Nora heard a door slam. It sounded from the room below her. She might not have much time. For a moment, she recalled the dream of a knight in shining armor rescuing her and snorted.
“I had a dashing prince this afternoon. Tonight, I find myself near Hell’s door,” she lamented. Another snort and a snore reminded her she was not alone in the room.
Something smelled putrid. Sniffing, she leaned closer to the mattress. “Lud, I think something died on this bed. ’Tis nasty,” she whispered to herself.
She quickly scanned the room. Boards covered two windows, which had no glass in this mean dwelling. Opposing streams of light pierced the darkness—one from a sizable crack in the boards covering the window near her, and another from under the door. She scanned the room. There was a broken-down dresser in the corner. It had but one drawer; a second dangled in pieces from an opening. A bed in the corner held the body of the room’s other occupant. One who snores, she thought. Catching her attention, the moonbeam hit a shining item on the wooden floor in front of her bed. Shards of glass lay everywhere. Cautiously, she bent down to investigate. She had to be careful with only one shoe.
Shivers shook her body, and she tugged her wrap tighter, gingerly extending one foot over the side of the small bed. A squeak sounded, and she withdrew her foot in time to watch a rat run across the room and disappear into the wall. Another involuntary tremor assailed her, and she waited for it to pass. Whether possessed by cold or fear, she had to escape. No prince could find her in this dungeon.
Summoning all her courage, Nora crept to the other bed, carefully avoiding anything that reflected light from the floor, and using the foot with the shoe to clear her path. When she reached the bed, she studied the person lying there. The body belonged to another woman, and a rather bosky one at that, judging from the deep snores and the sour smell of alcohol. There was no telling where they had abducted her from—if there had even been an abduction. The fuddled woman could be up here sleeping off her potations.
Suddenly, Nora had an idea. She pushed aside any inkling of guilt. It could be her only chance to save herself. The woman looked close to her size. It seemed simple enough, but with dead weight, her plan proved harder to put into operation than she had thought. Unsure of how much time she had, Nora tried to stop breathing for long stretches as she tugged the clothing off the woman and replaced it with her own. The clothing stank, but if it saved her life, she would not complain. At least the shoes fit, she thought, taking the woman’s study boots and replacing them with the single pink slipper. Changing her mind, Nora held onto her slipper. Oddly, the woman was wearing several undergarments, including pantalettes, that looked to have been decent at one time. She refused to wear the filthy undergarment but had an idea. Rolling them up as quickly as she could, she stuffed them into the crack in the window boards. She would need all the help she could create, and eliminating the light would assist that purpose. She stuffed her pink slipper into the pocket of the dress.
A scraping noise on the stairs caused her to abandon switching beds, and she ran back to hers and crawled on to it, turning to face the wall. She gave her best impression of drunken snores and said a silent prayer.
The door opened, and she heard footsteps enter the room. “Damn you, Sneed. This be the last time you tell me what to do. Me missus is right. I’ll git me an honest wage from tomorrow. He thinks I’m going to be his lackey. I’m done wi’ ’im and his bullying.” His footsteps stopped at the bed Nora lay in. “She’s still asleep. Won’t hurt ol’ Hyde if’n I take a little peek.” Large fingers grasped her arm. “Huh? What the devil? This don’t seem like her. The wench was dressed in a nightgown. Strange, oi thought she were on this bed.” The man cursed as he stumbled over something on the floor before reaching the other bed. She heard him roll the blanket around his quarry, apparently abandoning his idea to take a peek. Thank goodness!
The man grunted as he hoisted the woman onto his shoulder. “Must be that I’m tired,” he muttered. “The wench feels heavier. No matter. This is the last time I’m doing this fer ’im.” The door closed behind him and Nora breathed a sigh of relief. Sneed and Hyde. A sense of familiarity pricked her consciousness. She would remember eventually. For now, she needed to find a way out of her prison. First, she needed a weapon. Where is that large piece of glass?
* * *
“What do you mean, she is gone?” Colin’s voice bellowed across the room even as bile rose in his throat. Pain stabbed at his heart. Whitton had been right. Sneed had taken her. Perhaps it was a stroke of luck that Benjamin had witnessed the kidnapping. However, the young boy was beside himself that he had been unable to save her. From his incoherent babbling, it seemed that she had saved him. Colin had to find her.
“Mrs. Simpkins, if Benjamin is willing, I would like to see the room and hear the details again, for myself,” Colin asked. The women were weeping, and the house was in an uproar.
Benjamin had described the scuffle to the housekeeper and the maid, telling them a big dark-headed man had snatched Nora from the window. Something was missing. He needed answers. He scanned the room, hoping for a clue to her whereabouts. Fresh scrape marks marred the new paint of the recently painted window.
