The Hostage. Сьюзен Виггс

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      Praise for the novels of Susan Wiggs

      “Susan Wiggs paints the details of human relationships with the finesse of a master.”

      —Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author

      “Once more, Ms. Wiggs demonstrates her ability to bring readers a story to savor that has them impatiently awaiting each new novel.”

      —RT Book Reviews on The Hostage

      “A thrilling blend of adventure and romance…Wiggs provides a delicious story for us to savor.”

      —Oakland Press on The Mistress

      “Susan Wiggs delves deeply into her characters’ hearts and motivations to touch our own.”

      —RT Book Reviews on The Mistress

      “A quiet page-turner that will hold readers spellbound as the relationships, characters and story unfold. Fans of historical romances will naturally flock to this skillfully executed trilogy, and general women’s fiction readers should find this story enchanting as well.”

      —Publishers Weekly on The Firebrand

      “Wiggs is one of our best observers of stories of the heart. Maybe that is because she knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book.”

      —Salem Statesman-Journal

      “Susan Wiggs writes with bright assurance, humor and compassion.”

      —Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author

      The Hostage

      Susan Wiggs

      The Chicago Fire Trilogy

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      Also by Susan Wiggs

       Contemporary Romances

      HOME BEFORE DARK

      THE OCEAN BETWEEN US

      SUMMER BY THE SEA

      TABLE FOR FIVE

      LAKESIDE COTTAGE

      JUST BREATHE

       The Lakeshore Chronicles

      SUMMER AT WILLOW LAKE

      THE WINTER LODGE

      DOCKSIDE

      SNOWFALL AT WILLOW LAKE

      FIRESIDE

      LAKESHORE CHRISTMAS

      THE SUMMER HIDEAWAY

       Historical Romances

      THE LIGHTKEEPER

      THE DRIFTER

       The Tudor Rose Trilogy

      AT THE KING’S COMMAND

      THE MAIDEN’S HAND

      AT THE QUEEN’S SUMMONS

       Chicago Fire Trilogy

      THE HOSTAGE

      THE MISTRESS

      THE FIREBRAND

       Calhoun Chronicles

      THE CHARM SCHOOL

      THE HORSEMASTER’S DAUGHTER

      HALFWAY TO HEAVEN

      ENCHANTED AFTERNOON

      A SUMMER AFFAIR

      For Lisa and Bruce, with love

      Part One

      And the wind raging, and the fire burning, and London and Paris and Portland outdone, and no Milton and no Dante on earth to put the words together.

      —Chicago Tribune

      (burned before distribution)

      Prologue

       Chicago

       8 October 1871

      It was the hottest October anyone could remember. Less than an inch of rain had fallen in three months. Livestock died of thirst, their bloated carcasses splayed beside sunbaked mudholes. The unseasonable warmth made women regard baking day with special loathing and small children cranky with prickly heat. Laboring men paused in their work, looked up at the sky and remarked to each other that they’d surely welcome a breath of winter.

      Drought and dry windstorms kept the fire companies frantically busy; engineers and pipemen were called on to put out as many as six fires a day, battling the flames that fed on unpainted frame cottages, rickety shanties with roofs of tar and shake, and the endless supply of woodchips from Chicago’s lumber mills.

      Into the restless stream of hot prairie wind floated a single spark.

      Later, some would say the spark came from a stove chimney. Many believed the gossip that the unfortunate placement of a lantern near a cow in Mrs. O’Leary’s barn had caused the mayhem. Others would swear, in the terrible aftermath, that the hand of God himself started it all, while still others accused the Devil. Some even blamed a hail of comets that rained from the night sky. In the great charred ruin of the city, fingers would point and recriminations would echo across courtrooms, in the city hall and at hearings before the Board of Fire.

      But the fact was, a single spark, dipping and swirling like a drunken ballerina, rode an updraft of wind that night. It sailed high over a neighborhood of wood frame houses, barns packed with timothy hay, sheds full of coal and wood shavings for tinder, sidewalks constructed of knotty spruce and pine-block roadways.

      The West Division neighborhood was a rabbit warren of narrow, miserable alleys and makeshift shanties, a place no respectable person would ever visit. But it was home to day laborers and women with too many babies, to shopkeepers and immigrants, to drunks and dreamers, loose women and strict Catholics. And in the tacked-together neighborhood they bore their children, worshiped, ate, drank, fought, loved and buried their dead.

      The dry, blowing heat prompted some folks to find their beds early, while others tried to drown their discomfort СКАЧАТЬ