“Apparently I need someone to keep track of you,” she observed.
Already regretting the brief flirtation, he vowed to devote more attention to his increasingly unhappy wife. No matter what he did, it wasn’t enough. She’d been dissatisfied with their life back in Philadelphia, so he’d moved her and their baby daughter to Chicago.
He was trying to launch a career in banking while Diana frantically shopped and planned for the grand house they intended to build on the fashionable north shore. But even the prospect of a palatial new residence failed to keep her discontent at bay.
“Come and meet Mr. Lamott,” Rand suggested, knowing she would be impressed, and that Jasper Lamott—like every other man—would find his wife enchanting.
As he escorted her into the reception salon, Rand fought down a feeling of disappointment. When he and Diana had married, he’d been full of idealistic visions of what their life together would be like. He had pictured a comfortable home, a large, happy family putting down roots in the fertile ground of convention. They were things he used to dream about when he was very young, things he’d never had for himself. But as the early years of their marriage slipped by, Diana paid little attention to roots or family. She seemed more interested in shopping and travel than in devoting herself to her husband and child.
He kept hoping the move to Chicago would improve matters, but with each passing day, he was coming to understand that a change of venue was not the solution to a problem that stemmed from the complicated inner geography of his heart.
He caught himself brooding about Lucy Hathaway’s bold contention that women were stifled by the unfair demands foisted upon them by men who shackled them with the duties of a wife and mother.
“Do you feel stifled?” he asked Diana.
She frowned, her pale, lovely face uncomprehending. “What on earth are you talking about, Randolph?”
“By Christine and me. Do you feel stifled, or shackled?”
She frowned more deeply. “What a very odd question.”
“Do you?”
She took a step back. “I have no idea, Randolph.” Then she fixed a bright, beautiful, artificial smile on her face and walked into the reception room.
Rand couldn’t help himself. He kept trying to catch a glimpse of Lucy Hathaway, but apparently she and her friends had already left the hotel. For the past forty minutes, he’d wanted to do the same, anxious to get back to Sterling House and his daughter. She would be asleep by now, but that didn’t matter. He loved to watch Christine sleep. The sight of her downy blond curls upon a tiny pillow, her chubby hands opened like stars against the quilt, always filled him with a piercing tenderness and a sense that all was right with the world.
Diana had never been quite so well-entertained by their daughter, although she was proud of Christine’s beauty and loved the admiring comments people made when they saw the baby. At the moment she was gossiping happily with the mayor’s nieces and showed no sign of wanting to leave.
Restless, Rand went to the tall windows that framed a view of the city. Gaslight created blurry stars along the straight arteries of the main thoroughfares and the numerous tall buildings of the business district gathered around the impressive cupola of the massive courthouse.
“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” asked a slender, vaguely sly-looking young man.
Philip Ascot, Rand recalled. Ascot, with some combination of Roman numerals after his name to prove to the world that the family hadn’t come up with an original name in several generations.
It was a mean, petty thought, borne of impatience. Still, he had a low opinion of Ascot, who claimed to be in the publishing business but who, as far as Rand could tell, intended to make his fortune by marrying one of the debutantes of Miss Boylan’s finishing school. Lucy? he wondered, recalling Diana’s assessment that the Hathaways were stinking rich.
Rand stifled a grin. Lucy would make duck soup of a fellow like Philip Ascot.
“It is indeed,” he said at last. Flipping open the gold top of his pocket watch with his thumb, he checked the time. “It’s a bit late for sunset, though.”
“Oh, that’s another fire in the West Division,” Ascot informed him. “Didn’t you hear?”
A cold touch of alarm brushed the back of his neck. “I heard there was one last night, but that it had been brought under control.”
“It’s been a bad season for fires all around. But I can’t say I’m sorry to see the West Division burn. It’s a shantytown, full of immigrant poor. Could stand a good clearing out.” Ascot tossed back a glass of whiskey. “Nothing to worry about, Higgins. It’ll never get across the river.”
Even as he spoke, an explosion split open the night. From his vantage point, Rand saw a distant flash of pure blue-white light followed by a roaring column of pale yellow flame.
“It’s the gasworks,” someone yelled. “The gasworks have blown!”
Rand crossed the reception room in three strides, grabbing his wife by the arm. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Randolph, you mustn’t be rude—”
“We’re leaving,” he said. “We’ve got to get home to Christine.”
Chapter Three
The big, blocky coach with the crest of Miss Boylan’s school on the door lumbered through streets jammed with people. Every few feet, the driver was obliged to stop and make way for the firefighters’ steam engines or hose carts.
“It’s spreading so quickly.” Phoebe Palmer pressed her gloved hands to the glass viewing window. “Who could imagine a fire could move so fast?”
She clearly expected no answer and didn’t get one. Both Lucy and Kathleen O’Leary were lost in their own thoughts. Kathleen was particularly worried about her family.
“I knew I shouldn’t have come,” she said, her customary easy confidence shaken by the sight of the fleeing crowds. “I shall burn in hell entirely for pretending to be a great lady.”
“If we don’t start moving any faster,” Phoebe said, “we shall burn right here in Chicago.” She yanked at the end of the speaking tube and yelled at the driver to hurry. “There’s an abandoned horsecar in the middle of the avenue,” she reported, cupping her hands around her eyes to see through the fog of smoke and sparks. “Driver,” she yelled again into the tube, “go around that horsecar. Quickly.” With a neck-snapping jerk, the big coach surged forward. Phoebe scowled. “He’s usually better at the reins,” she commented peevishly. “I shall have to speak to Miss Boylan about him.”
As the coach picked up speed, Lucy patted Kathleen’s hand. “None of this is your fault, and you’re surely not being punished for a silly prank.” To distract her, she added, “And it went well, didn’t it? Everyone at the reception believed you were a famous heiress from Baltimore.”
Just for a moment, excitement flashed in Kathleen’s eyes. How beautiful she was, Lucy thought. What would it be like to be that beautiful?
But then Kathleen sobered. “I lost my reticule. Miss Deborah’s reticule, actually, for haven’t I borrowed every stitch I have on except my bloomers? And I made a fool of myself altogether over Dylan Kennedy.”
“So did half the female population of Chicago,” Phoebe pointed out, sounding unusually conciliatory.
“All those worries seem so small now.” Kathleen turned her face to the window. “Blessed Mary, the whole West Division is in flames. What’s become of my mam and da?”
“I’m sure they’re fine,” Lucy said. “You’ll find them once everything is sorted out.”
“’Tis