The Firebrand. Susan Wiggs

the summer-long drought, connected neighbor to neighbor, each trying to outdo the other in ostentation. Those who had established themselves in the city a mere fifteen years ago liked to call themselves Old Settlers, and the new arrivals had no grounds to challenge the designation. Instead they set to work earning their own fortunes so that one day they might buy their way into the ranks of the merchant princes.

      Many of these newcomers stayed at the Sterling House Hotel, which was considered the very height of fashion. Literally. Crowned by a dome of colored glass, the five-story structure boasted a steam elevator and commanded an impressive view of the river.

      Feverish and impatient with ambition, no one cared that Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest and reflection. No one heeded the fire alarms that had been shrieking through drought-choked neighborhoods all week. The wheels of commerce ground on with dogged relentlessness, and only those too timid to dream greatly would pause to worry that Chicago was a city built of tinder; or that sparks from a hundred thousand chimneys infested the gusting night air; or that the fire-fighting companies had already worked themselves into exhaustion.

      To be sure, no one could have predicted the vicious speed with which the fire took hold. No one could have imagined that, with such a modern system of alarms and waterworks, the Great Fire would burn without interruption Sunday night, and on through Monday, and deep into the middle of Tuesday. No one looking at the falsely solid brickfronts could have believed the city would be so vulnerable.

      But like anything built on an unstable foundation, the city had only the thinnest of defenses. Chicago was not long for this world.

      Part Two

       We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

       —Thomas Jefferson “Declaration of Independence,” 1776

      We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

       —Elizabeth Cady Stanton “Declaration of Sentiments,” 1848

      Chapter One

      Lucy Hathaway perched on the edge of her seat, pretending to hang on every word spoken by the evangelist. Anyone in the crowded salon who saw her attentive posture would admire her piety. Observers would find the sight of the dark-haired young woman, with her hands clasped in religious fervor, uplifting. Inspirational, even. Commendable, most assuredly.

      “Your eyes are glazing over,” said a deep, amused voice beside her.

      She didn’t recognize the voice, which was unusual, for Lucy Hathaway made it her business to know everyone. The man must have slid into the seat beside her after the start of the lecture. But she didn’t turn to look at him. She pretended not to notice that he’d spoken at all.

      “…St. Paul is clear on this point,” Reverend Moody intoned from the podium. “A wife must submit to her husband’s leadership in the same way she submits to the Lord…” The message rang through the room full of people who had braved a dry windstorm to attend the event at the fashionable Hotel Royale.

      Lucy blinked slowly, trying to unglaze her eyes. She kept them trained straight ahead with unwavering attention. She tried to govern her mind as well, batting away the preacher’s words like bees at a picnic, when she really wanted to leap to her feet and object to this claptrap about the superiority of man over woman.

      And now, despite her best intentions, she found herself wondering about the insolent man sitting next to her.

      The man whose whisper had come so close that she could feel the warmth of his words in her ear.

      “You know,” he said, leaning even closer. “You might try—”

      “Go away,” she said between clenched teeth, not even moving her lips as she spoke. He smelled of bay rum and leather.

      “—leaning on me,” he continued insolently. “That way, when you fall asleep from boredom, you won’t attract attention by collapsing on the floor.”

      “I will not fall asleep,” she hissed.

      “Good,” the man whispered back. “You’re much more interesting wide-awake.”

      Ye gods. She mustn’t listen to another word of this.

      The Reverend Dr. Moody came to a lull in his address, pausing to fortify himself with a glass of lemonade from a pitcher.

      She sensed the man next to her shifting in his seat and then leaning back to prop his ankle on his knee in an easy, relaxed pose. By peeking through lowered eyelashes, she caught a glimpse of his pantleg. Charcoal superfine, perfectly creased, fashionably loose-fitting.

      Lucy herself was being slowly strangled by a corset designed, she was certain, for use in the Spanish Inquisition, and she resented him more than ever.

      “We should leave,” he suggested, “while we have the chance.”

      She glared stoically ahead. This was the first lull in forty minutes of the stultifying lecture, and the temptation to flee burned like a mortal sin inside her. “It’s interesting,” she said, trying hard to convince herself.

      “Which part?”

      “What?”

      “Which part did you find so interesting?”

      Lucy was chagrined to realize that she could not recall one single word of the past forty minutes. “All of it,” she said hastily.

      “Right.” He leaned in closer. “So now I know what bores you. Suppose you tell me what excites you.”

      She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, for no man had ever voluntarily made small talk with her. He was probably setting her up for some sort of humiliating moment. Some social faux pas so he and his cronies could have a chuckle at her expense. So what? she thought. It wouldn’t be the first time someone made her the butt of a joke. She’d survived moments like that before. Many moments.

      “Ha,” she muttered. “As if I would tell you.”

      “I’m leaving,” he said. “Come with me.”

      Lucy ignored him. If she got up now, people would notice. They might think she was following him. They might even believe she had “designs” on him.

      As if Lucy Hathaway would ever have such a thing as designs on a man.

      “Quickly,” he urged, his whisper barely audible. “Before he gets his second wind.”

      The audience, restless and trying not to show it, buzzed with low, polite conversation while the evangelist refreshed himself. At last Lucy could resist no longer. She had to see who this rude, mellow-voiced stranger was. With the bold curiosity that caused her such trouble in social situations, she turned to stare at him.

      Heavens to Betsy. He was as handsome as a sun god.

      Her eyes, no longer glazing over, studied him with unabashed fascination. Long-legged. Broad-shouldered. Deep brown hair, neatly combed. An impeccably tailored suit of clothes. A face of flawless, square-jawed strength and symmetry such as one saw on civic monuments and statues of war heroes. Yet this particular face was stamped with just a hint of wicked humor. Who the devil was he?

      She didn’t know him at all, had never seen him before.

      If she had, she would have remembered. Because the unfamiliar warmth that curled through her when she looked at him was not a sensation one would easily forget. Lucy Hathaway was suddenly contemplating “designs.”

      He smiled, not unkindly. She caught herself staring at his mouth, its shape marvelously set off by the most intriguing cleft in his chin.