Five steps toward the stairs.
Six to the toilet and sink.
There was no way to get to the windows, even if I could have squeezed my bulk out of those tiny openings.
The door opened upstairs and Frankenstein Mask clomped down the stairs again. This time, he was carrying a tray. “I see ya are still in tatters after last night. A nasty state, that.”
“Well, I’m guessing the drugs Margaret slipped me didn’t help,” I said wryly.
He grunted. “Some toast and aspirins might put you right. Here’s a mug to get water from the sink. I’ll make ya a cuppa later if ya can hold it down.”
“I’m hungover, not an invalid. Not that I’m not enjoying your company, but where is Margaret? Surely, she wants to stop by and gloat.”
Putting the tray on the floor, he slid it over to me. “Ah, she’s never af the batter, that one.”
“I have no idea what you just said to me.”
Glowering as well as his cheap mask would allow, he clarified, “She’s busy, lad. Many irons in the fire, as it were. She’ll get to ya when she has a moment.”
“Very well. What do I call you?” The dusty bottle of pain meds he’d given me could be something else entirely, but at this point, I was pretty sure my searing headache was going to kill me before he did. Gulping down three pills and filling the mug with water, I groaned slightly in relief. The water wascold and crystal clear, surprisingly refreshing.
“Eh,” he scratched his stubble, as if coming up with a false name was unduly taxing. “Liam’s fine.”
“Liam. You do realize,Liam,that I’ll have people looking for me, yes? Letting me go is a much wiser course of action than waiting for them to come to us. A less violent outcome, certainly.”
He chuckled, a rusty sort of croak. “Ya got bigger worries than wonderin’ when your rich arse will be rescued, lad. I suggest ya sit tight and behave.”
The door to the cellar must be open. “Grandad? Where are you?”
Tilting my head, I grinned. “Ah, so you’re Margaret’s grandfather? We’re here at the family farm? How quaint.”
Footsteps stopped at the top of the stairs. “Are you down there?”
“Aye,” he sighed, “hush it, lass. I’m coming.” I could hear her groan faintly.
“Margaret, darling,” I called up, “do come down and say hello. It seems that we have much to discuss.”
“Shut it!” ‘Liam’ barked, stomping back up the stairs again, leaving me in the gloomy quiet of the cellar.
Chapter Seven
In which Fee and Alec establish the parameters of their new relationship.
Fee…
As I said before, I am not impulsive, which I thought meant I was cautious and one for planning.
It turned out that what it also seemed to mean was that when it came to being impulsive I am piss poor at it when I give it a go.
Fortunately for me, my Grandad was a master of the last minute, and the king of improvising.
“Growing up without a pot to piss in has its advantages, Fee. Never doubt it,” he had said as he finished attaching a heavy bit of chain to a metal loop he’d drilled into the floor, and used it to shackle his surprise guest in place. “Makes you practical. Gives you life skills of all sorts.”
He brushed off the knees of his work pants and stood with a groan, hobbling about for a few steps until he could straighten up. “Ah, I’m not the man I was.”
I held Grandad’s rifle on Davies, though he was unlikely to come around even while the drilling and banging and shackling took place. Not with the amount I’d given him, on top of what he’d drunk before. Still, at his size and apparent capacity for liquor, anything was possible.
Looking at the setup Grandad had put in place, I understood why he had heavy chain around the farm, and even the loop that wasnow screwed to the floor, and the one attached to the wall.
