Abigail had managed to hold herself together during the worst of it, but there had been no familiar faces at the time and the men who were supposed to be employed to keep these sorts of things from happening had been utterly uninterested in anything beyond being entertained by the spectacle of her attempt to get away from unwanted attention.
In the end, she’d done something terrible and struck her assailant with one of the heavy beer tankards in reach, and fled to one of the upstairs rooms – praying that Max and Mister Rackham would forgive her for causing a scene, especially when she didn’t bring them the sort of money expected in an establishment like this. All she did was help out with the kitchen staff, but that hardly kept men from thinking they had a right to her anyway.
The sound of the door unlocking was the only warning she had, and she barely managed to wipe her face by the time it opened. Her breathing was still telling, and she couldn’t bear to face her employer just yet, wringing her hands nervously against the fabric of her dress as she choked out, “I’m sorry – “
The sight of a pressed cloth startled her, and after a moment, she reached up and took it to dab at her eyes as Mister Rackham knelt, seemingly to check on her. After a moment she did gather her courage and look at him. “He wouldn’t let go,” She explained quietly, “I didn’t mean to cause a scene.”
Ocean Archive 