Chiara – Revenge and Triumph Read Online Free

suddenly felt like jelly, and she held on to the sill. Tears blurred her vision. Could she do this to her father? Never see him again? Would she be able to survive? What had looked so simple and straightforward — granted it entailed unknown hardships that she was willing to suffer — had become heartbreaking and forbidding. It would be so easy to call it off. Should she try once more to make her father change his mind? But it only lasted a moment. No, nothing would shift him.
    She climbed onto the sill and eased herself out of the window, reaching for the foothold she knew was three feet below. She blocked out all thoughts of falling, focusing entirely on the mental image of the wall features she had burned into her mind over several days. Holding on to the outside of the sill with her left hand, she wedged the fingers of her right into a crack in the wall and searched with her right foot for the small opening farther down. Her foot slipped off twice before she felt secure enough to lower herself to the new position and shift her hand holds. It felt like eternity before the bushes brushed her legs some twelve feet down and she dared to jump to the soft earth, immediately licked and smothered by the two dogs.
    "Quiet," she whispered. Obediently, they desisted, sitting down, eyes on her. She looked up to her room, wishing that it would again be hers, the sanctuary of her girlhood, a girlhood she was leaving behind, that would be lost forever.
    Avoiding the pebble path, she skirted along the bushes to the far side of the garden, followed silently by the dogs. "Quiet," she whispered again, hugging each animal briefly, and then pointed to the house, saying "Go." She was sure their sad eyes revealed that they knew she was leaving. "Go," she repeated, pointing once more to the house, and they wandered slowly away.
    Before dipping into the narrow tunnel that led to the secret exit, she cast one last glance at the castle that had been her home. She tightened her jaws to suppress her tears and strengthen her resolve. Then she opened the heavy iron gate that she had oiled a few days earlier so that it would not creak. She locked it again from the other side. At the bottom of the dark tunnel she hid the key behind a loose stone at knee level.
    Once below the high garden wall, she hurried down the path to Nisporto. A few hundred feet from the first houses, she left the track and skirted the village. When she was above the fishing harbor, she scrambled down the rocky slope to the shore, where a row of boats of various sizes was drawn up unto the sand. Staying just above the water’s edge, she approached cautiously.
    As she reached the first boat, the bark of a dog made her freeze. The clamor of dogs would be her undoing. She knew that the fishermen had been nervous lately about sightings of pirates between the island and Corsica. They had been raided a few years earlier, and she had heard of another village on the southern shore, where all able-bodied men, women, and children had been carried away into slavery. But the single warning was not followed by renewed barking. Hidden in the shade of the boat, she let her heartbeat slow itself. She had intended to look for a rowboat in good shape and small enough for her to handle. However, with the threat of a dog raising the alarm, she dared not venture farther along the beach. If she was to get away, she had no choice but to take this first one.
    She carefully inspected its outside hull — rather difficult in the deceiving light of the moon. It had no visible holes but was in bad need of a coat of paint. Peering over the edge, she was relieved to see the oar inside. Her mind was made up. She placed her canvas bag on the little bench at the stern, folded her cape and put it there too. The next task was to get the vessel into the water. First, she tried to push it, but it simply dug itself deeper into the sand. Maybe she needed to pull the boat, lifting its front at the same time. Jerking it