Page 79 of A Story of Love

Lori discarded the brave front that had become harder and harder to maintain. She also discarded her pride and begged, “Please, Mr. Gregg. You don’t have to do this. Let me go. Don’t leave me here. This is—”

He opened the door and then shut it in her face.

“Mr. Gregg!” she shouted.

The only answer was the sound of the key turning in the lock.

The fear she’d been feeling exploded into anger. He thought she’d sit here and behave? She glanced wildly around the room. The window was barred and there was only the one door. The suite was composed of two rooms: a small sitting room—if you could call a room that had whips and weapons and lord-knows-what hanging on the walls a sitting room—and the bedchamber.

Staring at all the implements only served to make her woozy, so she turned away and stared at the bed, instead.

That wasn’t much better, except… “Aha!” she muttered. Smiling, Lori marched across the room and yanked on the thick black velvet servant cord beside the big four poster. Then yanked again. And Again.

It took ten minutes before key turned in the lock and Gregg entered. He gave her the same smirky look. “You have been a bad girl, Miss Fontenot.”

She crossed her arms and seethed. “I am not a girl.”

He snorted, opened the door wider, and gestured a man with a ladder into the room.

Before she could ask what was going on, the man set the ladder beside the velvet rope she’d just been yanking non-stop, scaled up the rungs, and quickly disconnected the servant pull.

“Isn’t that a bit excessive?” she demanded as the man carried the ladder and bell pull from the room. “What if there is an emergency? A fire? How am I supposed to summon anyone now?”

“You can yell through the door. There will be somebody stationed outside your room at all times.”

“Please,” she pleaded softly. “Do not do this.”

He lifted one eyebrow at her but didn’t say a word before closing and locking the door.

“I will see you thrown in gaol for this!” she shouted.

Silence was her only answer.

***

Mr. Gregg returned at midday, accompanied by a maid bearing a tray, and again at dinner. Both times he behaved as if Lori didn’t exist when she pelted him with questions and demands.

Lori hadn’t had the heart to abuse the poor maid, who’d looked as terrified as a mouse, and ate both meals more for something to do—there was nothing to read and nothing to write with—than because of any real hunger.

The implements on the wall had held her attention for no more than an hour and soon she was pacing the room like a caged animal—quickly having passed through the stages of fear and worry and rage and now deeply mired in boredom—when the door opened and the maid entered to exchange a tea tray for Lori’s dinner tray.

Gregg followed behind the girl and was holding two books and what looked to be a cloak—her cloak, in fact—over his arm. “This, I believe, is yours. And these are for you.”

Lori took the cloak, trying not to smile at the thought of what she’d left in the inside pocket. “Thank you.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of removing your pen knife and coin purse from the cloak pocket. You will get it back when his lordship releases you,” Gregg said, smiling in a way that made her want to hit him. He held out the books, and Lori gave them a suspicious look. “I just thought you might be bored.” He shrugged and began to retract his offer. “But if you aren’t—”

“No! I want them.” She reached out with both hands and took them from his unresisting fingers. A quick glance at the spines showed one to be a traveler’s account of Italy and the other a history of Massachusetts.

When she looked up, Gregg was already closing the door.

“Wait!” she called out.

He paused.

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome.”