The Firebrand

“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.”