The Firebrand (17 page)

"Agreed," she said.

The strain in her voice caught his attention. "I'm sorry. This must be difficult for you."

"I confess my first instinct was to keep Maggie for myself." "So why did you come forward?"

"Because... it would be morally wrong to hide the truth from Maggie. It would make me no better than the unenlightened patriarchs who keep women in ignorance and deny them their rights. I will still be Maggie's mother and fiercest protector, but I won't hide the identity of her natural parents from her. Therefore,

my coming forward to you has certain conditions attached."

Amazing. She managed to be high-minded and annoying in the same breath. "My first condition is that we must keep Maggie and her needs in mind. We

must do what is best for her, first and foremost."

"I agree."

"Good. I was hoping you would."

He prepared to get up. "So shall we go and tell her?" She grabbed his sleeve and yanked at it. "Tell her what?"

"That she is my daughter and henceforth will be living here with me." She kept a stranglehold on his sleeve. "Wait."

"I see no reason to delay." He stood up.

"Here is your reason, Mr. Higgins." She slapped a parchment document into his hand.

He unfolded the paper and his blood chilled. "This is—"

"Yes," she said, "it is. A legal adoption. Maggie is my daughter in the eyes of the law."

Lucy held her breath until her chest hurt and a pulse hammered in her ears. Then slowly, half afraid she would deflate like a spent balloon, she let out the air and stepped away so he could read every word of the adoption papers.

Almighty heaven, what had she been thinking?

She should have listened to her mother, whose occasional bursts of wisdom were too often ignored. Lucy had always been one for opening doors and poking her nose into places she shouldn't. When most would leave well enough alone, she tended to dig and pick at things until she exposed them. This was no great virtue, her mother had pointed out, particularly in the current situation. Her campaign for justice was about to cost her the one thing she could not give up— her daughter.

And all because she could not keep her mouth shut.

It had always been that way with her. From the time she was small, she'd always spoken up when she perceived an injustice. And that, of course, was what had befallen Randolph and Diana Higgins. A tragic injustice of the cruelest sort. And she, in her usual crusading manner, had felt compelled to rectify it.

But Lord, why? Why couldn't she, for once in her life, have kept her own

counsel and maintained the status quo?

She was still not even certain he was the sort of person she would want in Maggie's life.

He stood like an oak tree on the lawn, solid and quietly powerful-looking as he perused the long legal document she'd handed him. He was tall indeed, but she knew his strength was a deceptive thing. In certain places in his heart, he was as fragile as spun glass. He'd nearly been killed in the fire and had awakened to find that his baby was gone, his wife divorcing him. He lived alone in this large house with a sour old woman. His strength was the strength of endurance, of forbearance.

Lucy got up from the garden bench and paced, waiting for him to finish inspecting the document. Her gaze automatically turned to Maggie, and an unbidden smile softened her mouth. She never tired of watching her daughter. The child possessed an uncanny ability to become completely absorbed in her world, whether she was telling stories to Silky, building cities in the sand or simply staring out the window. At the moment, she was making some sort of game only she understood, which involved overturning certain rocks on the pathway and arranging them in a crooked line. Lucy found the mind of her daughter endlessly fascinating, and she never questioned Maggie or expected her to justify her imaginative forays.

When Lucy was small, the Colonel had subscribed to the traditional notion that a child not visibly occupied in a productive pursuit—study, prayer or domestic arts—was a sinner waiting for opportunity. He'd scheduled her day to the last minute, so much so that from the moment she awakened until the moment she fell asleep—with her hair twisted into ringlet rags, her hands tied on top of the covers so she wouldn't interfere with herself—her hours were filled with lessons deemed important to the development of a proper young lady.

Lucy had rebelled every chance she got, and she'd sworn that if she ever became a mother, she would not put her children through such a regimen, restricting them and binding them up as if they were espaliered vines. She'd never forgotten that vow, and Maggie was free to play however she pleased.

The breeze blew through the birches and chestnuts, and the leaves shimmered, making a chiming sound. She pictured the childhood a little girl might experience in this elegant, shaded house, with a stern great-grandmama and unsmiling servants moving through the halls.

She could never let Maggie live here, only come for visits.

Mr. Higgins finished reading and approached Lucy. He walked with a slight limp, and she guessed that it was another injury from the fixe.

But the deepest wounds were hidden inside him.

What was it like, she wondered, to be divorced? To have pledged love and devotion for a lifetime, only to have his wife recant her vows? Lucy was all in favor of divorce, naturally. Too many women were shackled to horrible men

through the institution called marriage, and they deserved a way to extricate themselves. But in the case of Mr. Higgins, she hardly thought he was a drunk or a bully. He was just...too sad and too scarred to bring his wife joy.

He held out the papers to her, and she took them and put them away.

"I suppose," he said, "you think this means you have the same rights as Christine's mother."

Her hackles rose at his choice of words. "Christine's natural mother has suffered a great loss, but that doesn't give her more rights than I have. My child's name is Maggie now, and
I
am her mother. In the eyes of the State of Illinois, and most particularly, in the eyes of Maggie herself."

"This adoption is based on the assumption that she was orphaned in the fire.

That assumption is erroneous. Therefore, the adoption is invalid."

Lucy forced herself to remain very still and calm. Her solicitor had declared that her situation was unique. It would take a skilled and sensitive judge to sort it all out, and Mr. Lynch's advice had echoed her mother's: Let sleeping dogs lie.

Too late, she thought, eyeing Mr. Higgins.

"I will dispute that," she said, "to my dying breath."

"There's no need for histrionics, Miss Hathaway. The situation is simple. My lost daughter has been found. She will come and live with me as nature intended. I'll see to it you're adequately compensated for your—"

"Oh, stop it," she said, covering her rising panic with bravado. "Who's being melodramatic now? From my point of view, the situation is equally simple. When Maggie thinks of her mother, she thinks of me."

The lake breeze lifted his thick dark hair. The untended locks curled at the nape of his neck in a way Lucy recognized. Maggie's hair curled in that precise fashion. Lucy knew then that she would never look at her daughter in the same way again.

"Miss Hathaway, if you're so set on fighting me," Mr. Higgins said, "what were you thinking by bringing her here, telling me your story?"

"How ironic to hear you ask that." She stood and followed him in his pacing, taking two steps to each one of his. "I was wondering the same thing myself. I certainly didn't intend for you to steal my child," she said fiercely. "I only thought it my moral duty to come forward with the truth. Once I saw the photograph in your office, I felt obligated to do the right thing. But that does not mean you can rip Maggie from my arms."

"Nor does it mean you can keep a child who wasn't yours in the first place," he snapped.

"She'd be dead if not for me." She could feel the air crackle between them. "Standing here and arguing about it won't accomplish a thing."

"Then what do you propose we do?"

"We have to come to an arrangement we can all accept. One that keeps

Maggie's needs and her happiness in mind. Will you at least agree to that?" "It is precisely her needs that I am thinking of."

Lucy willed herself to be patient and calm. For Maggie's sake, she had to be civil to this man. "It's time to take my daughter home now," she stated. "You'll want to send for your—for Diana. Then we will determine the best way to proceed." She could not resist adding, "And make no mistake, I never shared breath or blood with Maggie, or nourished her with the milk of my breast. But I am her mother in every sense that matters."

"Your love for Christine is genuine and admirable," he said with obvious reluctance. "But we do have much to discuss."

"Indeed we do. We mustn't tell her yet. She'll be too frightened and confused.

Promise me."

"All right. For now." He seemed calm and resolute as he offered her his arm. To seal their truce, she put her hand into the crook of his elbow and they strolled along the walkway. She found that she enjoyed the connection, which was strange, since this man posed such a threat to her. Yet his solidity and warmth appealed to her in a deeply physical way.

She gave a little wordless laugh.

"If you've found something amusing," he said, "I wish you'd share it."

"I was just thinking—last time I walked arm in arm with a man, I was in handcuffs." She remembered hiding her terror behind a mask of bravado.

"The voting incident," he said. "Yes."

"And where was my daughter while you were being thrown in jail?"

Lucy yanked her hand away from him. "She was perfectly safe, I assure you.

What are you trying to say, Mr. Higgins?"

He gestured at Maggie with his free hand. "She's very young yet, and unschooled. Before long, it will be time for her to get on in the world, and she'll need—" He paused.

"You can say it, Mr. Higgins. It won't be the first time I've borne criticism. She will need more than I can give her." Saying the words herself somehow numbed the sting. "I used to lie awake at night wondering if I was doing right by Maggie, raising her in the only manner I am able. But I don't worry anymore, and do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because Maggie herself gives me the answer every day. She is a bright, joyful child with a heart full of love, an adventurous spirit and a great curiosity about the world. So I must be doing something right."

"Of course you are," he conceded readily as he escorted her across the esplanade. "But as she gets older, her needs will grow more complex. Think about

it, Miss Hathaway. You want a good education for her. You no doubt want safety and stability and complete freedom from deprivation."

"Of course. Every mother wants that for her child."

"Look around you." With a gentle pressure, he turned her to face the staid elegance of the lakefront neighborhood. Well-dressed gentlemen drove buggies toward the bridge, and nannies in crisp white aprons pushed prams along the neatly laid out sidewalks. Uniformed maids swept porches and women sat watching the boats and barges on the lake. "All that is here," said Mr. Higgins. "Just waiting for her."

Lucy couldn't answer as she pictured the cramped flat over the shop, the noise and dust of Gantry Street and her worries about making the food budget stretch to the end of the month. She moved away from him and walked toward her daughter.

Maggie stood by the line of stones she'd laid out near the bench where the old lady sat. Waving her arms in circles, she screeched like a seagull. Mrs. Higgins awakened with a snort and a scowl. "Child, what in the world are you doing?"

"I'm a bird!" Maggie cried, angling her arms and racing toward the old woman. "I can fly!"

"Nonsense, you are a girl, and girls don't fly."

"We do, too," Maggie insisted. "Well, I do, at leas— Yikes!" She clapped her hand over her mouth.

Lucy and Mr. Higgins hurried over, but Grace Templeton Higgins was more spry than she looked. Using her cane for leverage, she sprang up and went to the child. "What is it? Are you hurt?"

"Mmm-mmm." Maggie kept her hand in place and spoke in a muffled voice. "My tooth ith very looth."

"Let me see." Putting aside Maggie's hands, Grace tilted up her chin and said, "Open."

"Grandmother—" Mr. Higgins began.

Lucy touched his sleeve, holding him back. As her fingers brushed his bare arm, that peculiar sensation rolled through her again. "It's all right," she said, amazed to see the severe old lady getting along so well with Maggie.

"Wider," Grace said, and untucked a dainty handkerchief from her sash. "Let me see which tooth it is. Could it be...this one?"

She held the handkerchief flat on her palm.

"It's out!" Maggie cried, dancing a little jig. "It's out out out!" She paused to spit upon the ground.

Grace looked aghast, but when Maggie grabbed her hand and said thank you, she quickly recovered from her disgust.

"Mama, Mr. Higgins, look at this!" Maggie said, wrenching a finger into the

side of her mouth to give them a wide view. "My tooth came out." "Congratulations," said Mr. Higgins, looking suitably impressed.

Lucy realized that it was a milestone he'd not yet witnessed. What a wonder this must be to him, seeing his baby suddenly transformed into a little girl.

Maggie wadded up the handkerchief with the tooth and handed it to Mrs.

Higgins. "You can keep it if you like."

The old lady blinked behind her steel-rimmed spectacles. "Thank you," she said, tucking the handkerchief in her sash. "I think perhaps I shall."

"Honestly, I have no idea why you sell such drivel." Mrs. Mackey held a dime novel between thumb and forefinger, letting it dangle there like a dormouse. "Waste of shelf space, if you ask me."

Lucy was in no mood to spar with one of her least pleasant customers, but it was hard to let the remark pass. She took the slim booklet, printed on foolscap, from Mrs. Mackey. "Actually there are several reasons," she said. "I am a bookseller, ma'am. These are books, and so I sell them. Dime novels sell briskly and in great numbers. I would be a poor businesswoman indeed if I ignored them."