Herald of Steel

As Miss Linda and her conspirators planned their escape, everything seemed to be going well.

The lady had already identified a small part of the mansion that was generally overlooked, as it ran through an abandoned part of the house that had by now had mostly fallen into ruin.

This happened due to the disaster of five years ago, and as it was rarely used even back then, the entire block was simply deemed too damaged and not fixed.

But the structure around there was still mostly solid, and Miss Linda vividly remembered that it led straight towards one of the house's exits situated at the eastern side.

So if Miss Linda could just get to that corridor, it would be a simple case of posing as a servant and slipping out into the wide streets. Then she would be wide and free, able to easily slip through the many cracks in the guard's checkpoints and rejoin her husband.

The only real obstacle to this plan was the guards posted at her door.

But that single barrier was also quite big for her to be able to overcome on her own, since these men stuck to her glue wherever they went, never daring to let her out of their sight even once.

Miss Linda had initially thought of trying to honeytrap them, but she had made a mistake with that.

During her attempted seduction of the pasha, in her hubris, she had let slip what she had done with them, as a way to make Alexander take the bait.

She had tried to reason to Alexander- since I have been already defiled, what does it matter if I am taken again? The deed has been already done.

In that way, Miss Linda had tried to make Alexander taste her, confident in her ability to show him such a good time with her lower half that he would forget all about Lady Miranda and join her side.

After all, Lord Cassius did, so why would any other be different?

That brilliant plan however had of course backfired, and to make matters worse, it had also alerted the other side to this compromise in security.

And while Miss Linda was initially ecstatic to see the same guards posted by her door, she soon found out the men had changed.

No longer did her willy seduction work, as the two resisted all her charms with stalwart determination.

These men were not fools, and being veterans who had lived through many battles, had come to cherish their lives very much.

So once was already enough.

If they broke the rules again, they very well knew that Alexander was truly going to snap their necks.

There would not be a third chance.

Thus, when Miss Linda had tried to overreach and act out in one of her attempts, one of them fiercely threatened to leave her tied to her bedpost for the entire night.

Miss Linda gave up on her efforts after that day, knowing it was futile.

Instead, she was forced to look outwards, for external helpers.

But the problem there was that there was none. None suitable at least.

Everyone was either too weak to be able to command the guards to look away as she escaped or what was the more prevalent case- simply unwilling to.

Thus Miss Linda quickly identified there were only four people in the whole mansion who would be able to help her-

One was Alexander, but the ship with that man had already sailed long ago. Miss Linda would not waste her breath with him.

The second was Alexander's guard's captain, the one who oversaw the day to day activities of the guards' routine. But the problem was Miss Linda did not know the man's name, and she had never seen him alone even once. He was always with Alexander, like his shadow. So he was out.

The third was Lady Miranda- this did not even need to be considered. If she could be convinced, then why would Miss Linda need to run in the first place? The conflict would be already over.

So that only left Lord Cassius, who was the most malleable of the four, the weak link.

But even this weak man initially proved a tough nut to crack for Miss Linda. He was a loyal man who would not betray his wife at the drop of a hat just because the other side opened her legs and asked nicely.

Miss Linda needed some kind of leverage, some kind of pressure point to grab and squeeze on.

But the lady was unable to find any for much of the time.

Until that is, a divine miracle happened, general Achillas came to meet bearing a letter of great importance.

This was exactly the last piece of the jigsaw that Miss Linda needed.

She was able to rope in Lord Nolan by using his fear of death, and easily convinced him to sacrifice his own son for his sake.

Then it was only a simple matter of cornering Lord Cassius with the two of them, and graced by a bit of luck, they were able to apply just the right amount of force along with a bit of grease to break the delusional man.

Lord Cassius was promised that his father's life would be saved, as would the lives of all his family, the siege would be lifted and most of he would have his dream wife.

Miss Linda even threw in the promise that his current wife Lady Miranda and Alexander would be spared and even treated leniently.

"I would never dream of hurting of eldest sister. She is my sister!" The two faced woman had appeared visibly offended at Lord Cassius's mere suggestion that she would even dare to think of such an act.

And with these honeyed reassurances, as well as seeing there was little hope for their side to win if Lord Parker really did turn off the water tap, Lord Cassius, without consulting a single word with his allies, capitulated on his own.

Thus Miss Linda finally had her insider.

With this key obtained, they soon set about ironing out the details of the escape, but here, the large number of escapees proved a difficult burden to pull off.

Four adults and a child proved too hard to make disappear at once. Especially given their high status.

So they first thought of going in batches.

Miss Linda and LN would be the first to leave since they were the most eager to escape, followed by Lord Cassius and Lady Adele, who would also be carrying Quentin.

Yes, The mother was so eager to escape and so afraid that her son's cry might give their position away that she was willing to leave his son's life at the hands of his aunt.

The youngest lady of the Margraves family was that ruthless.

But the problem with that idea was any one of them escaping would surely alert Alexander and make any subsequent attempts for the remaining others many times harder.

So after a bit of haggling, it was decided that they would go out together, using two separate routes.

This was not the most optimum idea, as this secondary route was not as vulnerable as the other route, but this was the compromise the group reached.

And to correct for this unforeseen obstacle, the groups were also changed.

Now it was decided that Lord Cassius and his father would take the more dangerous route, where Lord Cassius would be hopefully able to deal with any nosy guards should be run into them, while Miss Linda, her son, and Lady Adele were given the safer route.

And with this decision, the fateful day finally came.

It was around mid afternoon on a very overcast winter day that Quilus and his mate found themselves guarding Miss Linda's doors like any other day, being bored out of their mind.

There was nothing for them to do here except stand and doze off

And given the time- around mid afternoon, everyone was doing it, including Alexander, who always took a small nap at this time.

And this was the exact window Miss Linda had decided to target, as suddenly Lord Cassius burst out of the door from the lady's room, shouting, "Quick, get the maids. Quentin has ruined the carpets."

The guards would regularly snigger regarding how frequently this lord had started to visit his sister in law recently, but all of those filthy thoughts were pushed out by this sudden order.

It did not take a genius to understand what the infant could have done to ruin the carpets and the two guards lampooned at all the nasty work they would have to do.

But fortunately for them, not a moment after Lord Cassius made this announcement, a few servants and maid happened to be 'coincidentally' passing by that very corridor and rushed in to help.

They rolled up the entire carpet with extreme alacrity and within only a few minutes, removed it from the room, carrying the heavy cloth on the shoulders of two very buff men towards who knows where.

And then because the room would look too gross with mismatched carpets, another pair removed the second carpet too and carried that outside as well.

And all the while this was going on, none of the guards bothered to question why the two carpets looked so unusually 'fat'.

Yes, Miss Linda and Lady Adele had decided to escape like this, by hitching a ride on these servants', who were her spies, shoulders.

So simple yet so ingenious.