It was very, very late, and Alexander Hamilton was the only one still in the office. Although the young man's sleeves were splattered with ink due to the furious speed with which he wrote, the pile on his left never seemed to grow any smaller. No matter what he was working on, however, part of his brain churned constantly, trying to work out how to push through his financial plan.
One thing was for sure; he needed more coffee. Some had been made earlier; it would just need to be warmed. He set down the pen, capped the ink, and headed down the dim hallway towards the small kitchen. The fire had probably died down. He might need to rekindle it entirely...
Then, without warning, rough hands seized him from behind. Something locked around his throat, a hand covering his mouth as he tried to shout. He brought his head sharply back, trying to head butt his attacker, but they jerked out of reach. Alex tried shrugging forward and dropping his weight in an effort to wrench free, but more hands grabbed his arms, hauling him up. Someone approached from the front, his identity concealed with a mask and holding a strip of cloth between his hands. Twisting sharply, Hamilton sank his teeth into the hand across his mouth. The man behind him cursed and yanked his hand away, but even as Alex drew the breath to shout, the man in front shoved the makeshift gag between his teeth.
Alex bucked, but despite all his efforts, his attackers managed to drag his hands together in front of him and tie them off with cord. He tried to spit out the gag, but while two men pinned him, the third tied it tight behind his head. Hamilton found himself propelled forward towards the back door, hands bound and unable to cry for help. That didn't stop him from landing blows whenever he could. More than once, he heard a grunt of pain. But nothing that he tried was enough to break free.
His three attackers dragged him outside and up the step ladder of a coach, its windows covered with black curtains. Roughly, two of them shoved him into a seat and sat down opposite. Outside, the third clucked to the horses. The coach shot forward, bouncing over the cobbles. That was the only sound; it was too late for civilians to be about and other than the curse of pain, none of his kidnappers had spoken a word. Masks covered everything but their eyes, even their hair.
"What do you want?" Alex wanted to demand, but couldn't with the gag in his mouth. Lifting his bound hands towards it resulted in a snarled, wordless threat, and since he didn't have a pistol, knife, or any way to safely exit the galloping coach, Alex subsided. Instead, he turned his attention to trying to determine where they were and where on earth they might be going. He felt it when the cobbles beneath the carriage changed to smaller, better quality.
The man directly in front of him, who seemed to be the leader, leaned forward. "Promise to keep quiet and we'll take out the gag."
Through his anger (and, dare he admit it, growing panic), Alex noted something almost familiar about the man's voice, muffled as it was. The man sounded almost like he was making deliberate effort to disguise it.
"Well?" the man demanded impatiently.
Alex considered. He didn't like the idea of placidly going along with his kidnapper's demands, but he also felt so vulnerable with the gag cutting off one of his most potent tools. At last, he jerked his head sharply in agreement.
The man reached forward slowly past Alex's head and undid the gag. When at last it was removed, Alex rotated his jaw, trying to restore moisture to his dry mouth and plan what he would say.
"What do you want?" he asked finally, turning his head towards the leader. "If it's money…"
"Quiet!" the man said harshly. "No questions." He struck Alex's cheek, a stinging slap, the first blow they had actually dealt.
There was sound of protest from the other man and a murmur of conversation too quiet even for Alex to overhear. Before he could ask anything else (and risk another blow), he felt the coach slowing to a stop. The second man, the one who hadn't spoken directly to him, leaned forward and pulled a bag over Alex's head. He felt himself dragged from the coach and up what felt like a narrow path, then up a short flight of steps. There was a whispered conversation he could not make out, then another flight of steps, much steeper and longer. Then his kidnappers pushed him into a chair, wrapped what felt like a few lengths of rope around his chest to keep him in it, and yanked away the bag.
Alex's eyes watered as they tried to adjust to the room, brightly lit compared to his office, the street, and the carriage. It looked like someone's house, maybe a dressing room. His sharp eyes pulled in a hundred details, and his heart dropped into his stomach. He recognized this room.
"Thank you, gentlemen," a woman's voice said, confirming his suspicions. He turned as sharply as he could, still tied to the chair, and saw her standing by the door.
"Our pleasure," one of his kidnappers said fervently as he left. That voice definitely sounded familiar, and Alex would need to spend some time figuring out who exactly it was. And how best to destroy them.
But that would be for another time. There was something much more immediate to worry him now.
"Eliza?" he asked uncertainly. "What are you doing?"
His wife, his sweet, innocent wife who he never would have thought willing or capable of this, arched an eyebrow. "Apparently, Alexander," she said. "I have to resort to kidnapping if I want to see my husband."
Alex opened his mouth to say something (he was not sure what), then closed it again. He should feel ashamed of not being around enough, or angry at being manhandled at the orders of his own wife, but if he were honest, the only thing he felt was…admiration.
"Did you plan this on your own?" he asked at last.
An impish smile crossed her face. "Angelica helped." She paused. "She also took the children with her for the evening."
Heat stirred in his blood, and he fidgeted against the ropes. "Then let me up," he said in his most beguiling tone, "and we'll make up for lost time."
Angelica would have left him there and driven him crazy with his inability to move, but Eliza was too sweet for that. She only hesitated a second before coming forward and reaching for the ropes that tied him to the chair and tied his hands together. "Only if you promise not to run right back to the office."
"Trust me," Alex said as the knots came free and he caught his wife up in his arms. "Tonight, I'm not going anywhere."
A/N: Since, as one reviewer pointed out, the only way to talk to Hamilton is if he's incapacitated... :D Brownie points to anyone who can tell me who the three attackers were.