Glittering Promises

by Lisa T. Bergren

  “I don’t suppose,” I began, shrinking a little inside as all four men stared in my direction, “that you have anything to drink? I’m dreadfully thirsty.”

  The Italian with the pistol stared at me as if bored, then he waved at the American, apparently giving him permission to answer me.

  “Nothing in here, sweetheart. Sorry. But it’s not long until we get to where we’re going.” He reached up and pressed against the roof of the car, trying to keep from leaning against my injured arm again as we made another sharp turn. “Hawke!” he cried. “Ease up on those turns! There’s no one behind us!”

  I froze at the sound of the name, and the man looked over his shoulder briefly to meet my gaze. “Nice to see you again, Miss Cora,” he crowed. “So pleased that you could drag your Frenchie into the mix one last time so that I could quadruple my earnings on a certain exchange.”

  He smiled at the man in the passenger seat, and my eyes shifted to Pierre. He looked terrible, oddly gray-skinned and with a bruise rapidly forming beside his right eye. Beneath it was a small cut, with a short smear of blood, as if he’d brushed at it with his hands. He looked woozy, his head nodding down, then jerking up, then nodding again. “Pierre…” I tried.

  His head jerked up, and he looked over at me, grim and in obvious pain.

  What scared me most was that he didn’t say anything. No words of comfort, no light joke to try to ease my tension.

  Because he was clearly as frightened as I was.

  CHAPTER 32

  William

  When they reached the top of the hill, a footman looked over to them as if stunned. “They came so fast,” he said, lifting his hands. “They had them,” he said, gesturing toward William, Antonio, Pascal, and Felix, surely meaning Cora and Pierre. “They dragged them into the motorcar and vroom, off they went.”

  “Did you recognize any of them?”

  “No, but two or more spoke English.”

  Will’s heart paused and then pounded painfully. “Did one have blond hair, about this tall?”

  The footman, eyes wide, nodded.

  Nathan Hawke.

  Pain and fury flooded through Will. How had he managed it? To track them here to this private estate and find the rare moment when Cora was unprotected? And not even that, she had been with Pierre…

  The others had already begun running toward their motorcar, and Will did the same. He yelled over his shoulder, “How long ago?”

  “Three or four minutes!”

  “What color was the car?”

  “Black!”

  Black didn’t help him. Nearly all motorcars were black. And three or four minutes? Was that enough time for them to make it to the main road? Or another road he wouldn’t think to follow? Cora, he cried internally, anguished, as he jumped into the car beside Antonio, who pressed on the gas even as they were shutting the last two car doors. The car lurched, almost died, and then chugged up the hill and over it.

  They drove pell-mell through town, dodging wagons and pedestrians and even a goat, and when they finally began to descend the mountain—and Will could see the upper half of the serpentine road exposed—he swallowed hard.

  Because it was empty.

  Cora

  “Look out!” someone yelled up front.

  We were all thrust forward, almost out of our seats, as the brakes were applied and then, abruptly, the gas. We fell back.

  Up front, Nathan laughed and looked back at me. “There went your last hope! One lone police car, now off the road!”

  We had finished trekking the last of the switchbacks down the small mountain, it seemed, and now Nathan was driving faster and faster. Clearly, he knew the police weren’t my only protection. Did he think they would still be standing in the gardens, gazing at the fountains, wondering how long Pierre and I would tarry? I knew Will wouldn’t have been too patient. I wanted, with everything in me, to look back and see if I could spot his motorcar somewhere on the mountain road, chasing us, but I dared not. If Nathan wanted to believe he’d escaped them, so be it.

  I was still hoping Will and the others would somehow appear behind us when the car lurched to a halt and the men roughly dragged us out, separating me and Pierre into two cars, half the men entering one, half entering the other. Pierre and I shared one last fleeting, grim glance. In a matter of seconds, we were off again.

  This time, I did look back, watching in chagrin as our original motorcar pulled out behind us, going slowly, as if he wanted to be seen or wanting to create a physical barrier. I straightened and tried to gather enough saliva to swallow, thinking. A decoy. He’ll lead Will onto the wrong road…

  My eyes flicked up to see Nathan gazing back at me, a sly smile on his face. He did not have to say anything for me to understand.

  Pierre and I were in deep, deep trouble.

  There was one man to my left and one across from me. Two up front, including Nathan. I thought there was likely an equal number in Pierre’s car, but I couldn’t be certain. Pierre… I thought in anguish. It was all on account of me that he was in this mess. Why couldn’t I convince him in Venice that we weren’t meant to be? Why had he insisted on coming to Rome at all? And Tivoli? I shook my head. An arrow of guilt shot through me that I was glad I wasn’t alone in this, glad he was in this with me, even if we weren’t in the same car for the moment. Pure selfishness, I chided myself. I didn’t want anything to happen to Pierre.

  I knew that if Will caught up with us, or if I managed to escape, that was when it’d become most dangerous. Nathan wanted me and Pierre alive so he could extract a double ransom. Why else would he have taken us? It was why he’d tried before. But if I escaped, he’d want me dead. Because this time, he’d certainly be caught or hunted down. I would pay a hundred detectives myself to find him.

  Nathan glanced back at me in the mirror and then did a double take. “What is this?” he asked in a patronizing tone. “There is something new in your eyes. I do believe you’re angry with me. But I didn’t believe sweet Cora Diehl would ever look at me as if she wanted to kill me. You’ve changed since Vienna.”

  We went over a bump in the road, sending nearly all of us to the roof and back down, hard. It made my arm ache. I finally looked back at him. He didn’t need to know that I didn’t want him dead. Let him think what he wished. “You will pay for this, Hawke.”

  “Ooh,” he said, poking fun at me. “I like this new turn in you. Beautiful and tough.” He slapped the man next to him on the arm. “Is there anything more intriguing in a woman?” He looked at his cohort, then back at me.

  “They will find us,” I said. “And you will spend years in prison.”

  The motorcar slowed; we turned left, Pierre’s car turned right, and the decoy car continued on straight. Hawke’s grin grew wide. “No, Cora. They will not. Not where we’re going.”

  We passed the next hour in relative silence. Once in a while, Nathan would try to engage me, but I ignored him, unwilling to give him the satisfaction. The men in back with me stared out the window. I considered trying to open the car door when we began to slow down, attempting an escape at the corner, but with my injured arm, the mechanics and viability of it seemed impossible.

  Thinking of my arm made me consider how I broke it and my belief that someone had pushed me. Were the two events related? Hawke would’ve gained nothing by having me killed. Or had they only meant to weaken me, do exactly this—break an arm or a leg, making me an easier target? My stomach roiled at the thought, which made me also consider how often I had felt weak and queasy these last weeks. The fainting spells…could someone have been poisoning me? Could Hawke have paid one of our servants? Even one of the detectives who had pledged to protect us?

  Nathan slowed our car, and the man to my side took my arm, as if anticipating my idea of leaping to freedom. “Stay back,” he grunted, leaning forward, clearly not wanting people on the sidewalk to see me. Nathan had tucked his blond hair beneath a hat and kept his eyes low. Where were we?

  Anxio
usly, I watched as we passed groups of people, caught fleeting glimpses of women holding babies, of old men and women. The streets were busy, but I had no idea where we were, even after spotting a couple of street signs.

  “Girare a sinistra,” said the other man up front, obviously giving directions. He went on directing Nathan up and through a neighborhood, then over a hill—at which point I saw a brief glimpse of the sparkling sea, a jarring contrast to my dark circumstances—and then through a few more turns.

  We came to a quick stop, and one man got out, paused, then turned back to motion me out. The other car was right behind us, and I felt a surge of relief to see Pierre, to know that we might be together or at least in the same location. Nathan took my arm and ushered me down a side path, and again I saw the sea. We were high up, on a hill again, overlooking the sea, though we were about a half mile away. But then the water was hidden by walls and the back of a villa. We entered a small structure, which appeared to be an old garden shed, about ten by fifteen feet.

  Nathan took a length of rope and tossed it over a thick, ancient beam and then back down. Then he took my good arm, wrapped a slipknot around my wrist, pulled it to the small of my back, then around my waist.

  “May I sit?” I forced myself to ask him, though requesting any favor at all burned. But with my fainting spells of late, I didn’t want to break my other arm.

  “No,” Nathan returned rudely just as Pierre was led in by two men. They tied him in similar fashion ten feet from me, across the room.

  “Give her a chair, man,” Pierre insisted. “We may be your captives, but she is still a lady.”

  Hawke gave us a sly smile. “But I am no gentleman.”

  “Clearly,” Pierre muttered as Hawke left the shed and shut the door. We heard the crossbeam latch slide into place, and for a moment, I was transported back to Dunnigan, sliding the barn door closed.

  I looked in misery at Pierre, well aware that I was very far from home. Perhaps never more so than this moment. “I’m sorry, Pierre. Had you not come to Tivoli, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “But then you would be alone,” he said, eyebrows knit together. The bruise beneath his eye was darkening. “I am glad I am here to help you. Together, we shall escape.”

  “Escape? Do you think it’s possible? Or will we risk getting shot?”

  “I’d rather be dead than pay that scoundrel a penny,” he said, gesturing toward the door with his chin.

  “Truly?” I asked.

  “Well, perhaps I overstated it…” He gave me a slow smile. “But we must see that he is not paid. If we pay one kidnapper, we are doomed to a life of others coming to collect more of the same.”

  I took a deep breath and looked up to my tied hand, which was turning white from lack of circulation. I flexed my fingers and tried to not upset the slipknot as I wriggled my wrist, wondering if I just might free myself, but it only grew tighter. I assumed Pierre’s bindings were the same. “How do you propose we make such an escape?”

  “They want us alive,” he said in a whisper. “Soon, they will bring food, drink, or release us to use the bathroom. At the least they will surely bring us something to sleep on. However you get free, when I give you the signal, you run.”

  “I run,” I repeated. “What about you?”

  “I will divert them.”

  “But what if you cannot escape?”

  “Then you shall find someone to help me.” His eyes shifted to the doorway and back. “Whatever happens, Cora. Run. Hide. Agreed?”

  I didn’t like it. Leaving him behind, vulnerable to whatever abuse Nathan would mete out in his fury. The thought made me sick…but what choice did I have?

  If one of us had the opportunity, we had to run for help.

  CHAPTER 33

  Cora

  I’d been thirsty before, but as the minutes ticked by, I became desperate for something to drink. Pierre and I had stopped talking an hour ago, since every word seemed to make our throats drier. And I could no longer feel my hand. There was no window in the shed, but we could tell the sun’s position by the light streaming through the slats of the door. It was getting toward evening; hours had passed.

  “Do you think they will return today?” I asked. “Or do they intend to leave us this way for the night?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I couldn’t wait any longer, even though pride demanded I do so. “I need some water, Pierre.”

  “I do too.” He nodded at me and turned his head toward the door as he barked, “Hello! Ciao! Come!”

  For a moment, there was no response, and my thirst seemed to triple. Had they left us altogether? Were they in another building? My panic grew.

  But then we heard the scrape of worn wood, and a man appeared in the doorway, his hand on his pistol at his waist. “What is it?” he asked in a heavy Italian accent.

  “We need some water,” Pierre said. “We are no good to you if we die of thirst. And the lady is in need of a lavatory.”

  My cheeks flamed as he added this last bit. But I managed to nod, understanding now what I did not at first—the guard could place a glass to my lips for a drink, but he would have to untie me in order to get me to a lavatory.

  The guard grunted and then disappeared through the door, sliding the board-lock closed again.

  “No matter what happens, Cora, you go as soon as you have the chance. Do you understand me?” Pierre whispered, his tone urgent, his green eyes staring at the door. When I did not respond, he frowned and looked to me. “Do you understand me? If you are free and can get—”

  The guard was back. He came through the door and left it partially open, since his hands were full of a tray with a pitcher and two glasses. He set it down on a workbench beside Pierre and then came to me. After some effort and grunts, he managed to untie my wrist. Then, keeping a firm grip, he guided me to the tray. “Pour yourself some water.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “My good hand is numb.” I shook it, and winced. “And my other is…” I gave him a plaintive look.

  With a sigh, he poured me a glass and lifted it to my lips. Feeling like an infant but grateful nonetheless, I quickly swallowed it down, draining the glass. “Another?” I asked as sweetly as I could. “I’m so terribly thirsty.”

  Clearly irritated, the man poured a second glass.

  “I-I think I can manage it,” I said, even as I noted my hand was filled with a thousand prickles, the circulation returning. I reached for it and tried to grab hold, but as soon as I attempted to lift it, the goblet fell.

  The man swore and, without thinking, bent to grab the biggest piece.

  That was all it took. I turned and ran to the door, but one thought made me pause. Pierre. It felt so wrong to leave him! But when I glanced back, I saw that the guard had straightened, a dumbfounded look on his face.

  Pierre had managed to pull himself up by the rope and was swinging his body up to try to get the man’s neck in a leg hold. “Go!” Pierre growled even as the guard struggled to keep his feet. Clearly, Pierre did not want me to try to free him. We had only seconds before others in the main villa—which I could see now—recognized that the guard was taking overly long in retrieving me for the lavatory run.

  Another guard, carrying a pistol, rounded a corner, and as smoothly as I could, I moved around the shed’s far wall. I could hear the struggle going on inside, the crashing of a glass, which was bound to draw the other guard in seconds. Without a thought beyond getting away, the desire to flee exploding within me, I pressed through the tall hedge, squeezing between big branches, hearing my jacket rip, feeling it scratch…

  But in seconds I was on the other side, and having any sort of barrier at all between me and my captors made me glad. I held my breath and crouched as I heard a shout, and then another. I turned to look over my shoulder and almost gasped aloud. Because below me spread the corner of an ancient city—clearly an archeological dig now—with entire streets exposed. It was empty at this hour, the sun setting across the sea ju
st a half mile away.

  I scurried down the short hill and then took a footpath between some trees, glad for anything that blocked me from view from the villa. I heard more shouts and broke into a run, panicked that I’d been spotted.

  Around a bend, I dared to glance back.

  They were after me. I took in three men tearing down the hillside, not bothering with the path—and then Nathan Hawke burst through the hedge.

  I ran as fast as I could, jumping up onto a crumbling old stone half wall that surrounded the archeological site and running down the eerily quiet empty street that had to be thousands of years old. I dodged to the right, and then after a block, to the left, then right again, praying I was putting distance between me and my kidnappers.

  Out of breath, I turned into a larger building with taller walls and slowed to a hurried walk, sliding from one room to the next. I paused periodically to hold my breath and listen but heard nothing. I saw the earth-hued frescoes and figures in Romanesque dress, confirming that this was indeed an ancient city. I thought about our location, near the sea, and it came to me then. I scanned the room hurriedly, and as I moved to the next, and out into an alley, I caught sight of the jagged, cratered tip of an old volcano shining in the setting sun.

  I was in Pompeii.

  Not wishing to be in a thoroughfare for too long, I moved to the next building, trying to make sure Mount Vesuvius was to my right every time I glimpsed it. In this way, I made my way steadily across the spooky abandoned town. With each passing minute, I thought I might have lost my captors.

  But then I hit a broad expanse, an open area, with the remains of a temple on one end. It reminded me of the Forum back in Rome with its remnants of buildings, only a few remaining identifiable. I heard a shout behind me and started. Did I dare risk running across the grassy field? Or was it best to head to the side and use the remaining buildings to hide?