Free Mistress By Mistake by Maggie Robinson

later, Charlotte gave him a pathetic smile.
    “Please,” she whispered. “Untie me. I need to use the chamber pot.”
    The fiend’s dark eyebrow raised. “How am I to know your intentions are honorable? You may decide to bean me with it if I let you loose.”
    Oh merciful heavens. Surely he wasn’t going to watch her. She shut her eyes to the frustrated tears that were welling up again.
    “Oh, very well,” he relented. She felt her bonds on her wrists loosen and abstained from grabbing his head and squeezing. Punching him in his handsome straight nose. Giving him a scar to match his other cheek. Instead she rubbed the feeling back into her hands and arms as he stood over her, looking at though he wanted to fry her with thunderbolts.
    “I’ll need your word that you’ll not kick me or try to run away.”
    “I promise,” she croaked.
    When her legs were free, she hobbled to the dressing room door. There must be something in there she could use as a weapon—a hanger, a footstool. She’d spent the afternoon contriving ever more violent imaginary attacks upon his person. Although she had always thought herself a pacifist, it was easy for her to see now why people committed murder. But if he had been angry with her before, he was apt to be even more so if she attacked him physically. It would have to be poison. Slow. Painful. Her mama said patience was a virtue, and Charlotte’s chance would come to bring Sir Michael Xavier Bayard to his knees.
    She concluded her business and caught sight of herself in the standing mirror. Remarkably enough, there were no permanent signs that she had been held captive by a madman and come perilously close to losing her own mind as well. She simply looked well-tumbled. She sponged her face and body quickly, for who knew when she would be free again? Lifting her chin and straightening her spine, she returned to the scene of his crime, holding her hands before her.
    “See? No weapons of any kind.”
    “I wouldn’t say that, Charlie. Some might say just looking at you like that is enough to make a man lose all his sense.” He pulled open a drawer and tossed her night rail at her. “See? I’ve relented already. Put it on. I had planned, you know, to keep you tied up and at my mercy for a week.”
    “A week!” she squeaked, scrambling into the threadbare lawn. It wouldn’t afford much protection, having been washed so often it was practically sheer. If she could see the shadow of her nipples, then so could Bay. She clapped an arm across her chest.
    “Yes. Consider the alternative. Death by hanging, and the ropes would not be silk, my dove. But I find I cannot do it.”
    She looked down at her bare feet. It was too much to ask for her boots back. “Th-thank you.”
    “Don’t thank me quite yet. I’ll come up with some alternative, but I find it’s difficult to think on an empty stomach. In a few minutes Mrs. Kelly is bringing the dinner you so thoughtfully planned.”
    Charlotte realized she was starving. She’d been too nervous to eat much breakfast and had to watch Mr. Peachtree tuck into his lunch with one hand as he held his little gun on her with the other. He’d had difficulty cutting his meat, which only served him right. She heard the rattle of dishes as Mrs. Kelly climbed the stairs.
    “Here, Mrs. Kelly, let me help you.” Bay sprinted from the room to take the heavy tray from the housekeeper. Charlotte snatched a brass candlestick from the mantel, concealed it under her voluminous nightgown and sat down at the cozy little table in the corner. Who knew when she could access enough poison to fell a man Bay’s size? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, her mama always said. Bay came back carrying a silver tray heaped with all the delicious things she had requested. Charlotte kept her lips pressed together so her drool would not escape.
    Mrs. Kelly stood in the doorway, giving her an accusatory eye. “Sir Michael, I hope you don’t mind I served these courses all at