Lisa was so tightly strung that when the carriage door opened, she actually gave a little start. She was hoping to see what lay beyond, but a large man filled the opening. Big beefy arms reached in, and before she quite knew what was happening, one sweaty hand was mashing her lips against her teeth and the other was yanking her out the door. She instinctively began to kick and thrash, but it was like doing battle with a wall. Her arms were pinned uselessly to her sides and her feet slammed into what could have been tree trunks, having as much impact as a child’s weak blows.

Lisa was carted no more than four feet from the carriage to an open door. It was just long enough to see that they hadn’t stopped in front of a house on a busy street, but in a high-walled courtyard at what was obviously the back of the house. No wonder Charles had been amused at her hopes of escape. She hadn’t had a chance, she realized.

“Take her to the room, Max,” Charles’s voice ordered as they entered a large, hot kitchen. “I shall be along shortly.”

Lisa glanced wildly around, peering over the large hand covering her mouth and lower face. The hand wasn’t just covering her mouth, but her nose as well and she couldn’t get any air. She began to struggle more desperately, afraid she was going to be smothered to death, but it had little effect and her vision was dimming by the time she was carted through a kitchen, down a narrow set of steps, and across an open area to a door with a small barred window in it.

Her captor kicked at the base of the door, sending it swinging open. He then walked in and dropped her.

Lisa grunted in pain as she landed on something hard, and then simply lay still for a moment, desperately gasping air into her starved lungs. After a moment, however, she began to feel better and found the energy to raise herself up to a sitting position and peer about. The only light was that coming from the barred window. It was just enough to see that she was in a tiny room with nothing but the narrow bed she had been dumped on. The mattress was hard and appeared to be stuffed with matted straw. The floor of the room was nothing more than hard-packed dirt. A basement then.