This is from The Blossoming of the Wallflower, which I wrote The End to an hour ago.

Merrilyn recovered consciousness slowly. Her sense that something was wrong first focused on her aching head, then she became aware that the room about her was not her own, then the assault in the garden returned to her memory, and she was suddenly awake.

She sat up and paused for a moment while her head stopped reeling, then looked around. She was chained by the ankle to the iron frame of a bed in a room that had a bedside table, a washstand, and nothing else. No other furniture. No paintings on the wall. No drapes.

The room was dingy with age. Dirt, too, though it showed signs of recent inexpert cleaning. What had she been taken for? Some of the more lurid possibilities from the scandal rags and gothic novels sent panic surging.

She swallowed it down. Panic would not help. She returned to her catalogue of the room’s contents, hoping to find something she might use as a weapon.

The washstand held a bowl and a jug of water. Either might work to hit someone with, though the jug would be better, since it had a handle. On the bedside table was something covered by a napkin. She lifted it to find a glass of drink and a plate of food—all items that could be picked up with the fingers. No utensils.

That was it. But she had not checked in the cupboards. The chain was long enough that she could get to the floor on either side of the bed. She opened the cupboard under the bedside table first. It was empty. While she was there, she looked under the bed. Nothing but dust.

Rather than clamber over the bed, she went around it, lifting the chain to clear the bed end. The washstand held a chamber pot, thank goodness. She had an immediate and urgent need for it, and it would also be another weapon if required.

After she was comfortable again, she resumed her seat on the bed—for lack of any other—and thought about her options. One of the heroes in a gothic novel she had read had picked the locks on his shackles and on his cell door with a pair of hairpins that the heroine managed to send to him tied with ribbon around the neck of a rat she had befriend.

There had been an entire page given to the scene in which he tempted the rat close enough to be caught using scraps from the stale bread that was his only solid food. The whole concept had been ridiculous, but Merrilyn was willing to try anything.

She pulled out a couple of the pins with which she had fastened her night-time plait in a coronet around her head, and set to work. Each time she felt something within the lock move, her heart lifted. And fell again a moment later. After a long frustrating time—in which the sunbeam from the window had discernably moved across the floor—she had to conclude that either the use of hairpins to unlock shackles and cell doors was as mythical as tame rats who obediently carried keys to neighbouring cells, or the skill required a knack she simply didn’t posses.

The pins had just been returned to her hair when she heard a noise from the door. The handle was moving. She reached out for the jug, which was now only half full. It was the weapon most readily to hand, but rather cumbersome.

She relaxed as soon as the man entered the room and spoke. He was masked, and his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Ah. You are awake. Good. I have brought more food. You do not need to be afraid. I will not hurt you, and you will be returned home as soon as your trustees have paid the ransom.”

Silly man. Did he think she would not recognise her own father? She gave him a curt nod, and was grimly satisfied when he collected the contents of her chamberpot, rinsed it out with the water in the bowl, and then left with the bucket before saying, “I shall be back shortly with a cup of tea. You would like a cup of tea, would you not, Mer— Miss Parkham-Smith?”

Silly, silly man. She gave him another curt nod.

After he had returned with a tea tray and left again, she sat back against the pillows to consider this latest development. Given that he had served her himself, it seemed likely that he had no henchmen lurking around the corners. If she could once get out of the shackle, surely she would be able to sneak out of the house without attracting his attention?

She examined the shackle again. It did not fit tightly on the ankle. Might it be possible to force her foot through it, and gain her release that way? She removed her shoes and tried, but could not get the heel through.

The chain was the next possibility. She examined every link, but all were solid, with no sign of any weakness.

The foot it would have to be, then. She removed the relevant stocking and the top of her foot and her ankle. Even with her foot pointed to be as straight as it could be, the heel was still an obstruction, but not as much of a one as before.