The Hostage

Her clothes were tattered, her feet sore, her hands bleeding. Every part of her ached, right down to the roots of her hair. She wondered when the dawn would come, and what the day would bring. Staggering along the shore, she had to make a wide bow around the mob. She found herself wading into the surf and felt lake water swamp her, swirling around her ankles, stinging and then numbing her raw and wounded flesh.

Then, through the babble of German, Polish and Norwegian, through the brogues of Irish immigrants and the flat accents of native Chicagoans, she heard her name being called in a clipped, educated voice. “Deborah! Deborah, is that you? Deborah Sinclair!”

Her head snapped up and she scanned the lakeshore drive. A tall sleek coach was parked amid the drays and farm carts. A slender man in disheveled evening wear stood on the box, a long quirt in one gloved hand, the other hand cupped around his mouth. The wind stirred his blond hair and in the sky behind him, fire blossoms glowed.

Philip.

Chapter Five

The moment Deborah recognized her fiancé, everything seemed to be sucked out of her. She stood unmoving, so wracked by dull astonishment that she had frozen solid. Unable to reason. Unwilling to feel anything. There was Philip, looking as handsome and commanding as he had—was it only Saturday night? Now he was calling to her again, ordering her to come to him.

Only seconds earlier she had been thinking of a new life, a new start, unencumbered by expectations, promises and obligations, and her own sense that she had no purpose in life other than fulfilling her father’s intentions for her. Now she conceded, with a humble sense of defeat, that she had no idea how to make a life on her own.

As if in a trance, she picked her way toward Philip, her thoughts dissolving into a confused muddle. Shock and fatigue pushed her toward him, the only familiar face in a world gone mad. She felt as helpless as the dog had been, trapped behind the glass in a burning building, at the mercy of the only person willing to rescue her. The brief fantasy about disappearing swirled away; it had no more substance than the wisps of smoke hovering over the lake. It was time to go back to the life she had planned and to the man who would direct it for the rest of her days.

Chill gusts of lake-cooled wind chased after her as she moved slowly up the steep bank to the place where Philip waited, perched on the running board of a carriage. Numbing exhaustion closed over her. Lines began to blur. Resignation dulled her thoughts. Anything, she told herself, anything was preferable to the hellish night she had just endured.

At last Deborah reached him, reached this man she was scheduled to marry. This man who was regarded by polite society as the American version of royalty. This man who would give Arthur Sinclair grandchildren who would be accepted in the same circles as the Guggenheims and Vanderbilts.

Philip’s handsome face, so refined it was beautiful in the firelight, was her beacon. He extended a gloved hand. “Thank God I found you, darling.” He spoke in the mellifluous lazy drawl of a Harvard Porcellian clubman. “What a stroke of luck!”

She stared at the black leather hand reaching for her.

The long, elegant fingers twitched with impatience. “Come along, then,” he said. “I don’t intend to sit among riffraff all ni—damn!”

The small dog snapped at him. He glared at the creature, then at Deborah. “Where the devil did you get that?”

“From a shop. A burning shop…” Her mind was a screaming jumble. Disjointed thoughts flew past and disappeared before she could grasp them. She felt numb; she could barely speak.

“Never mind,” Philip said. “Just get rid of the filthy creature and take my hand. There’s a girl.”

The screaming in her head grew louder, yet like a sleepwalker, she obeyed. This was Philip, for heaven’s sake. Philip, whom she’d known since she was tiny. Who had suffered through ballroom dancing lessons with her, who had sat stiffly in her father’s study and promised to offer Deborah entree into the highest circles of society in exchange for her hand in marriage—and a staggering dowry.

She thrust aside the instinctual resistance that held her back. At Miss Boylan’s she had learned to dread scandal over all else—bodily injury, personal insult, wounds to the soul. Only the lowliest of breeds would make a scene. This lesson had been hammered into Deborah, so she set down the little dog. It danced about her feet and scrabbled its paws desperately at the hem of her skirts, but she ignored it, refused to look down.

Philip gave another expert flick of the whip. The dog yelped and scurried away, scampering under the carriage. Finally coming to her senses, she tried to go after the mongrel, bending low to peer beneath the conveyance. Philip reached for her, and his gloved hand closed around hers, tugging upward.

“Not so fast,” said a rough and terrible voice behind her. “She’s coming with me.”

The madman. Wild dark hair, battle in his eyes, he towered over the crowd gathered in the roadway.

Philip dropped her hand. “Clearly you’re mistaken,” he said with an incredulous bark of laughter. “Stand down, man. You’re in the way, and I’m in a hurry.”

“Philip, this man is a menace,” Deborah babbled. “He tried to murder my father!”

When the buckskin-clad man moved in closer, Philip swore and brandished the whip. The braided leather lashed out, but unlike the dog, the outlaw didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. He merely put up a fist the size of a joint of roast beef and caught the whip in midstrike.

He hauled back with the motion of a seasoned fisherman, reeling Philip in like a trout. Philip spat a curse even as he fell forward off the carriage box. It was hard to tell if he collided by accident with the other man’s fist, or if the man actually threw the punch that knocked him cold. All Deborah knew for certain was that Philip Ascot IV gave an unhealthy groan and crumpled to the ground like a dropped sack of feed corn.

She stared at him for a moment. The fine frock coat had twisted awry, revealing a small pearl-handled handgun protruding from his cummerbund. How odd to think of Philip carrying a gun. Yet after last night she realized she didn’t know him at all. Reflexively, she reached for the gun.

A large, soot-smudged hand closed around her wrist. She cried out and tried to pull away, but her abductor’s hold on her was implacable. She was a fool for not being quicker and grabbing Philip’s gun when she had the chance. Not that she knew the first thing about using a handgun. But now she had nothing, not so much as a hatpin with which to defend herself.

The man pulled her away from the road and down toward the lake.

“No!” Numb inertia gave way to defiance. She dug her heels into the grassy embankment by the roadway. “Let go of me!”

He ignored her protest, dragging her along behind him with callous brute force. Dear God, what had she done? Why had she hesitated to join Philip in the enclosed safety of the carriage?

It occurred to her, in a flash of new awareness, that she’d had a third choice. She could have—should have—fled by herself. Yet she’d failed to seize the opportunity. Independence had never been an option for her.

“Help,” she called to all the people they passed. “Save me! This man is trying to kidnap me!”

Some within earshot stared at her curiously but most merely shook their heads and went back to their own struggles. No doubt they had seen more bizarre sights this night than a hysterical woman.

“Please,” she tried again. “I don’t know this man. He’s abducting me. For the love of God, please help!”

A workman in knickers and shirtsleeves stepped into their path. The wild man said nothing, only gave him a burning look, and the man stepped out of the way. The brute’s towering height and the breadth of his shoulders made him a fearsome spectacle, Deborah realized with sinking hopes. Still, she kept screaming, and a priest in a long cassock approached, rolling back his voluminous sleeves to reveal surprisingly beefy forearms.

“See here now,” he said in a thick Irish brogue. “The poor lass is out of her head with fright.”

“That’s a fact, mon frerè,” said the big man. “My poor wife lost everything tonight, and she’s not herself.”

“Wi…wi—” Deborah was too shocked to get the words out.

“I reckon she’ll be all right by and by,” her abductor said, grasping her insolently around the waist. He held her so tightly she could scarcely breathe. “We could use your prayers, mon frère. We surely could.” He pulled her quickly away, heading down toward a wide wooden pier that jutted out onto the lake.

“But he’s not…I’m not his wife—” she called, but she was dragged relentlessly along, and the Irish priest had already vanished into the throng on the beach. Deborah opened her mouth to call out again, but before she could speak, her captor pressed her roughly against one of the wet timber piers upholding the dock. He put his angry, frightening face very close to hers. She could smell the leather and smoke scent of him—the essence of danger and strangeness.

“Quit your caterwauling,” he ordered. “I’m out of patience.”

She forced herself to glare up at him. He was a giant of a man. She had never seen a man so tall. She was terrified, but she had nothing to lose. “And patience is such a gift of yours, I’m sure,” she spat with far more bravado than she felt. “What will you do? Sock me in the face? Shoot me?”

“Tempting offers, both of them.” He took her upper arms in a bruising grip and lifted her bodily off the ground. The sensation of being entrapped between his strong hands raised a havoc of panic in her. The blood drained from her face and dry screams came from her throat, but he didn’t seem to be bothered by her protests. Handling her like a longshoreman with a timber bale, he bundled her into a small wooden dinghy tied up at the pier and cast off the ropes.

“What are you doing?” Deborah shrieked. “You can’t—”

He shoved off with such force that she fell backwards, hitting her shoulder painfully on something hard and sharp. The impact drove the breath from her lungs. By the time she righted herself, he was pulling strongly out into the lake. The hot glow from the burning city made him appear more fierce and frightening than a dark angel.

He glared at a spot over her shoulder. “What the hell is that?” he muttered, laying aside his oars.

“What is what?” she asked.

“Something in the water.”

She grabbed the side of the boat and twisted around. “Philip?”

“Close. I think it’s a rat.” He reached down, the fringe on his sleeve brushing the surface of the water, and scooped up the animal, holding the dripping, shivering creature aloft. “Yours?”