whipped up wavelets that reflected the towering fire. The water itself resembled a sea of flame. The lake bristled with ships’ masts and the smokestacks of steamers. Hundreds of vessels had gathered to witness the spectacle. Boats plied back and forth between the lighthouse and the pier, rescuing people and belongings.
For as far as the eye could see, the lakeshore teemed with refugees and conveyances, barnyard animals and pets running willy nilly through the night. People had waded out into the water to escape the blizzard of sparks and flying brands of flame. Deborah had no idea what to do. She tried to press northward, but it was a struggle hampered by the crush of humanity, the chilly water sloshing at the shore and various landings and piers jutting out into the lake. At last she could go no farther, for the way was blocked by a jetty of sharp black rocks.
She simply stood still, hemmed in by family groups clinging together amidst an outer circle of coaches, carts and barrows. She hugged the small mongrel dog to her chest, then, lifting her face, observed the burning city with a solemn sense of shock and awe. The flames formed a vast inverted bowl of unnatural light over a huge area. There was something mystical and magnificent about the conflagration. Others around her seemed to share her hushed awe, her openmouthed silence. There was simply nothing to say. There were no words to speak in the face of a disaster so vast and so all-consuming.
What had become of her father? His beautiful mansion? His business offices in the city? What had become of the only world she had ever known?
Shaking free of the spell cast by the giant fire, she looked around, scanning the crowd for a familiar face and keeping an eye out for the murderer. She wondered who these people were, where they all came from. Chicago was a city of three hundred thousand souls. Most of them had probably lost everything. Would they simply pick up and go on? How would they ever sift through the rubble of the fallen city and find their former lives?
Like phoenixes rising from the ashes, survivors would emerge from the wreckage of the burned-out city. Criminals awaiting hanging might run free. Wives who hated their husbands might escape their torment. Rich men would find themselves suddenly penniless. A poor man might come into wealth he never imagined. In the face of a fire, everyone was equal. It put her on the same level as the criminal who had abducted her, she thought with a shudder.
A tantalizing notion came to her, subtle as a whispered suggestion. What if Philip Ascot never found her again? What if she was lost forever to Arthur Sinclair? Then she would never have to battle her father over marrying Philip.
Deborah tried to imagine what it would be like to be nothing, nobody, to belong to no one. Immediately a wave of resentment washed over her. In running and hiding from an unwanted marriage, she would forfeit her father. Her friends. Her life. No man should have the power to do that to her. Yet still the fantasy held a bizarre appeal. If she were to simply disappear, would she even be missed? What would it do to her father? She honestly didn’t know. She had the sense that he valued her as a commodity, but as a daughter? She remembered back to their moment of connection in the study and thought perhaps he loved her in his blustering, bombastic fashion. Even so, losing her would not change the shape and color of his world. Her father would grieve for a time, then give himself over to business ventures. Philip would find some other heiress to marry. Her friends might honor her memory, but they would find paths of their own to follow.
The fact was, she was not a necessary cog in the wheel of anyone’s life. Remove her, and everything would go on uninterrupted. She wondered what it would be like to be needed in the way this small lost dog needed her. To be the single element necessary for its survival was an awesome thought. She quite doubted that she was equal to the task.
She shivered, feeling a chill wind off the lake, and pulled the dog closer. She thought about her friends, Lucy and Phoebe and Kathleen. It seemed a lifetime ago that they had been getting ready for the evening’s entertainment. Where were they now? she wondered. She prayed they had survived, that unlike her they had realized the danger of the fire and stayed safe away from the city.
Somewhere in the crowd, a baby cried and a woman’s voice spoke in soothing tones. Gradually people began talking, planning, worrying aloud. Prayer and speculation. Arguments and accusations. The babble of voices crescendoed, became deafening. With no one to talk to, Deborah felt more alone than ever. Still holding the dog, she picked her way up and over the rock and rubble jetty, wondering how far she would be able to walk before exhaustion claimed her.
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!”
