Lucy took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing nerves. Why hadn’t anyone thought to install a clock in the washroom? Shouldn’t someone have realized that eventually someone would find herself tied to the water closet and might wish to know the hour?
Really, it was just a matter of time.
Lucy drummed the fingers of her right hand against the floor. Quickly, quickly, index to pinky, index to pinky. Her left hand was tied so that the pads of her fingers faced up, so she flexed, then bent, then flexed, then bent, then—
“Eeeeeuuuuuhhh!”
Lucy groaned with frustration.
Groaned? Grunted.
Groanted.
It should have been a word.
Surely it had been an hour. It must have been an hour.
And then . . .
Footsteps.
Lucy jerked to attention, glaring at the door. She was furious. And hopeful. And terrified. And nervous. And—
Good God, she wasn’t meant to possess this many simultaneous emotions. One at a time was all she could manage. Maybe two.
The knob turned and the door jerked backward, and—
Jerked? Lucy had about one second to sense the wrongness of this. Gregory wouldn’t jerk the door open. He would have—
“Uncle Robert?”
“You,” he said, his voice low and furious.
“I—”
“You little whore,” he bit off.
Lucy flinched. She knew he held no great affection for her, but still, it hurt.
“You don’t understand,” she blurted out, because she had no idea what she should say, and she refused—she absolutely refused to say, “I’m sorry.”
She was done with apologizing. Done.
“Oh, really?” he spat out, crouching down to her level. “Just what don’t I understand? The part about your fleeing your wedding?”
“I didn’t flee,” she shot back. “I was abducted! Or didn’t you notice that I am tied to the water closet?”
His eyes narrowed menacingly. And Lucy began to feel scared.
She shrank back, her breath growing shallow. She had long feared her uncle—the ice of
his temper, the cold, flat stare of his disdain.
But she had never felt frightened.
“Where is he?” her uncle demanded.
Lucy did not pretend to misunderstand. “I don’t know.”