by Linda Ladd
Chapter 24
Alysson walked down the center aisle to the stage, pausing a moment to watch Odette and Billy rehearse. A thrill shot through her to think that they were all working together again. She looked up as loud hammering sounded far above her head, where several plasterers were putting final touches on winged cherubs holding garlands of fruit and flowers. Velvet flocked crimson wall covering had been hung on the walls. It was still hard for her to believe that in the short space of a month the burned-out shell of the mansion had been transformed into the MacBride House Theater.
The only development to mar their plans had been the outbreak of the war between the United States and England. President Madison had declared war on the eighteenth day of June, and since they had received the news, Donovan had been preoccupied and very busy, often spending long hours organizing a committee called the Coast and Harbor Defense Association, to strengthen the defense of New York harbor. The occupation of the city when he was a boy was his blackest memory, and he was determined never to let it happen again. She rarely saw him through the day while she worked at the theater, and at times, he was even required to spend the evening hours with his committee work. Otherwise, the war had affected the city little thus far. But she often worried about Jeremy's safety way out on the Canadian frontier, as well as Brace's well-being down in New Orleans on the Halcyone.
Alysson looked around the front rows for Katie, then remembered that she had gone with Mathilde to the springhouse for a drink of cold water. She headed there in search of the child, passing the area where carpenters were finishing the dressing rooms, greeting with a smile those standing in the hallway before she stepped out into the backyard.
Katie was turning out to be wonderful as Puck; the mischievous fairy was very much like the little girl's own personality. But now it was time for them to run through their scene together, and Alysson hurried down the path to the spring, frowning when she found it deserted.
"Katie? Mathilde? Where are you?"
Almost at once, Mathilde stepped from the corner of the stone springhouse wall, and Alysson went toward her. The German woman and Katie had taken to each other from the beginning, and she wondered what they were up to now. As Alysson drew closer, she could see that Mathilde wore a very strange expression on her face.
"What's the matter, Mathilde? Where is Katie?"
At that moment she caught sight of Douglas Compton behind the springhouse. She gasped in horror when she saw that he held Katie tightly against him, a small pistol pointed at her temple.
"I don't want to hurt her, Alysson, I really don't, but I will if you don't do what I tell you. Both of you."
Katie whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut, and Alysson stood very still, her eyes riveted on the gun at the child's head.
"Please don't hurt her, Douglas. I'll do whatever you want."
"There's a path just behind you. Walk down it. You first, old woman."
Mathilde obeyed, and Alysson followed, trying to think what she should do. If she screamed, the workers at the house would come running, but she was afraid to do that, afraid Douglas's gun would go off.
"Why are you doing this?” she asked, looking back at him as she walked. “She's just a child, a baby. Douglas, please—"
"Shut up,” he snapped, and Alysson said nothing else as they came out of the trees to an overgrown, rutted road. The black Compton carriage waited there for them, and Douglas dragged the child to the door.
"Get in, and hurry up,” he ordered harshly, looking around nervously. After Alysson and Mathilde had climbed inside, he pushed Katie up behind them. Alysson quickly gathered the little girl protectively in her arms, holding her close while Douglas clumsily maneuvered his maimed leg into the coach. He sat in the seat across from them, then tapped the barrel of the gun on the roof. He smiled as the carriage started to move. No one spoke, and Alysson tried to soothe Katie, whose muffled weeping was the only sound.
"Douglas, please, tell me why you're doing this. Where are you taking us?"
"You'll know that soon enough,” he answered, leaning back with his gun resting on his bad knee.
Alysson looked at Mathilde, who sat beside her in wide-eyed terror, then back at Douglas, disbelieving that he really meant to harm them. He was not a cruel man; he was not a killer. He would never get away with such a kidnapping. Donovan would kill him for what he was doing.
They rode in silence, north, as far as Alysson could tell. A slow-rising panic crept up to curl around her heart as the coach was driven onto a ferryboat. He was taking them out of the city. But where? And why? She watched him closely, wishing he would look away so she could grab for his gun, but she gave up on that notion after a moment, afraid the gun might discharge and hit Katie or Mathilde.
After nearly an hour of bouncing and jouncing over rutted post roads, they rolled to a stop. Douglas got out first, then motioned them down. Alysson looked around, her gaze latching onto the large sailboat tied up on the wide river that stretched out before them ... the Hudson River.
"Get aboard,” Douglas said to Alysson, waiting as she stepped down on the deck. She reached up for Katie's hand to help her aboard, but Douglas pulled the child back.
"Not them. They're going back."
Relieved that they were to be released, she listened as Douglas spoke to Mathilde, who held Katie clutched against her skirts.
"Listen well, old woman. Take her home and tell MacBride I'm taking his wife on a little trip. Give him this with my compliments."
He handed her a letter, then Alysson watched Mathilde help Katie back into the coach. Katie calling out Alysson's name as they were driven away. Douglas limped to the railing and stepped aboard, and as three burly sailors pushed the small craft away from the dock, he gestured her toward a cabin in the stern. She bent and entered the low passageway, backing away in the large cabin as he followed her inside.
"Sit down, my dear, and get comfortable. We have a long trip before us."
Alysson obeyed, taking a seat on a small cushioned bench, watching warily as Douglas put his gun into a holster on his belt. He retrieved a bottle of wine from a cabinet, smiling at her as if she had just joined him for tea.
"Would you care for a glass of wine, Alysson? Please don't look so frightened. I would never hurt you, never. You know that. I've done everything possible to make sure you'll be comfortable on our journey. You see,” he said, gesturing to the luxurious surroundings. “I've had every convenience brought aboard for you. There, in the trunk, you'll find all the clothes you will need. I had them made for you at Madame Bouvier's."
"Why are you doing this to me, Douglas? What do you possibly hope to gain?"
"Gain? I'll gain revenge on your dear husband and Adam Sinclair, and I'll have you with me again. I've loved you from the beginning, and I intend to marry you when we reach England."
Douglas was mad, Alysson thought with icy fear. He was really insane. She chose her words carefully, afraid now to anger him.
"Please, Douglas, let me go. I know you and Donovan are enemies, but I am legally married to him. You can't get away with kidnapping me like this."
Douglas lowered himself carefully into a chair across from her, arranging his leg in a comfortable position. He took a sip of his wine before he answered, watching her over the rim. He smiled slightly.
"Poor little Alysson,” he murmured, half to himself. “You are so naïve. You don't have the slightest idea what's been going on all around you all these months, do you? You don't know about me, or about your precious Donovan's secret life, and you don't even know who Adam really is, do you?"
Alysson's brow furrowed, not understanding what he was talking about. “I thought Adam was your friend. What has he done? Why do you want revenge against him?"
"Because he's a bloody traitor!” Douglas flung at her harshly, and Alysson pulled back from the cold mad light that had come into his eyes. “He made a fool out of me! For months! Pretending to work with me against the Americans, and all the time h
e was reporting everything we did back to MacBride!"
"Against the Americans?” she repeated slowly. “But you're an American!"
"Oh, no, I consider myself as English as you are. England is the mother country, and she always will be. You would be astounded at how many Americans still feel that way. England should rule the United States just as she does Canada, and she will again. This war will bring them back to heel, just as your father and I planned all along."
"My father?” Alysson said, sickness congealing in a hard lump in the pit of her stomach once she began to understand. Douglas was a British spy; he worked for her father.
Douglas's smile was lazy, self-satisfied. “No, Daniel isn't your real father, but you don't know about that either, do you? Adam Sinclair fathered you, and that's why he'll be only too glad to do exactly what I tell him to do."
All color drained from Alysson's face. “Adam? My father? I don't believe you."
"You can believe it, my love. Lord Tyler told me himself in a letter, after I wrote and told him all about your little silver cross and all the interesting things you told me about your mother. His Lordship's been trying for years to find out the name of Judith's lover, and it rather raised me in his esteem when I told him about Adam Sinclair. He is most eager to get Adam back in England where he can exact his own revenge on him. Revenge is the sweetest nectar life has to offer, Alysson, and I'll soon be enjoying it myself."
Still stunned by his revelations, Alysson could only stare at him. But slowly his words began to sink into her mind, and everything began to make a terrible sense. It was true, all of it was true, and she thought back over the weeks when she had been so close to Adam Sinclair. He had treated her with such kindness. He had known all along, she realized instinctively. He had known from the beginning. But if he spied for Donovan, as Douglas had said, he couldn't have told her. So many things she had not understood began to fall into place, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
No wonder Donovan had insisted that she quit the Park Theater. No wonder he had been so angry when she had gone back to Douglas's house.
"They'll come after us, and they'll kill you,” she said softly, thinking that if she only had a weapon, she would do it herself.
"But that's the idea, my dear. And when they come to rescue you, I'll be ready for them. I've had a long time to make my plans, ever since the night I found out about Adam's treachery. I have your lovely sister-in-law to thank for that. Just one slip of her tongue, and all the deceptions of MacBride and Adam came crumbling down around them."
Fear slithered alive to crawl up Alysson's throat at his self-confident smile. Douglas was a clever man, and he knew as well as she did that Donovan would come after her. Donovan would walk into whatever trap Douglas had in store for him.
"Sleep well, Alysson, my dear,” Douglas said, rising to limp toward the door. “And as I said, don't be afraid of me. I don't intend to hurt your in any way. After I settle my score with MacBride, I intend to take you to Daniel Tyler, whole and sound. Eventually we'll marry with Daniel's blessing. I've planned it all with great care and someday you'll agree that I'm doing the best thing for you."
Alysson stared at the door as it closed behind him, the bolt sliding into place with a metallic clank. She looked around her desperately, knowing she had to escape. Somehow, some way, she had to escape before Donovan and Adam came after her. She searched the cabin methodically for a way out, a window or door, but there was nothing, not even a loose board that she could pry up. She sank down on the bed built against the wall, dispirited and afraid, because she knew Douglas would never be so careless as to let her escape. Never.
Chapter 25
Shrouding, early-morning fog hovered just above the ground, rising in patches to flit like restless wraiths among the dark trunks of gigantic white oaks and big-boled chestnut trees. Donovan knelt on one knee in the silent gray depths of the woods, Warlock's reins held loosely in one hand. He pressed his fingers into an impression dug by a hoof in the damp leaf mold covering the forest floor.
"We're getting closer,” he muttered, glancing at Adam Sinclair, who sat astride his horse just behind him. “We should overtake them soon."
Adam nodded, his face drawn, as eager as Donovan to press on. Donovan remounted, touching his heels to spur his stallion. His own jaw was set, hard, inflexible. He was enraged with a fury that had not left him since Mathilde and Katie had burst into his study sixteen long days ago, weeping and hysterical.
His fingers curled into hard fists as he thought of Alysson in the hands of a madman like Compton for so long. If he hurt her or their child, if he touched her, Donovan would kill him with his bare hands. He should have done it when he'd had the chance. Each day that Alysson had been gone from him, a strip of his heart had been jerked away, bleeding inside his chest with a wound that would not heal until he had her safely in his arms again.
He pressed onward, along the trail of the riders he followed. They had bypassed the road to Buffalo, no doubt afraid to show themselves there, and if Donovan's guess was right, they were headed toward Cattaraugus Creek, which entered Lake Erie about thirty miles south of Buffalo. Compton probably had boats awaiting them there to row his party across the east end of the lake to Canada, where the British held Fort Erie near the mouth of the Niagara River. He had to overtake them before they left American soil, before Compton was safe in the sanctuary of the fortified British stronghold.
Compton's letter had demanded that they turn themselves over to him at Fort Erie in exchange for Alysson. It was a stroke of good luck that Compton had lived in the area and chosen it for the exchange site, because both Donovan and Adam knew it as well, from their stint at the American Fort Niagara. It lay on the other end of the Niagara River on Lake Ontario, but their missions had often taken them upriver past the Great Falls.
They were so close now. They had made very good time since they had left, within only hours of the abduction, riding all day with only an hour's sleep at night. Even with good winds, Compton had not been able to outdistance them by far, not at the grueling pace they had set for themselves. The trail had been easy to follow, even after Compton had left his boat and started the overland trek on horseback. The ferryman on the Mohawk River where Compton had acquired his provisions had remembered them well, especially Compton's pretty blond-haired wife.
A muscle flexed and held in the lean contours of Donovan's cheek, his black eyes as hard as flint as he continually searched the silent thickets around him. They were in the middle of the wilderness now, and though most of the Iroquois had been forced out of western New York during and after the Revolution, to resettle in Canada, small war parties often paddled back across the lakes to raid outlying homesteads and to murder American settlers. They hated the Americans, who had taken their sacred lands from them, hated them with unyielding, unrelenting loathing.
Donovan picked his way carefully along for nearly an hour, every muscle tense and ready. He continually fought down the stark, raw fear curling like icy ropes in his belly, fear of what Alysson had suffered as Compton's captive, fear for the baby she carried. He remembered her anguish over the loss of their first child, remembered his own anguish, and new waves of fury passed over him.
The faint acrid odor of burning wood drifted to him, and he pulled back on Warlock's reins.
"Smell it?” Adam whispered, and Donovan nodded, his heart beginning to hammer as he dismounted, peering through the dim gray light. He tied his reins to a bush as Adam swung off his horse, both men taking time to muzzle their mounts. A neigh or whinny would betray their presence.
Measuring each footfall with stealthy care in the way the swift-footed Oneida army scouts had taught them, they proceeded in total silence, using the cover of trees until they could see a narrow plume of smoke ahead of them. They crouched down, then Donovan inched forward on his stomach, gun in hand, while Adam crept quietly behind him. Thick bushes and brambles ringed the clearing where Compton and his party were camped on the bank of the Catt
araugus, and Donovan wriggled his way soundlessly to where he could peer down through the tangled undergrowth.
The remnants of a fire smoldered in a ring of stones where a tripod was suspended over the coals. Donovan first saw Compton where he sat with his back against a tree, his head nodding as he dozed in the early morning light. Donovan moved his gaze to where half a dozen or so men lay sleeping, wrapped in dark woolen blankets, looking for Alysson. He didn't see her at first, but as he scanned the site again, he saw her a short distance away from the men, and a surge of pure rage boiled through his heart.
She was tied to a tree; the bloody bastard had her bound and gagged. All he could think about was how she hated that, how frightened she had been aboard the Halcyone when he had started to tie her to the bunk. He squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to yell and curse, wanting to jump up and kill every one of them. But he couldn't get her out if he did that, and he suppressed the mind-splintering anger he felt, methodically forcing it all back inside himself.
She was awake, he realized, as he turned his gaze on her again. Awake, and struggling desperately with the cords binding her hands, He knew they didn't have much time to get to her. A gunshot would awaken the other men, and he and Adam would be outnumbered and outgunned. He turned to Adam, who lay beside him, tense with the same kind of fury that Donovan felt.
"Can you get Compton?"
"With pleasure,” Adam whispered tightly.
Donovan looked back at the sleeping camp.
"I'll get Alysson, and once I do, you make your move on him. Then try to scatter their horses, if you can."
Adam backed away without the snap of a twig, and Donovan lay still, waiting another moment before he made his move. He had lived and fought and killed with Adam when they had been in the army; he had no doubt about Adam's ability to overpower Compton. He moved himself, crawling on his belly, his eyes alert on the men sleeping in their bedrolls. When he reached a point just behind Alysson, he moved up close, hugging the ground, and cut the ropes holding her to the trunk.