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Letting her bound wrists take her weight, Ellie swung her feet up and thrust them out toward the opposite post… and missed.

Her shoulders wrenched as she half-fell off the bed. Holding her breath, she froze, listening to the noises from the next room.

No outcry broke the rustling quiet—only the click of a closing door.

She climbed back into place and tried again. This time, her boots connected with the post. Ellie braced herself there, suspended awkwardly over the end of the mattress.

She pushed.

The effort took every muscle in her body—shoulders, abdomen, thighs—all focused precariously on forcing her body into a straight line.

The frame of the bed creaked in protest… and then gave way as the joint between the post and the beam separated with an audible crack.

Ellie slid down the length of the wood and collapsed onto the floor, her heart pounding madly in her chest.

Scrambling to her knees, she tugged her bound wrists free of the beam, then brought up her legs, shoving aside the awkward folds of her skirt to work at the stocking that bound her ankles. She loosened it and kicked her way free of the makeshift rope.

She tried to pull on the gag, but Jacobs had tied it too tightly. With her hands bound, she couldn’t reach the knot at the back of her head.

That didn’t matter. She didn’t need to scream… not if she could run.

Ellie crept to the door, conscious of every subtle creak of the old floorboards. There was no sound from the other side save for the short scrape of a chair adjusting position and the rustling of a few papers.

Silently, she twisted the knob, opened the door the tiniest crack, and peeked through it.

Dawson sat at the table in the parlor. He was bent over some object of study—the map, presumably—scratching away in a notebook with an expression of intense concentration.

Ellie widened the crack in the door and risked a better look. The professor was alone.

The room was stuffed with trunks and cases. Jacobs and his companion had clearly planned on an extended stay in the colony. In fact, some of the equipment she could see strewn about indicated that they had packed for an expedition.

And why wouldn’t they, when only a woman stood between them and what they wanted?

The thought sparked a bolt of indignant fury. Ellie supposedtheywouldn’t have any trouble at all finding a guide.

Most of the gear looked brand new. Ellie could also see an entire crate full of books. Books! She couldn’t imagine how expensive the freight tariffs on a crate of books must have been.

Whoever Dawson and Jacobs were, they had far more resources at their disposal than Ellie would have suspected for a pair of rogue thieves. The thought was an unsettling one.

A window near the bed behind her opened onto the veranda. Ellie could easily climb through it and dash—but then where would she go? The local constabulary? They would only have Ellie’s word that Dawson and Jacobs were criminals. How would she explain where she herself had come by the map and medallion if the pair tried to turn the tables on her?

She couldn’t. She’d stolen it herself, more or less—rather more, she admitted ruefully, even if she’d been boxed into it. Who were the colonial authorities here in Belize Town most likely to believe? A lone woman or two well-dressed gentlemen, one of whom apparently boasted the title ofprofessorand could afford to carry a crate of books across the sea with him?

The answer to that was obvious.

Dawson’s chair scraped again as he rose, muttering to himself. He crossed to the books and started shuffling through them, putting his back to the table.

Ellie’s pulse jumped as she realized that she was looking at an opportunity to do something more than simply escape before Jacobs returned to murder her.

She slipped through the door and moved silently behind the professor’s back to the makeshift desk.

The map and the medallion lay on top of it, just as she had known they would.

Ellie snatched up the two relics just as Dawson turned, his eyes widening with shock.

“What the devil!” he exclaimed—then jumped nervously at the sound of a key turning in the lock of the door that led into the hall.

Ellie shoved the map and medallion into her skirt pocket and whirled for the French doors at her back. They had been left open to ventilate the room, leaving her way onto the veranda blocked only by a length of mosquito netting.