by Liz Tyner
‘We’s thinkin’ ’bout it,’ the rasper boasted and Chalgrove knew the coins were gone.
‘Let me go so you won’t have to hang,’ he commanded. They’d not live long enough to walk to the gallows. He’d see to that.
Again, he heard from the one with the scratchy voice. ‘We had too much worries catchin’ you to let you wander off. Been eyein’ you for days. Would have given up, but the hag said we’d no choice but to do as she said.’
‘Collecting the other one was easier,’ the one with the brutish arms spoke. ‘I hope the old woman will be satisfied. I’m leaving London and going where she’ll never find me.’
The rasping one shuffled closer, and lowered his voice. ‘We didn’t have no choice. Old woman said she’d give us a curse so we’d have to stay home with our wives. Man’s got to care for his jewels and the sceptre.’
‘She bluffed.’ Chalgrove clamped his jaw tight.
A snort answered him. ‘She be a toddle on the tricky side. But, you’ll be discoverin’ soon enough.’
The man spoke to his friend. ‘I wonder if the old woman was foolin’ when she told us he was Beau Brummell’s tailor? He don’t fight like no tailor.’
‘I’m the Duke of Chalgrove.’
Silence greeted the revelation.
‘I ’spect you could be. That’s a towerin’ hat.’
Chapter Two
Miranda woke from her sitting position on the bed, her back against the wall and her knees hugged to her chest. The room was so dark she couldn’t see her bonnet crumpled against the wall where she’d thrown it in frustration.
Someone was outside.
She heard her grandmother shout out, telling dunderheads to be careful.
The room was black and she had nowhere to hide.
She’d not been able to escape out of the windows. All were boarded from the outside. The crevices between them let in light, but not enough to see in the moonless night.
She’d bruised her hands trying to pry the boards open, but they didn’t move.
At the other side of the room, one of the biggest stumps she’d ever seen had been placed. Likely, it had been put on its side and rolled into the room. The stump served as a table and had a bundle on it. Inside the cloth wrapping, she’d found bread and cheese...a lot of cheese. Six pears. Two apples and some nuts, but nothing to crack them open. And her favourite treat when she’d been a child. Honey.
She’d put honey on bread the night before, her hunger forcing her to eat.
The water was stale and the ale ghastly. She’d left the bottles against the wall, except one which she held.
The next room was even more gloomy with fewer cracks in the boarded windows. It held a washstand, several dust-covered flannels, a bucket without a handle and the barest of necessities.
The room with the feather bed felt safer.
Miranda was sitting on a rag counterpane. She could imagine her grandmother, as innocent as a babe, putting the fabric together. Then, boarding the windows and hanging the curtains over them, whistling, and sending a man to fetch Miranda.
She waited, an ale bottle in her hand, knowing that something was about to happen. Knowing that her grandmother had rules of her own. She considered honesty something only the rich could afford. A weakness to be avoided as much as possible because you never knew when it could return to bite you. She claimed truth used too liberally led to hunger, drudgery and sometimes even death.
Men’s voices. Curses. Not her grandmother.
The door opened and lantern light seeped into the room.
Hulking shapes moved in the doorway, struggling against each other. More curses. Arms and legs. She remembered the story of the spiders. Eight legs. Six eyes.
A thump when one of the men hit the floor.
The shape on the floor was moving.
She didn’t dare do more than breathe.
The door closed and she heard the scraping on the other side which meant a board had locked them in.
She was trapped and with something more than a spider.
She grasped the ale bottle tightly. If she couldn’t see well in the inky night, neither could he.
She would kill him before he attacked her.
She slid from the bed and crept, ever so stealthily.
‘Who’s there?’ the man’s voice thundered.
She didn’t answer.
She needed to keep him talking, so she could tell where he was.
Holding her arm wide, she clinked the bottle on the wall and then moved away.
‘Who’s there?’ he said.
* * *
Chalgrove couldn’t see much in the darkness, but his senses were working double. A skittering noise. Cloth moving. A shape. He was not alone.
And he could sense it. Sense that whoever was in the room with him meant him harm. Perhaps he knew because they didn’t speak. Perhaps because they were moving about, sidestepping, but not moving closer. Creeping to the side, as if they were going to pounce.
He might die, but with his last dying breath he was going to kill the person in front of him.
Working harder at the ropes, he tried again, but realised he would not be able to free himself. He didn’t have time. He didn’t even have time to push himself to his feet.
Then he stopped thinking about getting free, but only about surviving the next moments. He put his tied hands flat on the floor and pulled his legs close, pivoting on the floor, trying to keep the sounds in front of him. Trying to see into the void, not even knowing for sure where he was, or what was before him. A block of something at his head kept him stationary and he eased closer to it.
Whatever it was could stop the attacker.
Motion stopped. A standoff, of sorts. He had the object at his back and his boots between him and the assailant.
The sound of rustling cloth again. And he knew, knew to roll sideways just as a weapon landed in the space where his head had been. The object crashed into the block that had stopped his progress, glass shattering, and bouncing from his shoulder. Showering him in reeking ale and shards. The shape stumbled forward, making skittering noises as it tried to regain balance.
He rolled again, forward this time, launching himself in the direction of the attack, lunging with his upper torso into the inky world around him and connecting with a human shape. He used the power in his legs to push himself forward, again and again, wedging them both, until something behind the shape prevented more movement.
He heard a scream, a feminine one, and felt the claws at his head pulling his hair backwards, trying to move him away, rolling from under him.
And then a knee in his stomach. A kick at his leg and then another lunge in the darkness.
She scrambled about, searching the floor, hunting for something. Then she stilled. She breathed deep, voice guttural. ‘I will kill you.’
‘I think you’ll find you’re halfway there.’
He worked the ties. He knew. She had a weapon in her hand, probably a shard of glass, and her breathing was ragged. He could hear where she was.
‘Why would you think to kill me?’ he asked. Demanding.
‘I will see you die before you touch me.’
‘My hands are tied behind my back.’ He ground the words out. ‘Tied.’
He worked, loosening the ropes, he was sure. But he couldn’t pull free. ‘I don’t want to be anywhere near you,’ he said.
She paused. ‘You are bound?’
‘Yes.’ The rope dug into his wrists and ale dripped into his eyes. ‘My hands are secured behind my back.’
‘Good. It will make it easier for me.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It won’t.’
‘Your hands are tied?’ Her voice lowered while she contemplated.
‘Keep your distance,’ he commanded.
She eased to the
right. He heard the movement and changed course, twisting in the same direction.
‘Who did this to you?’ she asked.
‘Some brutes.’
‘One who had a mark down his face?’
Silence. ‘Yes.’
‘He spoke like a learned man?’
‘Yes.’
‘He tricked me to come here,’ she muttered. ‘Said I had family who wanted to see me.’
‘Why would you follow a stranger?’
‘I’m an orphan, but even so, I have family somewhere. I always believed...’ She stopped.
The ropes eased. He lifted his voice, covering the struggle to release his bonds. ‘Someone found out and used that to trick you. But that doesn’t explain why I’m here. The whole world knows who my father was and my mother would never let anyone forget that.’
Freed, he reached up. The scratch marks on his temple burned from where her fingernails had scraped.
‘I’m a captive same as you.’ He kept his voice emotionless and calming. He edged against the wall. With her talking, he could tell where she was and gauge her fear by the tone of her voice. The poor woman was trapped. They both were.
He settled in. It would be daylight soon, and he’d be much better able to take stock of the room and find a way to escape.
‘You tell me you are a prisoner?’ she asked.
‘You’re as safe from me as you are from your reflection in a mirror. I would say I have no wish to harm you, but after the way you introduced yourself to me, I might wish to reserve that statement until I see if you will listen to reason.’
‘That is assuming you will be able to speak sensibly.’
No one in his life had ever questioned what he said. No one questioned anything he did, now that his father was gone. Oh, perhaps his mother might hide a hint of reproach in her words, but she always couched her reproof so carefully he had to sort out whether it was praise or criticism.
He wondered what sort of woman he’d been trapped with.
‘Why would I need the door barred?’ he kept his voice soft so he’d not frighten her more. The sound of the door being secured had thundered in his ears after he’d been thrown into the room. Now he had only mere shadows and the sound of a husky voice to guide him. ‘I had nothing at all to do with your capture.’
She must understand they were both in the same situation.
‘I have been taken captive by one woman and tortured by another one,’ he said.
He ran a hand through his hair, brushing back the tendrils tipped with moisture. ‘I suppose—there’s a ransom for me. My family has surely been contacted by now and they’re probably trying to access enough funds to satisfy a cut-throat. I can’t guess a different reason. Perhaps the ransom will—who knows...’ he interrupted himself.
‘You could pay a ransom?’ she asked.
‘Could you?’
Silence drifted between them. ‘I suppose it could appear that way. I lived in a wealthy home. Once.’
Something in her voice silenced him from asking more. Her words were a blend of wistfulness, sadness, acceptance and maybe a question of whether someone who had funds would judge her worth a ransom.
She moved against the opposite side of the room, silent and waiting.
As the light began to creep into the cracks from the window, her face came into his sight. Softly at first, then like fog clearing and bringing the shape of a statue into view, he saw her and could not help but stare as her features were unveiled in the morning light.
He had not been tossed in with another crone. He’d been trapped with a vision.
He ran his fingers over the scratches on his face and caught himself making sure no one else was hidden in the shadows. Yes, this fragile creature had attacked him.
Her face gave little away. Emotions hidden behind an immobile façade. She studied him as dispassionately as he studied her.
The light increased and they stood immobile, trapped by the walls around them and their own contemplation while they gauged each other.
She could have easily posed for a portrait of a saint, but then he noticed the shard of broken glass she gripped.
‘Do you know why you’re here?’ he asked. He remembered the words of the men and wanted to know what she’d heard. ‘What did they speak of when they were bringing you?’
She didn’t answer.
He gave a brief shake of his head, feeling the stickiness of the ale that had drenched him. ‘I had nothing to do with your capture.’
He stayed at the end of the room from her, but with the force of his words, he shortened the distance. ‘The ransom? The wealthy home you had. Could money be paid?’
Then she stiffened her fingers briefly, dismissing the words. ‘I doubt anyone who knows me, and my life now, would do more than laugh at such a thing. Perhaps someone from my past might do so...’
* * *
Her eyes searched the room. Her stomach plummeted when she saw the size of him and the scratches on his face. If she’d known his stature when he’d been tossed into the room, she might have been too afraid to fight back. Although, from the redness of the marks, she’d been forceful.
A wave of fear shook her along with the thankfulness that he was not a ruffian.
He wore quality clothing. Not rags.
‘Although it is possible I could be used for a ransom,’ she admitted. ‘It’s hard to know what a criminal mind might think.’
She put three fingers to her temple. ‘It’s hard to know what a reasonable person thinks.’
Much less a woman who might slip from the gamekeeper’s cottage and dance with Miranda under the full moon.
Then, another night, they would sit in the darkness with the heaven’s brightness around them and the old woman would declare there were the most stars ever in the sky and the child’s dance must have been the most magnificent ever created because never had the stars smiled so.
Once, after Miranda had been told to help with the washing and ran to play instead, that night the old woman had taken her outside and they had stared up at the cloudy sky. Miranda was told how she had displeased the stars because they’d hidden their light.
The old gamekeeper had been listening and guffawed.
That had been her first hint that stars were stars and the moon was the moon, and the world was not crafted to react as her grandmother wanted it to.
The captured man lifted an ale bottle from beside the stump and offered her a sip.
‘I’m not thirsty.’ She clutched her hands and kept her distance from him. The tightening of his lips told her he noticed.
‘You’ve nothing to fear from me, unless you damage any more of the liquid in this room.’ He closed his fingers around the bottle. ‘I’m parched.’ The muscles in his legs tightened when he kicked a few bits of the broken glass into the corner.
Then he popped the cork free. He took a taste and sputtered. Then he put the bottle back on the floor and gently poured a splash of water into the bottle, diluting the ale. He tasted his mixture, sipping the liquid, his eyes tightening and his swallow forced. He diluted it more, then quenched his thirst.
‘I will see that old woman on the gallows.’
‘Old woman?’ she asked, tucking her hands behind her back. He’d seen her grandmother. ‘An old woman is responsible?’ She forced the words to sound easy and stood with her back against the wood. ‘You saw her?’
Miranda had hoped her grandmother had stayed hidden when the ruffians had taken the man, much like when she was approached.
‘Her age won’t make any difference to the rope. Nor to me. And she was the culprit. No doubt about that.’
He held out the ale. ‘You need your strength. You must drink some of this, if you can stomach it.’
‘For what?’ She let the wall hold her up.
‘Escape. How long hav
e you been here?’
‘I was put in yesterday, but one minute is too long. I cannot remain in this cage.’
He held the bottle out to her after pouring in more water, but she refused it with a wave before interlacing her fingers in front of her. ‘I want as far from here as possible.’
Miranda didn’t know what to do. Last night, she’d been afraid. Terrified when he’d been tossed into the room. But now she wasn’t. Perhaps some, but not as much as she had been.
He kept to the other side of the room and she stayed on her side.
‘What happened to the wealth you had?’ he asked.
‘It’s still there. I’m not.’ She held her shoulders prim.
‘So you don’t want to talk of your past.’ He grunted. ‘That’s telling.’
‘That’s not telling.’
‘Call it what you wish. It doesn’t matter, though.’ He changed the subject. ‘All that matters is the settling up. In my studies, I was taught the old saying that before you start on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. This is the only time in my life I feel the extra grave would be worth it.’
Chapter Three
Miranda understood—had understood since she’d been given away as a child—that her life wasn’t to be normal.
But this was surpassing her expectations.
Before her, with an ale bottle in his hand, stood a man who overpowered the room. As the filtered light increased, the space inside the room lessened. The man didn’t realise how much space he used with just the simplest movements.
She glanced around, trying to remember the past. The room had seemed bigger. In her memories, the cottage with the old gamekeeper and her grandmother had seemed big enough for the three of them and a fine home. Now it seemed so small and cramped.
The table and chairs were gone. There had also been a little stool for the gamekeeper’s feet. And a chest that they’d stored things in and sometimes sat on.
She gulped. The bed. Oh, heavens, she knew what her grandmother had in mind. She pretended not to see the only furniture in the room besides the stump.
