The Firebrand (9 page)

Rand was thoroughly confused now. She called her son Margaret? Then it struck him—the child in the rough knickers, Short hair and flat bicycle cap was a little girl. He tried not to look too startled. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Maggie."

"I'm afraid I had no choice but to bring her along," Lucy said. "Ordinarily there's someone to look after her when I have meetings."

"But today is Grammy Vi's mahjong day," Maggie said.

She really was a rather pretty child beneath the bad haircut and shapeless clothing. He tried to picture her in a little pinafore done up in ribbons and bows, but she moved too fast for him to form a picture. She darted around the office, spinning the globe and lifting a paperweight so that a breeze from the open side window swept a sheaf of papers to the floor.

"Maggie, don't touch anything," Lucy said half a second too late.

"No harm done." Rand bent to retrieve the papers. At the same time, the little girl squatted down to help. Their hands touched, and she caught at his, rubbing her small thumb over the shiny scar tissue there.

"Did you hurt yourself?" she asked, her face as open as a flower. "Maggie—"

"It's all right," Rand said with rare patience. He was accustomed to people staring, and to youngsters who didn't know any better asking questions. Some children turned away in fright, but not this one. She regarded him with a matter-of-fact compassion that comforted rather than discomfited. He studied her small, perfect hand covering his large, damaged one. "I did hurt myself," he said, "a long time ago."

"Oh." She handed him the rest of the papers. "Does it still hurt?"

Every day.

He straightened up, put the papers back under the paperweight, then saw Crowe standing in the doorway.

"Is everything all right, sir?" Crowe asked. "Everything's fine," Rand said.

"I wondered if the little b—"

"Miss Maggie would love to join you in the outer office," Rand said hastily, cutting him off. He winked at Maggie. "Mr. Crowe is known to keep a supply of peppermints in his desk, for special visitors."

"Can I, Mama?" Maggie's eyes sparkled like blue flames, and suddenly she didn't look at all like a boy.

"Run along," Lucy said. "Don't get into anything."

After the door closed, Rand said, "Congratulations. You have a very lively little girl."

"Thank you."

"You and your husband must be very proud of her." "I'm afraid Maggie's father is deceased," she said soberly. His heart lurched. "I'm terribly sorry."

"Thank you, but I never knew the man," she replied. Then she laughed at his astonished expression. "Forgive me, Mr. Higgins. I'm doing a poor job explaining

myself. Maggie is my adopted daughter. She was orphaned in the fire of '71." "Ah, now I see." What a singular woman she was, adopting an orphan on her

own. Months after the fire, Rand had actually considered taking in an orphaned

child or two, but discovered he had no heart for it. Losing Christine had taken away all he'd ever had to give to a child.

"I consider myself fortunate," Lucy went on, "for I never did encounter a man I wanted to spend my life with, and this way I simply have no need of one."

"Lucky you."

Her face colored with a vivid blush, like a thermometer filling with mercury, and Rand knew he'd made his point. Clearly she now remembered the outrageous proposition she'd made to him at their last meeting.

Perhaps she recalled it as vividly as he did. No matter how hard he tried, he hadn't forgotten the forbidden attraction that had flared between them. She'd been the steel to his flint, two entirely different substances that struck sparks off each other.

"Tell me," he said, "do you often gallivant about town on bicycles?"

"I've never been accused of gallivanting before," she said with a little laugh. "I find it a useful means of transportation. Our bicycles are the most modern ever, built by an acquaintance of mine. Mr. Gianinni made them as prototypes for the Centennial Exhibition this July. The design still has a ways to go but at least the cycles are less ornery than horses."

"I see."

"They eat less, too, and I don't have to stable them."

He straightened the papers on his desk in preparation for getting down to business. He regarded Lucy Hathaway with a mixture of disapproval and interest, feeling drawn to her in spite of himself. She dressed her daughter in trousers and rode a bicycle. Yet she had the most fascinating dark eyes he'd ever seen, eyes that penetrated deep as she inspected him with unblinking curiosity.

It had taken him years to inure himself to the staring of strangers and acquaintances alike. Now Lucy's perusal made him freshly aware of the old wounds. "Is something the matter?" he asked.

"I was just wondering," she said, "if you knew you were missing a cuff link."

In spite of everything, Rand felt a short bark of laughter in his throat, but he swallowed it. Here she sat, looking at a monster, and her only observation was that he was missing a cuff link. "A habit of mine," he said. "Being left-handed, I tend to drag my cuff through the ink as I write, so I roll my sleeve back when I work."

"I see. It's unusual to be left-handed."

"Indeed so." It was the one habit Rand's father hadn't been able to break him of as a boy, though his father had tried extreme measures to get him to conform in all things. "But I assure you, I am a very ordinary man."

"I'm pleased to hear that, Mr. Higgins. Shall we get started?" She peeled off her gloves. He should have watched her without any particular interest, but instead he found the operation intriguing. With unhurried movements, she rolled the thin brown leather down the inside of her wrist over the palm of her hand. Then she neatly bit the tip of her middle finger, her small white teeth gently tugging at the leather.

Rand had the discomfiting feeling that he was watching a private ritual. The strange thing was, she never took her eyes off him as she worked the glove free, finger by finger, her red-lipped mouth forming a soft O as her little nipping teeth took hold of the leather. He found himself remembering her views on free love; she probably had a stable of lovers at her beck and call.

Feeling suddenly hostile, he picked up a steel-nibbed pen and noted the date and time on her loan file. "Indeed," he said. "Down to business. I confess I'm surprised to see you here, Miss Hathaway. You'll forgive me for saying so, but it's well-known that you come from a family with quite a noteworthy fortune."

She smiled, but there was no humor in the expression. "I come from a family better at preserving appearances than finances. I will be blunt, Mr. Higgins. My father was killed in the Great Fire, his fortune burned to nothing. My mother and I were left destitute. With what little I had, I established The Firebrand—that's my bookshop."

The name of her establishment didn't surprise him in the least. Neither, in fact, did her enterprising nature. The usual response for a woman who found herself in dire straits was to hunt down a husband with a worthy fortune. But Lucy Hathaway was an unusual woman.

"And that is your purpose today, to discuss the loan on your shop." "Yes, sir, it is."

In the outer office, a thud sounded, followed by the patter of running feet and a gale of childish laughter.

Lucy looked over her shoulder. "Oh, dear—"

"Please, don't concern yourself. Mr. Crowe enjoys children. Occasionally." "Thank you for understanding. I wouldn't ordinarily bring Maggie to a

business meeting, but unfortunately, I find myself without a wife, so I have

brought my daughter along. What luxury that would be, to have a wife. Perhaps a woman should aspire to
have
one rather than to
be
one." She touched the edge of the desk. "Have you any children, Mr. Higgins?"

"I—" He would never learn the proper way to answer that question. "No. I do not."

"But if you did, they would certainly be left in the care of your wife while you attend to business," she said.

"Miss Hathaway—"

"I apologize. I sometimes get carried away with my own ideas."

He could not recall the last time he'd spoken to a woman who was so irritating—or so entertaining. But of course he could recall it, he reminded himself. It was the last time he'd met Lucy Hathaway.

The sooner he concluded his business with her, the better. Perusing the profit and loss statements, he tapped his pen on the file. "Please remember, it is my business to cultivate productive loans for this institution."

"I was never in any danger of forgetting it, Mr. Higgins."

Her comment assured him that she knew exactly what was coming.

Bluntly he said, "I don't believe a woman alone is capable of managing a business on the scale you envision for your bookshop."

"I have managed for three years."

"And you've fallen deeper into debt each year."

"That's not unusual in a new enterprise," she countered.

"I see no end in sight." He flipped to a recent balance sheet. "Your receipts show no sign of outpacing your expenditures. Eventually your credit will be cut off, artery by artery." He pressed his hands together, peering at her over his scarred fingers. "It sounds harsh, but that is the way of commerce. Businesses fail every day, Miss Hathaway. There is no shame in it."

He braced himself for tears, but she was as stoic as any young man pulling himself up by his bootstraps. "You are looking at columns of numbers, Mr. Higgins," she stated. "That's your mistake."

"I don't make mistakes in banking, Miss Hathaway." His arrogance was justified. Sound judgment, strict rules and a tireless capacity for work formed the cornerstones of his success. Banking was his life, the source of his greatest satisfaction. He knew nothing else.

"You should be looking at the heart of the matter, not just the numbers."

He tried not to seem patronizing as he leaned back in his chair to listen to her womanish ramblings.

"There is something that I bring to the table," she said, "that cannot be shown in any ledger. Something that will make the difference between success and failure."

"And what, pray, is that?"

She leaned forward, pressing her dainty hands on the desk again. The angle of her pose proved the truth of what he had suspected the moment she'd walked into the room— she wasn't wearing a corset. "Passion," she said in her naturally husky voice.

Rand cleared his throat. "I beg your pardon."

"Passion," she repeated, pushing back from the desk. "That is what I have for my enterprise. You cannot put a value on it, but it is the most tangible of all my assets."

He tried not to stare at her uncorseted...assets."And you contend that your passion for selling books will turn these figures around."

"Exactly."

"Have you any proof of that?"

"I do. You see, my shop is not merely a place where people come to buy books."

"That would be entirely too simple."

She sniffed. "The Firebrand is a meeting place where people exchange ideas.

They talk about the books they've read, and of course buy them." "Then why aren't you showing a profit?"

"Look at my balance sheet. The foreign tariffs on my imports are exorbitant." "Then why import foreign publications? Sell American works."

"Spoken as a true chauvinist. I'll have you know I am the only bookseller in the area who carries French periodicals. Everyone else thinks they're immoral, just as everyone else thinks the science tracts from Germany are ungodly and English periodicals are tedious. I proudly carry them all."

"And pay a small fortune in tariffs. Tell me more about these immoral French magazines. I'm fascinated."

She turned bright red but didn't shrink from replying. "The most recent issue is about techniques of physical love. If you like, I could send you a copy."

"No, thank you." He felt his face turning redder than hers. "We don't all share your views on free love."

She grinned, but her blush deepened. "So you do remember."

He took refuge in anger. "Tell me, did you ever manage to find what you were looking for the night we met? Did you find a lover, Miss Hathaway?"

"Of course," she said, her hands twisting in her lap. "Dozens of them! Mainly Frenchmen, for obvious reasons."

"In that case, you should qualify for a reduction of your tariffs. They're cutting into your profits."

"When it comes to the hearts and minds of my customers, sir, I can wait for profit."

The odd thing was, Rand realized, she did have a passion for what she was saying. She had built her shop out of idealistic dreams. A bookseller. What a perfect occupation for this woman. How she must love knowing what everyone was reading. How she must love telling people what they should read next.

The receipts from the shop were unusually high, which indicated that she was indeed selling books. He suspected it was quite impossible to get away from Lucy Hathaway without buying at least one book.

"An admirable sentiment," he said, not allowing his judgment to be swayed by the force of her personality. "But the trouble is, the bank won't wait. Your notes

are due."

"I expect receipts to pick up," she said as if she hadn't heard him. "I've had lectures from some of the most respected leaders of our age—Miss Clementina Black, Mrs. Kate Chopin and Mrs. Lillian Paul in the past year alone."

"Radical activists are always a lucrative draw."

She dismissed his sarcasm with a wave of her hand.

"I've been corresponding with Miss Harriet Beecher Stowe, who has agreed to present a lecture and sign books when she comes to Chicago."

"And this event is scheduled?"

"Not...exactly. Miss Stowe is currently in South America, observing the mating habits of the Andean llama."

"Fascinating."

"I also create events for my customers to draw them into the shop. Mrs. Victoria Woodhull is coming for the Centennial March this summer, and last year, I set up a registry for voters."

He removed a newspaper clipping from the file. His predecessor had been thorough in keeping records on this particular client. "It says here you were arrested for encouraging women to register illegally to vote."