The Firebrand. Susan Wiggs
“Lucy, my dear, you are a most attractive girl.”
She clasped her hands, thoroughly enchanted. “Do you think so?”
“Indeed I do.”
“That is wonderful. No one has ever thought me attractive before.” She was babbling, but couldn’t help herself. “My mother says I am too intense, and far too outspoken, and that I—”
“Lucy.” He grasped her upper arms.
She nearly melted, but held herself upright, awaiting his kiss. She’d never been kissed by a man before. When she was younger, Cornelius Cotton had kissed her, but she later found out his older brother had paid him to do it, so that didn’t count. This was going to be different. Her first honest-to-goodness kiss from the handsomest man ever created.
Late at night, she and the other young ladies of Miss Boylan’s would stay up after lights-out, whispering of what it was like to kiss a man, and of the ways a man might touch a woman. One thing she remembered was to close her eyes. It seemed a shame to close them when he was so wonderful to look at, but she wanted to do this right. She shut her eyes.
“Lucy,” he said again, an edge of desperation in his voice. “Lucy, look at me.”
She readily opened her eyes. What a glorious face he had, so alive with character and robust health and touching sincerity. So filled with sensual promise, the way his lips curved into a smile, the way his eyes were brimming with…pity? Could that be pity she saw in his eyes? Surely not.
“Rand—”
“Hush.” Ever so gently, he touched a finger to her lips to silence her.
She burned from his caress, but he quickly took his finger away.
“Lucy,” he said, “before you say anymore, there’s something I must tell you—”
“Randolph!” a voice called from the doorway. “There you are, Randolph. I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Lucy turned to the back of the salon. There, in the doorway, stood the most stunning woman she’d ever seen. Petite, blond and willowy, she held her lithe body in the shape of a question mark, clad in a beautiful gown bearing the trademark rosettes of Worth’s Salon de Lumière. In a rustle of perfumed silk, she moved toward them, hand outstretched toward Rand.
“I’ve found you at last,” the gorgeous blond woman said, her words an ironic echo of Lucy’s.
Rand’s pallor quickly changed to dull red as he bowed over her hand. “Miss Lucy Hathaway,” he said, straightening up and stepping out of the way, “I’d like you to meet Diana Higgins.” He slipped an arm around her slender waist. “My wife.”
Chapter Two
For a few seconds, only the wailing of the night wind filled the silent void. Something, some bizarre state of nerves in those endless seconds, gave Rand a heightened sensitivity. The pads of his fingers, resting at the small of his wife’s back, detected the smooth, taut silk over the armored shell of her corset. From a corner of his eye, he saw Diana’s expression change from mild curiosity to keen nosiness. And although she probably did not mean to be audible, he heard Miss Lucy Hathaway breathe the words, “Oh. My.”
Just that, coupled with an expression probably shared by Joan of Arc at the moment of her martyrdom. She looked as though she was about to vomit.
Foolish baggage, he thought. This was no less than she deserved for making outrageous proposals to strange men.
“How do you do, Miss Hathaway?” Diana said, unfailingly polite as she always was in social situations.
“Very well, thank you, Mrs. Higgins. It’s a distinct pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Lucy didn’t shrink from Diana’s probing gaze.
Despite his opinion of the radical young woman’s views, Rand could not deny his interest. She was not only the most annoying creature he’d ever met, she was also the most compelling. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, she had a heart-shaped face. Her pointed chin, high brow and wide eyes gave her an expression of perpetual wonder. The passion and sensual awareness she’d spoken of so boldly seemed to reside in the depths of those velvety dark eyes, and in the fullness of her lips.
Yet as quickly as she’d shocked him with her outrageous proposal, she seemed to come to heel like a spaniel trained to obedience when thrust into a social situation. She dutifully exchanged pleasantries with Diana, who described their recent move from Philadelphia, and chatted about the unseasonable heat that plagued the city, robbing Chicago of the clear, chill days of autumn.
“Well, I must thank you for keeping my husband entertained,” Diana remarked. “He was quite certain this would be a hopelessly dreary evening.”
Rand shifted beneath a mixed burden of guilt and irritation. During the argument they’d had prior to his coming to the evening’s event, he’d claimed she’d be bored by a bombastic evangelical reading, and that the only reason he was attending was to make the acquaintance of the prominent businessmen of Chicago.
The irony was, he’d really meant it.
Lucy Hathaway clasped her hands demurely in front of her. “I’m afraid I’ve failed, then,” she said. “Your husband doesn’t find me at all entertaining. Quite the contrary. I fear I’ve offended him with my…political opinions.”
“You’re not offensive, Miss Hathaway,” Rand said smoothly. “Merely wrong.”
“Isn’t he charming?” Diana laughed. Only Rand, who knew her well, heard the contempt in her voice.
Miss Hathaway moved toward the door. “I really must be going. I don’t like the look of the weather tonight.” She curtsied in that curious trained-spaniel manner. “It was a pleasure to meet you both, and to welcome you to Chicago. I hope you’ll be very happy here.” In a swish of skirts and wounded dignity, she walked out of the salon.
“What an odd bird,” Diana remarked in an undertone.
What a strangely charming bundle of contradictions, Rand thought. He was intrigued by women like Lucy. But he was also discomfited by a surprising and unwelcome lust for her. He’d engaged her in what he thought was a harmless flirtation, nothing more, but she had taken him seriously.
“How on earth did you get stuck with her?” asked his wife.
He’d seen her sitting alone at the back of the salon, and pure impulse had compelled him to sit down beside her. He thought about the way Lucy had taken his hand later, captured his gaze with her own and confessed her attraction to him. But to his wife, he said, “I have no idea.”
“Anyway, you did well,” Diana declared. “It’s important to impress the right people, and the Hathaways are undoubtedly the right people.”
“What are you doing here? Is Christine all right?” he asked.
“The child is fine,” Diana said. “And I came because I am the one who is sick, not our daughter. I am positively ill with boredom, Randolph. All I’ve done all day long is sit by the window watching the boats on the river and the traffic going over the bridge to the North Division. I’m so tired of living like a gypsy in a hotel. Shouldn’t you have started work on the house by now?”
“You’re sure Christine’s fine,” he said, ignoring her diatribe. Their fifteen-month-old daughter was the bright and shining center of his life. Earlier in the evening she’d been fretful, a little feverish, and he’d convinced Diana to stay at Sterling House rather than leave Christine with the nurse.
“The baby was fast asleep when I left,” Diana said. “Becky Damson was in the parlor, knitting. I thought you’d be delighted to see me, and here you are, flirting away with the most famous heiress in Chicago.”
“Who? Lucy?”
“And on a first-name