The Firebrand (34 page)

"What?" Deborah asked.

"That's Jasper Lamott from the bank." He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the angry men, his face a mask of wrath as he boomed out his protest. Maybe it was her imagination, but she sensed his furious gaze focusing on her. He marched beside Guy Smollett, who sang with the fervor of a fanatic choirboy.

"And the Boors," Kathleen said. "We should have known they'd come to make trouble."

Suffragists and bystanders jostled each other at the edge of the crowd. Lucy couldn't tell who made the first move, but a fight broke out. For a moment it was a shoving match between two men only, but it quickly escalated like a flame being touched to incendiary oil. Mrs. Woodhull's cart horse bolted. Someone screamed, and the marching columns dissolved into confusion. Flags and placards were knocked askew like broken weapons in a melee. Lucy was caught in the middle, and though no one actually hit her, the mob of sweating, angry protesters and counterprotesters squeezed the air from her lungs. At one point her feet actually left the ground as she was buffeted between the warring factions.

"A riot," yelled Kathleen. "Saints and crooked angels, an honest-to-goodness riot." Her shout crescendoed to a scream as a powerful gush of water cut through the throng.

At first Lucy didn't understand what was happening. She took a faceful of water and choked, her hand torn from Deborah's. Then she realized that the police had turned the stream on the crowd. Using Chicago's new high-pressure water system, they separated the suffragists and righteous Brotherhood as if the two factions were fighting dogs. The stream hit fast and hard, parting the crowd, knocking some to the ground. The cowards of the Brotherhood rushed away, seeking shelter down a side street.

Drenched from head to toe, Lucy sat dazed upon the wet pavement. Over the crowd of thousands, a stunned hush hung like a pall. No one seemed capable of moving. Then the police took action, hauling away the most obvious of the brawlers—men with bloodied noses, women shrieking obscenities, crying children separated from their parents.

Groping for her ruined hat, Lucy felt a disquieting premonition. Dear God, were the police coming for her?

A long shadow dropped over her huddled form. She braced herself for the arrest and looked defiantly up at her captor.

"Rand?"

He held out his hand to her and drew her to her feet. She stood staring up at him, while all around, the marchers slowly reformed their ranks. Mrs. Woodhull's

driver brought the cart back in line, and she proceeded down the street. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Seeing history in the making." He handed her a dry handkerchief. "Wipe your face. You've got another block or two to go."

As he spoke, Deborah's giant woodsman of a husband appeared, carrying their towheaded children. Dylan Kennedy held a baby on one hip while the twins and their sister followed him like ducklings in a row. Lastly, Lucy's mother emerged, holding Maggie by the hand. Seeing her parents, Maggie gave a whoop and sped forward, grabbing Lucy's hand and then Rand's, joyously swinging between them.

Patience started singing with loud clarity. By the end of the first phrase, a thousand voices joined in as the song buoyed them to the end of the march.

That night, a huge crowd watched fireworks from the beach by the lake. Many of the suffragists still sang softly, the hymns riding the summer breeze. Sitting upon thick blankets spread over the sand, Lucy stroked Maggie's hair. "The last of the children to succumb," she said. "They were all so exhausted."

Next to her, Rand pushed a stick into the campfire the men had built. "How do they sleep through all this noise?"

Across from him, Dylan Kennedy stretched out, laid his head in his wife's lap and crossed his legs at the ankles. "Don't ever question why a child sleeps," he said. His own brood lay scattered nearby on a blanket, snuggled together like a litter of kittens. "Just be thankful for it."

"A child can sleep through anything if she's not afraid," Deborah said with quiet assurance. She leaned back against her husband's massive shoulder and tilted her face up to the night sky, where rockets and starbursts exploded in streams of color.

Lucy observed her friends covertly, and a stab of yearning pierced her. How wonderful, she thought, to be so relaxed and comfortable with one's husband, so secure in his love.

"Well," said Kathleen, stroking her husband's hair. "We're glad entirely that all of you showed up when you did."

Dylan winked. "I can usually count on finding you in the middle of trouble."

Lucy pulled her knees up to her chest, deciding the undignified pose was forgivable at this late hour. "We planned a peaceful demonstration. It's not our

fault a group of ignorant philistines chose to pick a fight with us."

"They uphold their beliefs with the same passion as you uphold yours," Rand pointed out.

"They're probably ordinary men who play golf and go fishing," Tom Silver added.

"They can still be wrong," said Kathleen. "They can have obedient wives who enjoy looking after hearth and home, and they can still be wrong."

"We're lucky the police were right there with the fire hoses," Deborah said. "I wonder how they knew the precise location of the altercation."

From the corner of her eye, Lucy saw Rand shift and look away, out across the endless black lake.

"You knew, didn't you?" she said. "You knew they were planning a counterdemonstration, and you alerted the police."

"Jasper Lamott organized the demonstration," Rand said. "A bank is a gossip mill, you know that."

She understood then, and wonder welled up inside her. He had known he'd never succeed in talking her out of going. In his own way, he'd protected her as best he could. Protected her without taking away her freedom.

Until this moment, Lucy had never believed such a thing could be. As a rainbow fireburst blossomed overhead, she reached over and put her hand on top of his.

*

Lucy didn't feel a bit tired as she readied herself for bed. The usual rituals of bedtime still felt peculiar to her in this vast room where bedclothes were turned down by phantom hands and hot water appeared as if by magic in the ewer and hip bath.

A secret delight filled her. She adored the luxury of fresh bedding and hot baths and delicately scented soap, of water and coal she didn't have to fetch, of gaslight anytime she wanted it, fresh rolls for breakfast and daily newspapers delivered to her door.

But she would die before she'd admit these things to anyone but herself.

After indulging in a bath, loving it as though it were a private vice, she donned the white organdy nightgown her mother insisted on calling part of her trousseau. It was far too sheer to be practical, but she hadn't had the heart to tell her mother so. Besides, the night was balmy with the ripe warmth of summer.

Brushing her hair with absentminded motions, she went to the window and peered out. From this vantage point there was little to see in the soft dark of the summer night. A fine spray of stars lit the sky, and the sparse lights of the neighborhood spread out along the avenue below.

Her husband's room had a far better view. He could probably see the fireworks

still going off over the lake. She pictured him standing at the French doors, looking out at the brilliant night. Despite the heated eddies of wind wafting in through the window, she shivered.

Swirling, tantalizing thoughts brought Lucy right back to a point where she'd been before, to a feeling she'd had before. Five years ago, she'd been so powerfully attracted to Randolph Higgins that she'd brazenly asked him to be her lover. Five years later, she still wanted that.

Five years ago, he'd been married to Diana. Five years later, he was married to
her.

How did one communicate these blazing needs to a man? She supposed she could simply ask him...but she wasn't sure what she was asking. She wanted

—desired—an intimacy that had eluded her for years, mocking her efforts to subsist without it.

Lucy pressed her fingertips to the windowpane and then removed them, watching the foggy impression evaporate. Then, very slowly, she let herself make a decision at last, because she'd run out of reasons not to.

Before her conviction faltered, she hurried to the door dividing her room from Rand's.

She slowly turned the brass knob, encountered resistance. The knob seemed frozen in place. Her heart sank; the message was clear. Her husband had barred her from his room.

On the other side of the door, Rand turned the knob a little harder. It didn't budge. Fine, he thought. She'd locked it.

Obviously he'd misread her manner toward him tonight. In the amber glow of the beach fire, he'd dared to believe that she wanted his kisses, his touch...perhaps more. He'd felt a small measure of his old confidence, when he used to be certain of his appeal to women.

A case of wishful thinking, he concluded sourly, giving the knob one last twist.

This time, the latch yielded to his pressure and the door opened. Lucy stood there, mere inches away, snatching her hand from the doorknob as if it had burned her. She looked as startled and defenseless as a doomed rabbit caught in a steel trap.

"Forgive me," he said, rattled but intrigued. She must have been trying the door, too. "I didn't expect to find you standing so close."

"You might have knocked."

"But I didn't." He glanced pointedly at her.

"Oh." She was more flustered than he'd ever seen her, and he found this curiously appealing.

"Is something the matter?" he asked. "No. I mean, yes. I mean—"

"Would you like something to drink?"

She regarded him as though he'd spoken in a foreign tongue. "Brandy or port?" he said. "I have some in my room."

She nodded once and slipped silently past him. He caught the whisper of a light soapy fragrance as she walked by. She wore the same nightgown she'd had on her first night in the house, only now it was covered with a modest robe.

A pity. In the sheer, revealing nightgown, she'd looked like a goddess. Now, with the robe buttoned to her chin, she merely looked uncomfortable.

"What would you like?" he asked.

"I'm not sure where to begin," she said, the words bursting from her in a nervous rush. "I have a few things to ask—"

"To drink," he interrupted, growing amused. "What would you like to drink, port or brandy?"

"Oh." Her shoulders sagged. "Brandy, please."

He poured a little from a crystal decanter into a snifter. The only light in the room came from a sconce by the bed; it was too warm for a fire. The diffuse glow fell like a veil over her, flickering in the folds of her gown as she paced over to the window and cupped her hands around her eyes to see out. "They're still letting off fireworks."

"As you pointed out this morning," he said, handing her a glass of brandy, "we only have one Centennial." He touched his glass to hers. "Cheers. Sit down," he said.

With surprising obedience, she not only sampled the brandy, but closed her eyes as she swallowed, and then took a seat. She looked so prim and proper, her robe buttoned from throat to hem, her hair in a loose braid down her back, yet the very modesty of her appearance made him want to peel away those layers, one by one.

When she opened her eyes, she was looking at the mantel shelf where he'd left his mother's book. "You read it, didn't you?"

"Yes." He pulled a reluctant admission from deep inside him. "I won't say it was the most uplifting material I've ever read. It was damned painful. But you were right to show it to me. There are things I never knew, never understood. My father painted a picture of an unfaithful wife and uncaring mother. Now that I've read her story, I understand. My father drove her away, threatening to put her in an insane asylum if she dared to contact her son. I didn't realize the burden I'd been carrying, and I never knew how forgiveness could lighten that burden." He helped himself to a glass of brandy. "Now. Is that what you came to ask me?"

"I wanted to ask you several things." Amazed by his candor, she took a quick

gulp of brandy. "And for some reason, I've forgotten all of them but one." "Which one is that?"

"It's something I've asked you before."

Rand wasn't sure he wanted to hear. In the past, she had asked him to lend her money for an enterprise in danger of failing, to support a cause he opposed, and in general, to change his life and his beliefs to suit hers. "What is it?" he said with weary resignation.

"Can you—will you—make love to me?"

It was the last thing he'd expected to hear from her, and he stood in complete, motionless silence for several moments.

She mistook his hesitation. "If you'd rather not or if you, er, can't, then I'll certainly understand—"

The old shame stung him. Damn Diana, he thought viciously. She'd made no secret of her rationale for divorce. Somehow, Lucy must have learned of the scandal. "What do you mean,
can't?"

She took a bigger sip of brandy. "Why are you so angry?"

Because I'm afraid,
his heart whispered. She thought she knew what the fire had done to him. But she couldn't, not really. Step by step, he'd reclaimed his life, building a career and a home, a place in society. Now he had his daughter again. He had his life back. He'd regained everything he'd lost, save one. He still lacked a true wife. Lucy was his in name only. So far.

"Rand?" she asked, confused by his silence. "If you'd rather not—"

"My grandmother told you about my mother. But I doubt she told you about Diana."

"I don't understand."

It was time she heard the truth from him, for it was only a matter of time before some other source informed her. The local scandal rags had reported the story in salacious detail. "In her divorce suit, my wife cited my inability to perform my marital duties."

"Your—" Comprehension dawned on her face. "Oh. Why would she do such a thing?"

"To facilitate the divorce." He could see the unspoken question in her eyes. "Yes, her claim was true. I lay in a semiconscious state, and I could barely make a fist, much less make love to my own wife."