Page 2 of The Lady’s Sweet Revenge

There would be no sharp rocks about, but if she could find something else she might remove her bindings as it was just her wrists, not her whole body like it had been during the blackberry pie abandonment.

Looking around the room she was in, she cursed. It was too dark to see anything but a sliver of light she guessed came from the bottom of a door.

Unable to see, she could almost feel the darkness closing in. She squeezed her eyes shut despite it making no difference and focused on taking deep breaths to calm herself and think.

She breathed in the salty air of the ocean, mixed with the musty undertones of wet wood. The scents of lamp oil and smoke combined with the remaining threads of rosewater and horse coming from the riding habit she still wore.

Lamp oil. At first she thought of it as a way to light the room so she might see, but then she thought of another option. If there were a lamp in the room, it would mean she likely had access to a glass globe.

With her hands out in front of her she scooted off the edge of the bed and found her way to the wall, noticing then her boots were gone, leaving her only in stockinged feet. Keeping her shoulder against the wall to help with balance as the ship swayed and lurched, she shuffled her feet with her hands out in front of her searching for something. Anything.

When she reached a wall within a few steps she realized the room she was in was quite small, which sent another wash of panic through her. But she forced herself to keep moving until she came to a stand of some sort with a shallow lip, maybe to keep things from rolling off the surface during high seas.

Groping across the stand she found what she determined was a metal pitcher. Turning it about, her fingers met nothing but smooth surfaces. She moved on, feeling nothing else.

A whimper escaped as failure grasped her lungs. She could not give up.

She thought of her room at home to calm her. She spent hours in the light-blue haven, reading of adventures she wished to go on someday. She wasn’t sure if it was the fear or the blow to the head that kept her thoughts sloshing about in the same way as the sea outside the ship, but she couldn’t seem to focus on one thing.

It was as she was chastising herself on distractions of travels to China that she considered something quite important while also completely unrelated. Wall sconces.

Still hovering next to the stand with the pitcher she reached up above her on the wall and was greeted first with a metal bracket and then with the sleek coolness of a glass globe.

Heavy footsteps caused her to freeze in place as her heart pounded. She couldn’t be stopped when she was so close to finding a way to escape her binds.

The shadow moved across the sliver of light at the bottom of the door as the footsteps faded. The person had passed by.

Working more quickly now, she twisted the globe free and as she raised it to smash it against the edge of the stand, she paused, thinking of the danger.

Breaking the globe in such a fashion would scatter shards everywhere. She could step on a piece and cut herself. It would be more difficult to hide if she was tracking blood. Not to mention the noise might bring someone to investigate.

Holding the globe against her chest, she braced her shoulder against the wall to return to the bed. Wrapping the globe inside the bedspread, folded double to muffle the sound, she bashed it with the pitcher.

Where she’d hoped for the soft crash of glass, she heard only a loud thump. Or perhaps it felt loud in the small confines of the silent room.

With more strength each time, she tried three more times before the glass finally broke.

She smiled at the clinking sound as she splayed the blanket out. There was no other option but to gingerly reach across the fragments to select a piece she could use to cut her ropes.

Feeling the burn of a slice on her middle finger and then her thumb, she pressed her lips together and continued until she found a piece big enough for what she needed.

It took precious minutes for her to find the best way to hold the glass so she might work it over the ropes. Frustrated with the slowness, she felt tears prick smartly in her eyes. Had she thought this would be easy? It was nearly impossible to hold the glass in the proper direction.

With each passing second, she worried someone would come to find her.

Eventually, she felt the rope give way and she was able to work a hand out. She left the rope attached to the other wrist, not willing to spare another minute on it. With her hands free she could move more easily.

Something else had happened as she’d focused on her task. The sky had lightened slightly, casting the room in the smallest gray glow coming from a tiny round window high on the wall.

She could just make out the frame of the door. As she moved forward, she realized she had not considered the possibility that the door would be locked. She almost expected it to be when she reached for the latch, but it opened and the door swung in easily enough.

She silently praised her captor’s underestimation of her. They, like most men, probably thought she would wake screaming and be unable to do anything else but curl into a ball in a pile of hearty burgundy wool and tears.

After checking to make sure no one was close by, she slipped into the narrow corridor and squinted at the warm glow of the wall sconces lighting the path. Picking the opposite direction from the hull of the ship, she slowly worked her way toward the steep stairs.

On deck, she saw a few men working at the far end of the ship. Glad for her dark clothing and hair, she rose out of the stairs and scurried for the shadows away from the men.

She stumbled over something but covered her mouth to keep from crying out in pain. Giving her foot a moment to recover, she kept moving but froze beside a dinghy as voices came closer.