said Tom, with exaggerated casualty. "I'm cursed."

Her pretty brow furrowed. "Well" – she began grinding against his thighs as she sat on them, bouncing her posterior up and down and practically purring – "this so-called curse of yours doesn't impede your ability to have a good time, I take it?"

He scowled defensively. "Certainly not." Not that, at this point, he wanted anything like 'a good time' with her. Horse-hating, giggly little shrew. Still. "Why?" His eyes narrowed behind the silver slits in his mask. "Has someone on this blasted ship said otherwise?"

"Don't work yourself up about it now, love." And she kissed the end of his nose, poking the pink tip of her tongue through her parting teeth while she did so, which he did not find very nice; he'd had more objectively pleasant kisses from his mother's Pug in that fashion. "If there's no impediment, let's get on with it and take our pleasure tonight."

Tonight. The word set off alarm bells in Tom's head. Night. "Whatever can you mean? It's the middle of the afternoon," was his terse reply.

"The sun's nearly set."

Springing up in an agitated hurry, Tom let out a colourful oath of pure dismay and – simultaneously – knocked the captain's daughter directly from his lap.

"Oi!" She landed with a thud on the cabin floor, her glass of wine upturned and spilling, seeping into the burnished dark wooden planks.

"Beg pardon, but you need to leave. Right now. This instant." He marched to the door and – horrified – discovered it would not budge. "Oh no." He felt his blood pressure rise in panic. "Shit, shit, shit!" They'd already bolted it for the night. "Hang on. The crew wouldn't purposefully lock you in with me. They knew you were visiting me, did they not?"

Leaping to her feet and planting her hands on her lips, she glared at him. "Simple man! D'you think I'd announce to every man in my father's employ that I intended to spend a night pleasuring you? I thought high gentlemen like yourself were meant to be educated and clever."

"I invited you for a glass of wine and a jolly discussion – and that was not a euphemism – I said absolutely nothing about your spending the night, nor a word about pleasure," croaked Tom, desperate, frantic eyes behind his mask darting this way and that as if he hoped for salvation yet from some thus far undiscovered quarter. "Indeed, you cannot be in here with me at night." He knocked a fist hard against the door, knuckles smarting. "I told you, I'm cursed."

"Well, it appears we're quite trapped until the morning." She motioned to the bottle of wine, evidently hoping for a refill. "Don't fret, I'll make it enjoyable for you – I know what men like."

Even adamantly disliking her as he now did, and actively wondering how he could have failed to notice earlier those alluringly dark blue eyes of hers were set far too near each other to be remotely attractive, Tom didn't wish upon her what she was about to see, what she would have no escape from. Poor lassie would rightly be terrified if she could only know. And yet he almost envied her her ignorance.

She began, still sweetly oblivious to what was to come, to pull her dress off one of her shoulders, revealing rosy-pink flesh peeking out from under a thin chemise.

Tom shook his head, slowly backing up, even knowing it wouldn't do much good. "There's no point – in about two more minutes, you're going to forget all about that."

"Then why" – she sounded deeply confused, tilting her head as she regarded the manner in which he was unbuttoning his shirt's cuffs and then lifting it over his head – "are you removing your clothes?"

"You'll see," he said grimly. "In about two minutes. Well, more like one now."


At the first light of morning, when the sailors unbarred Tom's door, they were astonished to see the sobbing daughter of their captain come barrelling out, shaking and in clear disarray.

"He's a monster!" she bawled, pointing and panting and sobbing all the louder the very moment her father – who the first mate fetched at the other sailors' suggestion – made an appearance on deck. "He invited me into this cabin, all friendly-like, and then – at night, when we were locked into together – he attacked me. Oh, Papa, it was horrible – he's a beast."

Tom insisted he did nothing of the sort, and was – despite himself – rather on the point of offering her his hand in marriage, honestly making this intolerable wench Lady Bertram one day, if only it would prevent this growing hysteria, if it would stop her from further divulging before the entire ship full of large, rough men what she'd seen.

However, the captain, quite convinced his weeping daughter meant something entirely different than she truly did by her accusation, never supposing she could be speaking literally, wouldn't have been placated with such an offer even if Tom had mustered up the courage to make it.

"But – but, dash it, my dear fellow – I shall swear upon anything you like, I never laid a finger on her!" was his shouted protest as the captain ordered two sailors to drag him – wearing nothing besides a white shift he'd slipped on after the night ended and the girl who, in all fairness, had been entirely unmolested for all her shrieking, crawled away from the corner she'd been huddled in since his transformation.

"You have dishonoured my daughter, Mr. Bertram." The captain beckoned – with a single flick of his hand – the first mate, who now held a fairly enormous whip in his hands, back over to them. "If your father were any man other than Sir Thomas of Mansfield Park, I would have you flogged until the blood rained down from your back."

"Then it's a jolly good business Sir Thomas is my father, I daresay."

Hot, angry spittle pooled in the corners of the captain's mouth, like foam on the muzzle of an infected dog. "Put out your hands."

Like a punished schoolboy, feeling very humiliated indeed, Tom did so and – crack! – immediately felt the burning bite of the whip digging into his palm and slashing into his wrists.

The long, forked tails of the whip floated through the air, the next crack! like to thunder in his ears, then another slicing bite into his outstretched palms.

Red welts.

Pain.

Burn. Burning like poison.

Again, and again.

Surely, even if it was not his back being struck, being ripped up as his hands now were, his father would not have – had he been here – agreed to this.

True, he'd promised to make no trouble and had clearly broken that promise. Still, he hadn't touched the girl, though he could have; she'd certainly been asking for it before she realised what he was, what the witch had turned him into, bouncing upon his lap like a shameless doxy trying to arouse him.

Bitterly, he thought he should have eaten her and been done with it.

He could have done that, too, while in his altered form last night, and had not.

What finally made the captain give the order for it to stop was a chance yanking back of the whip which was too forceful and – sending the sharp ribbons through the air again – struck Tom's silver mask just under his eye.

(For, of course, after putting on his shift, he had replaced the mask as well.)

Plink!

The falling blow sounded like a sole raindrop landing on tin, like a single coin dropping from a purse out onto a shop's countertop.

Another inch, and it would have taken the eye out. Tom would have never seen from that eye again.

The captain was yet enraged, but he wasn't an idiot – Sir Thomas would have his neck, and possibly his ship into the bargain, if his son and heir arrived home permanently maimed.

For the first time, Tom was truly glad of the mask – it had spared him a welt on the face and a nasty scar which might well have never entirely faded. He knew well enough he was a handsome man, though many girls – depending on personal taste – did seem to prefer his younger brother's quieter, darker, brooding and sombre looks to his own bright golden and sparkling sort of attractiveness, and disliked the idea of altering that pleasant fact. His sister Julia used to tease him, when he was younger and just realising his merits in looks, vowing he'd grow up to be exactly like Sir Walter, an acquaintance of theirs from Somersetshire, who happened also to be a baronet, as Tom would one day be; Sir Walter's almost comical vanity was the jest of many a respectable social circle, seeming especially absurd as he got older. Nonetheless, however much he might roll his own eyes at Sir Walter, Tom concluded he'd rather be a joke because he was beautiful and overtly aware of it than because of the opposite possible reason for mockery.

So, hands stinging and bleeding and swelling, Tom was locked back in his cabin – even during the day when he was meant to have full range of the ship – and left to think about what he hadn't actually done.

If, as there was no one to see him, he cried a little bit, if tears did indeed fall down his face as he dipped his hands into the wash basin for what he'd hoped was coolness but was in reality quite tepid, perhaps there is no cause to think badly of him for it.

He was, after all, in a great deal of pain.

There were those who liked nothing better than to say Tom Bertram was the sort of man to make a fuss over every trifle, every small disorder, and perhaps this was not entirely untrue – he was undeniably the sort of young man who likes to be fussed over, for he was in his earliest days petted and coddled rather too much for his own good, especially by his aunt Norris who thought nothing done for his sake could ever be too fine – but here where there was nobody to dry his tears or soothe him, where he could have sobbed his throat raw and gained no benefit, what real reason could anyone hearing of it later have to think he exaggerated his unhappiness?

It didn't help his misery one bit that, when it was brought to him hours after it ought to have been and was very, very cold, he suspected the ship's cook of having spat in his food.

Apparently, the captain's daughter, who the cook and the cook alone of all the men on board affectionately referred to as My Little Molly, was something of a long-time favourite of the greasy, galley-dwelling man. He had apparently known her since she could scarcely walk and needed to toddle over to him, tripping over barrels of ale and low-hanging strings of onions, for pickled treats.

How long, Tom pondered, would it realistically take for this ship to reach the English docks?

A month or two, perhaps, if they did not meet up with bad weather, with contrary winds, and given his recent luck he was beginning to feel pessimistically certain they must at least once.


"Oh, welcome home, Mr. Bertram – it is most agreeable indeed to see you back in the civilised world again!" cried his waiting companion, as soon as Tom (flinging the satchel he'd slung over his shoulder aside so quickly he nearly knocked the captain's rotten daughter – who'd been waving her frayed hair ribbons wantonly at a sailor she recognised – into the harbour) had shambled his way down from the overcrowded docks and onto the street where stood the always bright and smiling Mr. Bingley and his fine carriage. "Old friend!"

There was something about the flaming carroty red of Charles Bingley's hair which – at first glance, like spying a glowing beacon on the horizon – made Tom feel all really might be on its way to being well again. He was in his own country once more, would likely never again have to see the captain or that unprofessional buffoon of a cook he was feeling fortunate hadn't out-and-out poisoned him, and here at last, for the first time in so many weeks, was a friendly face.

"Bingley!" Tom laughed, reaching out and gripping the sides of his arms. "Look at you! Just look at you, by Jove! You're positively polished and preened and sleek, like you're about to stride into a portrait sitting at any moment! Is that a new coat?"

"It is indeed." Bingley straightened. "D'you think it suits me?"

"Aye." He made a mental note to ask him the name of his tailor before they parted.

"I am thinking of being married in it."

One corner of Tom's mouth turned up and he pulled back with exaggerated dramatics. "No! D'you tell me the poor unsuspecting Miss Bennet" – the allegedly angelic lassie whose existence Tom had never even been aware of until she flooded Mr. Bingley's letters – "said yes?"

Cheeks pinkening, "She did."

"Congratulations, you fire-headed old dupe!" And he embraced him heartily, patting his back before pulling away, grinning. "Let us hope you can wed her before she realises you're too changeable in mind to decide even upon what buckles to wear on your belt in the morning without prior suggestion!"

Bingley's mouth parted in sudden horror, and he grabbed onto his friend's wrists in a fumbled, concerned hurry. "Your hands! Who did this? They are–"

"Oh, I know, they're a proper hideous sight, aren't they? The damnable captain took a dislike to me. Can't imagine why. Most unfortunate." He pulled them free from Bingley's grasp. "But never mind that for just now. Am I to understand our old partner in mischief, our old comrade" – he popped his mouth emphatically – "Mr. Darcy killjoy of Pemberley, has, at the eleventh hour, withdrawn his objections to your marrying Miss Bennet?"

"It turns out he was quite mistaken." Bingley sighed, sounding relieved but also mildly put out, as if it were still a sensitive subject. "He says he was incorrect and presumptuous in his assumption she was indifferent to me, and that – if I like her so well – her family connection is not perhaps as dire as he initially proclaimed it."

Remembering his own situation, Tom's brow lifted, although – with his mask secured – Mr. Bingley couldn't actually see it doing so. "Family. Your Miss Bennet has sisters, if I recall the contents of your missives correctly. Any you think would suit me?"

"They have no fortunes to speak of."

"That is no concern of mine – circumstances are, that is, they have become, such as I must be married rather quickly, and as I'm to inherit Mansfield, an heiress – while certainly preferable – is not strictly needed, you know."

"I wish you'd said something before, for the one I think most like to you – the little flirty one who likes playing at cards – has recently been married off."

"Shame." He mourned her, quite genuinely, this possible love of his life – this missed soulmate, this ship passed in the night – he would never know, for a full two seconds, with all due solemnity. "And the others?"

"The dark, middling one has the makings of a little nun, but pray don't tell Jane I said that, when you meet her, it is said only in jest – her sisters are all very sweet, really."

"I see, never fear for my discretion – I shall be like the grave – do go on."

"Catherine – Kitty, as the family calls her – might suit."

"That one is possible, perhaps." His mouth twisted pensively. "And the second eldest to your Miss Bennet, what's she like?"

"Oh, Elizabeth? Well..." He told him, as succinctly as possible, and also warned him he'd very likely have to fight Mr. Darcy for her if he decided she was his choice.

Tom chuckled. "Ah, I should be more far more worried about Edmund than myself there – she sounds precisely like his sort, from the playful manner right down to the fine eyes. She is quite safe from me. I can't see anything especially remarkable about that kind, though I admit I like them when I am in their presence. England, country and town alike, is chock full of your Lizzy Bennets. I daresay, someday, people will act as if there are no other kinds of proactive, strong girls in this world save those who are her twin in spirit."

Bingley's man secured Tom's trunk, all but tossed from the side of the ship a few moments earlier, to the back of the carriage.

"If you were keen on having an heiress, there is always Darcy's cousin."

Tom began to walk towards the carriage, and Bingley's man – having just secured the last knot over his luggage – held the door open for him. "And have to cope with Lady Catherine de Bourgh as my stepmother?" That, almost, would be a worse curse than the present one. Out of the pot and straight into the fire, what. "And for what, the sake of a girl I couldn't get to say two words to me the only time we met? Lady Catherine may keep her little creepmouse daughter for the next poor fool, so as far as I am concerned."

"I truly hope you can afford to be so particular, my friend," sighed Bingley. "If you're in as much of a hurry as you let on."

"Do leave off, do. Let us just be contented I am home and you are looking so well, eh?"

Bingley smiled. "I thank you – and you – you look..." He coughed. "Brown as a nut."

"I was fried alive by a relentless sun, alas – the skin will soon peel and mellow and I shall look quite the pale Englishman all over again, never fear."

"Forgive my impertinence, but dare I inquire about the mask?" Bingley tapped the space between his own eyes pointedly with two fingers.

Hoisting himself up into the carriage, Tom shook his head. "I wouldn't."


"Please, miss."

Fanny Price held her riding crop in both her hands, tightening her grip on it and trying not to let them shake. "I would do it very poorly; I am sure I would." She gulped. "You can have no idea–"

The old coachman leaned over the stable door. "Really, now, miss – you know perfectly well you aren't half the incompetent, ill-sat rider you were near six years ago when Master Edmund and Sir Thomas first set you on horseback. You dun't tremble a bit now when you ride your own horse." Somehow, although she was legally Edmund's, the servants had gotten firmly into the habit of referring to the mare which had recently been procured after the death of the old grey pony as Fanny's own horse. To be fair, nobody else regularly rode her, certainly not Edmund himself. "You can 'andle Mr. Bertram's roan hunter this once. The groom is ill, in bed with a fierce cold, and can't exercise 'im today. As you're here and dressed fer ridin', I dun't see the harm in your doing the staff this small favour."

"Mr. Bertram was very specific before he left," Fanny pointed out, not quite meeting the coachman's eye. "His wishes were that Edmund or the groom only must exercise his hunters." Tom would surely come home from Antigua most cross indeed if he learned his foolish cousin had unwittingly ruined his prized horse. "Forgive me, but I cannot."

Although they were less malicious than Mrs. Norris ever was, the servants had rather a bad habit between them all of sometimes, when they thought they could get away with it, though it must be to a lesser extent than her cousins could, bullying Fanny Price into doing what they wished her to. The maid-servants, having taken one look at her clothes when she first arrived at the age of ten, had decided she wasn't much better than themselves, and often prevailed upon her to help them carry heavy buckets or hang out the laundry, which she usually – meek as a lamb – acquiesced to in a manner so sweet and unassuming they sometimes, the best of them, felt a pang of true guilt. The old coachman was guilty of this, too, alas – he was convinced no one of real breeding, of real importance, would have sat as she did – all a-tremble – on a horse when they were certainly old enough not to be so afraid, and sometimes treated her according to his demented perception of what was genteel and what was not. Typically, however, this manifested in the form of having her muck out a stall or two despite the fact she hadn't the strength for it and Edmund usually put a stop to that sort of labour if they set her to it with too much regularity and he thought her in danger of bringing on a headache; he had never asked her before to ride a horse she was barely allowed to so much as feed a carrot to.

By the end of twenty minutes, Fanny was indeed leading Tom's most beloved hunter out of the stables, saddled and coat brushed to a most worthy gleam, and ready to go for a long gallop through the meadow.

A different kind of girl would have feared for her own safety in regard to how to she could handle the horse above the reaction of her cousins should she do something wrong in managing him, but Fanny's fear was all for her own ignorance rather than her true safety. She wished Edmund had been there, fully convinced he would have taken her part and never let the coachman make her do this – but then, if he were there, he'd have exercised the roan himself and she'd never have been asked to begin with.

"Please, horse," she whispered as she swung her leg into the saddle, "please don't be spoilt. Tom will be so very upset with me if you are."

A flash of Tom Bertram, when he was about eighteen and she eleven, locking her in the pantry after she crossed him over some trifling matter which had seemed a great deal more important back then came to the forefront of her mind.

Usually, Mr. Bertram was very gallant with her, far nicer than he had to be, inflicting upon her no worse merriment or trouble than a lively young man a full seven years older than his dupe will always think perfectly fair, but having not seen him for a while, and too keenly aware she was doing something to greatly displease him, it was difficult to properly recall this, or even to recall how the East room upstairs had on its shelves many useful little gifts he had given her over the years, never once forgetting her when he bought something for his real sisters, and he certainly hadn't been cross or vindictive when he'd doled those out.

Now, she could not rid herself, could not shake from her head, the image of his most severe expression as he shoved her in amongst the canned supplies and hanging strings of garlic and closed what had seemed to an eleven-year-old girl a very heavy, impossible to open again, door indeed.

Her fists had knocked on the wood, her tiny, chipped fingernails gentle against the grain even as they clawed helplessly, pleading. "Tom, I'm sorry – Mr. Bertram, please, it's so dark in here! I will do as you say, please let me out!"

Something had squeaked and run over her foot, and she'd been so sure it was a rat.

"Mr. Bertram! Mr. Bertram, oh, oh, please."

In the end, she'd fainted dead away from sheer terror, and it was Miss Lee, the governess, who found her and let her out, and Edmund was so exceedingly angry with Tom he wouldn't speak more than two words at a go to him for a month.

Whereas, ironically, Fanny herself couldn't hold onto any resentment towards her eldest cousin, not from the moment she heard Sir Thomas had punished him and he'd gone to bed without supper. If Aunt Norris had been spending the night, she would have sneaked him something, but she was at the parsonage, ignorant of what was happening, and Fanny was sure Tom would feel his deprivation keenly. She was so sorry for him she couldn't sleep a wink, troubled with the thought of his empty belly and sore backside – for, eighteen or not, Sir Thomas was not one to withhold the paddle from his sons if he felt they'd earned it through genuine misdeeds – and cried bitterly when, of all things, Tom apologised to her the next morning. Then, Tom – and Maria, who was with him at breakfast while Julia was taking early lessons with Miss Lee – entirely misunderstood her unstemable tears, never imagining they were for him rather than for herself, and thought her very fussy and babyish indeed.

She had heard them whispering between themselves about what a piece of work their cousin made over nothing.

Perhaps that was why she and Tom had never been close; he never comprehended her motives, always judging them to be what they were not, whereas Edmund – very like William in his natural intuition – understood often before she even had to try and explain.

"And now," she sighed to herself, "we never can become close, because he will hear – somebody will tell him, even if the coachman is so certain of his never finding out – I am presently riding his hunter without his permission, and he will think me very forward and wicked indeed and extremely ungrateful for all his condescensions."

She made the hunter turn at a bend and head more in the direction of the path which passed Mansfield Wood, in hopes of being unnoticed for a little longer, before she would be forced to explain to whoever caught her in this act, and was alarmed to see a great white shape appear between the trees.

It must be a dream, it must – there were no wild bears in England. Certainly, no bears, either, with glistening fur the colour of pure, new-fallen snow.

Then she realised – as she concluded this beast most likely was not her imagination turned toward madness – it might be lost from a fair or circus or be the pet of some eccentric peerage member.

Somewhere, in something Edmund recommended perhaps, Fanny had read before Lord Byron had a fondness for taming wild animals shipped in from elsewhere, from far off...for transforming his extravagant, extensive properties into menageries...

Surely, he was not the only one so bizarrely inclined.

Tom would be livid if Lord Byron's bear ate up his horse. Fanny attempted to turn the stock-still roan about again, though its ears were pricked forward with curiosity rather than set back in the terror she felt flooding her own body.

"Come on, horse," she begged, lightly tugging the reins on the left, afraid to jerk them, to plead with physical emphasis, and risk harm to its delicate velvety mouth. "We must go back."

The horse snorted, jerked its head up and down, then let out a nicker. It was as if – catching the bear's scent – he was recognising an old friend rather than the presence of a predator.

Trembling violently, Fanny dismounted – she thought it very possible Tom would be less upset if she were eaten than if the horse were.

The white bear loped out of the trees, marching right for Fanny and the horse, thankfully looking more interested in what they were doing than he did exactly hungry.

He was a well-fed bear, clearly.

All the same, Fanny sank to her knees and began to cough wretchedly.

The bear cocked its enormous head when it reached her, looked from her to the horse, saw her wheezing as if she would never stop, and did the most remarkable thing it could possibly have done – it lifted one great heavy paw and began to thump her repeatedly on the back.

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

It did not so much as scrape her with its claws, only whacked her with the thick pads, as a person might slap another person on the back with their open hand if they suspected them of choking upon their own spit.

The bear, apparently, did not quite know its own strength, however, and looked rather surprised when its last thunking blow practically barrelled Fanny forward, making her fall face-first into the loam.

The horse shook its head up and down before putting its muzzle right against the bear's moist black nose.

Fanny – raising her own head, her scarlet face covered with soil and streaked with dirt – stared at this exchange, marvelling.

How very like something out of a dream this whole misadventure was!

"Oooh! Such light eyes you have, bear! They are as light as my aunt Bertram's when she is out in the sun," she remarked, when her breath was caught at last. "Somehow, I thought they would be darker, in contrast to your white fur."

"Fanny!"

She whirled around, shakily rising to her feet as she did so, and saw Julia riding out at a canter, bringing her horse towards where she'd been crouched by the start of the trees.

She opened her mouth to cry out, to warn her cousin of the bear, only when she motioned at where the bear had been she found he was gone – it was only herself and the horse, still snorting and whinnying in the direction she thought their bear might have loped off into, the same direction from which he'd come.

Julia came to her, fretting about her soiled state, asking if she was all right. "What happened, Fanny?"

"B-bear..." stammered Fanny, through wildly chattering teeth.

"Come, cousin, let's get you home – the heat has bewitched you." She noticed which horse Fanny had out, then. "Oh, dear me. You must have a death wish, Fanny. Isn't this my brother's favourite hunter? What were you thinking of?"

A/N: Reviews most welcome, my replies could be delayed.