The windows faced east, which meant land was to the west and north of here. Where there was a castle, a village always hunkered nearby, and if she had any chance of finding someone to help her across the channel, she’d find it among the fishermen and porters who doubtless lived there.
Farah wrapped her shawl around her disheveled curls and stepped into her slippers on her way to the bedroom door. She only looked over her shoulder once, pausing to consider her options. Despite her rush to escape, a niggling curiosity seized her. Why had the Blackheart of Ben More brought her here? What possible use could she have been to him?
A dark fear whispered to her that she likely didn’t want to linger long enough to find out. With a pounding heart and a surprisingly steady hand, Farah eased open her door and pressed an eye to the crack, checking for a guard. Finding none, she slipped through the opening and softly shut it behind her.
Instead of cold gray stone, the halls of Ben More Castle were updated with plush burgundy carpets and Italian marble floors. Farah silently followed the dark wood panels along the hall toward a grand open gallery stairway. The carpets muffled her light footfalls, but it would do the same for anyone deciding to trail her, so she was careful to look out for Murdoch or any of the other frightening characters who might be in Blackwell’s employ. The front gallery must have been an older wing of the structure, because it could have been the great hall of any medieval castle. The chilly stone was warmed by lush woven tapestries and a wrought-iron chandelier dangled over a wide stone staircase.
Farah barely paid her expensive surroundings any heed as she crouched to the level of the chiseled stone railing, as a side door opened on the floor below the curved stone staircase and two booming male voices echoed through the hall. Footmen, she realized, as they crossed the foyer in their heavy boots and left by way of the impressive and ornate front doors.
Well, she hadn’t expected to escape by just walking out the front doors, had she? She remembered back to another escape attempt …
The kitchens. They’d be on the ground floor or below, and have places to hide if need be. And if she was caught on the way there, she could claim to be in search of food.
Farah didn’t breathe as she tiptoed down the grand staircase and dashed across the wide stone entry. The kitchens would be in back of the keep if this castle were built like any of those in England, which would be, thankfully, on the north and west sides. Feeling as though providence was with her, she wound her way through the ground floor among a maze of hallways, past an intriguing library, a neglected rectory, and numerous sitting rooms. When she found the dining hall, she knew she’d come in the right direction. Other than the footmen, she didn’t meet another soul.
A large, fragrant stewpot simmered over a cookstove in the kitchen, and on the flour-covered island, steaming fruit tartlets rested in neat, scrumptious rows. Farah’s mouth watered at the scent, and her fingers itched for the tarts, but she resisted, knowing that her window for escape narrowed with each passing second. Murdoch would return to her rooms eventually, to find her gone, and she needed to be at least a mile away by then.
The door across the large and well-stocked kitchen actually stood ajar next to an open pantry door adjacent to it. Perhaps the cook was down in the cellars or the larder.
Her timing couldn’t be better.
Toes barely touching the floor, she flew past the island, the ovens, and the simmering food, clutching her shawl to her chin and lifting her voluminous skirts. Sunshine spilled over the stones and touched her face for a glorious moment as she pulled the heavy door wide enough for her to slip through.
Farah’s shoulder was nearly wrenched from its socket as her only hope of escape was slammed shut by a meaty hand.
“No,” said the sloe-eyed giant, wagging his other finger as though scolding an ill-mannered hound. “No leaving.”
Farah leaped back, banging into the sharp edge of a counter. Biting back a curse and a cry, she clutched her hip and tried not to cringe away from the hulking, ill-formed bald man who resembled something like Frankenstein’s monster, complete with scars, marks, and very gentle brown eyes.
“Please,” she implored him desperately. “Please let me go. I’m being held here against my will. No one will know that you let me leave. Have pity on me.”
In response to her pleas, the man shut the pantry, and positioned himself in front of the kitchen door, a silent sentry against her escape.
“I have money,” Farah tried, dumping the coins in her purse onto the counter. “It’s yours if you’ll just let me pass.”
Frankenstein remained quiet, crossing his arms over his belly and still regarding her with a mixture of patience and pity.
Spying the cutlery, Farah lunged for the largest knife she could find, and brandished it at him. “You will let me go, this instant.”
The infuriating quirk of his lips told her she’d just amused him.
“I—I mean it. I don’t want to hurt you.” The thought of doing anyone violence made her ill, but she tried to put on the most determined expression she was capable of producing.
His amusement turned into a disconcerting smile uncovering sharp teeth spaced at alarming intervals. “You won’t,” he said in the relaxed voice of a simpleton. An English simpleton. Strange, that.
“I most certainly will if you don’t step aside and—”
With a movement much too quick for such a slow-talking beast, he relieved her of the knife without so much as touching her, and set it on the counter out of her reach.