Read Online Escapade by Walter Satterthwait - Free Book Online

“Are you quite certain of that?” she said.
    I smiled. I think it was a paternal smile, but I could be wrong. “Time for you to get back to your room,” I said.
    She watched me. She lifted her left hand from her chest and ran her index finger down my own hand, from the back of my wrist to the first knuckle of my thumb. She canted her head slightly to the right. “Are all Americans so noble?”
    I nodded. “We take an oath.”
    Her fingertip was soft and warm. So was the second fingertip, when it joined the first. So was the third. She was still watching me, saying nothing.
    I should have stood up. I should have moved away from her. I told myself I was only sitting there because I was curious. Someday I’ll sell myself the Brooklyn Bridge.
    “Bedtime,” I said.
    “You probably think,” she said, “that I’m a nymphomaniac.” “A nymphomaniac?”
    “A woman who desperately—”
    “I know what the word means.”
    “I had a friend, Gwendolyn, who was declared a nymphomaniac. They put her into an lunatic asylum. She was smitten with one of the footmen at her father’s estate. I’ve always felt that one couldn’t blame her for it, really. Peters was absolutely dishy, and we all had a crush on him, all of us girls. But her parents took her to the family doctor and he signed some papers saying she was a nymphomaniac, and that was that. Now she’s locked away with all the lunatics.”
    “Why didn’t her parents just dump the footman?”
    “Dump? You mean dismiss him? Oh, they did that, first thing, of course. But Gwendolyn ran off, to be with him. She was totally smitten, you see. But they caught her. And then they had her put away with the lunatics.”
    “I’m not sure that one footman makes a nymphomaniac.”
    She nodded seriously. “I think that nymphomania, the idea of it, it’s something men invented, don’t you?”
    “Probably,” I said. “Come on, Cecily. It’s time for bed.”
    “I’m already in bed,” she said. She smiled, and then winced again. “Ow.” Her fingers squeezed lightly at my hand. “We have a rule. Here in England. If someone has a pain, a sore chin, let’s say, someone else has to kiss it. To make it better, you see.”
    “We have a rule in America. We don’t fool around with the host’s daughter.”
    She made a face. “Or his horse, or his automobile. I’m not just a daughter , you know. I’m not a piece of property. I’m a person in my own right. I’m a human being.”
    “I can see that.”
    “So. Do I get my kiss?”
    She had gotten comfortable with the part she was playing. So had I. That was the problem.
    “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go.”
    Her fingers left me. She plucked the handcuffs from the bed and held them out with both hands. She looked at me playfully over the connecting chain. “Who should wear them first, do you think? You? Or me?”
    “Let’s go, Cecily.”
    She moved pretty quickly for someone who had been unconscious just a few minutes ago. She swung a cuff at my arm and it clicked shut around my wrist. “You, I think.”
    I stood up, away from the bed. The handcuffs dangled from my left wrist. “The key, Cecily.”
    She laughed. A light musical laugh. She crossed her arms over her chest and she shook her head. She smiled, as smug as a burglar in a bank vault on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
    I took a step toward her.
    It was then that I heard the scream.
    A woman’s scream.
    Hard to tell where it came from. But the walls were stone. It had to be somewhere nearby.
    Cecily had heard it too. Her head was cocked. The smug look was gone. She was listening, puzzled.
    It came again, louder this time. A long frightened shriek. A wail.
    I said, “Give me the key, Cecily.”
    Cecily’s forehead was furrowed, her mouth was open. She closed her mouth and reached into the pocket of her robe. She frowned. She looked at me. “It’s gone.” She dug around in her pocket. “It’s gone !” Her voice had become shrill. “I had it, I know I had