Chapter 47
In Captivity
“… he had promised this and he had promised that …”
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Rosalind beat frantically against the locked door.
“Help!” she screamed. “Someone! Anyone! Please! Please!” She hammered her fists against the chipped planks and sobbed. “Please!”
“Hey!” shouted Adam helpfully. “Hey there!”
“Help me!” wailed Rosalind. She gestured to Adam and pursed her lips. He understood the signal, and blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness.
Rosalind flattened both hands against the door, making a great show of pressing herself desperately against it. And she listened.
There. Footsteps down below. One step. No voices, though, at least none that she could hear.
One, two, three … Rosalind counted off the seconds steadily. … Ten … eleven …
The footsteps moved from floorboards to the stairs. … Twenty-one, Rosalind counted, twenty-two, twenty-three …
Now the steps sounded against the boards right outside their door. Rosalind sobbed several times, for effect. This was answered by the ragged scrape of the lock opening. Rosalind jumped back. The door swung inward.
It was Mr. Spence. He had his knife out, and held low, and pointed directly at Rosalind.
“I, I’m sorry,” Rosalind gasped, and backed away slowly. She wiped at her face as if brushing away tears. “The candle went out. I do not … I don’t like the dark,” she whispered. For good measure, she gulped and wiped at her cheeks again.
Spence gaped at her. Then he burst out laughing and tucked the knife into his belt. Rosalind felt her cheeks burn.
“And this is the fearsome Miss Thorne they’ve all been so scared of!” Spence shoved his hand in his pocket and brought out a tinder box. “Well, you bring the candle here, missy. You—” He glowered at Adam. “You stay well back!”
Adam retreated to the far wall. Rosalind came forward doing her best to look timid, and perhaps even grateful, although she suspected she mostly looked like she was about to be sick. She held out the candle in its holder, and let her hand shake a little to put the seal on the performance.
Spence snorted.
“There’s no need to keep on with this, Spence,” said Adam.
“Sad to say, there is.” Spence plied flint and steel over the candle’s wick. “We’ve gone too far to do aught else. Would have thought you’d’ve noticed that, Harkness. You’ve a reputation as a clever man.” At last, the wick caught and the candle’s flame blossomed.
“You know you’ve already been cheated out of most of your take on this,” said Adam.
“Aye,” he answered flatly.
“So why keep your neck in the noose?”
“’Cuz I got no choice. That money’s gone, and if we don’t do something, it ain’t comin’ back.
Now,” he tucked the box away. “As Miss Kinsdale is otherwise occupied, you and me is going to have a little chat.” He rested his right hand lightly on the knife’s hilt and looked right through Rosalind as if she no longer mattered.
“Usually, I’m a patient man, Harkness,” he said.
“I’ll allow that circumstances is bad, and a lady is entitled to a fuss.
Once.” He tapped his index finger once against the knife.
“Next time, I’m taking your lady friend away with me, and you can just sit and wonder what may be happening to her.
Any trouble after that, and I’m killing her, or maybe I’m killing you.
We’ll have to see. So, you can risk both your necks by making trouble, or you can sit quiet and wait and let this all be over soon.
You understand me?” Now Spence looked at her, and his eyes were cold.
But as Rosalind met his gaze, she saw fear there as well.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I do.”
“Good then.”
He left them, and locked the door.
Rosalind drew herself up and glared at the door. A series of entirely shocking phrases and assessments paraded through her mind.
“So,” remarked Adam. “We are left with a door that opens inward, we have our hands free, and with our warders anywhere from thirty seconds to a minute away, and down at least one flight of stairs. I think I should be offended they think so little of my reputation.”
“I believe I’m the one who should be offended,” said Rosalind crisply. “You will notice he did not once suggest I might be capable of leading our escape.”
“Yes, I did notice and will be offended on your behalf, as soon as there’s an opportunity.”
“What should we do?”
“We should wait until dark,” said Adam. “And in the meantime, we should be very careful with that candle.”