The Firebrand. Susan Wiggs

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      Also by SUSAN WIGGS

       Contemporary Romances

      HOME BEFORE DARK

      THE OCEAN BETWEEN US

      SUMMER BY THE SEA

      TABLE FOR FIVE

      LAKESIDE COTTAGE

      JUST BREATHE

       The Lakeshore Chronicles

      SUMMER AT WILLOW LAKE

      THE WINTER LODGE

      DOCKSIDE

      SNOWFALL AT WILLOW LAKE

      FIRESIDE

      LAKESHORE CHRISTMAS

      THE SUMMER HIDEAWAY

       Historical Romances

      THE LIGHTKEEPER

      THE DRIFTER

       The Tudor Rose Trilogy

      AT THE KING’S COMMAND

      THE MAIDEN’S HAND

      AT THE QUEEN’S SUMMONS

       Chicago Fire Trilogy

      THE HOSTAGE

      THE MISTRESS

      THE FIREBRAND

       Calhoun Chronicles

      THE CHARM SCHOOL

      THE HORSEMASTER’S DAUGHTER

      HALFWAY TO HEAVEN

      ENCHANTED AFTERNOON

      A SUMMER AFFAIR

       I have a great desire to see a variety of employments

       thrown open to women, and if they may

       sell anything, why not books? The business

       seems to partake of the dignity of literature.

      —Miss Elizabeth Peabody, Boston bookseller, 1848

      This is for booksellers everywhere,

      including Tamra, Beth Anne, Donita, Dean,

      Jennie, Terry, Gerald, Michael, Mary Gay, donNA,

      Donna, Sally, Lucinda, Marge, Rose Marie, Lois,

      DeeDee, Stefanie, Ruth Ann, Tanzey, Judy, Judy,

      Kyle, Charlie, Elaine, Char, Mary, Sharon, Virginia,

      Anne Marie, Leah, Yvonne, Tommy, Bobbie,

      Tina, Mark, Maureen, Cathy, Kathy, Rose, Dawn,

      Bronwyn. And of course, Fran at the Safeway.

      You enrich the lives of readers beyond measure.

      Thanks to Barb, Joyce and Betty

      for knowing what’s right and finding what’s wrong,

      to Martha Keenan for her expert editing

      and to the Chicago Historical Society

      for keeping bygone days alive.

      Part One

       I suppose I need hardly say that I like Chicago—like it in spite of lake-wind sharpness and prairie flatness, damp tunnels, swinging bridges, hard water, and easy divorces.

       —Sara Jane Clarke Lippincott (aka Grace Greenwood), 1871

      Prologue

       Chicago

       Sunday, 8 October 1871

      The city was like a matchstick, waiting to be struck. The shipyards were stacked with lumber from the north woods, soon to be transformed into warehouses, tenements, breweries and shanties. In just a few short years, the prairie town had sprawled into an ungainly maze of wooden structures.

      Many of the buildings looked grand. Some even appeared rock-solid. But in fact, most structures were clad in the false and fancy dress of ornate facades. Their insincere faces were painted to resemble stone or marble, copper or tin. But scratch beneath the surface, and the flimsy substance would be revealed—wood, as dry as tinder, capped by a deceptive veil of shingles glued on by flammable tar.

      The roadways radiated like arteries from the giant, churning heart of the lake. Six hundred miles of wooden sidewalks and sixty miles of pine-block roadways spread through the business district and working-class neighborhoods where immigrant mothers tried to hush their fretful children, suffering in the unseasonably dry heat. Rickety boardwalks and causeways spread across manufacturing centers and even dared to encroach upon the fashionable wealthy areas north of the river.

      The barons of industry and commerce had put up varnish factories, alcohol distilleries, coalyards, lumber mills and gasworks with more regard for fast profit than for fire prevention. They lived for show, in houses built to resemble