The Firebrand

by Susan Wiggs

Was he referring to that absurd, mocking embrace at their wedding? She frowned in confusion. “What kiss?”

  “This one.” Taking her by the shoulders, he tugged her against him and slid his arm behind her back. With the same motion, he pressed his lips down onto hers. Lucy found herself at a loss, for she couldn’t seem to govern her reaction to him. She wanted to feel the texture of his mouth upon hers, to know what he tasted like, to experience the dizzying sensation of desire lifting her up and sweeping her away. She wanted to stay, yet at the same time, the longing to linger and explore the desire he ignited shamed her.

  She pushed against his chest, but her own hands betrayed her and the defensive motion turned into a searching caress. His chest was broad—hard-muscled, warm beneath her chilled fingers. Her betraying hands explored upward, spreading over his big shoulders, feeling the ridge of a scar across the top of his arm. His muscles contracted, and she sensed his self-consciousness returning. She moved her hand to let him know it didn’t matter.

  The old, old longing fell over her like sunlight through the window. Past and present fused into this single moment. More than five years had passed since she’d first looked into his challenging eyes. So much had changed in those eventful years, but one thing stayed constant—there was still a seductive magic that bound them together.

  She caught her breath and said, “No more—”

  He touched his finger to her lips and then put his mouth there, brushing lightly back and forth in a motion she felt all the way to her toes.

  Her hands tightened into fists on his shoulders and once again, instead of pushing him away, she clutched him closer. The brushing motion changed and softened into a tender pressure. She was shocked to discover that he’d parted her lips with his own and touched her with his tongue. She shocked herself even further by opening to him and letting him fill her with the forbidden taste of passion.

  She felt him everywhere, even in the places he wasn’t touching. She burned with a fever so intense that she felt disoriented, not herself at all.

  Then, slowly, he lifted his mouth from hers. She could neither move nor speak. Since her days at finishing school she’d imagined what kissing was like, but this embrace, so long in coming that she’d nearly given up on it, surpassed any imagining.

  “It’s morning,” she stated, wishing her voice didn’t have that odd tremor in it. She took a step back. “I must go.”

  “You could stay.” He ran his hand down her arm and maybe she imagined it, but she felt his thumb briefly outline the curve of her unbound breast. “You take me out of myself, Lucy. You make me forget—” He stopped abruptly and drew his finger along her jawline, the proprietary touch nearly as intimate as his kiss. “We didn’t marry because of this,” he said, then bent and touched her mouth with his, searing her briefly with a reminder of the intimacy and heat they’d just shared. Then he pulled back. “But that doesn’t mean—”

  “Mr. Higgins—”

  “Rand.”

  He was right. As his wife, she must learn to use his given name. But she couldn’t just yet. Everything was too new and…disturbing. He seemed so different, an unsettling combination of the former, flirtatious rogue and the wounded, withdrawn man who still had a man’s desires and still remembered his seductive ways.

  “I must go,” she repeated, speaking with stronger conviction now. She hurried away, rushing through the door between their rooms and pulling it shut with desperate haste.

  Nineteen

  His sleep hopelessly disrupted and his nerves rattled by the encounter with Lucy, Rand dressed in the growing light of early morning. He hadn’t employed a valet in many years, though it was the fashion for men of his class. Since the accident, he was reluctant to expose his scars and imperfections to anyone, even to a servant. A petty vanity, he knew, but he didn’t want to bare the old wounds.

  Five years after the tragedy, he could still hear the whisper of those hovering around his hospital bed, when they didn’t think he would ever regain consciousness.

  They had been wrong. The first part of him to awaken had been his sense of hearing.

  “He may never come around,” a man, probably a doctor, had said. “The head injury is severe. I’m surprised he hung on this long.”

  “Perhaps it’s for the best,” said another voice. “Who could live like…this?”

  Despite the chilling words, he’d struggled to come back, for he couldn’t die without knowing what had become of Christine.

  Swimming through a fog of pain, he became aware of hospital smells—overcooked food, boric acid and body waste—and knew he was beginning his journey back. Unable to make a sound or movement, he’d pleaded with frantic eyes, peering out through the web of gauze around his head. No one had noticed, not the doctors who marveled at his stamina, not the nurses who cleaned him and patiently fed him liquids through a hollow tube. And especially not Diana, who finally arrived, pale and thin, at his bedside.

  He waited for her to speak, desperate to hear his wife’s voice.

  Her image came into focus between the diffuse threads of the wrapping. Finally she spoke. “What is that awful smell?”

  A doctor cleared his throat. “I fear the burns are quite extensive, Mrs. Higgins.”

  She drew away, and he could see the shudder pass through her like a bitter wind. She didn’t come back until summoned by his doctors, days later.

  “Really,” she protested, “you are the doctor, not I. I don’t see how my presence could possibly make a diff—”

  “He spoke, Mrs. Higgins. Your husband said something. That’s why I called you here today.”

  “Well, what did he say?”

  “Ma’am, is your name Christine?”

  She went to Rand’s bedside with utmost reluctance. He could see resistance in the set of her shoulders and the way she avoided looking at him.

  “Randolph?” she said.

  He had marshaled all his strength in order to ask his question. “Chris-tine?” He hissed his baby’s name through damaged lips.

  Diana had shut her eyes while tears escaped and rolled down her hollow, white cheeks. “She’s gone, Randolph. The hotel collapsed and burned. She and Miss Damson were both…killed.”

  The denial that had roared through him had more healing force than all the efforts of the doctors of St. Elspeth’s and the specialists from Rush Medical College combined. He couldn’t accept that his baby was gone. He had to get up, get out of there. He had to find her. Perhaps the mindless refusal to believe what he heard had given him the strength to do what he did next.

  He’d sat up in bed, startling everyone. And then he’d pulled the bandages off his head. The doctor and nurses were used to him from weeks of changing his dressings, but this was Diana’s first glimpse of him since the fire. He didn’t know at the time that it would be her last.

  He would never forget the expression on her face or the involuntary sound that escaped her when she looked at her husband.

  He hadn’t seen her again after that day. His next visitor had been a hired lawyer informing Rand that Diana was suing him for divorce.

  Buttoning a waistcoat over a crisp white shirt, Rand pulled himself back to the present. He cursed under his breath, furious that the encounter with Lucy this morning had sparked memories of his tormented past.

  Perhaps Diana’s stated grounds for divorce still haunted him. Never mind that he’d been confined to a hospital bed, recuperating from saving her life. He could have argued that point, but in his wounded state after the fire, he could do nothing to disprove her claim. When he saw the official papers, he’d finally admitted something that had lurked like poison in the back of his mind for weeks. He didn’t want to be Diana’s husband anymore.

  He’d signed his capitulation with a shaky, bandaged hand.

  This morning Lucy had disproved the humiliating claim unequivocally. He’d wanted her with a reckless need he hadn’t felt since he was a lad of seventeen, seducing scullery maids in the linen closet. Exuding th
e careless charm of a young man of privilege, he’d been spoiled by those who were easily swayed by good looks and a glib tongue. Thoughtless, impulsive and ever looking to fill the void left by his absent mother, he’d used his looks and status to full advantage. On his graduation from university, his father had directed him to marry Miss Diana Layton, and he’d readily obliged, certain that trading in his wild ways for marital bliss would finally bring him the soul-settling contentment he’d always craved. He’d been so stupid. And so damned eager.

  Finding his daughter again was a miracle in itself, but having Lucy in his life was a separate issue altogether. He didn’t trust the way she made him feel, because long ago, he’d felt the same enthusiasm for Diana. That had turned out to be false, a chimera, shimmering and then disappearing like a shadow at dawn. Still, he had wanted to seduce Lucy. She’d reawakened his self-assurance along with his passion.

  As he made his way down to the breakfast room, he caught himself whistling tunelessly between his teeth—something he hadn’t done in years. Ordinarily breakfast was a cursory affair—he drank his coffee, read the morning paper and bade his grandmother a good day before going to the bank.

  This morning the breakfast room was a hive of activity. In addition to his grandmother and Miss Lowell, he encountered Lucy, Maggie and Viola Hathaway, sipping tea and all talking at once.

  “Good morning,” he said, disoriented by the intimidating profusion of females sitting in the bright, sun-drenched room.

  “Hello, Papa, did you sleep well?” Maggie said, all in a rush. “Miss Lowell says I have to ask you if it’s all right to play baseball this afternoon. Mama says I can play baseball anytime, but Miss Lowell says I need your permission, too, on account of I got two parents now, so can I?”

  “May I?” the governess corrected her.

  “And may I, too?” Maggie asked. Her gap-toothed grin let him know the reply she expected.

  “On one condition,” he said.

  The grin disappeared, and she eyed him warily.

  “You have to promise to play a game of catch with me when I get home today.”

  She bounced up and down in her chair. “Now! I want to play catch now!”

  “After work,” Lucy said. “You heard…your father.”

  How strange to hear himself referred to in that fashion. He couldn’t quite figure out what he was feeling, but it was something rare and new.

  “What do you do at the bank, anyway?” Maggie asked, swirling her spoon in a cup of tea diluted with milk.

  “Customers bring me their money,” he said, “and I keep it safe for them.”

  “Are you very good at it?” she asked. “Are you good at keeping it safe?”

  “He is,” his grandmother said grandly. “In three years, there hasn’t been a run on deposits, while every other bank in town suffers from regular panics.”

  Maggie clearly had no idea what his grandmother was saying, but Viola looked impressed. “That’s wonderful,” she said, spooning sugar into her tea.

  “Some customers borrow money,” Lucy pointed out, aiming a meaningful glance at him. “The bank makes a lot of money off such customers.”

  “Do you make a lot of money?” Maggie asked.

  Miss Lowell set down her coffee cup. “Child, that is a vulgar ques—”

  “The bank does,” Rand said. They might as well understand that, although comfortable, he was not endlessly wealthy. “I’m paid a salary for what I do. If I do a bad job, they’ll give me the sack.”

  “What kind of sack?”

  “They’ll stop paying me and tell me not to work at the bank anymore.”

  “Then we could play catch all day long.”

  “True, but it wouldn’t seem as much fun if we did that. I do love the bank, Maggie. I wouldn’t ever want to get the sack.” Giving her a wink, he took his usual seat at the head of the table, but instead of reading the paper, he drank his coffee while watching the ladies of the house. Viola, Miss Lowell and his grandmother seemed content to visit pleasantly while Maggie and Lucy slathered their biscuits with butter and jam.

  He caught Lucy’s eye, and again was struck by the swift heat of attraction. What the devil was it about her? She kissed like a girl, her mouth soft and her hands tentative as if she did not know where to put them. He assumed that she’d had much practice when it came to the act of love. Perhaps, in the amorous adventures she boasted about, she’d learned that hesitation had a certain charm.

  He might be deluding himself entirely, though. He knew exactly why she’d married him. Somehow, he would make it be enough.

  A nervous Mr. Crowe informed Rand that the Board of Directors had convened a special meeting. As he stepped into the plush boardroom of the Union Trust, the subtle, monied smells of old leather and ink filled the air. Like a panel of distinguished jurors, the directors lined both sides of the table.

  As usual, Lamott’s personal assistant was in attendance. Guy Smollett was a mild-faced young fellow who dressed well and said little. Rand knew him only slightly, but he had a bad feeling about the fellow. For no particular reason, he sensed a subtle cruelty masked by Smollett’s choirboy face.

  “Higgins,” said Jasper Lamott after a round of cursory greetings, “until recently you’ve never given us cause to question your judgment.”

  “I assume this means you’ve finally found cause.” Rand kept his voice quiet, neutral. Jasper had been his friend and mentor since his arrival in Chicago. When Rand had left the hospital after the fire, broken and alone, Jasper Lamott had been the first to call on him—and to remind him that finding a purpose could make life bearable, if not filling it with joy.

  “When you began your term at this institution,” Lamott continued, “we overlooked the fact that you were a man with a troublesome personal background.”

  He’d been the first employee of the bank to be involved in a divorce. But he’d quickly found a way to deflect moral outrage and skepticism. He made money for the bank, lots of money. His lodged deposits were sound, his loans productive and his instincts unerring. The banking world forgave a multitude of faults in men who made money.

  “We were not disappointed,” Mr. Crabtree said. “But this latest gossip is spreading faster than a financial panic.” Expressions of disapproval darkened the room.

  Rand faced them with a steely, inborn calm. The directors were known to have reduced grown men to tears, but after all Rand had been through, there were few things that intimidated him.

  “I assume,” he said, “you are referring to the recent changes in my personal life.” He’d informed them of his plans in a cursory letter. Clearly, they expected a fuller explanation. “I’ve found my young daughter, years after giving her up for dead in the Great Fire. Maggie is nearly six now, and very attached to the woman who raised her. For Maggie’s sake, I have married her foster mother.”

  “You don’t say,” Mr. McClean said. “That’s extraordinary. Purely extraordinary.”

  “It was all over the papers,” Crabtree pointed out.

  “I don’t read the gossip rags.”

  “I haven’t read the accounts, either,” Rand said. “The tale is probably embellished, but the fact is, I have clear evidence that Maggie is my daughter, including photographs.”

  “What a pity the rescuer turned out to be her.” Lamott took out a fresh cigar and Guy Smollett handed him a clip. He snipped the end, cleanly and precisely.

  “Who?” asked Crabtree.

  “The Hathaway woman. Runs that radical bookstore and engages in spreading sedition. Same damned female who came to us about a loan—”

  “There you are,” McClean said in exasperation. “She’s snookered you, Higgins.”

  “Why did you have to marry her?” Mr. Crabtree wanted to know. “Surely it wasn’t necessary to go that far.”

  “Lucy has raised Maggie from the night she rescued her,” Rand said. “They are very, very close, and Maggie needs her. Rather than engage in a lengthy legal battle over custody of the
child, we decided her needs would best be served by becoming a family.”

  Smollett struck a match and carried the flame to Lamott’s cigar. Jasper fogged the room with bluish smoke. Smollett laid the match in the brass ashtray, staring intently at the flame until it went out.

  “Probably filled the poor child’s head with claptrap and blasphemy.” Crabtree steepled his fingers atop a stack of printed forms. “Equal rights. Free love. Women who vote.”

  Rand forced himself to ignore the comment.

  “She’s not a bookseller anymore,” Lamott pointed out. “She’s your wife.”

  Something inside Rand froze. This was it, then. Here was the flaw in his plan.

  “Actually, sir, Lucy will be keeping her interest in the bookstore.”

  “Don’t be absurd, Higgins. You’re the president of the Union Trust. Your wife does not work at a bookstore.”

  “There’s no law that prohibits a married woman from employing herself.” The words sounded strange coming from him. He’d believed with every fiber of his being that a proper wife and mother stayed home to mind the business of the family. Yet Lucy had been looking after both Maggie and her shop with no adverse consequences, and she had no intention of giving up now.

  “I don’t like it,” Crabtree said, thumping the tip of his umbrella on the floor. “Don’t like it in the least. It’s ungodly and immoral, the goings-on in that place.”

  Smollett leaned toward Jasper and murmured something.

  “What’ll our clients think?” Lamott asked. “They are men of principle, mindful about whom they do business with.”

  Jasper Lamott’s arch-conservative religious group had mounted a fierce and well-organized opposition to the Suffrage Movement. Clannish and distrustful, Lamott’s associates in the Brotherhood lodged their deposits at the bank.

  “They’re interested in good business and fair dealings,” Rand said, holding his temper in check. “My having married a woman engaged in commerce won’t change that.”

  “We’ve a reputation to uphold.” Lamott puffed aggressively on his cigar. “Men are fastidious about their money. They’re particular about who they deal with when it comes to banking. You understand that, Higgins. Don’t pretend you don’t.”