The Firebrand (29 page)

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 raked Maggie Trom 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'11 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."

"Trust me," Rand assured them, "my wife's conduct and her business will be discreet. People will take no more note of Lucy than they do of a matron at a church social."

When he arrived home that afternoon, he was greeted by a huge political banner spread across the driveway, a pack of mismatched children racing around the lawn and his nosiest neighbor lying in wait.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Wallace," he said, pretending not to notice the red-and-white banner with the paint still wet. The slogan Votes For Women shouted in bright block letters. "And how are y—"

"What in heaven's name is going on, Mr. Higgins?" Mrs. Wallace demanded, gesturing at the carriages parked at the curb. "It's practically a mob scene, and I heard them singing the most dreadful protest songs. I was about to send for the police."

"I'm sure there's no need," he said. The barefoot children stampeded across the yard with Maggie in the lead, whooping like a wild Indian. "If you'll excuse me, Mrs. Wallace, I must be going."

He left her sputtering in outrage on the sidewalk, pretending to be unperturbed by the uncontrolled mayhem. As he walked up to the front door, his daughter ambushed him.

"You're a prisoner," Maggie screamed, tightening a rope around his middle. In addition to loose dungarees, she wore streaks of warpaint on her face and a crooked feather in her hair. "You'll never get out of here alive!" A few other children leaped from the gooseberry bushes flanking the front walk and ran in

circles around Rand. Barking his foolish head off, Ivan added to the noise. Rand counted at least eight youngsters, ranging from about Maggie's age to toddlers with sagging drawers. And in spite of his irritation, he couldn't help laughing.

"I surrender." He turned his hands up in capitulation. "Here, I'll pay you a ransom." Reaching into his pocket, he took out a handful of peppermint drops. Having learned that first day that Maggie loved peppermints, he always carried a supply.

Instantly diverted, they ran off with their booty, leaving Rand to make his way into the house. Stepping over buckets and brushes in the foyer, he recalled leaving an orderly household that morning. What greeted him this afternoon was chaos.

Placards and banners in various stages of completion covered every surface of the downstairs. They bore slogans like All Men And Women Are Created Equal, I Will Vote, and Give The Vote To The Woman Who Gave You Life.

"How do you spell despot?" someone asked from the parlor.

"L-a-m-o-t-t," another woman answered. "Chief of the Brethren of Orderly Righteousness. Have you ever noticed the initials of that moniker? BOOR."

"Highly appropriate. Did you see in the paper where his group wants to revive coverture restrictions for women?"

"Oh, for Pete's sake, really?" Lucy's voice was sharp with annoyance. "I thought such restrictions ended in the Middle Ages. I shall have to register myself as a femme sole trader so I can conduct business on my own. Honestly, I think men who make the laws must leave their brains at the hatcheck."

"Actually," someone said, "a man's brains are—" Her voice dropped to a whisper and was followed by a chorus of female laughter.

Rand took a deep breath and headed for the parlor.

Miss Lowell waylaid him in the vestibule, her carpetbag in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.

"What's this?" he asked.

"My letter of resignation." Her mouth was so pinched he was surprised she could speak. "My services are clearly not appreciated here. Your wife has excused Maggie from needlework and deportment. She allows the child to chase balls in the alley with the children of laborers, and now the little hoyden is racing around out of control with her visitors."

"I believe that's called playing," he said politely, thinking how agreeable it had been to return home to a yard full of laughing children. "At Maggie's age, it's permissible."

"At the expense of learning?" She sniffed. "And good manners? I cannot abide the disorder. Good day, Mr. Higgins."

She was gone before he had a chance to respond. Out in the yard, two women he'd never seen before shooed the children away from Miss Lowell as she marched down the gravel driveway, veering around the painted banner.

It was just as well. Judging by the noise from the parlor, Rand had other matters to worry about. Unnoticed, he stood in the doorway. Viola sat in a draped window seat, contentedly sewing a sash in patriotic colors. Wearing a paint-smeared smock and her hair pulled away from her face, Lucy discussed the design of the placards with Deborah and Kathleen.

Pushing aside a curl that strayed over her brow, she said, "Perhaps the banner should read, 'AH men are despots.'"