Page 18 of Weave me a Rope
It was long, though. He’d need more cords to make a rope strong enough to be of much use, but he had plenty of horsehair.Even twisted with two more cords to make a six-ply rope, the length he had should reach the ground.
He was back at the window at dawn the following morning. He’d pulled a wooden chair to sit on, leaving his hands free to work on the next cord. It was repetitive work but required little thought. The worst thing about his confinement was having nothing to occupy his mind, which seemed determined to dwell on all the things his father could do to compel his obedience.
He cannot kill me.
Still, Spen wouldn’t put it past the old fiend to kill him and John both, except the title would then go to the branch of the family that had moved to the United States two generations ago, and the marquess might prefer to see John inherit than an American. No. Probably not. But as long as Spen was the only son with the man’s blood, he, at least, was too valuable to kill.
Things might change if Lady Deerhaven delivered a healthy boy, but even then, removing a man past the age of the common childhood diseases in favor of a newborn baby would be a risk.
The marquess could do a lot short of killing Spen, though. He could hurt John, for a start. Once he realized he could use threats against John to blackmail Spen, it would be the end of Spen’s defiance.
Spen’s hands kept twisting, twisting, and the cord grew, slowly but surely.
He had lost track of time when he heard Cordelia’s voice. “Spen!”
Astonished, he looked up from his work, and there she was, no more than a dozen feet away in the oak tree, where John had been yesterday. And there was John, a little higher up in the tree, grinning a welcome.
“You shouldn’t be here, my love,” Spen told Cordelia. “It is dangerous.” He paused, trying and failing to think of any female acquaintance who could climb a tree. The thought of MissWharton attempting such a feat boggled the mind. “You can climb trees? Every time he met her, he found more to admire about her.
She smiled then. “As you see,” she told him. “As to the danger, the marquess is gone, and I have my pistol.”
What a resourceful, clever woman she was. How proud he was to love her. His heart warmed, especially when she said, “I had to see you, Spen.”
He couldn’t argue with that, considering how wonderful it was to see her. “Tell me you at least brought a groom or a footman with you.”
“Of course. My footman is keeping watch to give us warning if anyone comes this way, and one of my outriders is below the tower with some things to send up to you if we can make it work.”
“Cordelia has some ideas to help,” John said. “She thought we could throw you a cord, and then tie a rope to one end of it for you to pull up. It will save you having to make one.”
Spen held up his work. “I’ve made a cord. It is plenty long enough to drop down to the ground.” He fetched the cord he’d made the day before and fed it through the bars.
“My outrider will tug once to get you to stop, and twice to get you to start again,” Cordelia said.Good thinking.Spen couldn’t see the ground below the tower with the bars in the way, but he kept feeding out the cord until he felt a tug.
“I brought the rope,” Cordelia said. “Also, some food, since John says you are not getting proper meals, some tools to try to loosen the bars, and a couple of books for you to read in case we can’t get you free today. Is there anything else you need, Spen?”
He was responding to a double tug from below by pulling up the cord. From the weight of it, it was bringing something up with it. “I need you and John away from here,” he toldCordelia. That sounded ungracious and the hurt that passed across Cordelia’s face showed she thought so, too.
“I’ve been thinking about what my father might do to force my hand,” he explained. “I can stand against him if the pair of you are safe. If he has you or John and threatens to hurt you, I will have to obey him. You don’t know what a monster he is.”
Cordelia nodded, thoughtfully. “I believe you. John has been telling me about him. I can see the rope coming up with your cord. Did you really make it yourself, Spen? Out of furniture stuffing?”
A moment later, the rope was in his hand. He hauled the end of it inside, untied the cord, wrapped the rope around the bed leg, and tied it to the bars to anchor it. Then he gave it a double tug.
“It’s a bit of a knack,” he admitted. “The first few yards are pretty rough, but I got better.”
A moment later, a double tug told him to start hauling again. This time, the weight was heavier.
“We made two bags of it,” Cordelia said. “The first one should be the tools and the books. The second one will be food and other comforts.”
“I suggested the brandy,” John advised.
The first bag came up—a cloth bag with several chisels, a mallet, and three books. Spen had to take them from the bag one at a time to get them through the bars. He lowered the rope again.
“John told me you were staying at Crossings,” he said to Cordelia. “You must see it is dangerous to be so close to the marquess. If you were to fall into his hands…” he shuddered. “He believes being a marquess means he does not have to obey the rules and laws that apply to lesser beings.”
It appeared to be true, too. The law gave him the right to chastise his successive wives and his son, but his beatings whenin a temper were excessive. So much so, that, since Spen grew old enough to fight back, he had left the beatings to servants he could trust not to kill Spen. And he had got away with murder, at least one Spen knew of, when he paid for the killing of his fleeing wife.
“He is away from home, and he does not know we are there,” Cordelia assured Spen. “I used the name Cruikshank when I signed the register, and my servants won’t betray me. John says the stable boy recognized my horses, but he won’t say anything.”
