The Firebrand (39 page)

She had the grace to flush before turning away. "Must I beg you?"

"Don't bother. It won't work." He went to the door and leaned out into the foyer. "Mr. Nichol, have Bowen bring the buggy around." He caught a glimpse of Diana's expression and realized that he couldn't simply pack her off to Palmer House. "I'll be driving our guest to her hotel."

"What must I do to prove I'm sincere, Randolph?" Her voice rose in desperation. "I want things to be as they once were for us. Christine is back, my darling. Everything will be perfect now, if only you'll remember the good times, and not the terrifying weeks after the fire." She ran a hand over the clock. That pale hand on the pale porcelain evoked a memory. At one time, all of this had been for her. He'd built this house and filled it with fine things for Diana, hoping to lure her back. And it finally had.

He went to the window to see if the buggy was ready. Hand in hand, Lucy and Maggie walked across the broad lawn toward Maggie's favorite climbing tree. Nimble as a squirrel, Maggie swung up to the first branch. Brushing back her

skirts, Lucy followed, her head thrown back in laughter. Then the branch Lucy held bowed ominously, and she fell to the ground, still laughing as she brushed herself off.

"Things can change in an instant," he said quietly, turning to Diana, who was admiring the silver tea service now. "You know that. This could all be gone, and I could find myself living in a flat up over a shop."

"That's the silliest thing I've ever heard."

Nichol came in to announce that the buggy was ready. Rand led her, protesting, out to the front driveway. Lucy spotted them, and brought Maggie over. "I'll be driving Diana to her hotel," Rand said.

"Goodbye," Maggie said. "It was nice to meet you."

Diana's eyes glittered with tears. She went down on one knee, drawing her daughter close for a hug. Diana's love for the child was evident and genuine. Nothing about this situation was going to be easy, Rand thought.

He handed her up into the buggy, and took a seat beside her. He tried to catch Lucy's eye, but she avoided his gaze. Later, then, he thought. Later...but he had no idea what he would say to her. Lucy could move him with a single glance; Diana left him cold. But Lucy didn't seem to know that about him.

Clicking his tongue to the horse, he headed down the driveway. Diana ran her hand over the grain leather of the seat. The gesture filled him with a cynical understanding. She didn't want him. She merely wanted what he had. They drove in awkward silence across the bridge and into town. Pulling back on the reins, he rolled the buggy to a halt in front of the elegant hotel. A boy came forward to hold the horse, and Rand helped Diana down. With his hand at the small of her back, he guided her into the lobby.

The lobby was richly carpeted and furnished with gilt conversation chairs, potted plants and glowing chandeliers. Groups of guests spoke together in low, cultured murmurs. The resemblance to Sterling House was eerie.

Her face turned paper white, and he wondered if she still suffered as he did from memories of that night. She had been wounded, too, perhaps in ways he had never understood.

"Diana—"

"Honestly, I can't understand why you refuse to do the right thing, Randolph. I've come back, and Christine is back. We can be a family again." The color in her cheeks returned, and her bright gaze flashed over him. "You've done so well since we were last together."

A slight edge in her voice raised his suspicions. She had known about Christine for weeks. Why had she waited until now to make her appearance? "How would you feel if I told you my circumstances have changed recently?"

"I don't understand."

Playing his hunch, he explained, "At the bank. I expect to be dismissed."

"Nonsense," she objected, folding her arms in front of her. "You're just saying that to drive me away. Why would they want to be rid of you?"

"The bank board and its most important investors object to Lucy's political views."

"Just what sort of views does she hold?"

"She favors universal suffrage and believes in equality between the sexes. She owned a radical bookstore which was recently burned."

"That's a relief, at least."

"I doubt she'll stop organizing meetings and marches to support her cause." He remembered a time when he'd felt the same disapproval he saw on Diana's face, and marveled at how completely Lucy had won him over. "A number of the bank's clients objected to Lucy's behavior, and withdrew their deposits in protest."

"Then you must bring them back, of course." "They won't come back unless Lucy gives up her cause."

"If that woman loved you, she would do so immediately." Diana pressed her point. "It's true, Randolph, you know it is. If she will not make this sacrifice for her husband, then clearly you're not as important to her as her cause."

The local papers made much of Diana's return. Lucy read them with a sort of sick fascination. She pressed the heels of her hands to her temples, picturing their meeting the previous afternoon. She could not have been at more of a disadvantage—hatless, sunburned, sweating and dirty. In contrast, Diana had resembled a visiting queen. Cool and beautiful, she'd regarded Maggie with distaste until Lucy had explained that the little mop-headed boy in the garden was actually her daughter. Disapproval had turned instantly to adoration, and as far as Lucy could tell, it was genuine.

And why not? It wasn't every day a woman was reunited with the child she'd given up for dead.

Maggie had handled the reunion with typical aplomb, though she'd clung to Lucy's hand for dear life.

The papers described Diana as a returning heroine, the aggrieved mother back to reclaim her husband and child from the crazed radical who had stolen them both. Lucy longed to know what Rand thought of this development, but he had stayed out late last night, leaving her to grapple with a new terror—the fear that

Diana would win him back.

She had no chance to speak to him, for he went to work early, and then Diana arrived before breakfast.

"I know it's early," she said, "but you understand, I couldn't stay away."

Lucy studied the beautiful, hungry eyes, the exact same eyes she saw each time she looked at Maggie. "Of course." She asked Nichol to send for her.

Maggie came tripping down the wide staircase, still in her nightgown. When she spied Diana, she stopped. "Hello," she said.

"You haven't had your breakfast yet," Lucy said, her heart breaking even as she took charge of the situation. "And look who has come to see you." She led the way to the breakfast room.

Diana took a seat and opened her arms to Maggie. "Please," she said in a faint voice. "It's been so very long."

Maggie looked to Lucy for direction, and Lucy forced herself to nod encouragingly. The little girl climbed into Diana's lap. Mrs. Meeks served the tea and biscuits, her florid cheeks even redder than usual as she stole furtive glances at the former Mrs. Higgins.

And Maggie, bless her, took the situation in stride. Before long she was chatting away, recounting some exploit with Ivan while Diana listened with rapt attention. A chill shadow slid over Lucy as she stood in the doorway, watching them. They were so alike, Maggie and her natural mother. Both so pretty and graceful, as though they had been born to be in this room, this house, this life.

She wanted to shout at Diana to go away, to leave them alone to sort through this ordeal. But Diana didn't seem inclined to go anywhere. Lucy was at a loss. She didn't want to give the impression that she would allow Diana to simply push her out of the way, no matter how powerful a claim the other woman had, both on Maggie and on Rand.

But at the same time, she didn't want to keep Maggie away from the woman who had given her life.

Lucy wondered if, under different circumstances, Diana might even be someone she could like. Rand's first wife was much like many of the young women of Miss Boy-Ian's—well-mannered and educated, from a good family. As the moments passed, Lucy's confidence faltered. She felt herself slipping into the shadow of her former self, the outspoken misfit no one understood, or wanted.

"Nichol!" Rand's voice rang through the house. "Nich-ol, where did you put those papers—" He stepped into the breakfast room and fell silent. Lucy tried to read the expression on his face as he regarded Diana and Maggie, but his eyes were hooded. "Diana," he said.

She put Maggie down and hurried over to him. "Oh, Randolph!" She rushed forward and embraced him. "You're home."

"I forgot some papers—" he began.

"Then you can stay home with us all day," Maggie said. "Say you will, Papa.

You don't have to go back to that old bank."

Lucy knew her heart was in her eyes as she watched them—Rand and Diana and their little girl, together again. What would it take for them to resume their lives together? Diana was more beautiful than the sun and filled with contrition about her past mistakes. She was the mother of his child. And she wanted her husband back.

Beauty, sincerity, history, commitment. How could Lucy compete with that?

In an agony of uncertainty, she slipped out of the room without glancing their way again. This was it, then, the thing her mother hadn't told her about being in love. The pain, when it came, was as intense as the ecstasy.

She went to the conservatory, hoping to find her mother there. Of late, she had come to depend on her mother's wisdom in matters of the heart, but Viola was nowhere in sight.

Feeling weary, Lucy sat down on a wroughtiron chair. Tropical plants filled the air with a lush, greenish haze. Grace's treasured palms, ginger and helliconias filled the glass-walled room with exotic life. Lucy studiedthe blooming orchids, their delicate pink lips parted to reveal the purple tongues at their centers. The long arching branches of delicate color exuded a fragrance that, for some reason, filled her with sadness. The clinging epiphytes could not exist without the trees that supported them.

Rand startled her, stepping alone into the long, glass room. "I've been looking for you," he said.

"I'm not hiding. I thought you'd want...some time with her."

He sat down next to her. Even with the smell of flowers hanging heavy in the conservatory, Lucy detected the cloying odor of Diana's perfume, lingering in his hair and on his skin. "I had no idea she would come back."

"But she has." Lucy took a deep breath and forced herself to ask, "Where did you go last night? I waited up, but you never came." She hated the sound of her own words, so laced with suspicion and uncertainty. Was that what their marriage was to be like, with Diana back?

"Diana seemed upset by all the upheaval, so I took her to Anspach's for luncheon and afterward escorted her back to Palmer House."

Lucy had always wondered what it would be like to be the helpless sort, needing her hand held over every bump in the road. Now that Diana was back, Lucy suspected there would be many nights like this.

"Just what is it that she expects?"

"She wants to turn back time." The morning sunlight filled the conservatory with a diffuse brightness that played over every detail—his strong physique and glossy dark hair, his bold features; even the scars had a certain nobility to them.

Lucy took a deep breath, wondering if Diana saw what she saw when she

looked at him. "You mean Diana wants to pick up where you left off. She wants to be your wife again. Maggie's mother."

A pause. Then: "Yes."

"And what will you do about it?" Lucy braced herself for the answer. This was probably the fantasy Rand had dreamed of for five years—his broken family made whole again. A daughter to love and protect, a beautiful wife who was content to fulfill tradition rather than striking out on her own as Lucy had.

She saw the situation with searing clarity through Rand's eyes. History was repeating itself. Just as Pamela Byrd had destroyed his family by following her ambitions, so was Lucy.

He had forgiven his mother, and he understood Lucy, but that didn't make it any easier to accept. Diana had arrived, holding out the promise of order and serenity. And tradition, which he'd yearned for since he was a boy.

Say it, she told herself. Just say it. Tell him you love him. Tell him... But her throat closed, and she couldn't speak. The fragrance of the exotic flowers nearly choked her. She was terrified that her love wouldn't matter enough to him.

"Lucy," he said, rising from the chair, "it's very complicated."

With those words, she knew. She knew he was preparing her for a blow. With both of Maggie's natural parents present, Lucy didn't have a legal leg to stand on. Before long, she'd be regarded as a kind stranger who deserved their gratitude, but not a place in their lives.

His choice was almost laughably easy. Did he prefer a beautiful wife in her traditional, feminine role, or an awkward, intense woman dedicated to a controversial cause?

"When you sort out all these complications," she said stiffly, "then you can let me know." Hurrying past him, she left the conservatory.

In the middle of a lonely afternoon, Lucy sat looking at the wire message she had received from Mrs. Victoria Woodhull. Up until now, she had been afraid the response would never come, and had taken to haunting the Western Union Wireless office each morning, pacing up and down and worrying that time was running out. She shouldn't have worried; Mrs. Woodhull had come through for her. Lucy had received precisely the response she'd hoped for, prayed for.

But it meant nothing now. In the week since Diana's return, Rand had returned to the bank and Diana had gone off to her hotel. Today, Viola and Grace had

taken Maggie on an outing. It was significant, Lucy thought, that she found herself alone at the darkest moment of her life.

She tried to talk herself out of her maudlin state, but nothing was working, and she found herself heading for the pantry, where the bottles of liquor were kept. Before she did something entirely foolish, Bull Waxman came to call.

"I have a buggy waiting out front," he said simply. "You're to come with me, ma'am."