Disaster Follows

1 - Play Along

They looked at each other and then she smiled faintly. "Is this how you choose to tell me I am kidnapped?"

The older man smirked at her. "Wouldn't you rather thank the fact he's shown you the deference to enlighten you?"

"I do not believe I could take you seriously, sir. After all, a parent's words of his offspring is hard to take at heart."

"Leave her, father," Matthew breathed. "There's nothing she can do."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Nothing is rather a finite word, isn't it?"

"There's nothing you can do. That's the truth."

"You speak of the truth as if it were an absolute, Mr. Ashcroft."

"Isn't it?"

"Aren't you old enough to know the truth is just a matter of perspective?"

"I didn't take you for a skeptical, Miss...?"

"You dare kidnap me without knowing my name?" she mocked him. "What will your father say, Mr. Ashcroft?"

They both looked at the older man as he smiled. "I already know my son, miss. There is nothing he can do to surprise me now."

"Then you and I don't know the same Matthew Ashcroft, uncle," laughed the other man in the room, sitting by the chimney. "He's capable of surprising you still."

"You might say that, but then I look at my guest here and she doesn't look that surprised," the man defended himself.

The cousin—the one who responded to the name of Christopher—eyed her. "She might not be surprised but I dare say she looks rather offended."

Matthew turned to look at her. "Are you?"

She shrugged. "Put yourself in my position, Mr. Ashcroft. How would you be feeling?"

He considered his answer. "Angry," he said at last. "I would probably be wishing my kidnappers all sorts of unfortunate events."

She nodded. "Well, there."

Matthew looked at her intensely. He'd had no reason at all to bring her with him. She'd looked so innocent, sleeping in her bed, smiling about something she'd been dreaming. But then he'd heard the noises. They were coming. He hadn't even stopped to consider if it could be a good idea, he'd just taken her by arm and yanked her out the open window... into the abyss.

Now she was all dressed up in one of the dresses of his former wife. They were lucky their frames were just the same. She looked uncomfortable, though. As if she'd never worn a dress before. Surely no woman on the 21st century would favour corsets like they did two centuries ago but still, corsets and women—as sure as death and taxes.

At least she wasn't complaining. Not about the clothes anyway. She was looking at her surroundings rather intently. Was she looking for a way out?

"You cannot escape." She looked at him puzzled. "By the way you keep looking at the room. There's no escape. Quit it."

"You mistake my look, Mr. Ashcroft," she responded softly. "I was just trying to figure out how I feel about the room."

"You mean?"

"Well, you look so frivolous, I have every possible reason to hate this room and yet..." She raised her eyebrows. "I cannot seem to decide whether the room suits you or whether I could find a reason not to hate it."

"The room seems hardly responsible for my cousin's behavior, miss," said the man by the chimney.

"Oh, but it is rather aggressive in the chinoiserie," they all looked at her in surprise. She carried on. "And geographically capricious, to say the least".