The Firebrand. Susan Wiggs

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СКАЧАТЬ wait until something returns to the livery stables.”

      He clenched his teeth in frustration. On the one hand, he didn’t want to alarm her about the fire. But on the other, he wanted her to understand the need to hurry. They had to get to their daughter and make sure she was all right.

      The one option he never considered was leaving Diana. He’d sling his wife over his shoulder like a caveman if he had to, but he would never leave her. “We’re walking,” he finally said, pulling her along. “You can yell at me on the way.”

      Diana apparently decided that silence was a better punishment. She didn’t speak to him, though she clutched his arm and leaned on him every few steps. Her fashionable, imported shoes were unsuited for walking any distance.

      It was just as well she didn’t speak, for he wasn’t all that kindly disposed to his wife at the moment. He’d counted on her to stay with Christine. Instead, she’d grown bored and joined him at the lecture. Some men might have been flattered, but Rand knew Diana all too well. She hadn’t come looking for him. She’d come seeking a diversion from her boredom and had left their daughter in the care of someone they barely knew. Becky Damson seemed a fine young woman, but he had learned long ago not to trust appearances.

      After this night was over, Rand decided, he would find a way to turn Diana’s attention and enthusiasm to the needs of her family. He wasn’t certain how to go about it. Some women derived fulfillment from their duties as wives and mothers. He’d seen it himself, though not in his own mother.

      The memory ignited a bitterness in Rand that never seemed to mellow. When he was ten years old, Pamela Higgins had walked away from her husband and young son, never to return. Rand had been raised by Grace Tem-pleton Higgins, his paternal grandmother.

      But his mother’s departure had left a hidden wound in his soul that he’d carried around all his life. When he’d started a family of his own, he had sworn he would never have the sort of wife who would abandon her family.

      A blast sounded in the next block, and a fountain of sparks mushroomed in the sky. Whipping off his frock coat, Rand covered Diana’s head and shoulders with it. She huddled close against him, and despite their annoyance at each other, he felt a surge of tenderness toward her.

      “We’ll be home soon,” he said. “I imagine it’s only a few more blocks.”

      “That’s what you said a few blocks ago.”

      Another blast ripped through the neighborhood, tearing the awnings from buildings and leaves from the few trees still standing. In the smoky distance, Rand made out a crew of militia men with a two-wheeled cart loaded with explosives.

      “What on earth is happening?” Diana asked.

      “They’re blasting away buildings to create a firebreak.”

      In the road ahead, the fire spun and whirled across rooftops. His gut tightened, and he quickened his pace. His instincts screamed for him to run toward his baby daughter, but he couldn’t leave Diana.

      People jostled one another in a mad dash for the river or the lakefront. Family groups moved in tight clusters—men with their arms around their wives, women carrying babies or clutching toddlers by the hand. The sight of the children tore at him. He heard Christine’s name in the hiss of the wind.

      He thought about how casually he’d left her tonight, how casually he always left her, certain that he would return. Now, as he fought and jostled his way through the packed street, he was haunted by images of his daughter.

      On the day she was born, his heart had soared. At last he had what he’d always dreamed of—a family. He’d created something enduring and true. That very day he’d bought two cases of rare champagne, packing them away to bring out on the occasion of her wedding. It was a sentimental gesture, though he was not a sentimental man. But Christine had found a place in his heart where softness dwelled, and he cherished her for finding that part of him.

      Tightening his grip on Diana’s hand, he felt his wife’s mounting fear, heard it in the little gulping breaths she took. As he forged ahead, Rand bargained with fate: He would devote more time to Christine. He’d work harder to please Diana, quit flirting with women no matter how provocative he found them and find a way to make Diana more content in her role as wife and mother. If only he could save his child.

      Everything came to a standstill at a jammed intersection near Courthouse Square. Too many streets converged here, and chaos ruled. Disoriented, Rand wasn’t sure of the way north.

      “Which way to Water Street?” he bellowed at a passing drayman with a lurching, overloaded cart. The man didn’t look at him but pointed. “You’ve got three blocks to cover and it’ll be hard going. There’s a bad flare-up ahead.” A gap opened up and he drove his cart through it.

      Rand pressed on. He noticed that Diana had fallen silent again, and he slipped his arm around her waist. “We’ll get there,” he promised, but a sudden explosion drowned his words.

      “Look at the sky.” She pointed at the wavering, burnished horizon ahead. “The whole city is on fire.”

      He led the way up a side street. In the middle of the roadway, a police paddy wagon had broken its axle. Swearing, the driver opened the wagon and fled while the conveyance disgorged a dozen convicts in striped shirts and trousers. Some of the prisoners swarmed into burning shops, but one of them advanced on Rand and Diana. Firelight flashed in his flat, dangerous eyes as his gaze traveled over Diana’s gown and jewels.

      He raised a rocklike fist. “Give me all your valuables. Now.”

      Diana gave a squeal of alarm and buried her face in Rand’s shoulder.

      Rand pulled away from her. In an instant, his fear for Christine and frustration with the crowds crystallized into a pure and lethal rage. He didn’t will himself to act, but the next thing he knew, he had the convict shoved up against a concrete wall, his hand clamped over the man’s windpipe.

      “Get the hell away from us,” Rand said, his voice harsh with a deadly purpose.

      The looter gagged, clawing at the hand on his neck. Rand let him go and backed off, sick at the thought of what he’d nearly done. The convict staggered away and disappeared into the crowd.

      “Heavens, Randolph, I’ve never seen you like that,” Diana said.

      The breathless admiration in her voice did not please him. He took her hand again. “We’re almost there. Hurry.”

      “I can’t see a thing through this smoke.”

      Rand pulled her along as fast as he could. Buildings burned from the roof down and others from the ground up. People dropped bundles from windows and exterior staircases. A ladder crew helped women trapped in a tall building, and the rescued ladies scattered like ants when they reached the street.

      “Surely Sterling House has already been evacuated. Becky Damson would have fled to safety.” Diana’s eyes streamed as she spoke between panting breaths. “Yes, Becky’s got a good head on her shoulders. She is probably already at the lakeshore with Christine, waiting for us to find them. That is where we must go—to the lake.”

      Rand could think of no reply and she didn’t seem to expect one. He prayed Diana was right about the nursemaid. Miss Damson had been recommended by the concierge of the hotel. СКАЧАТЬ