Motivation For Holding Someone Captive

I have a situation in my historic romance novel. I believe the subplot is realistic, it makes sense to me. But one of my beta-readers objects to it, so I'd like a broader opinion. Here's the story:

A member of the nobility falls in love with the daughter of a peasant in France, 1882. The nobleman's older brother is opposed, for obvious reasons, but the nobleman is determined to marry her. But she's in love with someone else, so she fakes her own death and runs off with the guy she loves. A year later, the nobleman's brother finds her, alive and well. Thinking she's been held captive by her husband, he "rescues" her and takes her back to his family home. The nobleman is out of town, so the brother keeps the woman against her will for several weeks, while waiting for his brother to return.

His reasoning is, even though he opposed the marriage, he saw how much his brother mourned when he thought the woman was dead. He saw that he really loves her. So he's determined to keep her safe until his brother can return. She's not tied up or anything, she's locked in a bedroom, with plenty of light, food, water, etc. He feels it's for her own good, to keep her safe until his brother gets back.

My beta-reader doesn't think this is a valid situation. She feels that if the nobleman's brother is evil enough to keep a woman against her will, then he's evil enough to not care that his brother loves her, and therefore he wouldn't bother keeping her "safe". But I don't think it's as black and white. I think he wants what's best for his brother, and he also feels that he's protecting the woman from her husband, who he believes is a dangerous criminal.

My beta-reader suggested a more concrete reason for him holding the woman captive, such as revenge against her husband, but I don't want it to be so cut and dry. I want him to believe he's doing the right thing, he's just going about it the wrong way. Does that make sense?

What do you guys think? Does the brother's motivation seem realistic?

Mac H. said:

At the moment it is all very internal - motivations, thoughts, feelings.

But what if the brother experienced something (along with the reader) that justified that level of action?
(. . .)
I know - it makes it into a bit of a farce. But by having a piece of information that the brother experiences that is totally different to the way it actually was - it justifies his action entirely.

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Well, I think he's got enough justification to think the husband's a bad person, even without adding in some contrivance for him to witness. The husband is a notorious criminal . . . or so everyone believes. Most of it's circumstantial evidence, or else self-defense, but the brother definitely has good cause to think that the woman is in danger and the readers know this. Does that work?

Mac H. said:

The problem is that all of this is old and not in the front of the reader's mind at the moment.

You might the brother something at that moment that pushes him to the decision he makes. Stuff that happened several chapters ago may not be enough - especially if you been opening up the reader to the other point of view in the meantime.

So if the justification is the husband's terrible reputation then have him hear some new rumours right before he makes the decision.

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I think I understand what you're saying. The story never switches to the brother's POV, it's all first-person from the woman's POV, so there is no distancing in that regard. Just before he "rescues" her, he snoops around and gets caught in one of the husband's booby traps, which is a firm reminder of how dangerous everyone thinks the husband is.

I think he has just cause to "rescue" the woman from the husband. The thing I'm concerned with is his motivation for keeping her at his house for several weeks afterward. The husband was shot and is being hunted by police. Is that, combined with his desire to make his brother happy, enough to justify his keeping the woman captive for so long?

readitnweep said:

I agree that you need to show the motivation from the brother's perspective. Perhaps showing the brother trying to comfort the lover during his grief would help.

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The best I can do there is to have him mention how it affected him to watch his brother's heart breaking as he mourned the woman. The entire novel is first-person from the woman's POV, so I can't really show what's happening with the nobleman after she's "died", because she's not aware of it.

Another point is when the story takes place - women were legal property of their husbands for much of history. Would this nobleman go against the law to take this woman and secure her away from her husband?

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Good point. The nobleman doesn't realize they're married when he "rescues" the woman, and even if he did, their marriage wasn't legally binding. Because they had faked their deaths, they couldn't go to the courthouse and have a civil ceremony, which would have required full names, addresses, etc. They decided that God is a higher authority than the state of France, so they went to a priest for a religious ceremony, which wasn't legally binding.

I don't think the husband being hunted by police is enough without having the nobleman work with the police or whatever official law enforcement they had at the time. This would solve any legal question, and the brother could simply be "keeping" her to ensure her safety.

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Do you mean he should work with police to find the husband after he's escaped? Or to work with the police to "rescue" the woman in the first place? Right now, he investigates and rescues the woman by himself, then allows the police to interview her and try to find the escaped husband afterward.

c.e.lawson said:

Does the brother know she's married the "criminal"? If so, I agree with readitnweep here, though I'm not familiar with the laws/mores at that place and time. If he simply thinks she was taken by the criminal, then I can understand a bit better his motivation in keeping her. And what is the brother's end point here? What does he think will happen when the nobleman comes home?

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No, the brother doesn't know she's married to the husband. He believes she was captured and held against her will for over a year. His plan is to let his brother deal with the woman when he gets home, presumably to marry her and take her away from the city.

robjvargas said:

Why does the brother believe the husband is a criminal? He might be the dutiful and doting husband to her, but is he as crass and unappealing to others as Drew Peterson is in the case above?

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The husband extorted money from some wealthy people for a few years, and then a couple of people died and he was blamed for their murders. He's a bit arrogant, but he tries to avoid contact with people for the most part, so he's very secretive and private.

PorterStarrByrd said:

Unless you have painted him as evil already, he is just misdirected in this action, and probably needs to continue displaying signs of bad judgement to maintain believabilty. It would help a great deal if he had done so in the past as well.

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The thing is, the brother isn't a main character. He's only present in a few chapters, so there isn't much opportunity to show a pattern of bad judgment. I've established that he disapproved of his brother marrying the woman because of their class differences, and that he's a bit of a philanderer and likes to keep a mistress. I don't know if that's enough of a pattern to show bad judgment. He's really not present enough to establish more of his personality than that. He's just a very minor character who happens to be crucial to a small portion of the plot.

girlyswot said:

Almost anything can seem plausible if your writing is strong enough. But your beta reader has read the book and found it problematic. So you can either try changing the situation to add more obvious motivation, or work on your writing to strengthen what you already have.

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The thing is, my beta-reader objected even after I gave him what I considered sufficient motivation. She saw it as black and white: if he's evil enough to hold her against her will, then he's too evil to care about keeping her safe for his brother, which means he wouldn't hold her captive. Or he's good enough to care about keeping her safe for his brother, which means he's too good to keep her against her will. However, I don't think characters should be that black and white. I think he'd make a more convincing human being if he's a good person who just makes a bad decision based on his desire to do something good.

readitnweep said:

From what you've said, it would help his motivation to work with the police from the start- unless you need him to be that much of a renegade. It does help that he thinks she was taken by his brother to begin with, though.

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I think I'm on the right track, then. I'll give the idea of him working with the police from the beginning some thought, but it would take a lot of rewriting to insert that. Although, it might make more sense in the long run. . . . I'll definitely consider it and see if the story can be adjusted to include that. Thanks!

gothicangel said:

Personally, for me it's coming across as too convoluted a plot.

I haven't read the manuscript, and could be wrong, of course.

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I was worried someone might think that from how the description came across. It's not nearly as complicated when you're reading the story, I promise. It unfolds naturally, over several chapters, with the elements being revealed a little at a time.

lbender said:

One thing you should consider is it may just be this one beta reader. It's frequently best to have more than one person read your work. That way, you can get more of a general idea. If he's the only one to have that objection, that's one thing. If 4 different betas all have the same objection, that tells you something else.

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Good point. So far I've had three or four people read the novel and she's the only one to complain about this scene. You're right, it may just be something that disagrees with her for some reason. That's partly why I asked about it here, to get a broader perspective. I think my instincts are correct, the scene should work with perhaps a few small modifications.

frimble3 said:

I'm sorry, but he keeps her locked up (for her own good, of course) for weeks, and he never talks to her?
Right now, what you've described only works if he never gets several simple bits of information and explanation. Did she never say "That was my true love and husband, let me go?" Did he never wonder why he had to lock her up? If he had really rescued her from a bad situation, you'd think his problem would be getting her to not fall in love with him, while they wait for the brother. Wouldn't he say "I saw him kill your dog!", and then she could explain? Did she never say, "I faked my death to get away from you, and your brother!", or "I wasn't a prisoner, before you came along, anyway?"

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Two words: Stockholm Syndrome. Even if she did try to explain that she loved her husband, and that the brother who'd rescued her just made a grave mistake, he isn't going to believe her. He's going to think that she only fell in love with her captor in order to survive an unthinkable situation and that, given time, she'll regain her senses. Therefore, from his point of view, she needs to be locked up for her own protection.

Besides that, the woman seriously doesn't trust this guy. Her life for the past year has been based upon secrecy and hiding, so she's not going to be inclined to spill her guts to the man who's just shot her husband and carried her out of her home by force. Also, if people found out that she was married to the criminal, they might accuse of her being in league with him. In his absence, they might blame her for his crimes. With that in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if she felt it wise to stay silent until the nobleman--whom she trusts--shows up, and then she can explain everything to him and enlist his help.

I guess I need to mention some of this in the story, to make the situation seem more plausible. I'd assumed that readers would figure it out for themselves, but maybe I need to clearly say so.

Thanks for weighing in, Vilya and elindsen. I appreciate everyone's comments on the subject! It's given me a lot to think about.

JustJas said:

This is the big problem I had with your plot also. Maybe the heroine could believe the brother shot her huband and kidnapped her as retribution for one of their crimes and this is the reason why she does not tell him she loves her husband and he has made a mistake. In this circumstance she's more likely to keep her mouth shut and wait to see what will happen. It still seems unlikely that the brother would not tell her why he was holding her captive if he believed he was saving her.

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He does tell her that he's keeping her for her own protection, because the criminal is still on the loose. But she realizes that if she says anything about her relationship with the criminal, she's either going to be looked at as a victim (she fell in love because she had to in order to survive being kidnapped (i.e.: Stockholm syndrome)) or she'll be viewed as his accomplice, in which case she might be tried in his stead as a murderer. Either way, it's a precarious situation and she decides to remain silent and wait for the nobleman to return home, because she knows she can trust him.

Does that not seem plausible enough?