by Susan Wiggs
When he arose, he gave one curt nod that told Tom there would be no good outcome to this.
“I won’t say I’m sorry because that won’t help,” Sinclair said quietly. “But we’ll pay whatever claims are made.”
Tom looked into the face of the man who had destroyed so many lives, and he felt…nothing. The killing rage was gone. This man had also brought Deborah into the world. He was glad he hadn’t killed him that night in Chicago. Sinclair was not worth the price of his soul.
“You can’t buy your way out of this,” Tom said. “You’ll rot in hell. It doesn’t matter who puts you there.”
Sinclair didn’t flinch, but his knuckles whitened around the head of the cane. “You ruined my daughter, you bastard. You’re scum—”
“Father, stop.” Deborah’s voice cut like a knife. Though she was disheveled, she looked magnificent, as blond and strong as a Valkyrie. “Enough of this. Tom Silver saved me from ruin. I can’t begin to tell you the ways. He has given me more honor and respect than any drawing room gentleman.” She put out her hands, palms up. “I love him, Father.”
Tom’s jaw nearly dropped. He supposed he had known it, but this was the first time he’d heard the words. Yet even as his heart soared, he understood that her stark, honest declaration wouldn’t change a thing.
Sinclair rounded on him. “You took advantage of a naive young woman, and for what? You’re a man with no prospects, nothing to offer her.” He lowered his voice to a hiss only Tom could hear. “You can make this hard, or you can make this easy. Let her cherish whatever memories you’ve made here, but don’t break her heart. Let her go, damn it.”
Two things became clear to Tom in that moment. Sinclair, in his cold-blooded fashion, cared for his daughter. And in that same cold-blooded fashion, he meant to march Tom out into the woods and shoot him like a dog.
He said nothing, but walked away from the pit. He heard Sinclair’s uneven footsteps behind him. “Take my daughter aboard the Triumph,” Sinclair called to the detectives.
Wide-eyed, her beautiful face nipped by the morning chill, Deborah moved toward Tom. “I’m not leaving him,” she said. “He’s coming with me.”
The tallest detective, who wore a silk patch over one eye, stepped in front of her.
“Don’t be difficult,” Sinclair said, taking her arm. “If you go along peacefully, we’ll leave him be. If you continue to defy me, it’ll go ill for him.”
“Go on,” Tom said, infusing his voice with brusque command. “Winter’s over. You can’t stay here.”
She stared at him as if he had slapped her. “Oh, yes I can.”
“Your father’s right,” he forced himself to say, when what he really wanted to say was that he loved her. “You don’t belong here. You never have.” He took in the island with a sweep of his arm. “What happened here…is over.”
She raised her face, wet with tears, eyes wild with panic, and stared at him in disbelief. He wanted to comfort her fears, to tell her not to be afraid, not to grieve for him. He knew of only one way to do that. And that was to lie. For if he told her the truth, she would hurt for all the rest of her days, and he didn’t want that.
He looked her square in the eye, hoping she would never guess at the ache of love that clutched at his heart. “Save your tears for someone else, Princess. You were just a means of revenge for me.”
Her mouth froze in a shocked O. Her face drained of color.
He took one last look at her. She had the face of an angel. Hard to believe he had awakened this morning with her warm and loving in his arms. And with that thought, he forced himself to turn away.
* * *
Deborah wondered why two of the Pinkertons lingered on the island while she and her father got into one of the launches at the dock. Ever loyal, Smokey leaped into her lap. The third detective picked up the oars and rowed powerfully out to the steamer. She felt sick and dizzy from the events of the morning. In the back of her mind she had known that changes would come with the spring thaw, but she had never believed those changes would be forced on her by her father.
Once she was aboard the steamer, a steward and a maid scurried to settle her into her stateroom, but she lingered on the midships deck, grasping the cold iron rail. You were just a means of revenge for me. Tom, who had never, ever lied to her, had spoken the words with rock-hard conviction. They pounded at her, mocked her, and for a moment she hated him.
She hated him because she knew he lied. He loved her. Oh, he’d never said so, not in so many words, but in every thoughtful gesture and handmade gift. Every fleeting smile across a cozy, firelit room. Every caress of his hands and mouth, his body. He loved her, yet he was making her go away from him.
She heard her father approach and stared at him with dull eyes. “I will never forgive you for this,” she said.
“My dear, it’s for the best. You’ll see. Now, go inside where it’s warm, and—”
A loud crack split the air. The dog yelped in alarm.
“What was that?” Deborah asked.
Her father made the mistake of looking over his shoulder at the settlement. And then she knew.
In the split second afterward, her soul flashed white and burned to ashes.
“He was a menace, a madman,” her father said, speaking quickly, almost nervously. “If we’d left him be, we would have no peace. We’d always be wondering if he would come hunting us again.”
At first she could not react. Her hands seemed to freeze around the guard rail, to atrophy there like the hands of a corpse. The two remaining detectives strode quickly down to the dock, got in the launch and rowed for the steamer. A high, thin sound came from Deborah, a sound of insane rage that crescendoed into mindless screams. With no thought but getting to Tom, she threw her leg over the rail.
Instantly, strong hands grappled with her, hauling her back. She fought and scratched, kicking out, but someone grabbed her from behind. A hand holding a cloth closed over her mouth. She turned her head wildly, but the pungent, sweet vapors of chloroform assailed her, drawing a flood of tears from her eyes. The lake became a shimmering gray and white nothingness, and she thought it was odd to be drowning, for she hadn’t even jumped in the water.
PART FOUR
The longest journey is the journey inward.
—Dag Hammarskjold
THIRTY-TWO
Deborah awakened in her opulent stateroom aboard her father’s yacht. Heavy red draperies festooned the alcove berth, held back by thick gold tasseled cords. For a few moments she floated, unmoored and groggy. As a girl, she had whiled away many delightful hours aboard the steamer, on long lazy cruises over the lake while her father entertained guests.
Then she remembered. That life didn’t belong to her anymore. Moving too fast, she sat up and had to hold the wall to keep from falling. Cobwebs of the surgical chloroform hung in her mind, sticky and sluggish. She fought her way free of them. Tom, she thought. Tom.
Only this morning she had thought she could see her future unfurling like a dream before her. Then her father had arrived, trapping her like a fly in a spider’s web. She had been forced to trade her freedom for Tom’s life. Like a fool, she had trusted her father to honor the terms of their agreement.
Instead, his hired assassins had shot the man she loved.
Had Tom died instantly? Or had he bled slowly and violently into the snow until the bitter cold took him?
Sick horror welled up in her, but she forced herself to go to the door. She pulled down on the lever. Locked. Of course it was locked. She was a prisoner again, bound away to the gilt cage of her father’s world. Smokey trotted beside her, but she was too numb to pay him any mind.
She went to the narrow clerestory window, holding the edge and standing on tiptoe to see outside. The grim, striated lines of the island’s ridges were still in close view, telling her she hadn’t been unconscious for long. She could hear the stokers feeding fuel to the boilers. Soon she would be on her way.
“No,” she w
hispered, and the hiss of the boilers drowned out her voice. Even if they took her away she would find a way to come back. But to what? Tom was gone. Gone.
She dropped to her knees before the basin and wretched. The veil of confusion lifted, letting in the truth. The horror and grief. The memories of hatred and violence that had occurred on Isle Royale.
She wanted to remember this as the place where she had been happy. Not a place of nightmares. Her father had taken that from her, too.
Yet she wanted the pain, she craved it. She wanted to remember, to feel. For that was what she had learned here. Life was not a matter of marrying the right person or residing at the right address or attending the right functions. It was knowing the beauty of nature, the warmth of a true friendship, the pain and joy of love. That was what she had found here. And that was what she had lost.
Pulling herself to her feet, she returned to the window to watch the jagged shore of Isle Royale and remember every moment with Tom. His long thoughtful silences and the sound of his laughter. His habit of listening to her as if her words were the most important ever spoken. The unexpected slow, gentle caress of his hands as he made love to her. The way he had whispered endearments in French patois into her ear as they lay together each night. The way he had sometimes seemed on the verge of telling her something, then changing his mind.
Her breath came in short, hurtful gasps, fogging the window. How would she go on without him?
Courage. She was brave now, far braver than the quailing, cringing creature dragged aboard the Suzette. The night of the fire seemed ages ago. She had learned so much from Tom Silver. He’d lost Asa but he had forced himself to go on, honoring the boy’s memory by living. By not just surviving but learning to embrace life again, to love again. Regardless of his parting words, she knew he had loved her in a way no one ever had before.
She could do no less for Tom. She must do honor to the gifts he had given her. She must go on. She must find justice, not only for Tom but for all the islanders scarred by her father’s careless quest for more wealth. She knew she would have to work quietly and carefully, but one day she would see her father and his cold-blooded hired guns punished.
But not now, while tears scalded her cheeks. For now it was all she could do to keep from going mad with grief. As she stood at the window, hearing the thump and grind of the steamer preparing to get under way, she heard a noise outside the door. She didn’t move.
She heard a metallic click as a key turned in the lock. Smokey growled and scampered to her side. The door opened and shut. Finally she pushed away from the window.
Shock slammed into her like a physical blow as she stared at the man who stepped into the room. She felt as if she had plunged into icy water and was drowning.
Philip Ascot spread his arms with negligent grace. “Surprise, my darling,” he said.
Echoes of remembered terror rang through her. This was the man who had raped her. He had reduced her to a timid creature filled with self-doubt. If not for Tom, she would still be that creature.
Had she ever thought Philip handsome, with his beautifully cut hair and even white teeth, his perfectly tailored clothes and manicured hands? She could not remember because she was no longer the superficial young woman who believed marrying well was her purpose in life.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in a voice that revealed nothing.
“I came to help your father fetch you home,” he said reasonably. “If not for me, he wouldn’t have come at all.” Philip cut an elegant form as he quietly shut the door. “You see, my dear, your father had declared you a lost cause. He believed I would forsake you after your adventures with that savage from the north woods.”
The telegram. The declaration that she was of no value. Her father must have underestimated Philip’s need for her fortune.
“Yes,” Philip went on, “he was going to leave you to rot with those savages. But I convinced him that I am a man of my word. I promised to wed you and I intend to make good on that promise. Just because you had the misfortune to fall into that barbarian’s filthy hands is no reason for me to abandon my vow of honor.”
“How selfless of you,” she said. “Tell me, did you force Father to double or triple my dowry in order to keep your promise?”
He laughed with delight. “It’s not as if anyone else of consequence would have you now. All Chicago knows the savage ruined you. But I am a man of great common sense—”
“And what was it, common sense or cowardice that made you stay hidden instead of coming ashore?” Even as she asked the question, Deborah knew the answer. Philip Ascot was a coward in every sense of the word.
“Since we quarreled when we were last together, I feared you might think I was still angry with you, so I thought it best to stay out of sight,” he said in all sincerity. “I explained to your father—”
“We did not quarrel,” she said. Anger nearly drove out her grief. She leveled her gaze at him and refused to look away. “You attacked me, Philip. You raped me.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Is that what you believe? My darling, I gave you what every bride-to-be yearns for—a taste of the pleasures of the marriage bed. It’s not my fault you were too immature to appreciate it.” His gaze flicked over her, taking in her plain dress and unkempt hair. “Maybe Tom Silver did me a favor, turning you into his whore. Maybe now you’ll appreciate a man of refinement.”
“I would take more pride in being his lover than your wife.”
A look flashed in Philip’s eyes that she had seen many times over the years. But until now she had not recognized it for what it was. Rage. It had lived in him for a very long time.
He took a step toward her. The dog growled again.
Deborah felt a flicker of apprehension. Philip had shown himself to be a cold and violent man. But here? On her father’s boat? She realized she couldn’t depend on her father to help her. He was blinded by his desire for social acceptance.
“Get out,” she said in a strong, loud voice. “I don’t ever wish to see you again.”
He kept walking toward her. She caught a glimpse of the pearl-handled pistol he had been carrying the night of the fire. Oh, how she wished she had snatched it up that night and kept it. But she had been too timid back then. Too indecisive.
“Go away, Philip,” she said, taking a step back. But that was a mistake. The beautiful draped bed loomed behind her, an opulent cage of red velvet and gold braid.
“Don’t be absurd, darling.” He reached for her, grasped her by the shoulders, put his face very close to hers. “This is what you were made for,” came the familiar whisper. “This is but a sample of the pleasures that await you once we’re wed.”
It was happening again, just as it had at the opera. His hands, grabbing, pushing. His mouth speaking vile lies. His body pressing her back. She was too shocked to respond.
“Lie down now,” he said, pushing hard. The small mongrel latched onto the cuff of his pants, but Philip just kicked the dog aside. He tore her gown, splitting the seam at the shoulder. “Spread your legs for me. Play the whore for me like you did for that savage.”
The memory of Tom stirred her spirit to life. “No!” she yelled in her loudest voice, a voice she had never heard before. Even as she screamed a protest, she brought her foot up swiftly and hard. Her knee connected with his groin, the most vulnerable part of a man.
Philip’s lungs emptied. He doubled over, clutching himself. She seized the advantage to bring her other knee up, smashing it into his face. Hot blood spurted from both nostrils.
Deborah experienced a flash of amazement. What a weak, powerless creature he was, and always had been. It was she who had changed, finally able to see him as he was.
As he choked out a name she had never been called before, she grabbed the lapel of his coat, reached in and took his gun. It felt small and heavy in her hand. The panicked dog scampered under the bed. She had no idea if the gun was loaded, but when she pointed it at Philip and saw the e
xpression on his bloodstained face, she knew.
With the snub nose of the gun leveled at her assailant, she knew the truth of what Tom had discovered, facing down her father. There was no redemption in killing a man.
She kept her gaze fixed on his, aimed the pistol toward the bank of pillows on the bed and fired once to summon help. The gun convulsed like a hot, live thing in her hand. Philip jumped, then recovered and grabbed her wrist. He wrenched the gun from her as acrid smoke filled the air.
“You’ve lost your mind,” he snapped, pale from her attack but fast gaining strength. “How dare you assault me—”
Suddenly the cabin door banged open. Arthur Sinclair swept the scene with a look of pure confusion. “What’s going on here?” he demanded, coughing from the light layers of gunsmoke. “Philip? What’s all this blood?”
“That,” Deborah said stonily, “is my reply to his proposal.” With icy dignity, she pulled together the pieces of her nightgown.
She felt her father’s gaze fall on her bare shoulder and saw the moment his confusion turned to realization. “Dear God, I should have listened to you, Deborah,” he said. “This was what you were trying to tell me that night. You son of a bitch,” he said, wheeling around to face Philip. “My daughter was right about you after all—”
Philip’s expression didn’t change as he extended his arm and pulled the trigger twice.
Deborah’s father kept his eyes on her as his hands came up to cover his chest. The blood that leaked between his fingers was the color of ink. He sank down, never once taking his gaze from her face.
She didn’t feel herself move or hear herself scream. She suddenly found herself on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. With her father’s head in her lap, she heard shouts and the thud of running feet on deck.
Her father’s hand groped clumsily at his chest. She thought it was from pain, but in a moment she saw that he had extracted something from his pocket. It was her mother’s lavaliere, stained with his own blood. His eyes were open, his mouth working. She bent to hear his whisper.