Chapter Text
It is a fact almost universally unacknowledged that there are 1,437 doors in the ancestral estates of Fairhaven. Only Morgan Sterling, the firstborn child of the Marquis of Fairhaven, has counted them all, though it took her two months to sneak into every corner to make she had missed none. All done in the name of amusement.
And amusement is what she now seeks, staking out the storehouse with the stolen key tucked safely in her trouser pocket. Amusement and rope with which to build the latest iteration of their magnum opus, a restraint and training tool for inappropriately handsy individuals.
Not that anyone else is likely to see it that way, she reminds herself bitterly. Anyone around here would probably call it a "deathtrap" or "unnecessarily complex and cruel."
It’s what they all said about the first one, after Morgan had put it to what she'd felt was very good use. How was she supposed to know that the unfortunate lout who'd tried to feel her up had been the heir to a dukedom? He certainly hadn't acted like one.
But regardless of whether his actions were befitting a future duke, his family supported him, and Morgan’s parents had gladly agreed to all the ducal family’s demands regarding Morgan in order to ensure Diego’s marriage arrangements with the Crown Prince proceeded smoothly.
They ostracized Morgan from polite society, and the Sterlings did their very best to make the world forget they’d ever had a firstborn daughter. With Morgan’s absence from all social functions, the world more or less had.
Forgotten by her family, Morgan has all the time in the world to spend on her favorite thing, just not all the resources in the world with which to do it. Inventing might have saved her from the endless banality of the social world, but it had also gifted her with a new problem.
Without the support of her parents, it was as if she'd never even existed. She was a ghost in her own home, even as the servants continued to clean her rooms and bring her meals.
New supplies to continue her experimentation were the most difficult to come by without an operational budget like the ones afforded to her siblings. It wasn’t as if she could just ask for them, after all. Her family deeply disapproved of her inventions, and would likely restrict Morgan’s freedoms even further should they learn of her continued experimentation.
So instead of just demanding a servant bring her whatever she needs for her latest work, Morgan sits in the bush nearest the doors to the storehouse. Her view of the guard’s patrol route is unobstructed. All she has to do is wait.
The guards aren’t new, but their patrol is. Part of the Marquis’ designs to keep her from causing problems with her inventions, which she’s not supposed to be creating.
Twigs catch on her hair while she watches the guards circle the building and for a moment she worries she’ll alert the with the noise. But she frees herself and creeps quietly forward, intent on fetching a new coil of rope. She'd used the last until the pieces were too short to be spliced back together again.
Security does a sweep of the grounds every half hour, leaving the door unattended for about two minutes each time. It isn't much, but Morgan had been sneaking around these halls all her life, and she'd swiped the key to hurry things along. Soon that rope would be hers.
Right on time, the guards begin their circuit of the perimeter. Morgan takes a deep breath, steadying herself as her mind focuses on the task at hand. Speed is crucial. The guards are only out of sight of the door for about sixty seconds, and she absolutely cannot leave any trace of her presence or they might think to check inside before the next perimeter sweep and find her hiding among the stores.
The pair of guards round the corner, and Morgan takes off from her hiding place at a sprint, footfalls silent from years of practice. Fifteen seconds to the door, and her lungs are burning from the effort by the time she reaches the door.
Key.
Key. Lock.
She fumbles with the key, fingers refusing to work deftly or swiftly enough for true criminal grace. But it's open in another twenty seconds and then she's inside, careful to scuff away the remains of her leather-slippered footprints in the sandy earth outside the storehouse.
It's dark inside, save for the brightness seeping in around the door, and it’s tempting to wait for her eyes to adjust before continuing, but the walls are thin. She has another minute, maybe two, before the guards are close enough again to hear her moving around inside.
Fortunately, this isn't her first forbidden foray into the family storage facilities, and she wills the pendant around her neck to life, illuminating a faint circle in front of her in dim blue light. The rope is easy enough to find, coiled into bundles and hung on a long peg in a stack. She grabs down a bundle and slips it into the empty bag at the small of her back.
Now for the wait.
Morgan sits down on the floor behind the door, where its opening will cover her from view for a few precious seconds in the event someone tries opening the now unlocked warehouse door. Boots don't make that much sound in sand, but she can hear the rustle of the guards uniform if she listens closely. Tuning into the small sounds that prove the guard, she leans her head back against the wall and closes her eyes.
It's several hours later when Morgan next opens her eyes. She suppresses a curse when she sees the now-reddish late afternoon sun seeping in under the cracks in the door. Having a nice lie down was not part of her plans for this heist, and the evening guard rotates differently from the daytime guard. She leans against the door to listen, hoping her luck hasn't run out. If the night guards come before she can leave, she'll be stuck in the warehouse all night.
Fortunately, there are only two sets of boot noises coming from the other side. Still a daytime watch of two then. At sunset they switch to four and they do not leave the door unattended, even for a moment. Not when darkness could cover a sneak-thief's entrée.
Morgan takes stock of her body with practiced, professional detachment, carefully stretching out her stiff, sore legs to allow more blood flow back into them. Tingles turn to burning fire as the blood returns, and she locks her jaw to keep from squirming to make the change go faster. Once her legs feel bearable, she turns her attention to her shoulders and arms, leaving her prized rope coiled in her lap while she stretches the sleep from her upper extremities.
A noise at the door catches her attention, and then the sound of boot steps moving swiftly away from the door. She's out of time for stretches and preparations. Morgan climbs to her feet, wishing she'd had just a few more minutes to work out all the stiffness, and slings the coil of rope over one shoulder. Time to move.
She opens the door to the dying red of sunset and exits, pausing only long enough to make certain she latches the door before she goes. From the far corner of the building, a twig breaks. Her head jerks towards the sound. Two guards. The ones circling the building, or half of the night relief team?
Morgan doesn't waste time considering which. She breaks into a sprint towards the gardens, where the landscape will provide the most chance of hiding from her pursuers. She cackles wildly as she runs, the footsteps of the soldiers behind her growing slowly more distant. They're no match for her best speed. Not in full armor.
But her best speed isn't something she can keep up forever, and Morgan slows once she reaches the treeline marking the western edge of the garden. Speed wouldn't matter if she left a trail so obvious a child could follow it.
In the distance, more boot steps joined the first. More guards called in as backup. Morgan searches the trees as she passes, stalking along the edge of the treeline, just out of sight, rather than continuing further into the gardens. It was here somewhere.
At the base of a perfectly nondescript tree, she finally spots it. Plan B. She scoops it up in one hand and hurries towards the garden's center, unbundling it as she goes.
The dress fits oddly over her breeches and waistcoat, but it covers her other clothes adequately enough. With her hat stuffed into a pocket beneath the skirt and her wretchedly long hair hanging loose around her, she looked little enough like the same urchin who'd crawled out of the storehouse only minutes prior. Not like a proper lady, but enough of a disguise to get by, she hoped.
"Hey, you!" calls a deep voice from twenty yards away. "What are you doing with that rope?"
Dammit. A guard. She hasn't figured out how best to hide the rope underneath her skirts, but that doesn't matter anymore. There's a long hedgerow between herself and the guard, so Morgan does the only logical thing age can think of.
She makes a run for it. Deeper into the gardens, it's easy enough to lose a pursuer. She pulls ahead of the guard easily, and soon he's nothing more than the distant crunch of boots through dry straw bedding. Without slowing her pace, Morgan's head turns back, scanning the terrain for any signs of pursuit.
Morgan's flight comes to an abrupt end when she runs, bodily, into something hard and unyielding. The impact rattles her skull, and she buckles, finding herself suddenly stationary and with her knees on the ground.
"Is this what passes for hospitality here in the East?" An unfamiliar voice says from somewhere above her head. Morgan tries to look up, but the ringing in her ears makes the way the horizon lurches at the slightest shift in position feel utterly unbearable, and all she can manage is to look at the stranger's shoulders, broad and covered in exquisitely tailored but sensible fabric. They must be a guest, and a recent arrival at that. She opens her mouth to speak, but no sound comes out.
Behind her, the bootstraps grow louder, and panic rises in Morgan's throat despite the throbbing in her head. "Tell them you didn't see me," she croaks, grabbing onto a nearby tree trunk to support her shaky return to her feet.
"And why would I do that?" The voice asks. Morgan wishes she could spare the attention to get a good look at the stranger's face, but the world is spinning abominably now, and it's all she can do to keep her feet beneath her.
"Because it'll be far more interesting that way," Morgan replies, shuffling herself towards a little hollow beneath a row of bushes. Her body moves well enough except for the inescapable feeling of pitching relentlessly sideways at every slight movement, and she crouches down beneath the branches, the unremarkable, muddy green-brown of her dress disappearing handily beneath the foliage in the dim light.
The stranger doesn't answer, just watches her hide. Morgan briefly wonders what this person must think of a lady who hides in shrubberies, but dismisses the thought at once. It doesn't matter what they think of her. She doesn't really exist anyway, except in a fuzzy, technical sort of sense.
It's only after she's crammed into her hiding space than Morgan sees her coil of rope in a pile of mulch near where she fell. She must have dropped it in the collision. But the guard breaks the clearing just as she's considering how best to retrieve it, squashing those plans before they can fully form.
"Begging your pardon, my lord, but have you seen a young woman come through here carrying a large coil of rope?" The guard asks, bowing politely at the waist. Morgan holds her breath, hoping beyond hope she isn't about to be ratted out.
"I can't say I have," the stranger drawls, a sudden menace in their tone. The guard swallows, but then spies the pile of rope Morgan had so foolishly left sitting in plain view.
“Then what’s this?” He asks, picking up the coil with one hand. His other danced nervously about the hilt of his sword, as if he wished the security of his hand on its hilt but did not dare risk doing so before a guest who might be someone important. Morgan resists the urge to shrink back from view even further.
“It looks like a pile of rope,” they say, disinterested.
“And you didn’t see who left it here?”
“I already said I haven’t.”
“Are you certain you didn’t see anyone?” the guard presses again.
"Is this the famed skill of the Perfect Knights at work, accusing a guest of misconduct to cover your own failure to catch a wayward woman?" The words themselves don't seem like a threat, but they're razor-sharp somehow, making the guard shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other, suddenly nervous.
"I seek only to fulfill my duties, my lord," he replies, a hitch in his voice giving away his nerves as much as his posture. "My apologies if my inquiries have offended you."
"It is of little consequence, carry on," the stranger says with all the interest due a pebble in their shoe. The guard hastily bows again and heads off at a right angle from his approach, loping towards the outer edges of the garden again.
Several minutes pass in excruciating silence as the footsteps recede into the backdrop and then disappear amongst the regular noises of nature in the garden. Morgan's head still aches, but the vicious shifting of the horizon had slowed to a manageable level.
"The coast is clear," the voice says. "Now you can come out and explain to me what you were planning to do with all that rope."
Fuck. Explaining herself never goes well. She could pretend to be a silly noble lady and fake a fainting spell? She stamps out the notion before it has time to take root. If she doesn't come out of this freely able to move about the grounds and in possession of the rope, the entire day's work will be a waste of effort.
She unfolds herself carefully from underneath the hanging branches of the bush, knocking several pink flowers loose as she passes. In times like these, she's always grateful for her diminutive stature—a tall person could never get into the spaces she can. Closing her eyes against the dizziness, she straightens herself out and offers a polite smile. "Thank you for that," she says. "I deeply appreciated your help."
"No doubt about that," the stranger says. "But why do you need so much rope?"
"For my inventions," Morgan says proudly, not bothering to hide her intentions. She’s no good at it, anyway. Might as well be honest from the start. "This one's just a simple snare trap over a pool of flesh-eating fish, but I've been thinking of adding a candle beneath the rope, like a delayed release—" She stops abruptly, realizing that she's said far more than her family would deem appropriate for polite conversation. Morgan braces herself for ridicule or disapproval, but the stranger laughs!
"That would be quite an excellent use of rope," they say in between fits of laughter. "I bet the face of whoever ends up in your next Deathtrap will be absolutely priceless!"
"It's not a Deathtrap!" Morgan insists, petulant. Why does everybody call her inventions that?
"It's a trap, and it's deadly. Deathtrap is just a simplification of terms.”
"It’s not like anybody ever actually dies in them," Morgan says. “Is it really a deathtrap if nobody dies?” Now that she's upright, she can finally get a good look at the stranger's face, if only her vision would stop swimming. She shuts her eyes against the unsettling movement, which only somewhat calms it.
"Are you sure you're alright?" the stranger asks, taking a step forward when Morgan sways on her feet.
"Oh yes, I'm fine," Morgan answers quickly, forcing her eyes open with the power of pure panic. The last thing she needs is to garner the attention of the steward or worse, her parents, by needing to be seen by a physician. They did not appreciate the reminder of her existence, and she'd learned quickly that it was better to suffer alone than withstand the "kindness" of her family.
The stranger looks unconvinced, but lets it go. In the far distance, a bell tolls, marking the hour. Six in the evening, just an hour shy of the evening meal.
"They serve supper in the great hall in an hour," Morgan says, doing her best to sound as if she's simply remarking upon the hour and not trying desperately to rid herself of someone who might look too closely at her still-swaying posture and determine a physician was in order. She isn't certain of her level of success, but the stranger seems to decide about something and nods in agreement.
"Then I must take my leave, my lady," the stranger says politely, extending a hand. Morgan offers hers in reply, and the stranger brushes their lips across the back of her knuckles as if she were a fine court lady and not a rumpled urchin with twigs in her hair. “Until we meet again.”
Long after the stranger's footsteps fade into the buzz of background noise, Morgan stands there in a daze, the phantom of a kiss tingling on her fingers.