The Firebrand (22 page)

Miss Lowell, the governess he had engaged to look after Christine, had admonished him to be firm with the girl, to ignore any childish objections and get on with the business of bringing her back where she belonged. Miss Lowell, who had twenty-five years' experience managing children, had made it sound so simple. But how could it be simple to tear a child away from the only mother she knew?

He caught Lucy Hathaway's eye over the head of the weeping child. Lucy appeared pale but calm as she held Maggie and kissed the top of her head and made soothing sounds. But Rand knew that inside she must be breaking apart.

He imagined that, in this moment, Lucy was like a shipwreck in a storm—her destruction slow and violent, inexorable, sinking into coldness. He knew, because that was how he'd felt when he'd lost Christine.

She is Maggie now, he told himself. With all the other upheaval, he would not try to force a strange name on her.

Viola Hathaway sat very still, the only motion a steady stream of tears down her cheeks.

He still could not believe how easily Lucy had ceded custody of Maggie. Now, as he watched her holding the little girl, he understood why. It wasn't that Lucy had something to hide, or that she wished to shed herself of the cumbersome inconvenience of a child. Quite the opposite. She lived and breathed for Maggie.

Lucy had known that any resistance to Rand's suit would hurt Maggie, and so she'd surrendered quickly and completely.

She must have understood from the very start that it would come to this. So why had she come forward, when she could have let him go on believing his daughter dead? Why wouldn't she let him go on year after year, sitting with an old photograph and drinking a single bottle of champagne on Christine's birthday?

He knew now, and the understanding humbled him.

After what seemed like a long time, Lucy put Maggie on the floor, held her by the shoulders and gazed solemnly into the miserable little face. "This is the way it has to be," she said. "Before there was me, there was your papa, and he needs you now."

Maggie shot him a look over her shoulder. "He doesn't need me. He's got Ivan and his old grandmama and that giisat big hou e."

Rand held her gaze. "You're wrong, Maggie. I need you very much." She blinked, her eyelashes spiky with tears. "Why?"

"Because you are the most precious thing in my life, and I thought I'd lost you forever. Now that you're back, you're all I think about."

"Could you maybe think about me while I stay here?" she suggested. "And I could come and visit you sometimes?"

She spoke with such adult logic that she nearly did him in, but Lucy took charge. "Come, sweetheart. Grammy Vi and I got all your favorite things ready. I want you to be all settled in your new room so that when I come to visit you, I'll know you feel right at home."

Rand stood out of politeness, but he had no idea what to do with himself.

"I'll never feel at home there. Never!" Maggie stomped her foot. "I'll hate it there. I'll hate it forever!"

Remarkably, Lucy pretended not to hear, and even more remarkably, the tantrum subsided. Maggie followed Lucy out of the parlor down a narrow hallway.

"A tantrum is only a tantrum if there's someone watching," Viola Hathaway murmured to him, dabbing at her cheeks with a lace-edged handkerchief. "Remember that technique. I suspect you'll need it."

He nodded. "I feel like a monster."

She didn't try to soothe or placate or deny it. "Perhaps now you understand my daughter," she said with a touch of pride. "Justice and honor are everything to her. She puts them before everything, even her personal desires."

"There is no humane way to do this." He wanted to pace the room, but it was so tiny and cramped he feared he might break something.

A knock sounded at the door, and it opened before anyone could respond. Into the room burst a large, handsome black woman dressed in a dark dress. "Oh,

good," she said in a rich, almost musical voice, "he's still here." With the attention of a cow buyer at the Union Stockyards, she inspected Rand from head to toe. She nearly matched him in height, and her regard was filled with the special authority of a person who knew exactly what she was about.

"Patience," said Viola, "this is Mr. Higgins."

"I know." Her hand was large and smooth, her grip strong. "How do you do?" "Mr. Higgins," Viola continued, "this is the Reverend Patience Gloriana

Washington."

"I'm honored, ma'am," he said.

"Patience!" Maggie raced out of her room and flung herself at the tall woman. "Patience, help! This man is my papa and he's taking me away!"

"I know that, child. ' As if Maggie weighed nothing, Patience lifted her up to one hip and held her there. "It's a blessed miracle. Your mama told me all about it."

"Don't let him take me, Patience! Don't!" Maggie pushed her head into Patience's shoulder and peered at Rand.

"Land sakes, girl. I never knew you to be such a baby," Patience said. "Here the good Lord gives you back your daddy, and you act like you don't even want him."

"I
do
want him, Patience, but I—" She pushed back and looked directly at him. "I do want you, Mr. Higgins." Her voice was curiously controlled, reminding him sharply of Lucy. "I just don't want to leave my mama."

"Honey child," Patience said, "everything's going to be just fine, you'll see. The Lord fixes things in ways we don't understand."

"Why? Why would he do that?" "To test the strength of our faith." "Well, I failed the test."

"Almighty, but you got a mouth on you, girl. This is a chance to see if we'll trust the Lord's wisdom and obey his law." She had a magnetic way of speaking. Even the little girl seemed drawn in. "You're going to find a brand-new way of life with your daddy, but you'll always have this life, too," Patience said. "You must learn to call him Papa, and you'll learn to love him as much as he loves you."

"Aw, Patience, I can't."

"Sure you can, honey. Sure you can." As she spoke, the preacher brought Maggie over to Rand and handed her to him.

Maggie stiffened, but Patience made a clucking noise and the little girl relaxed against him. Rand was nearly overwhelmed by the sensation of holding his daughter in his arms once again.

"You know," he said, "when you were a baby, I used to hold you every night and walk around the room until you fell asleep."

"Really?" she whispered.

"Yes. You had a nurse who used to scold me for spoiling you, but I did it anyway."

"Why was there a nurse? Was I sick?"

"No, not that sort of nurse. Someone to help your mother take care of you." "My mama never needs help taking care of me. Why did my—the other one

need help?"

"I'm not sure." He patted her on the back. "You were a lot smaller then."

Lucy arrived with a carpet bag in each hand. Her face was ashen, her smile false and strained. "Hello, Patience," she said. "Thank you for coming." Her heart was in those words; Rand could hear it. For all her steely reserve, Lucy Hathaway was inches from crumbling.

"Let's all go down together," Patience said.

Maggie strained toward her mother, fingers splayed so that her hands resembled tiny starfish, but Lucy pretended not to see and headed down the narrow stairway with the valises. Over her shoulder, she spoke to Rand. "Did you have time to go over that list I gave you?"

The list had been a mile long. "You mean the one that says Maggie likes to fall asleep with a lamp on, with the flame set very low?"

"Yes, that's the one."

He could feel the little girl's interest pique. She expressed herself with her whole body, limbs stiffening and hands clenching when something caught her attention.

"And she dislikes a creaky bed, her favorite story is Cinderella, pork disagrees with her, she prefers to take her bath on Wednesday and Saturday night and she uses Dr. Denmark's tooth powder. Oh, and she attends the Calvary Baptist Church." He quickly rattled off the rest of the list— where she was in her sums and penmanship, the names of her friends, the title of the book Lucy was reading to her at night.

Lucy reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to gape at him. She set down the valises and patted Maggie's back. "You
did
look over the list."

He had memorized every word.

Rand had worked tirelessly to prepare for the arrival of his daughter. He wanted her to have the life he'd always envisioned for her. He wanted her days filled with sunshine and nights filled with pleasant dreams. He wanted to hear her laughter ringing through the halls and to see her busy at her sewing or dancing lessons. He wanted her dressed up pretty as a picture for supper each night, smiling across the table from him as she dined on fruit compote and buttered

biscuits.

The only thing missing from the picture was a woman. His dreams and visions of the perfect family were incomplete. He couldn't help wondering about Diana. Her first reply to his ecstatic wire had been suspicious. Her second had been cautious and oddly congratulatory, as if he'd reported getting a new coach horse or an important client at the bank. This morning he'd wired her that Christine was returning home. As soon as possible, he would have a photograph made of Maggie, and mail it to Diana. If that didn't get her to Chicago, he didn't know what would.

From the moment his coach lurched away from the curb, Rand realized that nothing was going to proceed as planned. Like a fool, he always mapped things out according to some idealized vision in his head, not according to the way things were.

Instead of sunshine, a storm rolled in off the lake. It was a typical lake squall

—swift and vicious, dark and drenching. In minutes, the sky seemed to disappear and a high wind, laced by slanting rain, lashed through the streets. Lightning cracked close by. Maggie winced, then drew herself into a tight ball on the leather seat.

He put his arm around her, but the gesture felt awkward and forced. Touching people was a habit he would have to relearn. She didn't move away, but tightened her posture like a turtle pulling itself into a hard shell. Rain slapped at the glass windscreen of the coach hood.

"Storms have always scared me," he said over the wail of the wind and the drumming rain.

"You?" She lifted her head from her tucked arms. "But you're a grownup." "Being a grownup doesn't mean you never get scared."

"My mama's not afraid of anything. Ever."

He smiled. "That doesn't surprise me. But storms are scary. All that noise, crashing down when we don't expect it."

"What do you do when you're scared?" she asked.

"I used to shut my eyes and hold my hands over my ears, like this." He demonstrated, exaggerating his expression of sheer terror. When he opened his eyes again, she was laughing, though she stopped abruptly when he grinned at her. "Now that I have you," he said, "it's not so scary."

"Because you're not so all alone." "Right."

The coach lurched and splashed through the streets of Chicago, heading north along the lakeshore. The strong wind caused the vehicle to sway. Maggie turned her face to the window, peering through a blur of raindrops at the lake. The choppy, gray waters were frosted with white wave crests, churning restlessly with the force of the storm.

The coach halted under the portico at the side of the house, well out of the rain. Rand opened the door and stepped down, reaching for his daughter. As he held her by her tiny waist, he was filled with such a feeling of joy that he laughed aloud, swinging her high in the air so that her little legs flew out. She looked startled, and then she laughed, too.

The driver, with hooded oilskins dripping and streaming water, leaped down and gaped at them.

"Is something wrong, Bowen?" asked Rand, still swinging her up and down. "No, sir. You sounded as though you were choking, is all."

"I was laughing," Rand said. "So I see, sir."

He realized that Bowen, who had been his driver since he'd been wheeled out of St. Elspeth's, had never heard him laugh.

Still holding Maggie, Rand headed for the entryway. She pushed her hand at his arm. "You're very strong."

"Am I?"

"The only one who's ever picked me up that high before is Bull." "Bull?"

"I'm supposed to call him Mr. Waxman, but he lets me call him Bull." She cupped her hands around his ear, seeming not to notice the burns. "He's courting Willa Jean."

The brass-and-glass double doors both opened at once as if they worked automatically. Glaring light flooded the foyer. Rand had ordered it so—all the lights on, all the help assembled to greet his daughter, and Grandmother in the center at the foot of the grand staircase.

Yet the effect was not what he'd planned. The white gaslight struck like lightning, abrupt and dazzling. Their footsteps echoed on the gleaming floor, the sound tomblike and intimidating. The servants and domestics and even Grandmother were garbed in funereal black and stark white.

Maggie dropped her chin to her chest and studied the floor.

Rand cleared his throat, preparing to make the best of it. "Look, sweetheart.

Everyone has come to welcome you."

Like a little squall-battered boat, she clung to him. Any port in a storm, he thought, but felt gratified by her tight gripHer silver-tipped cane measuring a slow rhythm, Grandmother came forward. "Christine," she said, her voice as strong as ever. "What a miracle to find you again, after all these years."

Rand patted her back. "We're going to call her Maggie from now on." Grandmother's mouth puckered like a prune. "Her name is Christine." "Maggie!" shouted Maggie, her entire body going stiff and hard in a combative

stance.

Grandmother tapped her cane meaningfully. "We'll see about that."

Rand had spoken to his grandmother at length about the importance of making Maggie feel at home. But he hadn't even thought about the name. Stupid, he thought. What else had he failed to foresee?

Everything, it seemed. The staff stared at him, waiting. So did Maggie. "Let's see if we can play a game," he suggested.

Maggie relaxed again. "What sort of game?"

"A remembering game." He took her hand. "I'll introduce you to everyone here, and you see if you can remember their names." He brought her to meet a petite, pale-haired woman with nervous hands and darting eyes. "Miss Lowell is new. She has come to live with us so she can be with you every day, helping you with your lessons. She is called a governess."