Free Lady of Spirit, A by Shelley Adina

wave.
    She could not see past the circle of light thrown by the moonglobe. There was nothing wrong with her hearing, however. The sound of the surf had become louder. Either the wind had dropped, or …
    Cautiously, she looked over the side of the stone landing.
    Where her footprints had been in the sand, there was now a glassy sheet of water, lapping against the rocks. Cold fear arrowed through her stomach. How was this possible? The tide could not have come in this fast, could it? But then, she had no experience with tides. The closest she had come was the shallow back-and-forth of the Thames, or the beach at Gwynn Place, and there the Lady always made good and sure they were up on the cliff path before it turned.
    She could not get out the way she had come in, unless she waded or swam, in which case she would ruin the only evening dress she possessed.
    Her only salvation was the evidence before her eyes of the dry stone dock. But still, she didn’t much like the prospect of spending the night on it, curled up in the stink, waiting for the tide to go back out again.
    Maggie, my girl, you cannot go down. You cannot stay. Therefore, you must go up, and hope there is a door at the top with a lock on this side.
    She hoisted her skirts up over her arm more securely, lifted the moonglobe, and began to climb.
    The staircase, while not as tight a corkscrew as the tower stairs at Colliford Castle, was still fairly steep. It was wide, though, presumably to accommodate a man carrying a crate like the ones down below. She tried to count the steps, but lost the count somewhere around one hundred twenty. But she had no choice now. It was go on or sleep with soaked feet on a bed of stone.
    An eternity of climbing passed, in which the muscles of her legs, though fit, began first to complain and then to wobble. Just when she was convinced that one more step would bring utter collapse, the moonglobe showed her a door.
    Thank heaven above.
    Gasping, her free hand pressed to her side, Maggie took a moment to recover from the climb, wishing not for the first time that she had not laced her corset so tightly. Henceforth, she would forego fashion in favor of practicality, because it seemed that in her case, there were far more opportunities to succeed at the latter than the former.
    Finally, she pushed herself off the rough granite of the wall and examined the door. There was no knob, only a curious configuration of blackened iron that did not look as though it had been used in years. But looks, as anyone could tell you, were deceiving.
    In the light of the moonglobe, she studied it. To the unskilled eye, it would be utterly perplexing—a series of gears and clockwork that appeared to have no central focus, no means of triggering entry. Which would make sense—if more than one person were using the dock and stair, keys could easily be lost or stolen. But the key to this lock was in the memory … or in one’s powers of observation and past experience with locks.
    Maggie leaned in and followed the configuration backward from the latch. Was that it? Could it be that simple—a figure eight, with the trigger point here—?
    Maggie pressed what appeared to be a blackened nail head. It gave under her thumb and the mechanism began to move, its parts clicking and creaking and at one point jamming before she gave it a thump with her fist and it lurched into motion once more.
    Thunk! The mechanical lock lumbered to a stop in its terminal position.
    Maggie pushed on the door and, moonglobe held rather in the manner of a stone ready for throwing, stepped through.

10

Lady Claire Trevelyan allowed Mrs. Seacombe to see the last of her guests off at the door, and found Andrew Malvern out on the terrace, gazing over the gardens and enjoying the scent of the sea mixed with roses and a lingering hint of cigarillo smoke.
    “I have never been so glad to see the end of an evening, and considering my mother’s fondness for society, that is saying something,”