Free Eloisa's Adventure by Rebecca King Page B

sweep through her.
    “Jesus,
we are stuck,” Simeon growled in disgust. He glared at her as
though it was her fault. “There must be something here, a hook or
something that I can use to get the door open. Help me look for
something that might help, will you?”
    Eloisa
looked back at the stairwell for a moment before she reluctantly
moved back into the pantry and helped him search. In some ways it
was a relief to be able to close the door while in others, it was
worrying to know they were trapped.
    Simeon
shook his head in disgust and stared at the door when, ten minutes
later, they both came up empty handed.
    “Why
lock us in here?” Eloisa whispered.
    “Because
they want to confine us,” Simeon snapped. “How should I
know?”
    He
sighed deeply when a small voice warned him that he really was
being unfair on her. After all, it wasn’t her fault they were in
this situation. He gave her a somewhat conciliatory look and
thought about her question. “It is the only room in the house with
a lock on the outside,” he mused.
    “It’s a
pretty stupid thing to do, isn’t it?” Eloisa replied carefully. She
turned to look pointedly at the fresh food sitting on the pantry.
“I mean, what are they going to eat?”
    Before
he could say anything, she tore off a chunk of bread and pushed it
into the fresh pat of butter beside it. She handed it to him before
she repeated the process, and began to eat.
    “Wine?”
she asked somewhat ruefully. She didn’t give him the chance to
reply before she handed him one of the bottles that were already
open.
    Bemused,
he took it off her and watched her pick up the second bottle. She
sniffed that too before she took a sip.
    “It’s
nice,” she declared with an approving nod. She bit into the bread
again and turned to look at him when he moved to stand beside
her.
    “Heavens
above, Eloisa,” Simeon smiled. It was like some bizarre tea party
where she was serving and he was the guest.
    “It’s a
pity they didn’t leave any seats,” she mused. “We may get chilly,
but at least we won’t starve.”
    Once she
had finished her bread, she picked two apples out of the basket,
handed him one and began to eat her own while she thought about
their situation.
    “Now, we
have the food. Unless they have some more food stashed away
somewhere, they are going to go hungry really quickly.”
    He
chewed thoughtfully on his succulent apple and nodded. “They are
going to come back for something to eat.”
    “I think
that there must be another way out of here,” Eloisa mused. She
hated the thought of anyone coming back for the food, and the
resultant confrontation with the dark shadow she had seen earlier.
“Didn’t you say that there were some secret passageways around this
house, only you have never found them?”
    “Well,
yes, but we are not going to look for them now,” Simeon declared
flatly.
    If he
was honest, he was impressed by just how well she was handling
their situation, and definitely approved of her calm logic in times
of crisis. He was starting to feel a little easier now about having
her in the house. At least she wasn’t cowering, whimpering, and
demanding he take her home in the middle of the storm.
    “I don’t
want to search for them now either, but the alternative is to hope
that hunger forces the intruder to let us out.” She turned to look
blithely at him. “What is there to lose?”
    Simeon
snorted. “Our sanity?” He sensed the direction her thoughts were
going and shook his head. “We are not going into the cellars,
Eloisa.”
    He
didn’t want to scare her, he really didn’t, but he couldn’t allow
her to go on a wild adventure around the house in an innocent quest
to get some answers. By doing that, she would inevitably walk right
into the danger that lay within these walls.
    “Look, I
told you that I suspect my uncle was poisoned,” Simeon
began.
    “Yes,
but this food is fresh. It’s fine. I feel fine. You are fine. We
are both alright. We can