“I’m sorry; I am not fluent in that particular gesture. Could you write it—,” Elle was whisked up by the footmen and deposited in the chair before she had the chance to react. They carried her down the hallway in the chair and banged into her room, setting the chair down before she could protest.
Emele grabbed Elle’s crutches and pulled them from her grasp before setting them down near the windows. She fixed a curl that had escaped from her hairstyle before writing on her slate.
Rest.
“See now, I—,” Elle started.
Emele underlined Rest.
Elle stared at the slate before looking at her merciless ladies maid. “Fine. It appears I have been beaten today,” she said, settling in the chair as Emele dismissed the footmen from the room.
The next day Elle sat in an armchair next to the fire, the picture of innocence in her cast off dress from Emele. “Emele, is it tea time yet?”
Emele looked up from the embroidery piece she was working on. Not yet. She wrote on her slate. Why?
“I’m famished,” Elle said, setting a hand on her stomach while looking at Emele under her eyelashes.
Emele bustled to her feet with a smile. Tea time, she wrote on her slate.
“Thank you, Emele. You are as sweet as you are pretty,” Elle said.
Emele blushed and swatted a hand through the air to disregard Elle’s comment. Stay, she wrote.
“Of course,” Elle amiably agreed.
Emele smiled before she sailed out of the room.
Elle waited until Emele’s footsteps disappeared down the hallway before she grabbed the fireplace poker. She hooked it around her crutches—which Emele had leaned on a wall, tantalizingly out of reach—and pulled. The crutches fell to the ground, and Emele carefully reached out with her good leg, snagged her slipper on the crutches, and pulled them to her.
She had about ten minutes before Emele would return with the tea, and Elle intended to use the time to slip off to a different part of the castle. She needed to practice using her crutches—without the easily startled ladies maid flittering around her like a butterfly.
Elle stood and wedged the crutches under her armpits. She kept her movements precise and unhurried as she thumped across her bedroom. She struggled with the door for a minute before she was able to maneuver it open and close it behind her after she made her escape.
Elle started thumping up the hallway, careful to keep to the rugs and off the stone floor. Based on the view from her window, Elle thought there were a few empty salons—sitting rooms—that weren’t too far away. If she could reach them before Emele returned she might be able to hide for a few minutes and practice.
Elle turned up a different hallway. When she reached an intersection and was deciding if she should go straight—where there was only one door—or if she should take a risk and go right, which would take her back towards her rooms she heard the crash of breaking dishes. The crash of a dropped tray. The crash caused by Emele returning to an empty room.
With renewed vigor Elle thumped up the hallway. She wouldn’t be able to reach a salon, but there was a large door further up the hallway. If Elle could just get to it in time…
Elle reached the door and wrestled it open, glancing over her shoulder when she heard footsteps. They were heavy and masculine, making Elle wonder if Emele had already spread word of her disappearance to the other servants.
Elle hastily slipped inside, ripping her skirt and almost wiping out when the door closed behind her. Elle leaned against it, listening as the heavy footsteps drew closer and paused outside the door. For a few long moments there was silence until the footsteps retreated back in the direction they had come from.
Elle exhaled and tipped her head back against the door. “That was shamefully close. A few weeks in bed and I am out of practice. Very disappointing,” she said before leaning forward on her crutches, eager to see what room she had walked into.
Bookshelves stood like giants in the shadows, stretching sky high to disappear into the gloom of the ceiling. Books lined the shelves—expensive books with leather covers and embossed spines. The furniture was big and invasively masculine. Portraits of rulers and royalty long dead hung on the walls.
It was the library, and it was undoubtedly the most expensive feature of the castle.
Elle thumped across lavish rugs, uneasily teetering as she shrugged off the unseeing stares of the portraits.
Elle explored until she found a velvet armchair—a larger version of the one in her room—pulled in front of an empty fireplace grate. Elle took small, mincing steps around the chair as she looked for tripping hazards. When she was sure the chair was an acceptable axis to use for her walking practice she adjusted her wooden crutches and took a deep breath before swinging her crutches in front of her. She frowned when she jostled forward.