[Safety, Protect]

  “Elisa, can you order the coach to take you to town or a friend's house on your own or would the duke need to okay the trip?”

  “Yes I often go into town unescorted, what are you thinking?”

  “I think we kidnap you, or rather you kidnap yourself. First I’ll write to your father the details required to get you back ‘alive’. If I can just talk to your father for five minutes, I’m ninety five percent sure that he’ll switch sides. I’ll give you the letter to leave for your father. Are the servants allowed in your fathers study?”

  “Just to clean, and they are never to touch his desk.”

  “Perfect, he’s the only one we want reading this letter so I’ll need an envelope and sealing wax. Then in the morning put this on his desk, separate from the other mail. We don’t want it getting mixed in with the regular mail and ignored until he gets his daughter back. Put your letter face down, I'm sure he knows your seal. The fact that you are writing to him should make him suspicious enough to open it immediately."

  “How many coaches do you have?”

  “Just one, it has our crest on the side.”

  “Alright, after I finish the letter, Ronan and I will sneak into your carriage house. When you get up, order a carriage as you normally would. What’s the earliest that you’ve left for town before?”

  “I’ve never left before eleven before.”

  “That’s ok, we’ll be fine out there. Does anyone stay in the carriage house?”

  “No, the driver has a room in the servant’s quarters.”

  “Do they send a footman or just a driver?”

  “Just a driver, unless I plan to have lots of packages.”

  “Good tomorrow, you’re going for some thread or something similar. It’ll be easier to just deal with a driver, than a driver and a footman.”

  “Gods Maria you’re not going to kill him are you?”

  “No, of course not. I swear, no one will get hurt.”

  “Good he’s a nice man, who has been our driver for as long as I can remember.”

  “Okay, just get me some paper and an envelope, please.”

  I wrote a letter to the Duke with my demands for the safe return of his daughter. We sealed it into the envelope using Elisa’s wax seal. I gave the envelope to Elisa and repeated all the instructions we had gone over before. I wanted this to go smoothly. Em’s public relations campaign must be making my father nervous. I never expected he’d take me seriously enough to issue arrest warrants. That meant he was scared and scared men are extra dangerous.

  Ronan and I reversed our steps creeping down the hallway to the stairs, down the stairs to the room with the door ajar. Across the room and out the french doors. As soon as we exited we both cast the smoke spell and headed toward the back of the house as directed by Elisa. Once we turned the back corner of the house we could see the carriage house. We just had to cross the back garden, near the kitchen door. We’d just started to cross the back yard when I heard the kitchen door open.

  Ronan signaled to get back and we reversed course back around the side of the house. I cast the hearing spell. To discover the two servants were lovers and the male was heading back to his employer's house. I got an earful of the advice the Slutty princess had given the maid, and even more of an earful of what the man servant planned to do to the maid's body the following night. When finally he left, the kitchen door was closed and bolted.

  Still wrapped in smoke we crossed the yard and entered the carriage house. Before entering we dispelled the smoke. The doors were unlocked so we went right in and had a look around. There was one coach as Elisa had said and one open air buggy.

  “At first I thought we should just hide in the carriage and we’d be alright, but the driver will probably come out and clean the interior of the coach before he harnesses the horses. Ronan,don't you think a Duke would expect service like that from a private driver?”

  “Yes you are most likely right, so what should we do?”

  “There’s a small unused room here, probably a driver’s quarters if the driver wasn’t staying in the main house. I think we should stay in here, wait until he comes out and cleans the carriage. I’m sure he’ll clean the carriage before harnessing the horses.”

  “Yes, that sounds like the safest plan. It'd ruin the entire plan if he catches us inside the carriage before it’s even harnessed. Maria, lay down over there and get a little sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

  “Ok wake me in a few hours, you need to sleep too, you’ll be driving the coach after we ditch the driver. That reminds me we need to look around here and find some rope so we tie the driver up. We don’t want a fast pursuit. We should mention Redhollow in front of the driver too. So they send the pursuit in the wrong direction.”

  We found rope by the stables and a knife. I took them both, then layed down for a couple hours of sleep. I was very tired but it was still difficult to sleep on the cold hard floor. Ronan woke me a little after dawn and settled into the same spot I’d occupied. I stood by the entrance to our little room and practiced the spell of hearing. It wasn’t long before I heard a servant come out into the kitchen garden and start harvesting some vegetables. Then they went back into the kitchen and I could hear the sounds of food preparation.

  Servants came in and out of the kitchen, either complaining about something or gossiping about someone. What I didn’t hear was any talk of night time sneak thiefs. Ronan woke up and came over and joined me and asked if I wanted to try and get a little more sleep, but I declined.

  “I’ve been practicing my hearing spell. It's quite a useful spell when you are trying to hide from someone.”

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  “It is and you can’t practice it here but the throwing voice spell has gotten me out of trouble a few times. I hear a couple of men approaching.”

  We stood quiet. Why two? Did Elisa forget and now a footman was coming along? That would make it almost impossible for us to board the carriage, from where we were right now. We’d planned on an empty carriage house when we tried to get in the carriage.

  The carriage house doors were thrown open as the two men talked loudly and crudely about the maid who thought the other servants didn’t know about her night time visitor.

  “She needn't drag that fellow all the way over here, I’d service her every night if she only asked sweetly.”

  “Aye so would I, and she needn’t ask me sweetly, she could just yell Harry get over here.”

  “Aye your right. I’ll clean the interior, you wipe down the outside. I don’t understand these rich girls. I just brought her to town yesterday shopping, now a day later for thread no less. They must have a thousand different colors of thread in the house. But she must have the exact color.”

  “That’s a rich girl for ya.”

  A little while later.

  “I’m done with the interior, Harry, I’ll start harnessing the team.”

  “Okay, I’m almost done here.”

  “Maria, get ready to move when I signal alright?” Ronan whispered.

  “I’m ready, Ronan.”

  Ronan muttered a spell

  “Harry, give me a hand will you.”

  Harry left the carriage and headed to the stables. Ronan and I hid in the back of the carriage. I’ll have to practice that spell more, I thought of it more like a stage trick but it got us out of a really tight spot.

  It wasn’t long before the horses were harnessed and the carriage began to move. It came to a stop again. I kept my head down, but I could only imagine we were in front of the house waiting for Elisa. Ronan and I were laying on the front seat covered with a rough blanket we’d found in the carriage house.

  We didn’t have long to wait. I heard the butler open the front door, wish Elisa a good trip, Elisa walking on the loose stone driveway. Her command to the driver to stay in his seat, she was in a hurry and could get the door for herself. Good thinking Elisa. As soon as she sat down she whispered.

  “Are we all set to go?”

  “Yes,” I whispered back.

  She tapped her foot and the carriage began its journey and my first kidnapping had begun.

  “Elisa in about ten minutes look out both windows front and back and if you see no other travelers. Yell for the driver to stop. Tell him you don’t feel well and need to get out of the carriage for a minute. When he stops, I’ll hold a knife on you. Ronan will have him strip and take his clothes, then tie him up and shove him into the carriage with us. The whole time he’s in the carriage you must act scared, he can’t suspect that you are in on this. Okay?”

  “Yes I understand.”

  She did exactly as instructed, and it worked perfectly except before we could get going again with the tied up driver another carriage came to a stop.

  “Listen girl I’ll kill you if you don’t get that other carriage moving, again.”

  Elisa shouted to the other driver. “Sorry it was my fault, I wasn’t feeling well but it’s fine now. Thanks for stopping to check on us.”

  “Have a good day Lady Mountbatten.”

  Ronan turned the carriage onto a side road, while I held a knife on Elisa and kept an eye on the driver. After about an hour or just a little bit more Ronan pulled the carriage to a stop and we were in a heavily wooded area. I ordered the driver to get out and Ronan walked him a little way into the woods tied him not too tightly to a sapling. He thought with any effort at all the driver would free himself in an hour or so.

  “Ronan if you see any muddy spots we should muddy up the carriage, and cover that crest.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  An hour later the carriage rolled to a stop and Ronan hopped down and Elisa and I got out and had fun throwing mud balls at the carriage. As long as it didn’t rain, no one could see the crest as it was completely obscured by mud.

  “We’re traveling roughly in the right direction for Pintyde, but I can’t really ask for directions to our final destination. We’ll just have to keep going until the horses can’t go any further. Then I’ll try and find a field we can hide the carriage in while the horses rest.” Roan said.

  It was fully dark when Ronan eased us off the road into a glade of trees. Ronan unhitched the horses, tying them to the wagon but giving them plenty of lead so that they could graze but not escape.

  “So the question is, should we keep the carriage all the way to Pintyde, or at the next town should we take a coach to Pintyde, what do you think? Ronan, you're the driver.”

  “Well with it as muddy as it is I think we’re safer in the carriage. Everyone in the coach is going to know the slutty princess, and they’d know that Elisa wasn’t actively being kidnapped on a coach. I wish I could say coach, I’m glad I’m not a driver, normally, it’s a lot of hard work. Tomorrow when we arrive in town, Elisa should ask for directions, written if possible to Pintyde, Maria you can’t and they’d think it odd a driver did know the way to go.”

  Elisa said’ “I can do it, I don’t mind at all. I can pick us up some food too.”

  So that’s what we did, the next morning we rode into a town and Elisa went around town buying supplies and getting directions to Pintyde, Penham, Harrowell, and Pinewatch. That way any pursuit might have a harder time deciding just what direction to look for us in.

  We rode a short way out of town and Ronan looked over the directions and just guided by the sun had gotten us quite close to Pintyde. With any luck we might make in by nightfall and give the horses a well deserved rest.

  It was close to eleven when we finally arrived and the innkeeper was just chasing out the last of his tavern customers but was more than happy to have the famous Slutty Princess back under his roof.