My Lady Enthralled

Joelle tried to breathe slowly, unsure if she was alone in the cell, or room, or beyond. Luck was with her because without any conscious effort of her own, she'd ended with her face turned to the side that gave her the best view through her half-lifted eyelashes. The room was shadowy, but there was a torch ahead of her peeking gaze and one perhaps to her left side and beyond her feet.

The word’s Yojo had used that he'd saved her for God trembled through her again, as fresh tears clouded her glimpsing vision and she forced the thoughts back in her mind. She needed to think, or to act, or to plan as swiftly as she could, because she had no idea of how long she would be left alone. First she had to decide if she really was alone, because she had a seething need to be up, moving around, and feeling more power in the dire situation. And, she needed to look at the lock on the cell as quickly as she could, because her captors did not know her very well. The tricks she'd been taught from her Gypsy heritage might aid her escape now, or save her life, because she knew how to pick locks.

Moving her head in a slow motion, inches at a time, she cleared the area in front of her and to the left side free of any presences. Her hearing told her clearly all was quiet, yet some inner instinct made her feel that she might not be alone. The knowledge rose the light hair on her flesh as she moved slowly without perceptible movement trying to see as much as she was able.

It was a dungeon setting, vying with the ancient legends of kings and chateaus castles. Joelle guessed that it was such a place, and from her judgment it was no more than an hour or two from the east side of Paris, where they had first kidnapped her. There were blocked stone walls leaching dampness in what appeared through the half she could see of it as a circular room. She was indeed held in a cell.

A large iron box with stout and rusted bars crossed on the top and on all the sides. It was a cage set in the middle of the circular dungeon and when she lifted her head slightly she saw the stone steps leading upward at a high angle to a wooden-hewed and iron-battened door.

Providence sliced through her at the exact moment she dared to raise her head, when a soft rustling sound that seemed to come out of nowhere, echoed in her hearing. The rustling collided with the abrupt pounding of her heart, more than any loudness claimed by the sound. Rats, she thought with hope, never pausing to wonder at the dichotomy of that. Rats were nasty villains, but better than any human villains she could think of at the moment. Then, with a trembling neck, she turned her head slowly toward where the sound had come from, and it was then that she first saw him.

Instantly, her breath sucked inward with surprise at him being there, but not surprise of discovery, because his head was bowed forward. Joelle realized immediately that she could have thought him female at first glance, with the fall of long brown hair hanging before him. But it was his bare chest, seen through the long strands of dark hair draping each side of the muscular expanse that proved him male.

He was sitting slumped on the floor behind the stretch of her feet, and Joelle noticed abruptly that he was chained. It came to her then, as though she was struck with a sudden flash of lightening. The Marquess.

Then without forethought, Joelle rolled upward to sit, staring at the man as she clutched the cloak tightly around her nakedness. He was a prisoner as she was, with his hands perhaps bound behind his back and a chain across his chest and possibly his neck. Could he be the Marquess that Baco had so crudely stated was set to rape her?

Certainly her instincts and the proof of her sight told her that he was. She turned her head and her gaze quickly from the lush river of his chestnut hair and the lean, ridged outline of his lower belly. He had a cloak thrown over him, just as she did, and she had no doubt that beneath where the heavy black cloth lay across his hips and legs, he was as naked as she was. And . . . he was drugged, where she was not.

Chained meant unwilling. Drugged meant unwilling. How would he rape her? Joelle’s flesh crawled as she tried hard to think and hold back her fear at the same time. A sexual ritual, perhaps to the death, involving her, the Marquess, and her virginity. It was insanity! Hardly believable, yet she would defeat herself by not believing it completely. She had enough of the pieces to make an intelligent conclusion.

Suddenly, she rushed to stand, and then carelessly on her bare feet she ran to the cell door and she examined the lock. Her grandfather had taught her to pick locks by the time she was seven years old. Her grandmother to pick pockets. Her parents had been more reserved about such things, but they both had knowledge of unusual talents. Joelle reached through the bars lifting the heavy lock, bigger than her hand. It was a turn key, with a hook and snap lock. If she had anything long, pointed, and sharp, she could open it. But the angle would be difficult to hold the lock, and then hold something straight and backward into the lock.

Joelle grimaced and she set the lock back down quietly. Nonetheless, when she turned away, it was with quick and agitated movements. She held the cloak tight around herself as she paced restlessly. She was avoiding a momentous decision . . . there was little time. She did look, with half-hearted attempts, for a long pointed object as she paced. A stick perhaps. But more, she kept glancing at the Marquess.

“It is useless to open the lock. They would catch you before you could escape and drag you back,” she muttered, “And then, they would know that you can pick locks. When you could have saved it for a better attempt . . .” She lurched through a turn in her pacing, looking at the Marquess as she did so. He looked young . . . perhaps. Yet, it was hard to tell with his head bowed forward.

Rituals. She knew of many tales of ungodly and morbid rituals through her Gypsy’s heritage. And all of them were of sacrificial innocents that were put to death in the end. This . . . this seemed more sexual and not a life threatening ritual. “You are fooling yourself,” she hissed, slashing her hand through the air. “Whatever unspeakable use they have in mind for me, without a doubt it will eventually end in death, if nothing else, just for knowing too much.”

“Indeed.”

Joelle gasped, whirling about at the sudden sound of a masculine voice. Her gaze sweeping immediately to the Marquess. He looked the same however with his head bowed.

“Are you awake?” she whispered in a rush that sounded like a hiss.

“Barely.”

She nearly jumped backward at the quickness and reality of the confirming sound, but not from any action of the Marquess. He was still slumping forward with only his chest rising and falling . . . a bit heavier perhaps.

Spirits take her, he was English, not French! She could hear it in the two short words he'd spoken. And, she realized that providence really did shine harshly in moments of decision . . . pressing her forward, guiding her. It did not allow her to waver from the only good plan that she had, no matter how much she despised to do it.

Fate had just burst in on her, because with the Marquess semi-awake, then she really could do it. Where before, because he'd been unconscious, she'd been unsure. She knew quite a bit about sexual relations between men and women, and she knew enough about male physiology to understand that it might have been impossible to harden the Marquess’ cock if he had remained unconscious. Nevertheless, now he was regaining consciousness. A perfect time to implement her plan and use the only form of drastic diversion, vengeance, or complete insanity that she had.

Virginity, verses no virginity. And being semiconscious the Marquess would be an adaptive tool.