Lady Ann's Holiday: Chapter Twenty Nine - Part One

A Chance of Escape

1

Ann opened her eyes. There was no sound in the warehouse in which she was being held.

She lay still, listening, moving her eyes from upper right to upper left, trying to pick out the least scratch or murmur. But there wasn’t any.

She got to her feet silently from where she’d been sleeping on the stone. Her arms were bare, her dress shredded round the shoulders. She looked awful and the fact that these men had done this to her made her quiver with fear.

An almost overwhelming sense of powerlessness washed over her and her eyes filled with silent tears but she made herself stay still; not make a sound. She put her hand to her eyes and for several minutes she just wept noiselessly, wishing Richard or the Earl or some other man were there to protect her. She couldn’t do this alone. She was only a woman. How could she ever get herself free?

But they didn’t know where she was! She had no choice. She had to try something!

For half the night, until the exhaustion had finally let her sleep, Ann had wished over and over that she were still a man; that she’d never agreed to swap in the first place; that she’d gone back to Yorkshire when she was supposed to instead of stealing a life that didn’t belong to her. But the morning had come cold and hard and early with the despondent realization that her wish hadn’t come true. She was trapped in this woman’s body, with a woman’s weakness of muscle and courage.

She slipped off her heeled shoes and tiptoed to the doorway. The door was ajar.

She peered round the frame warily, showing only so much of her face as she absolutely had to. There were three men in her line of sight, all of them… Yes. All of them asleep: collars up, caps down, arms folded in their chairs to keep warm.

Ann allowed herself a broader peep, letting more of her head come round the door jamb, taking the risk that she’d be seen in return for a greater certainty that she could escape.

No other men were visible in the gloom. Ann chewed her lip, knowing that she had to make a run for it but terrified of that first hurried step. The tall man wasn’t in sight. She didn’t like the way that not all the men were accounted for. But she had to do it nonetheless.

She pushed the door back a little and squeezed through the gap, hating the fact that they’d left her body so exposed. But there was nothing else for it. She stood still, trying to listen one more time, then started across the open floor of the warehouse on her tips, eying each of the sleeping men in turn. The closest one shifted in his sleep, adjusting himself unconsciously. He was no danger but Ann kept a watchful eye on him.

Then she glanced to her right and looked straight into the eyes of a fourth man, sitting in a chair. Awake.

He’d only just seen her. Both of them froze. The man’s expression of surprise was almost comical.

Then he was up on his feet and running toward her.

Ann shrieked and fled toward the door. There were only about ten yards between her and the outside but the man was closing fast.

Woken by the commotion, the other men were stirring. They were getting up!

Ann grasped the door knob and whipped it round. The door was locked!

She turned. The man was almost upon her. She cried out in panic and ducked as he lunged for her then came up, spotting another external door at the far side of the warehouse.

She ran in that direction, her long skirt restricting her legs, forcing her into a frustrating and hopeless feminine gait.

All the men were on their feet now.

The one who’d seen her first snarled and grabbed for her. Missed. Ran after her, furious.

Ann dodged to the right and then jinked left. All the men were in pursuit now but she was already half way across the building.

Then one of them grabbed her, pulling her backwards, clear of her feet.

She screamed. Ann screamed to the top of her lungs. “Help me! Help me! Please!”

Her arms were pinned. They were dragging her back. She screamed again but dirty rough fingers closed round her jaw. She tried to scream through them but a fist punched her hard in the gut, throwing her head forward and driving all the wind from her lungs.

She fell to the floor on her knees, gasping and in pain but the men snatched her up again and suddenly the tall man was there.

He glared at her with tiny black eyes and she quailed. Then he whipped his hand out and the back of it smacked into her cheek. Her head rocked backwards sharply. She still couldn’t catch her breath to cry out, even from pain. Then the gag was roughly tied to her face again and she was dragged backwards toward the room she’d spent the night in.

None of them spoke. They tied her hands behind her back with cord and then threw her down hard to the floor. She still couldn’t catch her breath. But the men weren’t finished. They snatched up her legs, caring nothing for her decency, and tied her ankles together painfully tightly.

They stood up, looked down on her, then withdrew. The tall man stood for a moment in the doorway, gazing remorselessly, then he snapped shut the door and turned the key.

And then finally the tears came again and Ann wept and wept and wept, wishing she had just done what they’d said; wishing that Richard would come and longing for the time when she could be free of this place; free to return to Yorkshire and get her hands on the pendant once more.

They had to come for her soon. They just had to!

2

Burt half woke up and rolled over, his arm falling naturally onto Mavis where she lay beside him. He smiled happily, thinking how good his life was, then paused. For a moment he did nothing, then a frown played around his eyes, scrunching them tighter.

His eyes popped open wide and staring. He looked at Mavis, then round at the doorway, then down at his own body, then he jerked up into a sitting position.

“Gor blimey,” he whispered.

He jumped up to his feet, throwing the blanket clear.

“Gor blimey!”

Mavis stretched, still mostly asleep. “What is it?”

Burt went to the window then paced rapidly back. “By ecky thump,” he said. “This ain’t right. It ain’t right at all!”

“What ain’t?” Mavis was almost awake, rubbing her eyes with two crooked first fingers. “What you goin on about now Burt?”

“This caps owt,” said Burt, increasingly alarmed. “It ain’t right!”

Mavis sat up becoming increasingly irritable. “What are you blatherin about ye twonk?”

Burt went to the sideboard; to the mirror above it; and touched his face, his hair, his moustache.

“I forgot who I was,” he said.

“Eh?”

“It must’ve  been…” He looked back at Mavis then into the mirror again. “It’s been three chuffin days! Three days and I thought I was… I really thought I was…”

“What? Who?” Mavis wrapped the blanket round her naked body. “What you goin on about now, ye great narner?”

Burt stared at her, the immensity of this realization overrunning all sense in his mind. He’d forgotten who he was. The potion. It had to have been that wot done it. He’d really believed he had always been Burt for his whole life. But that wasn’t true! He saw that now!

He was meant to be Lady Ann! This was all so entirely wrong!

He ignored Mavis and went on staring at himself in the mirror, at this face looking back at him with its terrified and muddled eyes and its bushy manly moustache.

Three long days and all that time he’d lost himself in this absurd part, kidding himself that he’d been born and bred a servant.

“Oh my giddy aunt,” hissed Burt. “What in eck am I meant to do now?”

Any minute he could forget again and be plunged back into that ignorance. He thought of the contentment he’d felt when he work up and pumped out adrenaline through his body. He had actually been happy being a servant. He’d forgotten so entirely that he enjoyed being the lowest being imaginable.

“Chuff me,” he said, remembering Jeb’s arrival at the stables two days earlier, fully understanding now the implications of that event. That he wasn’t just stuck in Burt’s life but stuck in an exaggerated form of it. His foolish reaffirmations of his new role had gone far further than they should have to cement him into his new life. He was more masculine than the original Burt; lower in intelligence and education. His own idiotic actions had made him stupider than they need have. If he’d just kept his mouth shut then he might have fallen to the former Burt’s level. Now, instead, he was a literal idiot, barely fit to follow the simplest instructions; utterly obsequious and fawning.

He had made the transformation go far further than it should have done and now he was trapped, paying the price!

Mavis was on her feet now, putting her clothes back on. “What’s wrong?” she said. “Why was you so het up?”

Burt looked at her in surprise, barely even still aware she was there.

“I have to stop this,” he said. “It’s gone too far. I have to do something.”

“Do something about what?”

“I have to get my life back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I have to get hold of the pendant.”

“What pendant?”

Burt went to the door then paused and snatched up his clothes.  “I have to get that pendant and use it to get out of this life!”