Life was such a bore. Stephen hated this time of the year. Every man or woman of any consequence was invited over to his house to have balls, dinners, garden parties, and anything in between. And Stephen was forcibly pushed into attending every single one. Simply saying how do you do to every individual in sight, all the while keeping a pleasant demeanor and maintaining expectations. He desperately wished for something new.

And perhaps he wished a bit too hard.

He dragged himself to his bedroom after what seemed like the millionth ball that week, getting ready for bed and dozing off in the process a few times. He finally collapsed in his bed and was out like a light. He vaguely recalled being startled awake, only to be knocked out right after.

He came to consciousness, and immediately realized a few things. The first being that he felt very sick. The floor seemed to be shifting under him, and he felt as if he were about to throw up. The second, that he was tied up. And, after a moment's deliberation, the third. The floor was shifting under him. He was on a ship. Out at sea. Tied up in an empty room.

Well, at least it wasn't a formal brunch.

"Right. This is a bit of an odd dream." Stephen spoke aloud to nobody, his eyes wandering aimlessly around the room from his humbling vantage point on the floor. He tried to lift his head but strained his neck too quickly and involuntarily released a yelp. The door immediately opened, slamming with a bang into the wall, and a scruffy man wearing the strangest attire Stephen had ever had the displeasure of seeing stumbled in.

"Aye, he's up, Cap'n. Perky lookin' fella, ain't he?" Stephen looked up at the man with widened eyes, his mouth dropping open and forming a round 'O' shape. The man seemed to be conversing with someone else outside in his peculiar accent, and Stephen took the opportunity to silently drink in the presence of the man before him. Was this perhaps... a pirate ship? This meant two things in his mind: either he was going to be made to walk the plank as entertainment for the rest of the crew, if there even was one. Or, these pirates had kidnapped him expecting a handsome ransom for his safe return.

Now, now, the panic had set in. "Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear." he mumbled to himself uselessly, the urge to throw up returning in full force and churning his stomach with the same roiling motion of the waves. He dry heaved over the floorboards, the smallest remnant of his consciousness in the back of his senseless mind noting that the plank likely awaiting him outside was made of the same material of this floor he was about to ruin with the remains of his banquet dinner from last night. He struggled limply at the bonds holding his arms behind his back, the fight leaving him when his body began to shake.

The man at the door turned to face him abruptly, only one of his eyes swivelling to watch as the partially digested contents of Stephen's stomach found itself forced out of his body and spewed onto the floor. He coughed out the rest of the puke and turned to lie on his back, closing his eyes and waiting for the nausea to die down. That stupid, stupid wish. He was beginning to regret ever thinking such an idiotic thought, immediately thinking of his mother and father. He wondered what they were doing right now...

The door swung open a second time, this time with considerably more authority. Stephen, still flat on his back and staring miserably at the ceiling, did not bother to look. Whatever was coming through that door, he decided, could very well come to him.

"Good Lord." A voice. Female, which surprised him enough to roll his head to the side. "Get him off the floor."

"Cap'n, he's just been sick, I wouldn't-"

"I didn't ask for your opinion, Doyle."

Two sets of hands hauled him upright without ceremony and deposited him onto a wooden stool in the corner. Stephen blinked. Standing in the doorway, arms folded and expression arranged into something between irritation and mild curiosity, was a woman who looked as though she had a few kills under her belt. She was perhaps thirty, dark-haired, with a long coat that had seen considerably better decades and eyes that were currently conducting a very thorough inventory of Stephen's person.

"You're the Ashworth boy," she said.

"I am Lord Stephen Ashworth," he replied, with as much dignity as a man with vomit on his collar could reasonably summon. "And I should very much like to know-"

"Second son of the Earl of Pemberton. Your family's seat is Ashworth Hall in Wiltshire. Forty thousand a year, at minimum, though I've heard some put it closer to sixty." She tilted her head. "You look younger than I expected."

Stephen opened his mouth, then closed it again. "I'm twenty-four," he said, which was not at all what he had intended to say.

"Mm." She stepped into the room properly, sidestepping the unpleasantness on the floor with practiced ease, and studied him with the detached interest of a buyer appraising livestock at market. "You'll fetch a decent sum. Your father strikes me as the sort of man who is very attached to his children."

"He is," Stephen said carefully, his mind now working considerably faster than his stomach. "He is also the sort of man with a great many friends in a great many important places, so I would think very carefully before-"

"I have thought carefully," she said pleasantly. "I've been thinking carefully for the better part of six months. Do you know how long it takes to arrange the kidnapping of a nobleman? The logistics alone are-" she paused. "Well. That's neither here nor there."

Stephen stared at her. "You planned this. Specifically. Me, specifically."

"You were an easier mark than your brother." She shrugged one shoulder. "He rarely leaves London. You, on the other hand, wander out onto your own terrace at half past midnight at least twice a week. Dreadfully predictable habit."

The bottom fell quietly out of Stephen's stomach, which was impressive considering it had just emptied itself entirely. He had been watched. Studied. For six months, apparently, while he had been bored out of his mind attending dreary parties and wishing, like an absolute fool, for something interesting to happen.

"How much," he said flatly. "How much are you asking for me?"

The corner of her mouth lifted. It was not, strictly speaking, an unkind smile. It was, however, a very confident one. "Fifteen thousand pounds."

Stephen said nothing for a moment. "My horse," he then said, "costs more than that."

The smile remained. "I know. I've seen him. Magnificent animal." She turned to leave. "Someone will bring you water and something to settle your stomach. I'd recommend eating whatever they give you: we've got a fortnight's sailing ahead of us and self-imposed starvation makes the seasickness considerably worse."

"A fortnight?" His voice climbed an octave in a manner he found deeply humiliating. "Where on earth are you taking me?"

She paused in the doorway and glanced back at him over her shoulder, throwing him a perfectly red-lipped arc of a smile. "Somewhere your father's important friends can't follow quite so quickly." A beat. "Welcome aboard the Perseverance, Lord Ashworth. Try not to be sick on the floor again. It's bad for morale."

The door shut behind her with a decisive click.

Forty thousand a year and they were asking fifteen thousand for him. He was not entirely sure whether to be relieved or insulted.

He decided, on balance, he should probably be both.

The door had shut with an air of finality, and Stephen heard it lock afterwards. Even if he had the strength to carry out an escape plan, he didn't think there were many plausible options. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. He had a headache, and his nausea wasn't improving with the new smell of the room.

He could hear another door being opened, possibly one on the other side of the hall. There was some muffled talking from the woman from before and the other man. A third voice very abruptly joined the conversation, as if it was being kept from talking before. And it was not happy. It sounded vaguely feminine, but it was hard to pick out details, since it was mostly shouting and some... colorful language.

The captain shouted some kind of order, and several more words were presented, followed by a loud thump. Stephen guessed that it was the third voice being incapacitated somehow. The captain didn't seem like the kind of woman to suffer insults.

Nevertheless, he was glad for the noise to stop. His entire body just hurt, and the uncomfortable stool wasn't helping. He attempted to stand, but almost immediately fell back to the ground as a wave of sickness came over him. This was ridiculous. He missed dry land more than he ever had before.

A while later, the man from before opened the door and set down a bucket along with a slice of bread on the floor. He went to leave, but Stephen interjected,

"Wait, can't you untie me? How am I supposed to eat?"

He only gave a small chuckle and closed the door the rest of the way. Well, great. This boat was officially the worst place he'd ever been to.

Everything was much the same the next day. The horrendous pitching of the ship back and forth, hearing the sounds of the crew moving about on deck and below, and someone popping their head in occasionally, presumably to make sure he hadn't died yet. He had gotten close a few times. They'd also stopped keeping him tied up, and he spent much of his time pacing the room.

More days passed by, with nothing notable to mark the time. His fear and confusion were slowly replaced with curiosity. If these pirates had planned everything so perfectly, how were they supposed to get the money from his father? They were presumably going someplace undesirable, somewhere the captain had said they wouldn't be followed. Had they given a time limit, sending a representative to oversee the trade once the given expiry date was reached? That would be a reasonable strategy. Or perhaps, they'd left some of their men behind, to follow once they'd collected their reward. That would be how Stephen would've done it.

Despite the whole kidnapping thing, he had to admire their strategy. It was quite well thought out, and they weren't asking for anything too outlandish. They certainly could've asked a bit more, if only for his personal pride, but it wasn't as if he could change that.

The girl across the hall continued to be quite uncivilized. Granted, they were all at sea, and the rules had to be a bit different, but she could at least refrain from shouting profanities at every moment of the day. Stephen didn't want to shout back and be brought down to her level, but he was sorely tempted more than once.

It felt like they'd already been at sea for weeks, but supposedly they hadn't reached their destination, whatever it was. Stephen had nothing to do but sit with his thoughts. It surprised him that he wasn't thinking about home the majority of time. This whole ordeal had him thinking about the rest of his life. He'd never wanted to join the world of politics and nobility, it was all such a bore. His father had always expected him to take up the mantle of heir, since his older brother was, according to Stephen's father, a foolish boy, interested in nothing but himself, and unworthy to bear the responsibility of... blah blah, more politics. Lectures were a specialty of his father.

But Stephen had always looked up to Parian. He had never liked high society either. He spent the majority of his time away from home, but he and Stephen always got along very well. Parian had always wanted to be a musician, a profession father didn't approve of in the slightest. But he had followed his dream, and seemed to be happier for it.

Maybe he didn't have do be the next duke. Maybe he could move into town, or he could travel the world. He could have dreams of his own, there was no reason he couldn't.

His thoughts were cut off by the ship lurching quite suddenly. He managed to stay on his feet, but only very nearly. He had no idea what had just happened, but it definitely wasn't normal.

The ship was moving this way and that, and could've changed direction several times. They tipped to the side, and something slid under his door.

It was a key.

The key fit into his manacles perfectly, and he held the metal between his teeth and twisted, the chains falling free with a satisfying clunk. However, he was yet to realise, quite quickly, that escaping a room was one thing. Continuing that escape, while stranded on the high seas, is another. The ship was still lurching unpredictably, and the corridor outside his door (when he finally worked up the nerve to open it) was dim, and smelled overwhelmingly of tar and salt. He had no shoes. He had no plan. He had, if he was being honest with himself, no idea what a ship even looked like on the inside beyond this one wretched room.

He crept along the passage anyway, one hand braced against the wall to keep from being thrown into it. Shouting carried down from above: the crew, he assumed, dealing with whatever had caused the ship to pitch so violently. A set of stairs presented itself, and Stephen took them. He emerged not onto the deck, as he'd hoped, but into a narrow galley, and walked directly into the captain. Only her considerably better sea legs kept them both upright.

"You," she said, not remotely startled. "I did wonder how long the lock would hold once someone got clever with a key."

Stephen straightened, attempting what dignity he could. "I'll have you know I'm quite resourceful."

"You're quite green, is what you are. Sit down before you fall down." She gestured to a bench bolted to the floor, and, finding no better option, he sat. She didn't call for anyone.

"Where's your crew?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be shouting for someone to drag me back?"

"They're a bit occupied at the moment." She nodded vaguely upward, toward the shouting. "Weather's turned. Nothing we haven't handled before." She leaned against the counter opposite him, arms folded. "Go on, then. Ask whatever it is you're clearly dying to ask."

Stephen hesitated. Then: "Why me? Truly. You could have taken my brother. More money, less planning, from what you said."

"I told you. He rarely leaves London." She shrugged. "Your brother has people who'd notice him missing within the hour. You, they'd assume had wandered off to sulk somewhere for a week before anyone raised an alarm." A pause. "No offense."

"None taken," Stephen said faintly, because it was, unfortunately, true.

She tilted her head. "You don't seem particularly upset about that."

"Should I be?"

"Most lords would be."

"I've spent my whole life being the second son. I'm not the heir, so nobody expects much of me, except when it's convenient for them to expect everything." He laughed. "I was standing on my own terrace at midnight because I couldn't stand one more evening of being paraded about like a prize horse for marriage prospects. And now apparently I'm being paraded about as an actual prize. There's a joke in there somewhere."

The captain didn't laugh, but she didn't look away either. "So what would you rather be doing? If not being paraded."

"I don't know, exactly. My brother wanted to be a musician. Father thought it was beneath him. He left anyway, and he's the happiest I've ever seen him." He stares at the floor beneath him. "I think I'd like to see something of the world that isn't a ballroom. I don't much care what."

Above them, the shouting grew louder, and the ship gave another lurch that sent a stack of tin cups sliding off a shelf. The captain straightened, all business again in an instant. "Stay here. Touch nothing. If you go looking for the deck in this weather you'll be over the side inside a minute, ransom or no ransom." She was already moving toward the stairs. "We'll finish this conversation later, Lord Ashworth."

"It's Stephen," he called after her, before he could think better of it.

She paused at the top of the steps, glancing back with the ghost of a confident smile on her lips. "I know," she said, and disappeared above deck.