Caught by Surprise Read online

  © 2018 by Jennifer L. Turano

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-1477-2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Cover design by Dan Thornberg, Design Source Creative Services

  Author is represented by Natasha Kern Literary Agency.

  For David Turner

  Even though I was convinced you got far more than your fair share of attention as the baby of the family, which was probably why Gretchen and I tormented you so much, you still—and I’m not exactly sure how—turned out to be charming, well-adjusted, and . . . completely normal.

  Love you!

  Jen

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Books by Jen Turano

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  Chapter

  One

  SEPTEMBER 1883—NEW YORK CITY

  The first inkling Miss Temperance Flowerdew had that her rather mundane day was about to turn anything but mundane happened when a closed carriage trundled up beside her, keeping pace with her every step as she walked down the sidewalk adjacent to Broadway.

  With her thoughts consumed by the watercolor lesson she was soon to teach at Miss Snook’s School for the Education of the Feminine Mind, she gave the carriage only the most cursory of glances and continued forward. However, when the door to the carriage suddenly burst open and a masked man bounded out of it, Temperance stopped dead in her tracks and turned her undivided attention to the scene unfolding directly in front of her. For the life of her, she couldn’t comprehend why a member of what was obviously the criminal persuasion would behave in such a blatant fashion in the midst of a public sidewalk.

  Before she could come up with a reasonable explanation, though, the masked man set his sights on her, and then, to her utmost horror, he lurched her way and grabbed hold of her arm.

  The next thing she knew, she was hanging upside down over a very broad shoulder, the breath stolen from her lungs, right before she was tossed unceremoniously into the carriage. Wincing when she landed on a seat bereft of much cushioning, she managed to get a less than impressive “help” through her constricted throat. Scrambling for the door opposite of the one she’d been tossed through, her scrambling came to an abrupt stop when the masked man grabbed hold of her foot. He then kept a firm grip on that foot even as he went about the tricky business of closing the carriage door while she twisted and turned in a desperate attempt to get free.

  The door shut with an ominous click, and darkness settled over the interior of the carriage, the lack of light adding a substantial amount of melodrama to what was already a very dramatic situation.

  As the carriage surged into motion, a burlap bag that smelled strongly of onions was pulled over her head and something that felt quite like a very sharp knife pressed into her side.

  “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll not make another peep,” a voice rasped as the carriage picked up speed, the driver evidently not having a care where he was driving since Temperance could hear the yells of people trying to get out of the carriage’s way.

  For the briefest of moments, Temperance was more than willing to abide to the demand of keeping silent. But when her scrambled thoughts began to settle, she realized that if she did remain quiet she’d be spirited down Broadway with relatively few people aware of her troubling plight. There was little likelihood anyone who realized she’d been abducted would be able to follow her since they’d all been on foot. With that in mind, she opened her mouth and managed to get what sounded exactly like a croak past her lips.

  Her croaking came to a rapid end when the bag was pulled off her head and a cloth that smelled revoltingly sweet and was saturated with some type of liquid was pressed over her nose and mouth. Temperance’s stomach immediately began to roil. Unable to dislodge the cloth or the man as the carriage continued to careen wildly down the street, she soon found her thoughts growing fuzzy and her limbs turning alarmingly numb. Before she knew it, her eyes fluttered shut, and everything faded straightaway.

  “I done told you, Eugene, that a person really can’t be trusting those remedies sold at those apparition shops. Why, that lady has been senseless for hours. We ain’t gonna get paid the rest of our money if we get to Chicago and discover she died along the way. Besides, I didn’t sign up for no murdering of a young lady. That would go against everything Pastor Roy used to preach to us when we was young’uns.”

  Forcing her eyes open even though they seemed less than willing to cooperate, Temperance blinked a few times, confusion coursing over her as her gaze settled on thin slices of light drifting through what looked to be small holes. A distinctive rumbling sound met her ears, but because her thoughts were incredibly muddled, she couldn’t remember when she’d heard that rumbling before, or what it signified.

  “She ain’t dead, Mercy. I checked her no more than ten minutes ago, and I told you I heard snores coming out of the coffin. And not that I want to squabble with you, but I’m fair to certain that Pastor Roy wouldn’t have been approvin’ of us stealing that lady from the street either, or whiskin’ her off to Chicago. I might be wrong about this, but kidnapping a person is almost as bad as murderin’ them.”

  Drawing in a breath of stale air, Temperance froze in the act of releasing that breath when she realized the word coffin had been used, which almost seemed to suggest she was currently residing in one, although . . . that couldn’t be right, unless . . .

  “And because talk of Pastor Roy, God rest his soul, is making me uncomfortable,” the man continued, “allow me to change the subject to something a little less troubling. Apparition, a word you just spoke, Mercy, ain’t the right word. Apocalypse shop is where I got that sleeping potion, but I’m beginning to think I may have been a little heavy-handed with it. The owner of that shop didn’t mention a thing about it makin’ a person senseless for so many hours, but that’s what it’s done.”

  “If she ain’t dead, that senseless state she’s embracing might very well be a blessing in disguise—unless she never comes
to, that is,” said the voice belonging to a person Temperance thought might be Mercy. “I doubt she would have climbed into that coffin on her own accord, let alone allowed us to nail the lid of it closed over top of her, or waited quietly while we drilled more air holes through the wood. That might have made it all kinds of tricky to get her on this here train. She weren’t nearly as accommodatin’ as we was led to believe she’d be. And she sure didn’t come along with us peaceful-like, which made the use of that coffin a brilliant idea on your part.”

  At the mention of the word coffin again, all the breath seemed to get sucked right out of Temperance’s lungs as the truth of her situation settled over her.

  She’d been abducted, stuffed into a coffin, and someone had apparently nailed the lid shut after they’d gotten through with stuffing her inside a place a living person wasn’t supposed to be. They’d then, if she was following the conversation correctly, hauled her onto a train and were taking her off to Chicago for some unknown reason.

  Panic, and a large dose of it, had perspiration beading her forehead.

  Trying to push aside the panic, Temperance forced air back into her lungs, breathing in and out as she tried to puzzle out why someone would want to nail her into a coffin or abscond with her in the first place.

  She was not a lady who possessed a fortune, having become a poor relation to her distant Flowerdew relatives when her parents died unexpectedly a few years before. She’d been left destitute, a circumstance that had been next to impossible to comprehend given the vast family fortune she’d always believed to be in fine form, but a fortune that had turned out to be anything other than fine.

  Unaccustomed to having limited funds at her disposal, she’d found herself forced to accept the hospitality—and grudging hospitality at that—of Mr. Wayne Flowerdew, her cousin twice removed. He’d been the gentleman who’d tracked her down in Paris, given the direction by her father’s business associate who’d known she was spending a few years enjoying a grand tour while perfecting her craft as an artist.

  To say she was taken aback to discover a gentleman she barely knew waiting for her in the house she was renting in Paris was an understatement. But then, after Wayne Flowerdew made himself quite at home in the charming parlor her rented house offered, he’d changed her world forever with the unfortunate news he’d come to deliver.

  Her parents were missing in the wilds of South America, presumed dead. They’d been murdered, witnesses claimed, by a tribe of vicious savages.

  Shaken to the core by the idea she would never see her beloved parents again, having never once considered that the adventurous life her mother and father enjoyed would end with their deaths, she’d been less than prepared to deal with the next disaster flung her way—one centered around the fact that the family fortune was no longer intact.

  That information had been delivered to her by Mr. John Howland, a gentleman she’d learned was her father’s most trusted man of affairs. He’d met Temperance and her cousin at the New York Harbor and ushered her directly to his office off Fourth Avenue. Explanations Temperance barely understood immediately commenced, but when Mr. Howland was finished, Temperance was aware of some life-changing truths: her parents were dead, the family fortune had been lost to an ill-advised investment opportunity, and the family house in Connecticut had been sold to settle the most pressing of her father’s debts.

  Mr. Howland, evidently not being a gentleman who knew how to deal with a young lady who’d been brought up in the lap of luxury but was now nothing more than a pauper, launched into what he seemingly thought would be a small measure of consolation. A few personal belongings had been saved for her, those belongings having already been delivered to Wayne Flowerdew’s residence.

  When she’d finally had the presence of mind to inquire why Wayne Flowerdew, a gentleman she barely knew and only a distant relative to her, had become such an integral part of her personal misfortunes, she’d learned that her father had written a special clause in his will, entrusting his cousin with the guardianship of his only daughter if anything of an unfortunate nature happened to him or Temperance’s mother. That guardianship was to stand until she reached the age of twenty-five, unless she got married before reaching that age, in which case it was apparently assumed her husband would look after her interests.

  Before Temperance could contemplate the sheer horror of that idea, Mr. Howland professed his deepest sympathies regarding her plight, rose from his chair, took hold of her arm, and escorted her directly out of his office, leaving her standing on the sidewalk with her unwanted guardian.

  As the door to Mr. Howland’s office shut behind her, Temperance vowed then and there that she was going to, from that point forward, put her past ways aside, deciding that embracing an adventurous attitude was entirely overrated and led to despair and heartache in the end.

  No longer would she flutter through life from one journey to another, experiencing all the many amusements the world had to offer. Instead, she vowed to adopt a retiring nature, one that would see her safely removed from the dangers adventurous sorts faced far more often than she’d realized.

  That vow, oddly enough, turned out to be remarkably easy to maintain.

  Wayne, while willing to offer her a roof over her head, if only to stave off judgment from the society he longed to impress, informed her in no uncertain terms that he was appalled he’d been given the task of watching over her until she reached the age of twenty-five. He didn’t even bother to hide the fact that he only agreed to fetch her from Paris because he thought her fortune was still firmly intact, a fortune she would certainly want to share with him because he’d been named her guardian.

  Because she was imposing on his hospitality, and with no money to ease the bother of that, Wayne determined she’d have to earn her keep. True to his word, she’d barely unpacked her steamer trunk before Fanny Flowerdew, Wayne’s simpering wife, called her to the drawing room for a bit of a chat—one that detailed what would be expected of Temperance until she reached the age of twenty-five, or found a gentleman to marry, an idea Fanny thought was next to impossible.

  From that point forward, and over the years Temperance had lived with the Flowerdews, she’d spent her days and nights at the beck and call of Wayne and Fanny’s daughter, Clementine. Clementine was a young lady with grand social aspirations, which is exactly why the Flowerdew family had abandoned their house in upstate New York only a month after Temperance began residing with them, taking up residence on the far end of Park Avenue, one that was not quite the toniest of addresses, but acceptable all the same.

  They’d immediately set about getting Clementine introduced to high society, her acceptance into that society aided by the assistance of Mrs. Boggart Hobbes, or Aunt Minnie, as the family fondly addressed her. Aunt Minnie was a leading society matron who was also Fanny’s aunt, but any affection Temperance might have believed would come her way was put firmly to bed when Mrs. Boggart Hobbes stated most emphatically that Temperance was not to address her as Aunt Minnie, but was expected to maintain a formal attitude between them since they were not related by blood.

  With Clementine being soundly embraced by the crème de la crème, Temperance found herself in the unenviable role of Clementine’s chaperone and lady’s maid when it became known she had a flare for styling hair.

  Given Clementine’s questionable nature, Temperance had clung fast to her vow of abandoning an adventurous nature and embraced an air of meekness and reserve, qualities that served her well as she negotiated the unpleasant realities of her new life.

  It had only been recently that Temperance’s life had begun taking a happier turn, a direct result of being invited to attend Miss Permilia Griswold’s June engagement celebration. It was at that very celebration she’d enjoyed an unexpected encounter with one of her dearest friends from childhood—Mr. Gilbert Cavendish. She’d not seen Gilbert for far too many years, having been separated from him when he went off to college and she went off on her grand tour. Add in th
e fact she’d then been thrust into the retiring role of poor relation, which did not encourage her to seek out former friends, and it was little wonder so much time had elapsed since she’d last seen her friend.

  Unsettling as it had been to realize how long she’d been parted from Gilbert, it had been more unsettling to accept the ugly truth his reappearance in her life brought to her attention. While she’d embraced the idea of living a less-than-adventurous life, she’d sacrificed her true sense of self, becoming a woman she didn’t even recognize and a woman Gilbert had certainly never known.

  A new vow had arisen as that evening spent in Gilbert’s company wore on, a vow to reclaim at least a little morsel of the woman she’d been before her life turned upside down. She’d recognized that a meek existence did not suit her in the least, which was fortunate indeed because the very day after the engagement celebration, Wayne sent her packing. He stated it was past time she earned her own way in the world, even though she was not quite twenty-five yet.

  The reasoning behind her abrupt departure centered squarely around the idea that Clementine, her less-than-pleasant cousin, wanted Gilbert Cavendish for herself. Oddly enough, Clementine was worried Temperance would stand in the way of her acquiring the attention of Gilbert because she believed Temperance’s friendship with Gilbert was a direct threat to Clementine’s plans of becoming Mrs. Cavendish.

  The thought of Gilbert had Temperance’s lips curving, until a loud argument between her abductors pulled her directly back to her troubling situation—that being she’d been abducted and was shut inside a coffin.

  “You’ve clearly not been listening well enough at that fancy church Mrs. Baldwin made us attend, back before she released us from service, Eugene. Apocalypse is the word preachers use when they’re talkin’ about the end of the world, so it’s not what that shop was called where you bought the sleeping potion.”

  “That might very well be, Mercy, but it ain’t like a person can hear the sermons well, not back where members of the serving sort are required to sit in that fancy church. But that’s not gonna help us know what word I was really fixin’ to use. I sure do hate when a word is on the tip of your tongue, but you just can’t spit it out. It’s maddening, it is.”