Praise for the novels of Susan Wiggs

“Susan Wiggs paints the details of

human relationships with the finesse of a master.”

—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author

“Wiggs provides a delicious story for us to savor.”

—Oakland Press on The Mistress

“Susan Wiggs delves deeply into her characters’

hearts and motivations to touch our own.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Mistress

“Once more, Ms. Wiggs demonstrates her ability

to bring readers a story to savor that has them

impatiently awaiting each new novel.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Hostage

“A quiet page-turner that will hold readers

spellbound as the relationships, characters

and story unfold. Fans of historical romances

will naturally flock to this skillfully executed trilogy,

and general women’s fiction readers should

find this story enchanting as well.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Firebrand

“Wiggs is one of our best observers

of stories of the heart. Maybe that is because

she knows how to capture emotion on

virtually every page of every book.”

—Salem Statesman-Journal

“Susan Wiggs writes with bright assurance,

humor and compassion.”

—Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author

The Mistress
The Chicago Fire Trilogy
Susan Wiggs

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Marge Green,

who taught me cursive writing

and told me the story of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Joyce, Betty and Barb, for favors too numerous to count; to friends near and far, including Jamie for brainstorming a trading scam, and Jodi for therapeutic e-mail conversations; thanks to Jill for the Bunco book, and to the wonderful Martha Keenan, who always edits above and beyond the call of duty.

Special thanks to the Chicago Historical Society, one of the richest resources ever to make itself available to a writer.

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

One dark night,—

when people were in bed,

Old Mrs. Leary lit a lantern in her shed;

The cow kicked it over, winked its eye and

said”There’ll be a hot time

in the old town tonight.”

~Anon.,

quoted in the Chicago Evening Post

The Contact

What is the chief end of man?

—to get rich.

In what way?

—dishonestly if we can;

honestly if we must.

Mark Twain, 1871

The Setup

It was beautiful and simple

as all truly great swindles are.

~O. Henry

Annual income twenty pounds,

annual expenditure nineteen six,

result happiness.

~Charles Dickens

Prologue

Chicago

October 8, 1871

She looked older than her years from a lifetime of toil. The routine struggles of making her way in the world wore on her like the fading dye of her dimity dress. Up at dawn for the milking, feeding the hungry mouths that depended on her for every breath they took, keeping house, seeing to the livestock and navigating the unseen reefs and rocky shoals of everyday living had stolen her youth.

On a hot October night following a hot October day, Catherine O’Leary put the children down early. She washed up after supper, plunging her chapped and chafed hands into the tepid water. A high prairie wind roared through the shantytown that comprised her small world, across the river from the quiet, stately mansions of the grain barons and merchant princes. Her children had learned to sleep despite the boisterous, frequent celebrations of the McLaughlins next door. The neighbors were welcoming a cousin newly arrived from Ireland, and the thin, lively whine of fiddle music flooded through the open windows, causing the walls to vibrate. As she washed, Catherine tapped her sore, bare foot to match the rhythm of hobnail boots on plank floors emanating from the adjacent cottage.

Shadows deepened across the beaten-earth yard leading to the cow barn that housed the source of the family’s livelihood. Her husband was out back now, feeding and watering the animals. The dry, blowing heat caused brown leaves to erupt in restless swirls through the air. The wind picked up, sounding like the chug of a locomotive coming on fast.

Catherine dried her hands on her apron as Patrick returned from the barn, his shoulders bowed with exhaustion. She saw a flicker in the sky, a star winking its eye perhaps, but her attention was all for her husband. This week he had worked hard, laying in supplies for the winter—three tons of timothy hay, another two tons of coal, wood shavings for kindling from Bateham’s Planing Mill. Baking in the arid heat, the shavings curled and rustled when the aggressive wind stirred them. In this heat it was hard to imagine that winter was only weeks away.

She gave Patrick his supper of potatoes and pickled cabbage, wishing he’d had time to eat with her and the children. But families like the O’Learys did not have that luxury. Imagine, sitting down like the Quality, with enough room for everyone around the same table.

She took off her apron and kerchief. Pumping fresh water into the sink, she bathed her face and neck, and finally her sore foot; a cow had stepped on it that morning and she had been limping around all day. She drew the curtains and peeled her bodice to the waist, giving herself a more thorough washing. She braided her thick red hair, then went to check on the children. Scattered like puppies in the restless heat, the little ones lay uncovered on rough sheets she had sprinkled with water to keep them cool. There was another daughter, Kathleen, firstborn and first to leave the reluctant arms of her parents to work as a lady’s maid at Chicago’s finest school for young ladies. Perhaps in the turreted stone building by the lake, Kathleen suffered less from the heat than they did here in the West Division.

Ah, Kathleen, there was a fine young article, Catherine thought fondly. By hook or by crook, she’d make good. The Lord in his wisdom had given her the brains and the looks to do it. She wouldn’t turn out like her mother, overworked, tired, old before her time.

The sounds of revelry next door swelled, then quieted, mingling with the howl of the wind. Through the coarse weave of the sackcloth curtains, Catherine noticed a flash of light in the window.

“Let us to bed, Mother,” her husband said softly. Patrick kissed her and put out the lamp. Settling her weary head on the pillow, she listened to the rustling and breathing of her children. Then she nestled into the strong soft cradle of her husband’s arms, sighed and thought that maybe this was what all the toil was for. This one sweet moment of inexpressible bliss.

A knock at the door drew Catherine O’Leary back from the comfortable edge of sleep. The McLaughlins’ fiddle wailed on and the bodhran thumped out an ancient tribal rhythm. Two of the children awakened and started whispering. Frowning, she propped herself up on one elbow and prodded Patrick. “Are you awake, then?” she asked.

“Aye, just. I’ll see who it is.”

She lay still, hearing the low murmur of masculine voices followed by the sound of the door swishing shut. Her sore foot throbbed heatedly under the thin sheet.

“It was Daniel Sullivan with Father Campbell, come to call,” Patrick said, returning. “I told them we were already abed, and not in a state for entertaining company.”

“God preserve us for turning away a priest,” Catherine said, “but ‘tisn’t he who has to do the milking at dawn.” Feeling guilty for criticizing a priest, she drew aside a corner of the curtain to see the two men leaving.

Daniel often took an evening walk to escape the stifling heat of his cottage, even smaller and more cramped than the O’Leary place. He had one wooden leg, and as he walked along the pine plank sidewalk, his gait had the curious cadence of a heartbeat. He kept his head down, for his wooden leg tended to wedge itself into the cracks between the boards if he wasn’t careful.

She was about to settle back down for the night when she noticed a sweeping gust of wind lifting the priest’s long black cassock, revealing skinny white legs and drawers of a startling green hue. “Now there’s a sight you don’t see every day,” she muttered.

Outside the wooden cottage, high in the hot night sky, a spark from someone’s stove chimney looped and whirled, pushed along by the wind gusting in from the broad and empty Illinois prairie. The spark entered the O’Learys’ barn, where the milk cows and a horse stood tethered with their heads lowered, and a calf slept on a bed of straw.

The glowing ember dropped onto the hay, and the wind fanned it until it bloomed, then burned in a hot, steady circle of orange. The flames spread like spilled kerosene, rushing down and over the bales of hay and lighting the crisp, dry wood shavings. Within moments, a river of fire flowed across the barn floor.

It was full dark the next time Catherine awakened, once again by a knock at the door. More visitors? No, this knocking had the rapid tattoo of alarm. Patrick hurried to answer. Catherine drew aside the tattered curtain divider to look in on the children. Over their sweet, slumbering faces, an eerie glow of light glimmered.

“Sweet Jesus,” she whispered, racing to the window and tearing back the curtain.

A column of flame roared up the side of the barn. Firelight streamed across the yard between house and shed.

Catherine O’Leary opened the cottage door to an inferno. Her husband ran toward her, his face stark in the flame-lit night.

He said what she already knew, voicing the fear that made her heart sink like a stone in her chest: “See to the children. The barn’s afire.”

Chapter One

Under a French gown of emerald silk, Kathleen O’Leary wore homespun bloomers that had seen better days. She told herself not to worry about what lay beneath her sumptuous costume. It was what the world saw on the surface that mattered, particularly tonight.

Next Friday, she would go down on her knees and admit the ruse to Father Campbell in the confessional, but Friday was far away. At the present moment, she meant to enjoy herself entirely, for it was a night of deceptions and she was at its heart.

The mechanical gilt elevator speeding them up to the third-floor salon of the Hotel Royale was only partially responsible for the swift rush of anticipation that tingled along her nerves. She clasped hands with her two companions, Phoebe Palmer and Lucy Hathaway, and gave them a squeeze. “Think we’ll get away with it?” she whispered.

Lucy sent her a dark-eyed wink. “With looks like that, you could get away with robbing the Board of Trade.”

Kathleen would have pinched herself if she hadn’t been holding on so tightly to her friends’ hands. She couldn’t believe she was actually committing such an audacious act. Going to a social affair to which she wasn’t invited. In a dress from Paris that didn’t belong to her. Wearing jewels worth a king’s ransom. To meet people who, if they knew who she really was, would not consider her fit to black their boots.

The bellman pushed up the brake lever and cranked open the door. With only a swift glance, Kathleen recognized him as an Irishman. He had the sturdy features and mild, deferential demeanor of a recent immigrant. Phoebe swept past him, not even seeing the small man.

“Mayor Mason will not be seeking another term,” Phoebe was saying in a breathless voice that seemed fashioned solely for gossip. “Mrs. Wendover is having a flaming love affair with a student at Rush Medical College.” She enumerated the tidbits on her fingers, intent on bringing Kathleen up to date with the guests she was about to meet. “And Mr. Dylan Kennedy is just back from the Continent.”

“Remind me again. Who is Dylan Kennedy?” Lucy asked in a bored voice. She had never been one to be overly impressed by the upper classes—probably because she came from one of the oldest families of the city, and she understood their foibles and flaws.

“Don’t you know?” Phoebe patted a brown curl into place. “He’s only the richest, most handsome man in Chicago. It’s said he came back to look for a wife.” She led the way down the carpeted hall. “He might even begin courting someone in earnest this very night. Isn’t that deliciously romantic?”

“It’s not deliciously anything,” Lucy Hathaway said with a skeptical sniff. “If he needs to pick something, he should go to the cattle auction over at the Union Stockyards.”

Kathleen said nothing, but privately she agreed with Phoebe for once. Dylan Francis Kennedy was delicious. She had glimpsed him a week earlier at a garden party at the Sinclair mansion, where her mistress, Miss Deborah Sinclair, lived when not away at finishing school. Kathleen had stolen a few moments from tending to her duties to look out across the long, groomed garden, and there, by an ornate gazebo, had stood the most wonderful-looking man she had ever seen. In perfectly tailored trousers that hugged his narrow hips, and a charcoal-black frock coat that accentuated the breadth of his shoulders, he had resembled a prince in a romantic story. Of course, it was a glimpse from afar. Up close, he probably wasn’t nearly as…delicious.

She spied a door painted with the words Ladies’ Powder Room and gave Lucy’s hand a tug. “Could we, please?” she said. “I think I need a moment to compose myself.” She spoke very carefully, disguising the soft brogue of her everyday speech.

Phoebe tapped an ivory-ribbed fan smartly on the palm of her gloved hand. “Chickening out?”

“In a pig’s eye,” Kathleen said, a shade of the dreaded brogue slipping out. She was always provoked and challenged by Phoebe Palmer, who belonged to one of Chicago’s leading families. Phoebe, in turn, thought Kathleen far too cheeky and familiar with her betters and did her best to put the maid in her place.

That, in fact, was part of the challenge tonight. Lucy swore Kathleen could pass for a member of the upper crust. Phoebe didn’t believe anyone would be fooled by the daughter of Irish immigrants. Lucy asserted that it would be an interesting social experiment. They had even made a wager on the outcome. Tomorrow night, Crosby’s Opera House was scheduled to open, and the cream of Chicago society would be in attendance. If Kathleen managed to get herself invited, Phoebe would donate one hundred dollars to Lucy’s dearest cause—suffrage for women.

“You can gild that lily all you like,” Phoebe had said to Lucy as they were getting ready for the evening. “But anyone with half a brain will know she’s just a common weed.”

“Half a brain,” Lucy had laughed and whispered in Kathleen’s ear, which burned with a blush. “That leaves out most of the people at the soiree.”

They stepped into the powder room decked with gilt-framed mirrors and softly lit by the whitish glow of gaslight sconces. The three young ladies stood together in front of the tall center mirror—Lucy, with her black hair and merry eyes, Phoebe, haughty and sure of herself, and Kathleen, regarding her reflection anxiously, wondering if the vivid red of her hair and the scattering of freckles over her cheeks and nose would be a dead giveaway. Her long bright ringlets spilled from a set of sterling combs, and the flush of nervousness in her cheeks was not unbecoming. Perhaps she could pull this off after all.

“Lord, but I wish Miss Deborah had come,” she said, leaning forward and turning her head to one side to examine her diamond-and-emerald drop earrings. The costly baubles swayed with an unfamiliar tug. Other than girlish games of dress-up, which she had played with Deborah when she’d first gone to work as a maid at the age of twelve, Kathleen had never worn jewelry in her life. The eldest of five, she had never even received the traditional cross at her First Communion. Her parents simply hadn’t had the money.

“Deborah wasn’t well,” Phoebe reminded her. “Besides, if she had come, then you wouldn’t have had her fabulous gown to wear, or her Tiffany jewels, and you’d be sitting at the school all alone tonight.”

“Cinderella sifting through the ashes,” Kathleen said tartly. “You’d have loved that.”

“Not really,” Phoebe said, and just for a moment her haughty mask fell away. “I do wish you well, Kathleen. Please know that.”

Kathleen was startled by the moment of candor. Perhaps, she thought, there were some things about the upper classes she would never understand. But that had not stopped her from wanting desperately to be one of them. And tonight was the perfect opportunity.

The well-tended young ladies of Miss Emma Wade Boylan’s School received scores of invitations to social events in Chicago. Miss Boylan had a reputation for finishing a young woman with charm and panache, and charging her patrons dearly for the privilege. In return, Miss Boylan transformed raw, wealthy girls into perfect wives and hostesses. A bride from Boylan’s was known to be the ideal ornament to a successful man.

The gathering tonight was special, and well attended by members of the elite group informally known as the Old Settlers. As it was a Sunday, there would be no dancing ball, so it was dubbed an evangelical evening, featuring a famous preacher, the Reverend Mr. Dwight L. Moody.

Proper Catholics were supposed to turn a deaf ear to evangelists, but Kathleen had always been challenged by the notion of being proper. Besides, the lecture was nothing more than an excuse for people to get together and gossip and flirt on a Sunday night. Everyone—except perhaps the Reverend himself—knew that. It was all part of the elaborate mating ritual of the upper class, and it fascinated Kathleen. Many a night she had stayed back at the school, paging through Godey’s Lady’s Book, studying the color fashion plates and wondering what it would be like to join the rare, privileged company of the elite.

Tonight, fate or simple happenstance held out the opportunity. Miss Deborah had taken ill and had gone home to her father. As a lark, Phoebe and Lucy had decided to try what Lucy termed a “social experiment.”

Lucy swore that people were easily led and swayed by appearances, and there was no real distinction between the classes. A poor girl dressed as a princess would be as warmly received as royalty. Phoebe, on the other hand, believed that class was something a person was born with, like straight teeth or brown hair, and that people of distinction could spot an imposter every time.

Kathleen was their willing subject for the experiment. She had always been intrigued by rich people, having lived outside their charmed circle, looking in, for most of her life. At last she would join their midst, if only for a few hours.

“Are you hoping for a private moment with Mr. Kennedy?” Lucy asked Phoebe teasingly.

“He will surely be the handsomest man in attendance tonight,” Phoebe said. “But you’re welcome to him. I have a different ambition.”

“What is wrong with him?” Kathleen asked, remembering the godlike creature she had watched in the gazebo. She knew that if Phoebe had wanted Dylan Kennedy for herself, she would have had him by now. “What aren’t you telling us?”

“The fault is not with Mr. Kennedy, but with our dearest Phoebe,” Lucy said, her voice both chiding and affectionate. “She has set a standard no mortal man can possibly meet.”

“What is it that you want?” Kathleen asked.

“A duke,” Phoebe whispered, nearly swooning with the admission.

Kathleen burst out laughing. “And where do you suppose you’ll be finding one of those? Beneath a toadstool?” She feigned a mincing walk and stuck her nose in the air. “You may call me ‘your highness’ and be sure you scrape the floor when you bow.”

Lucy swallowed an outburst of laughter. “Isn’t a royal title against the law?”

“In this country,” Phoebe said with an offended sniff. “And it’s ‘Your Grace.’”

“You mean you would leave the States in your quest for a title?”

Phoebe stared at her as if she had gone daft. “I would leave the planet in order to marry a title.”

“But why?” Kathleen demanded.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Honestly, you’ve never known your place, Kathleen O’Leary. Deborah spoiled you from the start.”

“That’s because Deborah is smart enough to see that divisions of class are artificial,” Lucy said. “As I intend to prove to you tonight.”

“Let’s not quarrel.” No matter how hard-pressed, Kathleen always found it easier to tolerate Phoebe’s snobbishness than to try to reason with her.

She checked inside her beaded silken reticule. As ornate as the crown jewels, the evening bag was anchored by a tasseled cord to her waist, the crystal beads catching the light each time she moved. As a lady’s maid, she knew the contents of a proper reticule: calling cards, a tiny vial of smelling salts in case she felt faint, a lace-edged handkerchief, a comb and hairpin, a coin or two.

Because she was Irish, she could not deny a superstitious streak in herself. Before leaving the school tonight, she had snatched up a talisman to carry her through the evening. It was a mass card from St. Brendan’s Church, printed in honor of her grandmother, Bridget Cavanaugh. The sturdy old woman had died three months earlier, and Kathleen ached with missing her. It seemed appropriate and oddly comforting to slip the holy card into her reticule, as if Gran were a little cardboard saint carried in her pocket. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “I am as ready as a sinner on Fat Tuesday.”

She and her friends slowly approached the salon, their footfalls silent on the carpet patterned with swirling ferns. Kathleen savored every moment, every sensation, knowing that memories of this night would sustain her through all the long years to come. She tried to memorize the plush feel of the thick carpet beneath her feet, which were clad in silk slippers made to match the Worth gown. She felt the rich, heavy weight of the emerald-and-diamond collar around her neck, and the tug of the matching earrings. She listened to the polite, cultured burble of conversation in the grand salon. To her, the mingling voices sounded like a chorus of angels. Everything even smelled rich, she reflected fancifully. French perfume, Havana cigars, fine brandy, Macassar hair oil.

They reached the arched doorway flanked by tall potted plants. The breeze through an open window let in a hot gust of air, causing the ferns to nod as if in obeisance. The uncertain luster of the moon polished the spires and dome of the courthouse in the next block. Far to the west, the sky flickered and glowed with heat lightning. It was a night made for magic. Of that, Kathleen felt certain.

She paused between Phoebe and Lucy. Under her breath, she said the word prism and left her mouth pursed. Miss Boylan taught that prism was the most becoming word a young lady could utter, for it caused the mouth to shape itself into a perfect bow, so attractive in company.

The trouble was, Phoebe and Lucy, rigorously trained by Miss Boylan, also said prism, and the three of them made the mistake of looking at one another.

Lucy burst out laughing first and Phoebe stayed sober the longest, but eventually they all erupted into gales of mirth. Trapped and exposed beneath the archway, they were unable to hide from the disapproval of long-nosed society matrons and haughty gentlemen peering at them through gold-rimmed lorgnettes.

“Oh, that went well,” Phoebe said, hiccuping away the last of her laughter.

“A most discreet entrée,” Lucy agreed. She linked arms with Kathleen. “We must proceed as if nothing has happened.”

“Welcome, ladies, welcome!” A jovial man in a beautifully tailored claw-hammer coat came forward, acting the host. “And your happiness is most welcome indeed.” He made a gallant bow from the waist. “I was afraid the evening was going to get stodgy on me, but you’ve rescued us from that.”

“Thank you ever so kindly, Mr. Pullman,” Phoebe replied with an effortless curtsy. “We’re honored to be included in tonight’s affair.”

“Everyone’s welcome.” He spread his arms to show off an impressively heavy watch chain anchored to a solid gold fob. “Do come in, come in.”

“Mr. Pullman,” Lucy said, “I’d like you to meet my friend Kate O’Leary from Baltimore.” She winked and dropped her voice to a whisper. “You know, the Learys of Baltimore. They have just recently arrived in town for an extended visit.”

George Pullman, famed entrepreneur whose palatial rail cars were described as “wonders of the age,” fixed a keen, assessing eye on Kathleen.

Her mouth went dry. Her bones stiffened to cold stone and her cheeks were touched with the fire of humiliation. What a fool she was, to think she could pull this off. She was about to be found out and publicly unveiled by one of the most famous men in Chicago. She wanted to turn and run, but she could not seem to move her feet. She did the only thing she could think of. Summoning her best smile, she sank into an oft-practiced curtsy.

“How do you do, Mr. Pullman,” she said with soft, precise diction. Not a trace of the Irish brogue that rolled unabashed through the cottage where she’d grown up. Not a flat, coarse vowel to be heard. Not a single waver of movement in the curtsy.

“Of the Baltimore Learys,” he said at last, clearly fooled by Lucy’s ruse. “My dear, you quite take my breath away.” He seemed sincere. Then, remembering himself, he added, “You all do. My compliments to Miss Boylan.” He moved on to greet someone else.

Kathleen didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until she nearly burst, letting out a sigh of relief.

“I told you we’d fool everyone,” Lucy said, gritting her teeth in a smile.

“Humph.” Phoebe moved into the midst of the gathering like a ship under full sail. “George Pullman’s money is as new as the Sinclair fortune. It takes generations of refinement to hone one’s taste.”

Phoebe Palmer never missed a chance to remind anyone who would listen that “old” money was far superior to “new.” She considered it gauche for a family to get rich all in one lifetime rather than accumulating wealth over generations. Such things mattered to people like the Palmers.

Phoebe spent a moment scanning the crowd, her nose lifted high in the air. A hound on the scent, she sought out the most prestigious guests in the salon: Mr. Randolph Higgins, Mr. Robert Todd Lincoln, Miss Consuelo Ybarra, Mrs. Arabella Field. Then she focused on her quarry—Kim, Lord de Vere, son of the duke of Kilbride. A circle of fawning, fascinated Americans surrounded the carelessly, almost effeminately, toothsome young lord. Phoebe sought out Mr. Pullman to request a formal introduction.

Kathleen and Lucy exchanged a glance and had to struggle against another attack of the giggles. “Her great dream is to be a penny princess,” Lucy explained. “British peers with bankrupt dukedoms and such often come to the States looking for a rich girl to marry. Then they use the girl’s fortune to rebuild their estates.”

“And she allows this?” Kathleen could see no benefit in the deal for a young woman.

“See for yourself.”

Phoebe had turned herself into a simpering, self-ingratiating creature, begging for scraps at the skinny, chinless lord’s side.

“What is wrong with a nice red-blooded American millionaire?” Kathleen asked.

“The fact that he’s male,” Lucy said with a grin, always quick to air her views. In favor of universal suffrage, birth control, free love and equal rights for women, she made no secret of her radical ideas. Try as she might, Miss Boylan had not been able to lecture such notions out of Lucy Hathaway’s head.

“One day you’ll meet a man who will make you beg forgiveness for saying that,” Kathleen warned her.

“One day hell will ice over, too,” Lucy said. “But I don’t expect either event to occur in my lifetime. However, I was hoping to meet an interesting man tonight.” Her scrutiny fixed itself on Mr. Randolph Higgins. A newcomer to Chicago, he was tall, broad and almost inhumanly attractive. “I’ve been thinking of taking a lover. Just to see what the fuss is all about.”

Kathleen sucked in a shocked breath. “Really, Miss—”

Lucy clutched at Kathleen’s arm. “Heavenly days,” she said.

A chill of nervousness curled in Kathleen’s gut. “What?”

“It’s Philip Ascot.”

“What the devil’s he doing here?” Instinctively Kathleen hunched her shoulders, wishing she could hide. Philip Ascot IV was the fiancé of her mistress, Deborah Sinclair. Since Deborah was unwell tonight, Kathleen certainly hadn’t expected him to attend. She peered at the young man suspiciously. Not a single blond hair nor a thread of clothing was out of place. He smiled politely while greeting Reverend Moody, a white-mustached, bombastic man, the only one present who believed his purpose this night was to save souls.

“I’ll be found out for certain,” Kathleen said, deflating in her beautiful dress.

“Will you?” Lucy lifted one dark eyebrow. “Are you sure he’d recognize you?”

“I’ve worked for his fiancée for years,” she said. “He has seen me a hundred times or more.”

“Then we’ll simply have to brazen it out,” said Lucy. “Come on. Just act as if you own the place.”

Somehow, Kathleen found the poise to cross the room with a smooth, proprietary grace. Judging by the polite greetings drifting toward her and Lucy, she began to realize that she was carrying off the ruse. Mimicry had always been a gift of hers, helping her to absorb the same lessons in elocution, dancing, French and flower arranging her mistress had suffered through.

The difference was, Kathleen didn’t consider the lessons a punishment. She loved every moment of them. She loved knowing which fork to use, which foot to put forward in a curtsy, learning how to say pas de quoi and shaping her mouth around the word prism before entering a room. It all seemed so lovely and refined to Kathleen. She couldn’t fathom why Deborah detested her lessons so much. But then, her mistress had always been a quiet, circumspect young woman, overshadowed by her domineering father and, increasingly, by her high-society fiancé.

“Philip Ascot, as I live and breathe,” Lucy said, approaching the fair-haired man and holding out her hand.

“Miss Lucy,” he said, gallantly lifting her hand to his mouth. “You look fetching, as always.”

“This is my dear friend Kate from Baltimore.” Lucy took back her hand and presented Kathleen, pushing lightly but insistently at the small of her back.

Though she kept a social smile on her face, Kathleen felt sick. This was it. The moment of truth. Philip had only to take one look at her and he would recognize his fiancée’s maid. He would expose her right down to her homespun bloomers and the calluses on her gloved hands. Too late, Kathleen remembered that he had given Deborah the diamond-and-emerald earrings last Christmas.

Sweet Jesus and the bald apostles. She was in for it now.

Philip made a formal bow and took her hand. Through her peau de soie glove, she felt the brief touch of his lips. Then he lifted his gaze to hers. “Enchanted, Miss Kate. What a pleasure indeed to meet you.” He stared at her intently, a dashing smile on his face. But to Kathleen’s shock, there was not a flicker of recognition in that stare. Only…an interest that was just a shade shy of polite. As quickly as she could, she freed herself from his touch.

“We are quite surprised to see you here, since Deborah is ill,” Lucy commented. She had always been a plain-speaking sort; she got away with it because she was descended from a famous, blue-blooded family and was worth a fortune.

“Ill, you say?” He lifted an eyebrow. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.” He shrugged, dismissing the mention of the woman he was soon to marry. “Another fit of melancholia, I presume. I’ll look in on her tomorrow, perhaps.” With a broad, cold grin he turned his attention to Kathleen. “So how long are you with us?”

Kathleen wondered why she had never recognized the vaguely predatory air that lurked just beneath the surface of this man’s polished exterior. Perhaps, she realized with mild amazement, it was because she had never been the object of his interest before. When she was merely a maid, he paid her no more attention than a piece of furniture.

“Only a short while, Mr. Ascot,” she said evasively. “Now you must excuse us.” Without waiting for a reply, she took Lucy’s arm and steered her away. As they moved toward the refreshment table, her cheeks felt as if they were on fire.

“You’re trembling,” said Lucy. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve just had a rather rude awakening. I’ve been in the company of that man dozens of times, because of Miss Deborah. But he’s never even seen me before. He didn’t recognize these earrings, even though he picked them out. Not that I would want his attention, but it’s a wee bit disconcerting to know I attracted all the notice of a potted palm.”

“He’s an insufferable snob,” Lucy said, curling her lip. “I have never been fond of him.”

Neither had Kathleen, but she felt strange and hollow inside to know her existence was so insignificant to people like Philip Ascot. And he wasn’t the only one. Earlier, Phoebe had ignored the elevator operator. Lucy had accepted a glass of lemonade from the tray of a passing waiter with the same lack of regard. Lucy, who hadn’t a mean bone in her body, blandly smiled her thanks, but didn’t actually see the neatly dressed waiter, didn’t wonder what his name was, where he came from, whether his shiny shoes pinched his feet, or if he had a sweetheart or a wife.

To the upper crust, people like the waiter—even personal maids like Kathleen O’Leary—were ignored. Not out of malice, but out of sheer obliviousness.

Imagine going through life being invisible. As if she didn’t exist at all. The very thought chilled and horrified her. It was more than vanity that made Kathleen want to be noticed. It was a keen sense of survival. If she was invisible, how could her life possibly matter? She wished she could march through her days with the conviction of Lucy, or the self-importance of Phoebe, or even the quiet gentility of Deborah.

Instead, she found herself at an unhappy crossroads. Because of her education, stolen from the tutors and governesses hired for her mistress, Kathleen no longer fit in with the working classes. Yet due to the circumstances of her birth, she didn’t fit in with the privileged set, either.

Tonight, she decided, casting away the chilly shadows of doubt, tonight she would be a true lady, no one would be the wiser and Lucy would win her bet with Phoebe. Bolstered by that conviction, she resolved to set aside her doubts once and for all, and enjoy the evening.

She gave herself over to the experience, laughing and flirting with surprising ease and enjoyment. She met Mr. Cyrus McCormick, whose reaper works had made an even bigger fortune than Pullman’s Palace Cars. She exchanged pleasantries with Mrs. Asgarth, pretended to follow a lengthy gossip session delivered by Mrs. Cornelia Wendover and traded a promising smile with Andrew Ames, a slender, timid gentleman who owned a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade.

Even though it was the Sabbath, and the purpose of the evening involved the salvation of the soul, no one seemed to remember that. Helping herself to a flute of champagne, she took a drink, thrilled by the bubbly texture and tart flavor of it. Relaxing more by the moment, she began to feel truly accepted in the rare company of Old Settlers, estate tycoons, captains of industry and transportation moguls. She loved their power, their confidence, their unabashed flaunting of the fine things they owned. She admired the women in their Parisian gowns and Russian jewels. She envied the patina of culture that lingered on those who had spent time traveling abroad.

What a contrast this made with the society of her old neighborhood. In the West Division, there would be Mass on Sunday night, and afterward, perhaps a ceili with a fiddle band, plenty of cheap drink and dancing until everyone ran with sweat. As a small girl, she used to love a good ceili, but as she was drawn more and more into the orbit of the very rich, she had come to see the wild, Celtic celebrations as somewhat…barbaric.

Conscience-stricken by the disloyal thought, she plunged her hand into her reticule and secretly drew out her grandmother’s mass card. The painting of Saint Bridget, her face bright with a martyr’s glow, glared up at her accusingly. And what manner of colleen are ye, then, ashamed of yer own flesh and blood? Gran’s voice seemed as close as a whisper in her ear. With a start, Kathleen dropped the card on the carpeted floor.

Before she could retrieve it, the heel of a large foot, clad in a shining leather shoe with a gleaming white spat, came down on a corner of the card, pinning it in place.

Sweet Mary, she would burn in hell for certain, letting some tycoon trample her poor Gran.

The owner of the foot didn’t seem to know he was snuffing out a saint.

Kathleen wondered if she could slip the card out from under the foot without attracting his notice. Feigning a casual pose, she put out a dainty toe and attempted to drag the card toward her. No luck; the larger male foot held it pinned in place. She would have to stoop to pick it up.

Working as discreetly as a pickpocket, she unscrewed one of her earrings and dropped it on the floor.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “I’ve lost—”

The gentleman turned.

“—my earring—” She broke off and stared. It was him.

Black-haired, blue-eyed and utterly captivating, Dylan Francis Kennedy had the sort of face Kathleen pictured when she and Deborah stayed up late to read forbidden, romantic tales of chivalry and daring. A wealth of curling, glossy hair set off the chiseled masculine jawline. The artful curves of his cheekbones and gently cleft chin were echoed by the shape of a mouth that made Kathleen remember Phoebe’s description of him: delicious.

Unfortunately, at the moment, the delicious Dylan Kennedy stooped and picked up both the diamond earring and Gran’s holy card.

“Yours?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Thank you kindly, sir.” Brazen it out, she told herself. In one swift movement she slid the card into the reticule, not bothering to secure the drawstring. But before she could take back the earring, he held it away from her.

With a smile that struck her absolutely speechless, Mr. Kennedy said, “Allow me.”

Chapter Two

“Absolutely not,” Kathleen whispered after a long, awkward silence. She was aghast that this person would even consider such a thing. Letting a man put an earring on her, in a roomful of the best people in Chicago, would expose her as a fraud entirely. No proper lady would ever allow such a liberty. “Thank you for retrieving my earring. I shall retire to the powder room to put it back on.” She held out her gloved hand.

His smile, and the merry gleam in his eyes, should have warned her. “My dear young lady,” he said, “where is the fun in that?”

“Fun?” she squeaked.

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” He lifted an eyebrow, a dark curve that made him look more intriguing than ever. “For fun?”

Kathleen tried to gather her composure. In her fondest imaginings, she’d had clever conversations with dozens of men, had bantered and matched wits with people of breeding and quality. When no one was looking, she had practiced smiling, flirting, laughing, offering quips and amusing anecdotes. For the life of her, she could not think of one clever thing to say at this moment. But she was not about to let herself be struck dumb by a handsome man.

“I thought saving souls was on the agenda tonight,” she said. “That should be fun enough for you.”

“I’m a Catholic,” he said smoothly. “Not a sober, pinch-mouthed Protestant. They don’t believe in having fun. Not in this life, anyway.”

His admission stunned her. The highest ranks of society normally looked down upon those of the Catholic faith. Only a certain privileged few could admit to it and still keep their place in society. That was one reason Lucy had picked Baltimore as Kathleen’s fictional hometown. There, some of the oldest families were descended from venerable Catholic clans from centuries ago, which made them acceptable to socialites.

“Do I shock you?” he asked.

“Certainly not. Sir.” She deliberately emphasized the formal address. She knew that in this society, a person kept certain things secret. What could his blunt admission mean? That he knew the mass card for what it was and saw through her ruse? Or that he felt a genuine affinity for her because they had something in common?

His laughter was low and rich, a sound she thought she would never tire of hearing. “I beg your pardon. It’s unforgivable for me to indulge in an intimate conversation with you before I’ve even introduced myself.” His bow was perfectly correct. As if posing for a photograph, he leaned forward from the waist, one hand behind his back and the other held out palm up, as if in supplication. “Dylan Francis Kennedy, at your service.”

She wondered if it was better to pretend ignorance or to admit she had known who he was all along. No, she couldn’t do that. He’d ask where she had seen him before and she’d be forced to admit that she had been spying on him at the Sinclair mansion. “How do you do,” she said. “I am—”

“Kate.” He winked at her. “Your friend Miss Hathaway gave me permission to call you Kate. She said you were far too modest to demand a formal address.”

She narrowed her eyes, skeptical of his dashing charm. “For all the gossip I’ve heard about you, I would expect informality.”

“Now I am intrigued. What gossip?”

“That you are heir to a Boston shipping fortune, just back from a lengthy tour of the Continent,” she said.

“You must have seen that in the Tribune.”

“And that you are looking for a wife,” she added.

He laughed. “Ever since that nonsense was published, I’ve been inundated by ambitious matrons trotting out their rich daughters. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy a parade of maidens, mind you—” he winked at her “—but I think I’ve narrowed the scope of my search.”

She sniffed. “Then I shan’t tell you the rest. You’ll get a head swelled full of pride.”

He chuckled. “Did your gossips say what manner of wife I’m seeking?”

“No, but I heard you’ve left a trail of broken hearts scattered across half the continent.”

“Patently untrue. I am the one who is brokenhearted. In all my travels, I have been asking for the unattainable.” He smiled sadly. “A woman of rare accomplishment and depth,” he said. “One who has red hair, flashing eyes and knows all the words to the Ave Maria.”

“You are an unforgivable tease, sir,” she choked out, thoroughly intrigued.

He touched her elbow, leaning forward and lowering his voice. “I never tease. But don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

“Which secret?” she blurted out. She was usually in control of her tongue, but his touch, even the light cradle of his hand at her elbow, disconcerted her.

“There’s more than one?” He had the most alluring manner.

She bit her lip, thinking fast. Then she gave him the most dazzling smile she could muster. “Every woman has secrets,” she said. “The more, the better.”

He constantly seemed as if he were on the verge of laughter. “My dear Kate, I was speaking of your true identity.”

She gasped. “If you know my true identity, why do you still deign to speak to me?”

“Because I want to put this earring on you. And if there’s any deigning to be done, then it is you who has to deign because it’s clear to everyone in this room that you outrank me.”

“Outrank?”

“I knew you’d be too modest,” he gently chided her. “Lucy warned me.”

“She did?”

“Yes. She said you’d never flaunt your family tree nor the wealth that shakes from its branches like autumn leaves.” He chuckled. “You see? I am insufferably vulgar, mentioning bloodlines and money in the same sentence.”

“This is America,” she said, hoping her relief didn’t show. “We’re free to talk of anything we like.”

“And we do, don’t we?” Still seeming to hover on the brink of laughter, he gestured at the exalted company in the room. The men wore custom-tailored suits and boiled collars so crisp that the edges seemed to cut their necks, and the women progressed through the conversation groups as if in the midst of a competitive sport.

Dylan Kennedy’s suit, Kathleen observed, had the distinguished gentility of several seasons of age and wear, which made him look far more comfortable and natural in his role as lord of the manor. Not for him the spit shine and polish of new money, but the honored ease of generations of wealth. Next to him, even the English lord appeared bourgeois.

Then he did a most unexpected thing. Placing his hand under her elbow in a proprietary fashion, he guided her through an archway of the big salon to a smaller room with French windows flanked by garish faux marble pillars.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Sightseeing.”

“But I—” She broke off as he opened one of the tall, hinged windows, revealing a view that stopped her in her tracks. “Oh, my,” she said when she could breathe again. “That is quite a sight.” She took a step out onto the small, curved balcony. The windstorm that had been chasing through the city all evening blew even stronger now, howling between the tall downtown buildings and whipping up the surface of the lake like buckwheat batter.

From this perspective, facing south and east, she could see the curve of the river as it widened to join the vast, churning lake. Only a block or two distant, she noticed the dome and spires of the ornate courthouse, and beyond that, the gothic steeple of St. Brendan’s, the church of her girlhood. There, in a pious, sincere whisper, she had taken her first communion, accepted her confirmation and confessed her weekly sins. She expected that one day she would be married there under the gazebo in the little prayer garden, and buried there as well.

Tearing her mind from the moribund notion, she examined the perfect parallel lines of the streetlamps along Lake, Water and Randolph Streets. At the mouth of the river, giant grain elevators made ghostly silhouettes against the night sky. Every few seconds, the lighthouse at Government Pier lazily blinked its beam in her direction. And far to the south and west, the day seemed to linger, as if the sun had forgotten to set.

She smiled at the fanciful notion, thinking of her family in the West Division. Her mother would probably use the extra daylight to do chores. She was that industrious.

“Why do you smile?” Dylan Kennedy asked, his voice low and intimate.

“It’s a beautiful sight, Mr. Kennedy. No wonder Chicagoans are so proud of their city.”

“It’s called the Queen of the Prairie,” he said. “And you must call me Dylan.”

A shiver of the forbidden passed over her. “I mustn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I scarcely know you.”

“You can’t be so formal with me after I do this.”

“Do what?”

“This.” Without further warning, he stepped very close to her, moving in so that she was trapped between a marble balustrade and his tall form. “Hold very still,” he whispered.

“But—”

“Sh. Be still.”

Her senses filled with the nearness of him. He had the most delicate touch of any man she could imagine. With the finesse of a gifted musician, the light fingering of a master violinist on the neck of his instrument, Dylan Kennedy placed one hand under her chin, turning her face to one side. She didn’t know if it was her imagination, or if it was real, but she felt the fine brush of that delicate finger across her jaw as she turned her head.

“I confess I don’t have much practice applying jewelry to a lady,” he whispered, “but I am a willing pupil.”

“Mr.…Dylan, please. If you would hand me the earring, I could—”

“And spoil my chance to be near the most beautiful woman in Chicago?” His mouth was very close to her ear. She could feel the warm eddy of his breath over her skin. The sensation was so pleasant that, just for a moment, she closed her eyes. Then she felt his fingers gently manipulating her earlobe. Sweet Mary, what was happening to her? A man was touching her earlobe and she could do nothing but let her insides turn to melted butter. She held perfectly still, in a state of rapture, as he worked the tiny screw of the earring so that the teardrop-shaped jewel hung once again from her ear.

Then, all too soon, he stepped back. “Beautiful,” he said, his bluer-than-sky eyes shining.

“You,” said Kathleen in her haughtiest voice, “are a wicked man.”

“True,” he said. “That’s why you find me so interesting.”

“What makes you believe I find you interesting?”

“Let me think.” He stroked his chin, pretending great concentration. “You followed me to this private balcony, as if for an assignation.”

“I most certainly did not. You—you commandeered me as if I were a prisoner of war.”

He laughed. “A prisoner of love, my dear.”

“You’ve proved nothing except that you’re even more wicked than I thought.”

“Sweet Kate, you are fascinated.”

She couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “You are the most arrogant, conceited—”

“But I’m right about you.”

“You have not the first idea about me.” She left the balcony, edging back toward the carpeted room.

He took her arm to stop her retreat. “My first idea was that you blushed the moment you met me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh, Kate. It wasn’t just a blush.” Bolder than ever, he touched the neckline of her gown, tracing the wide, U-shaped décolletage with a slow, deliberate caress. “You were seashell pink from here—” he traced his finger over the tops of her breasts and then upward, mapping the rise of her collarbone, the dip at the base of her throat, and then the side of her neck, up to the crest of her cheek and temple “—to here,” he concluded with a low, liquid laugh. “I swear, I never saw a woman blush like that.” He leaned forward and blew the whispered words into her ear. “Do you blush all over, Miss Kate? Do you blush with your whole body?”

Finally, finally, he had pushed her over the edge. Forgetting the drawing room manners she had donned along with the Worth gown, Kathleen drew back her arm and walloped him one. It was not an openhanded, ladylike slap designed to put him in his place, but a full-fisted roundhouse punch of the sort used in saloon brawls in Conley’s Patch.

He went down like a heap of unmortared brick. The thud of his body brought several people rushing over from the main salon.

“What happened?” Mr. McCormick asked, his walrus mustache twitching as he sank down beside Dylan Kennedy.

Kathleen braced herself. Now Dylan would reveal her for exactly what she was—a lowborn immigrant’s daughter, with crude manners, no sense of humor and a wicked punch. A fraud.

But he surprised her. Shaking his head and running an exploratory hand along the length of his jaw, he stared straight at Kathleen and said, “I fell.”

McCormick stepped back. “So I see.”

Dylan took his proffered hand and stood up. “I swear, I never fell so hard in my life.” As he spoke, his gaze never left Kathleen.

And to her mortification, she felt herself heat with an uncontrollable blush. She didn’t speak, and neither did Dylan Kennedy, but her thoughts rang loudly through her head: He’s right. I do blush with my whole body.

“Can you believe it?” Lucy Hathaway said excitedly, later in the powder room. “It’s you.”

“What’s me?” asked Kathleen.

“The woman Dylan Kennedy is interested in.”

“Fiddlesticks.” Kathleen took a clean linen towel from the brass serving tray on the counter and dabbed at her overheated face.

“She’s right.” Phoebe spoke with grudging admiration. “It is you. Dylan Kennedy wants you.”

“How can you know that?”

Phoebe gave her a tight smile. “I have made a careful study of him since he arrived in Chicago.”

Lucy laughed. “You mean you inspected his pedigree to see if he’d be a suitable husband for you.”

“I most certainly did. Is there something wrong with that?”

“Well, is he a suitable husband?” Kathleen demanded. Discreetly, she studied the hand that had just socked Dylan Kennedy. The knuckles were bright red. She put her one glove back on before the others noticed.

Phoebe fussed with the organza rosettes on her gown, then turned and fluffed out her bustle. “He is certainly rich enough. They say he has two million from his family’s shipping fortune. And he is stunningly handsome. I suppose you noticed that right off.”

He is a god that walks the earth, thought Kathleen. She bit her lip to keep from saying it aloud.

Phoebe ticked off his attributes on her fingers. “He comes from the East Coast, attended Harvard, traveled abroad. People say he is involved in shipping down the Saint Lawrence to Chicago. One of the most lucrative trade routes there is. No wonder he’s such a catch.”

“So you marry him,” Kathleen suggested.

Lucy shook her head. “She’s holding out for a duke, though Lord only knows why.”

“Then you marry him,” Kathleen said, amazed to be having this conversation.

“I shan’t be marrying anyone,” Lucy said. “I intend to devote my life to the cause of equal rights for women.” She grinned at Kathleen. “You’re elected.”

Kathleen laughed to cover a sudden jolt of ungovernable yearning. “I’m a maid,” she reminded her friends. “I hang Miss Sinclair’s clothes in closets and do her hair for a living. My mother milks cows.” She spoke flippantly, but underneath it all she felt a familiar mortification. She had always harbored the secret belief that she’d been born into the wrong life. Being in the company of Chicago’s best people tonight was a delight beyond compare, yet at the same time it held the razor sharp edge of frustration. The night gave her a taste of a life she could never have. Meeting a man like Dylan Kennedy merely twisted the knife.

“Not tonight,” Phoebe insisted. “Tonight you are a privileged young lady from Baltimore. Your ancestors were the founding fathers of the colony of Maryland.” Lacking her customary meanness, Phoebe took both of Kathleen’s hands in hers. “I didn’t think this would work, but so far you’ve made people believe our story. Initially I wanted to win my bet with Lucy, but I’ve changed my mind.”

“You have?” Kathleen was amazed. This was a side to Phoebe she had rarely seen. She wasn’t sure she trusted it.

“Tonight, Kate, I want to see you win. Don’t tell me you forgot about the invitation to the opera. That was the wager, or have you forgotten?”

He made me forget my own name, Kathleen thought wistfully.

The door to the powder room swished inward. Mrs. Lincoln, whose father-in-law had been the Great Emancipator, bustled in. A maid followed behind her, eyes cast down to the floor.

Phoebe pretended to be helping Kathleen on with her other elbow-length glove. “These are simply too cunning,” she said loudly. “Did they come from Paris as well? I’ve heard you get all your gowns and gloves from the Salon de Lumière.”

Before Kathleen could answer, Mrs. Lincoln put out her plump arms like a pair of wings. “My wrap,” she said to the maid. “And do hurry.”

“Is something amiss, Mrs. Lincoln?” Lucy asked.

“We’ve been hearing rumors of a great fire all evening. Robert wishes to go home early and secure the house.”

Kathleen felt no alarm about the report. Fires were a common occurrence, especially during the current drought. The city engineers always managed to contain them eventually. She and the others wished Mrs. Lincoln a good evening, then returned to the party.

“Remember your goal,” Lucy whispered to Kathleen. “You must get yourself invited to the opening of the opera house tomorrow night. If you do that, we’ll never be plagued by Phoebe’s snobbery again.” She hastened away to the main salon to hear the lecture, finding a seat that was suspiciously close to Mr. Higgins.

Time was running out, Kathleen realized, edging into the back of the room. While it was perfectly true that everyone here was cordial to her, she had yet to secure the invitation that would prove…She frowned, taking a seat on a divan across the room from where Reverend Moody was preparing to hold forth. Just what would it prove?

That she looked becoming in an expensive gown?

That Chicago society lacked a discriminating sense of who was worthy and who was not?

That the entire social structure upon which America was founded was a lie?

She smiled privately at the thought. Lucy would certainly love that conclusion. The truth was probably closer to her first thought, which was fine with Kathleen. Invitation or not, she intended to enjoy the rest of the evening. Tomorrow—and reality—would come soon enough.

She observed a group of men discussing the effect of the current drought on grain futures, and wished she could join in the speculation. Matters of commerce fascinated her, and she knew plenty from her shameless eavesdropping on her employer’s financial advisors. It was yet another way she had turned herself into a misfit, for the world didn’t need a woman from the labor classes who understood high finance. Yet she couldn’t simply stifle her interest or quiet her mind.

Reverend Moody spoke in a loud voice, and his words discomfited her. He preached of humility and honesty, and here she was, the greatest of liars.

Pretending to need a breath of fresh air, she slipped through the archway to the smaller salon. In one corner, a group of men stood smoking cigars and speaking in low tones. They didn’t notice her. The door to the balcony where Dylan Kennedy had practically seduced her stood ajar. She stepped out, and was struck by two impressions.

First, the wind had picked up strength and a curious heat, while moonlight imbued the scene with pearly blue magic.

And second, she was not alone.

“I just knew you couldn’t stay away,” Dylan Kennedy crowed.

She stepped back toward the door. “I had no idea you were out here.”

“Of course you didn’t,” he said teasingly, blocking her retreat. “But now that you’re here, I’m ready for you.”

She blinked. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I’ve been waiting for your apology.”

She flexed her hand unconsciously. “I am sorry you gave me cause to hit you.”

“Is that as close as you’ll come to apologizing?”

“It’s more than you deserve.”

“Then I accept.”

A gust of wind lifted her skirts, causing the green silk to bell out like a hot air balloon. Kathleen pressed her arms to her sides, not so much out of modesty as fear that he would catch a glimpse of her rough muslin bloomers. She did not want to explain why an heiress would wear such a thing under a Worth original. The strong draft tampered with the twisted silk cord of her reticule, and she felt it slip down her shoulder.

“I am going inside now,” she informed him, intending to escape before he addled her head by touching her as he had done before. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust herself with him. Never had she felt so strong an attraction for a man.

She considered herself to be a woman of some experience, for she did not lack for suitors. Expressmen, railroad workers, lumberjacks and day laborers often came to call. Some of them, like Barry Lynch, a dockyard clerk, were quite nice. But she had never felt the magic of true attraction…until now.

It wasn’t just that he was handsome—though he most certainly was.

It wasn’t just that he was amusing—though he was that as well.

Maybe it was because he was rich. Although, now that she thought about it, so were the other young men in the grand salon. And she didn’t feel this hugely magnetic and thoroughly confusing attraction to any of them. Just Dylan Kennedy.

He pressed the French door shut with the palm of his hand. His arm reached across her line of vision. He smelled faintly of bay rum and wood smoke.

Wood smoke? That was unexpected. Most men smelled of cigars or cheroots, but—

“Something’s burning,” she said suddenly, swinging her gaze out across Chicago.

“I call it desire,” he quipped.

“Please, stop joking. There is a fire somewhere. People were talking about it earlier.”

The wind crescendoed to a truly frightful howl, and even in the protected shelter of the balcony, Kathleen felt its power plucking at her skirts and carefully coiffed hair. Scattered sparks streamed past, tossing and flickering like live snowflakes.

“Look at that,” she said. “There is a fire.”

“Those are probably just embers from someone’s chimney pot,” Dylan said dismissively. “Even if it’s a fire, the engine crews will have it under control before you know it.” He pressed close to her, and the intimate heat that passed between them thrilled her. He seemed determined to pick up where they had left off before she had hit him.

And to be honest, Kathleen was interested, too. For the first time in her life, she had the feeling that she “fit” with this man. She felt at ease with him, even though he was a tycoon, rich and sophisticated beyond anything she could imagine. But he didn’t know that. He would never know that. For after tonight she would never see him again. There was no harm in this flirtation, she told herself. No harm at all.

He seemed to sense her growing acceptance of him. “Is it true your family owns a controlling interest in Hibernia Securities?”

She caught her breath, but tried to act unsurprised. “You’ve been gossiping behind my back.”

“I wouldn’t call it gossiping. I’m interested in you, Miss Kate. I find you completely enchanting, even if you do wield a mean right hook.”

At his words, shivers coursed over her. “I’m not sure you should be speaking to me in such a frank and familiar fashion,” she said.

“Are you offended?”

“No.” She allowed herself a small, speculative smile. “Intrigued.” She dared to push at the boundaries a little more. “The gossip about you is that you are in need of a wife.”

“Desire,” he said softly, stepping close. He spoke the word with silken precision.

Inside her, something seemed to melt. “What?”

“Desire,” he repeated. “I desire a wife. I’m not sure that is the same as need.”

“I see.” How had he wound up standing so close to her? She could smell the clean starchy scent of his shirt, could see the precision with which his valet had shaved his cheeks and jaw.

“Don’t you want to know why?” he asked, practically whispering.

“Why what?” Her mouth felt cottony and dry.

“Why I desire a wife.”

She cleared her throat, trying to make sense of the moment, of the sweet, compelling feelings flowing through her as she looked up at him. “Very well. Why do you desire a wife?” She couldn’t help the spark of devilment that made her suggest, “Did your mother finally put you out of her house?”

He caught her against him and laughed heartily. “My dear Miss Kate, you are a caution. It is a privilege to know you.”

Now, she thought, moving in for the kill. “Do you truly feel that way?”

“From the bottom of my heart.”

“Then I wonder—” She stopped. “Oh, I am too bold.”

“Go on. What were you going to say?”

“I was hoping you would invite me to the opening of Crosby’s Opera House,” she said. “I was hoping you would be the one.”

“I will, Kate. I’ll be the one. I am, after all, looking for a wife. Escorting you to the opera seems a good way to begin the hunt.”

For a moment, Kathleen felt dizzy with her victory. She had won. She had proven she could fool a society gentleman into escorting her to the opera. But the moment came to a cruel and swift end. She wanted to take pride in her cleverness, but instead, she felt empty. Deceitful. Here was this perfectly nice man, innocently offering her an evening’s entertainment, and she thought only of the wager. An apology hovered on her lips, but something—the expression dancing in his blue eyes—held her silent. In the matter of his quest for a wife, she couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. She speculated about the real reason for his interest in matrimony. Family alliances, convenience, sometimes even appearances. Occasional expedience, for accidents did happen even in the best of families.

“We have managed to have an entire conversation, and neither has revealed the least little thing about the other,” she commented, stepping back.

“You find my air of mystery alluring,” he said.

“What—” She swallowed. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the howl of the dry, blowing wind. “What gives you the idea that you are so alluring?”

“Ah, but I didn’t say that. I said that you find me fascinating. It’s not my fault, but you do.”

“I certainly do not.”

“Sweet Kate, when you punched me in the jaw with such ardor, I could only conclude that I arouse a strong passion in you. And then when you sneaked out here to be with me, I felt even more certain of your feelings.”

“You are insolent,” she said, grateful for the many hours she had spent studying with Deborah. She could stand up to this clever, clever man, just see if she couldn’t. Long after her mistress had lost interest in her studies, Kathleen had absorbed all the lessons of the best tutors money could buy. “You are arrogant,” she said to Dylan. “You are manipulative, sly and completely wrong about me.”

He had a swift and elegant way of moving, and he employed it now, pressing her against the figured stone balustrade. He filled her field of vision—snowy white shirt and a white silk cravat framed by the beautifully tailored, slightly worn lapels of a dark frock coat.

“We like each other, Kate. We both felt the attraction.”

She tossed her head, trying to appear unintimidated by his nearness. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do, and it matters not at all.” Very lightly, shockingly, he put his finger at the base of her throat, brushing the emeralds and diamonds of her necklace. “I know your game, Kate.”

“And pray, what is that?” She spoke playfully, enjoying this far too much.

“I know what’s under your dress,” he said.

Saints alive. He knew about her muslin underclothes.

“Beneath this gorgeous milk-white breast beats the heart of a guilty woman—”

“Sir, you forget yourself.” Letting a man speak of one’s breasts was absolutely taboo. It was so taboo that no one had even told her such talk was forbidden. She just knew.

“Tell me, what would your family think if they knew you were here?” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken.

Heavens, but he was right about the guilt. She pictured her simple, loving family and felt like the ingrate of the world for pretending to be something she was not. They would see it as a rejection of their way of life, their values, when in fact, it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with Kathleen and a dream inside her that refused to die. But for the moment she was more concerned with fending off this man who seemed to see right through her.

“My family loves and supports me in all I do.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Sounds promising. And unusual for the heiress to a fortune. So they would not worry that you had come to hear an evangelist, a good Catholic girl like you?”

She tried not to show her relief. “Sir, my family would be far more worried about your attentions.”

“Don’t you want to know how I guessed your secret?”

“How?” she asked cautiously, though she knew it was the holy card.

“Because I am just like you, my sweet.”

She nearly laughed at how wrong he was. How shocked he would be if he understood what that truly meant—that she came from a poor family with no property, no prospects. “Catholic, you mean? You’ve already said so.”

“I am anything you want me to be. What do you want, Kate? What do you want?”

Every word dried, unspoken, on her tongue. Every thought flickered and disappeared like the sparks flying through the night sky. It was extraordinary. In all her life, no one had ever asked Kathleen O’Leary what she wanted. She was told with great frequency what she should do or must accomplish. But never had anyone posed the simple, straightforward question to her. No one waited so avidly to hear her answer.

And she discovered, in the long breathless moments that stretched between them, that she did not know the answer.

Until now, her life had been about what she didn’t want. She didn’t want the hardscrabble workaday life her parents endured. She didn’t want to marry a dockyard clerk and crank out baby after baby, year after year. She did not want—and saints in heaven preserve her—to be ordinary.

Now here was this extraordinary man, promising her anything.

“You haven’t answered me, Kate,” he reminded her, gently prodding. “What do you want?”

“For this night to go on forever,” she blurted out, and even as she spoke, she realized it was the most honest thing she could have said. From the moment she had donned the Worth gown, she had felt like a different person. Someone better, more important. Of course, it was all an illusion. She knew that. But the magic was as strong and seductive as Dylan Kennedy himself.

“I like that answer.” He whispered the words into the shell of her ear.

He was going to kiss her, she realized. He moved slowly, deliberately. Not with the clumsy urgent hunger of other men who had tried to kiss her. He knew what he wanted and took his time getting it. He placed his knuckles softly beneath her chin and directed her gaze to his. Then he bent from the waist, almost formally as if making an elegant bow. His lips touched hers lightly, so lightly she wasn’t sure she had felt it at all. She sensed the subtle warmth of his breath, scented with brandy, and an exquisite intimacy thrummed between them, so poignant that all of their lighthearted banter could not mask the fact that she grew suddenly thick-throated with yearning.

He kissed her as though nothing existed but her. As though she were the only other living soul on earth. As though he existed for the sole purpose of kissing her.

She had never believed she could be moved by a man’s touch, or even by his kiss. Certainly on rare occasions there might have been a flash of excitement when a suitor stole a peck on the mouth, but what she experienced in Dylan Kennedy’s arms went far beyond mere titillation. Her heart was engaged by this man, and he roused emotions more poignant and moving than anything she had ever felt. A longing seared her, and even as she reveled in his kiss, she knew why this experience was so overwhelming.

He was showing her, in this single, perfect crystal of a moment, all that she wanted, and all she could never have.

She surrendered to him utterly, softening and growing pliant in his arms. Here was a man who had probably held royal princesses in his embrace, handled blooded horses and business deals worth a staggering fortune.

In one single moment she wanted it all. She wanted to experience his life of bold, glittering excess. She imagined awakening in an airy, light-filled chamber with a gentle swish of organdy curtains. Breakfast would be served on bone china by white-gloved servants, and they would spend the day surveying their beautiful estate. In the evening they would attend a musicale, visiting with friends who laughed easily, made lighthearted conversation and admired the famous Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy.

Long after he stopped kissing her, she kept her eyes closed and her face angled toward his. Only the silken rustle of his laughter startled her back to reality. She blinked like a dreamer, awakening to find him laughing down at her.

“Where the devil are you, Kate?” he asked.

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because I want to go there.”

Feeling sheepish, she stepped away from him. He tilted his head, peering shamelessly down her bodice. She smacked him on the shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound at all contrite. “I was just checking.”

“Checking what?”

“To see where that blush of yours starts. I’m having all sorts of ideas.”

This was how wealthy, privileged people behaved. This delicious flirtation with an edge of the forbidden. And she wanted it. Oh, how she wanted it.

A spark drifted past, alighting on her bare arm, and she brushed away the hot sting. A frisson of fear touched her like the ember. “I don’t think that strayed from a chimney pot,” she said.

“Could be a leftover from last night’s blaze at Conley’s Patch,” he remarked.

She frowned. Conley’s Patch was known as the devil’s acre, a lowly ramshackle neighborhood of saloons and brothels on the south side. How would a man like Dylan Kennedy know the first thing about the Patch?

Disconcerted, she turned to look out at the city. The sun had set hours before, but an orange glow painted the sky to the west.

“I think the fire’s spreading fast,” she said, worried.

At that same moment, the French door banged open. The wind slapped it against the building and one of the panes shattered. Lucy blustered forward and grabbed Kathleen’s arm.

“We’ve got to go,” she said. “We must get back to Miss Boylan’s before the bridges get too clogged with traffic.”

Kathleen pulled her arm away, and the cord of her reticule slid off her shoulder. “But—”

“There are rumors of a fire.”

“The fires aren’t just rumors,” Dylan said calmly. “There’ve been six a day and more because of the drought.”

Lucy regarded Dylan with narrowed eyes.

“Don’t worry, Miss Hathaway,” he said smoothly. “I was not behaving offensively.”

“Why not?” she asked. “All men do.”

Kathleen guessed she’d had a run-in with Mr. Higgins. “We really must go,” she said, reluctantly agreeing with Lucy.

“Yes, we must be getting back. Miss Boylan was quite insistent,” Lucy said. “Our curfew is ten o’clock.”

Even Cinderella had her midnight, Kathleen thought. But Cinderella was nothing but a story in a book, a dream of a magical evening that could never come true. Kathleen lived in Chicago, fires were troubling the city and it was foolish to cling to the masquerade any longer.

But she did have her private fantasies. She wanted Dylan Kennedy to think back on this night and remember the mysterious, sophisticated young woman who had kissed him with forbidden intimacy.

And so, in full view of Lucy, she wound her arms around his neck and planted a long, impassioned kiss on his mouth.

Chapter Three

Just like that, she was gone.

But Dylan could still taste the phantom sweetness of her, lingering on his lips. He could still detect the pliant warmth of her mouth pressed to his.

He could still feel the hard heat of the passion she inspired, and he was compelled to wait out on the balcony until he was fit for mixed company. Blowing out a breath of exasperation, he ran his finger around his collar, yearning to loosen his cravat. He couldn’t, of course. A gentleman never appeared with a less than perfectly tied cravat.

It was a great burden, being the most eligible bachelor in Chicago. If he’d realized the ruse was going to be this much trouble, he might have chosen something else—a divine prophet, perhaps, or a blind man. The guises had worked for him before.

Dylan Francis Kennedy, known in various other venues as the marquis de Bontemps, Sir Percival Blake, the Prophet Jephtha, and Dirk Steele—Man of the Comstock, used to consider himself the luckiest fellow in the whole U.S. of A. He breezed through life, donning different identities with the same ease as trying on a new chapeau. With his affable grin, his unusual physical abilities and his flamboyant style, he had fleeced a living from the smug, the self-satisfied, the richer-than-God, and he made no apologies for it.

But unfortunately, he’d arrived in Chicago with the notorious Vincent Costello dogging his heels. Under normal circumstances, Dylan would have the means to dodge his former partner. The smell of money never failed to put Vince off the scent. But this time, things were complicated.

This time, Dylan was flat broke.

Worse, Costello was flat broke, too. That made him cranky and unpredictable.

Dylan had arrived “from the Continent”—that always impressed the right people—with less than two bits to his name. The very notion grated. There had been times when he had stood poised just inches from total success, only to have a deal go bad or a mark wise up. He usually had a knack for salvaging something from the ashes.

Not this time. This time, escape had cost him everything, including the clothes on his back. He had wanted a change from the life of burlesque performing and carnival tricks that had kept him and Costello in the money. He’d grown tired of thrilling the crowds with his daredevil tricks while Vince picked pockets and collected wager markers from the onlookers. Most of all, he’d needed to escape Costello’s daughter Faith, who had imprisoned him with the mistaken belief that he would marry her.

During a stint in Buffalo, Dylan decided the time had come to disappear. He had to get away from them, for they were getting too close in ways that made him hot under the collar. He didn’t know how to be close to people, and he didn’t want to know.

And so, on a bet, the famous marquis de Bontemps was to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Dylan had done the stunt several times, curiously unperturbed by the violence of the raging cataract that lured so many tourists and daredevils from around the world. He studied the odds, chose his spot, measured his chances and then, while hundreds watched one evening, he had done the unthinkable. He had fallen. He’d gone over Niagara Falls. The horrified people who had watched him plunge to his death, who had wept to see a fine young man cut down in his prime, had forgotten all about the wager. And Dylan, who had carefully practiced the maneuver of falling, clinging to the underside of a boulder, then pulling himself along a cable to the Canadian side, had fought his way to shore in the dark. He had stolen away to the west, leaving his partner behind.

Or so he had thought. Costello probably grew suspicious when no body was recovered. Dylan should have known Costello would hunt him down like a bloodhound. Bleed him dry like a stuck pig. Or worse, make him marry Faith like a decent man.

Dylan needed a big touch, and he needed it soon.

Pressing his fist on the carved concrete rail of the balcony, he cursed the timing of the fire. And here of all places. He and all his aliases were unknown in Chicago, so he’d considered the city fertile ground for reinventing himself. He had finagled a spot on every elite guest list in town, but the masquerade would be over if someone discovered his serious cash flow problems. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep up the illusion of being the man of the hour.

The woman in the green silk gown had fluttered into his life like a petal on a breeze. No, he corrected himself, like a guardian angel. When he had met the heiress, who let him address her by the delightful nickname “Kate,” he thought his prayers had been answered. Her gown was Worth, her diamonds were genuine and her looks and personality enchanting.

She was clearly loaded with a fortune that needed a bit of lightening—preferably by Dylan. Pushing his face into the swirling hot tempest, he rotated his shoulders and glared out at the distant horizon, shimmering now with a fire in the west. It was going to be a long night.

“Damn,” he said, letting the howling wind snatch the curse away. And again, “Damn.”

He had been so close to winning her over. Even when he thought he’d have to work to earn her kisses, she had simply given him one. Given him a kiss and left, a spark on the wind.

If only he’d had a little more time, he would have succeeded with her. He could sense the opening bud of her interest. He almost dared to think he’d actually enjoy stealing from her. Generally, spoiled heiresses were a tough lot. They required a great deal of maintenance: cosseting, flattery, heartfelt pronouncements of utter devotion, promises from the bottom of his heart. Not this one. She was beautiful and merry. He would have had fun taking a fortune from her. She would have loved being taken by him.

Sadly for him, she had disappeared before he could learn more about her, capture her heart and steal her money. Perhaps he could track her down at…whose house were they going to? Miss Boylan? Who the hell was Miss Boylan?

A hail of flying embers suddenly blew through the area. With another curse, Dylan jumped back, brushing at his sleeves. The silk frock coat, from Savile Row via an unwary gentleman’s closet, was the last decent thing he owned, and he’d best not burn a hole in it.

As he turned to reenter the salon, he heard a crunching sound under his heel. With a frown, he stooped and picked up some forgotten object, bringing it inside with him. It was a green silk evening bag, crusted with beads that perfectly matched his lady-love’s dress.

With rising hope, Dylan parted the opening of the bag and looked inside. A burning whiff of ammonia nearly knocked him on his ass. Damned smelling salts. He had broken the bottle when he’d stepped on the bag. Within seconds, tears were running down his face. He was about to cast aside the silk bag when he noticed something else secreted within the emerald folds, under a soaked handkerchief.

A card of some sort? Frowning, he extracted it, hoping it was a calling card. If it was, then his task would be far easier.

But it was not a calling card. It was…a holy card, the one she had dropped when she’d lost her earring.

Odd. He hadn’t seen one of those in years, not since he had shown up at Gerry Carmichael’s funeral in Boston, claiming to be his sole heir.

This one depicted Saint Bridget looking both very Irish and very virtuous. The overly sentimental artwork touched a chord in Dylan, and for a fleeting moment, a wave of sadness surged through him. As it often did, his heart kept trying to remember a past he had vowed to forget. Memories strained to break into his consciousness, but he resisted them, knowing they held nothing but darkness for him. He had spent a lifetime fleeing the past, and he wasn’t about to lose the race now. Through sheer force of will, he banished the phantom feeling, convincing himself that he had only imagined the sudden, searing pain.

Impatient with himself, he turned the card over and read the printed prayer. And there, at the very bottom, was the name of the deceased being honored: Bridget Cavanaugh. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother. The sponsor of the card was St. Brendan’s, just a few blocks away, according to the address given.

Dylan palmed the card and slid it into the flat front pocket of his trousers—appropriately enough, next to the part of him that wanted Kate the most. He grinned at his own crude wit. Suddenly his luck was about to change.

But first, of course, he had to figure out where she had gone. Donning his best smile, he breezed into the main salon. The crowd had thinned somewhat. Apparently others were also worried about the fire that had sent Lucy and Kate speeding on their way.

Dylan found a tray of champagne glasses and helped himself to two, lifting them in the direction of Mr. Pullman in a salute. Then, when Pullman turned away, he knocked them back like water.

Lately Dylan had a new sense of weariness, an ennui. The exhilaration of a narrow escape had lacked its former heady sweetness. Running for his life was becoming too routine, and for the first time ever, Dylan began to wonder what it would be like to settle down, go straight.

With a rueful half grin into his champagne glass, he drained the last drop. How on earth would he know? His earliest memory, one he couldn’t forget no matter how hard he tried, had been of a deception.

Just wait right there, my boy, and Mam will come back for you. He had tried to sit very still and quiet, hoping his good behavior would bring her back sooner. The steamy train station had seemed as big as a witch’s castle to him, with its gleaming marble floors, soaring ceilings, gritty air and skylights glittering high overhead. Mam had once told him that the plump naked creatures were supposed to be cherubs—little babies with wings—but to him they looked evil, their carved stone mouths puckered, their fat hands clutching at clouds and clusters of grapes, their curling hair frozen in stone.

The smells of steam and cinders had choked him as he watched passengers hurrying zigzag across the marble, heels clicking, black-faced porters whistling smartly and wheeling groaning carts of baggage out to the trains. Destinations were shouted down the terminals: Philadelphia. Saratoga. Buffalo. New Haven. Boston. He encountered a boy his own age who had boasted, “We have a first-class berth all the way to Boston,” before a governess grabbed him by the upper arm and hauled him off with a whack to the backside and the warning, Don’t consort with riffraff. You’ll catch a disease.

Much later, a man dressed in a black gown had taken him by the hand and brought him to a church that echoed with whispers and eerie songs. He had dug in his heels, not wanting to face what the priest had brought him to see—a plain pine box, candles burning low. Look at her, boy. Tell us her name. He had run away as quick as ever he could, slipping out the door and passing crooked headstones in the churchyard. He skirted a freshly dug grave that reeked of damp earth and broken lilies, and the dewy grass wet the toes of his scuffed shoes as he ran.

He returned to the steamy, oily train station, because his mam had told him to wait there. The black-gowned man came looking for him again, but he’d huddled under a bench in the waiting room until the man left. Hours or maybe days later, a kindly porter had asked him if he was lost. He had shaken his head and mimicked the well-dressed boy’s voice: I have a first-class berth all the way to Boston.

That had been the beginning. He had been nine years old, and he’d learned his lesson well. People didn’t keep their promises. And more important, folks believed what they wanted to believe.

Dylan was tempted to drink away the bitter taste of the unwelcome memory, but he couldn’t afford the indulgence. Things were looking bad for him and he had work to do.

“Shame on you, Mr. Kennedy,” scolded an annoying voice. “You’ve been hiding yourself from us.”

He put on a smile designed to disarm and turned to greet Alice and Mabel Moss, nieces of the mayor of Chicago. The smile worked. They giggled and put up fans to hide their prominent teeth.

“Ouch,” he said, “that accusation stings even worse coming from your beautiful mouth.” While they giggled even harder, he said, “I was out watching the progress of the fire. Looks to be a bad one.”

Mabel waved her fan with nonchalant grace. “Oh, dear, yes,” she said. “Uncle has gone to the courthouse to see that the alarm system is alerting the West Division.”

“But never worry,” Alice enjoined. “Chicago has a perfectly grand fire department. Steam engines, hose carts, alarms everywhere you’d care to look.”

“I do hope the fire’s not in the vicinity of Field and Leiter’s store,” Mabel said with a worried pout. “I’m expecting an order of silk from Bombay. I declare, it’s impossible to hire a decent dressmaker these days. The city’s positively overrun by—” she shuddered visibly “—immigrants and foreigners.”

“Can’t abide them myself,” Dylan said earnestly. “Especially the Visigoths.”

She frowned in confusion, completely unaware that while she’d spoken, Dylan had relieved her of her little reticule. He hoped it contained something more useful than Kate’s smelling salts.

He palmed the small bag as he bowed to the young ladies. “It has been a distinct privilege,” he assured them. “And now I must be going. Perhaps I’ll make myself useful in battling the fire.”

As he walked away, he heard one of them whisper, “He’s so brave.”

He resisted the urge to add a swagger to his step. He wasn’t being brave at all, but practical. Fires could be useful in appropriating a bit of short-term gain. He considered looting to be the sport of commoners, beneath him, but the occasional snatched jewelry or cash would not come amiss.

He stopped at the cloak room and sweetly convinced the matron in charge that the Italian silk opera cape and sleek Canadian beaver top hat belonged to him. Then he went outside and stood beneath the awning, studying the terrain. The edge of the canvas flapped in a high wind, though no evidence of fire had reached the area. He pressed down the new hat to keep it in place.

“I ordered my phaeton half an hour ago,” snapped an angry voice. “Why the devil hasn’t it been brought round?”

Recognizing Philip Ascot IV, Dylan tipped his hat. He had always disliked the type: bland, vacuous, with just enough education from the right places to give him the sense that anything he wanted was his for the taking. Ascot possessed nothing but a venerable family name to recommend him. Sadly, in some circles that was more than enough. It was said that Ascot was engaged to marry Arthur Sinclair’s beauteous daughter, Deborah, who came with a dowry in excess of a million.

If Dylan needed another reason to dislike Ascot, there it was. He had gotten to the wealthy Deborah first.

No matter, he decided, pacing the pine block sidewalk, trying to make up his mind where to go. The red-haired heiress would do just fine for his purposes. He might even marry her if need be. It wouldn’t be the first time he had wed out of financial necessity.

But he didn’t want to think about past mistakes now. Regrets were always so inconvenient.

Instead, he thought about Kate some more. God, that hair, those lips. The swiftest route to her dowry would be to seduce her so she’d be forced to marry him. He found himself wishing for the luxury of time with a woman like that. Time to coax laughter and sighs from her, time to learn what her favorite color was and what she liked to eat for breakfast. Under the circumstances, however, he had to act fast. He considered the holy card in his pocket and wondered if it would provide some clue so he could find her again.

Lord de Vere and his entourage exited the Hotel Royale. Their inbred, aristocratic faces were pale and pinched. Lord Kim’s bewigged attendants sniffed the air like hounds on the scent. Dylan decided a bit of ingratiation was in order.

He flung back the edge of his cloak and tipped his new hat. “My lord,” he said, mimicking the courtly manners he had observed while gambling aboard a French steamship one year. “I thought you were a guest at the hotel.”

“Ah, Kennedy. So I was. We deemed it prudent to ficher le camp, what with this fire and the winds so unpredictable.”

“So where will you be ficher-ing to?” Dylan asked, trying his best not to mock the mincing attitude. But he couldn’t help himself. The English lord was a two-legged joke.

“Mr. Cornelius King was kind enough to offer his summer house on the north shore.”

“Indeed.” Dylan winked. “And did he offer anything else? His eldest daughter, perhaps?” Everyone knew the weak-chinned Englishman was in the States to find a rich wife. An admirable pursuit, thought Dylan. Though they’d never speak of it, they had something in common.

Lord Kim worked his mouth, fishlike, in soundless outrage. He sputtered, then found his voice. “I’m sure I don’t have the slightest interest in the young lady.”

Clearly the man had no sense of humor. Dylan laughed to show he meant no offense. “Then it’s a pity about your plan to marry money,” he quipped.

Again the codfish look from the Englishman.

“Well, the fortune generally comes with a woman attached,” Dylan concluded.

De Vere’s face froze. Then, while his attendants braced themselves for a flood of fury, he surprised them all by flinging back his head and braying with laughter. “You are a caution, sir. I should not like you at all, yet I find that I do. Ah, here is the coach.” A boxy coach and four came around from the livery. The team was spirited, probably jumpy from the heavy, smoky smell of the air and the occasional flying spark.

“Join us, Mr. Kennedy?” Lord Kim offered.

It was on the tip of Dylan’s tongue to accept. Then the oddest thing happened. The courthouse alarm bell, a couple of blocks distant, drowned out his “Yes, thank you.”

“Eh? Sorry, dear chap, I didn’t hear what you said,” the Englishman prompted.

“I said,” Dylan heard a stranger’s voice intone, “I had best stay in the city and lend a hand fighting the fire.”

“We’ll leave the heroics to you Yanks,” said the Englishman. “They say fools rush in…” Laughing at his own wit, he entered the coach.

As he watched the big, roomy vehicle roll away up Clark Street, Dylan gritted his teeth and cursed. What kind of fool stayed in the city, after all? What was he thinking? Within an hour he could be at some millionaire’s country place in Lake View, sipping sherry and making up stories about his Harvard days.

The courthouse alarm sounded again. Dylan ducked his head into the wind, held his tall hat in place and started walking. People milled about in the streets. No one seemed unduly alarmed, and neither was Dylan. Fires had been a nightly event of late because the weather was so unseasonably dry. He decided to make an early night of it, then begin his hunt for the delectable Miss Kate in the morning.

Though no one in Chicago knew it, his pied-à-terre was actually a pied-à-l’eau—a broken-down cabin boat moored under the Rush Street Bridge. He had found the leaky, listing vessel moldering in the river, and had claimed squatter’s rights. It was cramped, smelly and depressing, but he endured the conditions because he knew they were only temporary. He just had to figure out a new angle and he’d be back in the game.

Things grew more chaotic as he headed toward the lake. Crowds surged along the Van Buren Street rail line, fleeing from the West Division. Dylan hurried, his long strides putting ten city blocks behind him as he made for the bridge that spanned the mouth of the river near Lake Michigan.

On the sloping bank under the bridge, he stood still for a few moments, reluctant to seek shelter in the miserable boat. The wind held the shrieking promise of a tornado, somewhere out on the prairie beyond the stockyards. Horses in the roadway shied as their drivers laid into them with whips.

Dylan tried to decide whether or not he was afraid, and realized with no surprise that he was not. Things like firestorms and waterfalls didn’t scare him. Never had, which was probably why he had done a brisk business performing daredevil acts. He had a knack for learning tricks and a flare for the dramatic. His first stunt had taken place right in the train station where his mother had abandoned him.

With nothing left to lose, he had climbed to a steel girder in the terminal. He had no thought but that he wanted to be up high, like a bird, where nothing could touch him. He still remembered the faces of the onlookers. No one dared move or look away. Their riveted expressions of awe and dread had given him a keen sense of power. So long as they watched, he held them in the palm of his hand. Their attention went wherever he commanded it. With a heady feeling of complete control, he could make them gasp, cause their hearts to pound, force them to weep or sweat with worry for him. When he leaped down and stood unscathed on the platform, coins had showered him and he knew he was made for this life.

Not long afterward, he had apprenticed himself to a saloon owner in the bowery where he had performed stunts of increasing complexity. He quickly graduated to confidence games, tricking people out of their money by convincing them that a painted brick was solid gold, or that his Colombian parrot could tell the future, or that he was a direct descendant of an Egyptian king. In his lonely search for a place in the world, he had donned every persona except his own. He didn’t even know who he was anymore, and didn’t much care.

Hoping he’d left a bottle of spirits in the boat, he decided to seek shelter instead of standing around watching the chaos. The wind whipped viciously at the opera cloak he had helped himself to, temporarily covering his face with the expensive fabric. At the same moment, someone—a very large someone—jostled him, and he found himself shoved back against a timber bridge support.

“You move pretty fast for a dead man,” growled a deep, unpleasant voice.

The cloak was pulled out of his face. “Nice threads, Dylan,” said the voice, rich with sarcasm. “But you weren’t wearing it the last time I saw you. Seems I recall you were wearing ten thousand dollars in bank notes strapped around you.”

Damn it. He was hoping to avoid this. What a fiasco. He thought his daredevil escape over the falls meant he’d seen the last of Costello. Within hours of fleeing Niagara Falls, he had donned a new identity and hopped a train, knowing his former partner was likely to track him down in due time. As smart as Dylan and even less scrupulous, Costello had a special gift for getting what he was after.

“Vince,” he said, staring down at Costello’s meaty fingers, which clutched the cloak at his throat. “How did you find me?”

“I followed the smell, you low-bellied slug.”

“Very funny.”

“Yeah, I was tickled pink when I read in the papers how a certain Mr. Kennedy just got back from hobnobbing with the Vanderbilts all over the Continent. The bit about your being granted the Studleigh Prize by Queen Victoria was a dead giveaway.” He snorted. “Studleigh was the name you took for card-sharping in Albany.”

Dylan didn’t bother playing dumb. “How have you been?” he asked, and since Costello had not killed him yet, he dared to add, “How’s Faith?”

Vincent Costello dropped his hands. His face, which resembled a very healthy russet potato, with interesting knobs and creases, closed in a furious scowl. “You broke her heart, Dylan. She thought you were going to marry her. Even though I just about spent my last breath trying to convince her you’re no damned good, she’s got it in her head that she wants to marry you.”

“Well,” he lied, “the feeling was mutual.”

“Then do you mind explaining why you simply disappeared? With, I might add, our entire capital strapped to your waist.”

“Oh,” said Dylan, tensing to flee. “That.”

“Yes,” said Costello, pulling a gun. “That.”

“What’s blocking the roadway ahead?” Lucy Hathaway asked the driver. Their coach, a bulky rockaway with an extended front and the school crest painted on the doors, had rolled to a halt. She had to lean out the window to speak to him. Kathleen could see the roaring wind snatch at Lucy’s jet-black hair.

“A horse car,” the driver yelled. “Someone cut the horse loose and took the fare box. I can see the thief heading on foot for the river.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Lucy pulled her head back in and flopped against the leather seat. “At this rate it’ll take half the night to get back to Miss Boylan’s.”

Phoebe used the speaking tube rather than risk mussing her hair. “Driver, go around the horse car. We really must be getting back.”

Kathleen cast a worried glance at the Randolph Street Bridge behind them. The railed span overflowed with people, livestock, horses and mules hitched to all manner of conveyance.

“Saints and crooked angels. The fire must be even worse than it looks,” she said. In all the excitement and traffic she had not even told them her news—that Lucy had won the bet. Dylan Francis Kennedy had invited her to Crosby’s tomorrow night. She said nothing, though, for the victory seemed a trivial matter now.

Phoebe impatiently rapped her fan at the speaking tube. “Driver, did you not hear what I said? Go around the horse car at once.”

They could feel the coach swaying as the team strained in the traces. But there was no forward movement. Kathleen looked out at the crowded street. With a cold clutch of nervousness she saw the reason they had made no progress.

“Our driver has fled,” she told the others. She dropped her cultured manner of speaking and unknowingly echoed the thick brogue of her mother. “Sweet heaven, preserve us, we have no driver.”

“Don’t be ridicu—” Phoebe half stood, her hand on the door handle.

At the same moment, an explosion split the air. The fire had reached a store of gunpowder somewhere. The coach jerked forward with such force that Phoebe was slammed against the seat. With a scream, she plopped down. Kathleen felt her head snap back with the motion. The driverless horses scrambled ahead in full panic. Not only did they draw the coach around the abandoned horse car, they headed in a new direction entirely.

“We are going directly toward the fire,” Lucy said. Her voice was thick with fear.

“We’re going to die,” Phoebe wailed. “Dear God, we’re going to die and I never even had the chance to marry a duke. And I never saw Pompeii. And I’ve never eaten an oyster. And I’m still a virgin—”

“Can you shut her up?” Kathleen asked Lucy.

Lucy clutched at Phoebe’s shoulders and shouted “Shut up!” in her face.

Kathleen battled the rocking, lurching motion of the uncontrolled coach as she yanked the expensive silk skirts up between her legs and tied the fabric to fit like bulky trousers.

“Do be careful,” Lucy shouted, realizing her intent. “Please, be careful.”

Kathleen nodded grimly. She unhooked the stiff leather windshield of the coach. Immediately smoke and blowing sparks streaked into the interior. Phoebe started to scream again, but Kathleen ignored her and climbed. She was able to grasp the underside of the high seat where the cowardly driver had perched.

The hot wind roared over her face, carrying the scent of the terrified, sweating horses. By the age of eight, Kathleen had learned to drive her mother’s milk wagon and she was determined to control these beasts. “Ho there,” she shouted, hoping they would respond to a verbal command. “Ho!” Then she yelled, “Please, ho!” and finally, “Ho, damn it!”

The team ignored her. They churned along a broad avenue flanked by burning buildings. Their long manes streaked out behind them. Straining every muscle in her body, Kathleen managed to hoist herself through the windshield to the driver’s perch. The speed was dizzying, terrifying. So was the knowledge that the crazed horses were drawing them deeper and deeper into the heart of the fire.

The reins. She had to get hold of the reins. The trouble was, the driver had dropped them and they now snaked uselessly along the street.

She kept shouting Ho and they kept ignoring her. She spied a length of leather that had not come entirely loose, but had become fouled around part of the undercarriage. Perhaps she could reach that. Holding the seat with one hand, she stretched down and forward with the other.

A groan came from her throat. She couldn’t reach. Kathleen wanted to sob in frustration, but she had never been one to cry and saw no point in starting now. She kept reaching. Stretching. The leather slapped tantalizingly against her hand again and again. She finally grabbed hold and gave a shout of triumph. With all her might she hauled back on the single rein.

At first the horses fought her control, but eventually responded to the desperate tugging.

Another explosion sounded. It was terrifyingly close, the heat of it sucking the air from her lungs. With the force of a blow, the blast knocked Kathleen from her seat. She was slammed against the pine block roadway, stunned, unable to draw a breath. People rushing toward the lakefront veered to avoid the racing coach. The horses turned sharply in the middle of the street. The tongue of the coach unbalanced the vehicle and it went over on its side. While she watched in helpless horror, the horses reared, protesting the resistance, struggling to free themselves.

The impact of her fall reverberated through Kathleen’s teeth and bones. With slow determination she hauled herself to her feet and hurried over to the coach. The straining horses were dragging it on its side, but the big rockaway barely moved. Kathleen grabbed for the half door just as it banged open.

“We’re all right,” Lucy said, hiking back her skirts to clamber out.

“Thank God.” Kathleen took her hand, helping her, then reached for Phoebe. White-faced and clearly shaken, Phoebe was battling tears. “Hurry,” Kathleen said. “The whole neighborhood is burning around us.”

Phoebe’s beaded gown tore on the door latch as she scrambled out. “Help,” she shrieked to a man and woman hurrying past. “You must help us!” The passersby clutched their bundles closer and ignored her. She exhorted a man on a horse for assistance, and shouted to a hose cart driver, but no one stopped.

“Help me free the horses,” Kathleen said.

“No, we must get the coach up. It’s our only hope of escaping,” Phoebe wailed. “Sir,” she yelled at a huge man in fringed buckskins. “We need help with the coach—”

He said nothing but took out a gleaming knife. Phoebe shrank back as he pushed past her. With two easy slices, he cut the traces. Then he slapped the horses on the rumps and they raced away.

“He…he…the horses!” Phoebe yelled.

“At least they have a chance now,” Lucy said.

Kathleen fixed her gaze on the hose cart crew. On the side of the conveyance she could make out the number 342. Her blood chilled, for that was the fire district that encompassed her parents’ home. Suddenly the rushing crowd, the blinding heat, the bellowing roar of the fire all faded away. She stumbled on the broken pavement and lurched around a light post, approaching the crew.

“Have you come from the West Division?” she shouted.

One of the men kept the hose stream aimed at the building that had exploded. “You bet. Nothing left there to save, miss.”

A whistle sounded and the hose cart crew drew away. Sick with fear, Kathleen stumbled back to rejoin her friends.

Lucy grabbed Phoebe’s hand. “This way. We’ll go on foot.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” Phoebe objected.

“We’ve wasted enough time squabbling already. Come along, Kathleen.”

As it turned out, Phoebe had her way. By trading a ruby brooch, Lucy found seats for the three of them on the back of an express wagon. The vehicle, laden with rugs and furnishings from a law firm, lumbered along Washington Street, heading toward the Sands at the edge of the lake. Kathleen felt dazed, unable to think or speak. Her legs dangled off the back of the wagon, and she realized she was facing west.

Nothing left there to save.

She wondered dully how long the area had been burning. Had flames consumed her parents’ house while she was laughing and flirting with Dylan Kennedy? Had her little sister Mary and baby brother James fled in terror while she was drinking champagne at the Hotel Royale?

The knot of guilt in her stomach tightened. She clutched at her middle, only vaguely aware of her friends’ anxious discourse as they sifted through the rumors that sped through the night. Field and Leiter’s six-storey retail emporium was in flames. The gasworks and numerous substations stood directly in the path of the fire. The waterworks was threatened. If it failed, there would be no water for the hose crews.

None of it mattered to Kathleen. She couldn’t bear to think of anything but her family and what might have become of them.

And then she acted without thinking, doing exactly what instinct told her to do. Without looking left or right, she jumped off the back of the cart. Through the steady roar of the fire and the howl of the wind, she could hear her friends calling her name but she didn’t turn, didn’t pause, didn’t flag in her determination. In seconds, a wall of smoke and flame swallowed the retreating express wagon. It occurred to her that she might never see her friends again.

Between her and the West Division lay a fiery maze only a fool would try to cross. But she had to go anyway. She had to find out what had become of her family.

Chapter Four

“Can’t go that way, miss,” yelled a passing merchant who staggered along, weighted by a stack of goods from his shop. “It’s burning worse’n hell.”

Kathleen acknowledged him with a nod, but ignored his advice and continued along Van Buren Street toward the bridge. She had gone this way a thousand times over the years, making the journey from the opulent prosperity of the North Side to the chaotic neighborhoods of the West Division. She always knew, once she reached the river, that the bridge was more than a way to cross the water. It seemed to span two worlds—the world that she’d come from, and the world she yearned to inhabit.

Tonight, for a cruelly short period of time, she had been there, in that world where she desperately wanted to be. Her brother Frank often teased her about her longing and ambition, and he swore that once she sampled the good life, she would find it as stale and artificial as faded silk flowers.

Frank was wrong. Her first taste of high society had been…delicious. Dylan Kennedy had made it so. Imagine, Dylan Kennedy singling her out for his attention, flattering and kissing her as if she were the most desirable woman on earth.

She wanted to savor the memories, but at present it was all she could do to survive the night. There was no use pretending she wasn’t afraid. She was. Everything she could see on the other side of the river was in flames. Wind and fire were one and the same, turning buildings and trees to dizzying towers of fire. The heat reached across the water, searing her cheeks.

Struggling against the crowd, jostled and buffeted like a leaf on the wind, Kathleen tried to pick her way to the bridge. The very sky itself rained flaming brands down on the twin arch supports of the span. In the river, boat whistles shrieked for the bridge to be opened on its pivoting pier, but the walkway was crammed with frantic people, every one of them fleeing directly toward Kathleen. They came on in a solid wall of humanity, and the fire behind them roared like a live thing, a dragon.

She fell back at the bridgetender’s house. She’d never get across here. Choked by frustration, she turned north, praying the Madison Street Bridge would be less crowded. In order to get there she would have to pass the gasworks, a frightening prospect given the rain of fire.

But not nearly as frightening as the situation she discovered in the middle of the street. A hail of cinders spattered her, and she cringed within her cloak. She stopped and stared at a police paddy wagon lurching along the roadway. A red-faced driver, his cheeks puffed out around a whistle, stood high on the box, his whistle shrieking. They came to an impasse, where the macadam road was blocked by stacks of crates and trunks someone had abandoned.

The driver and a man on the back had a hurried conversation, then unhitched the horse. People passing by took one look at what was happening and picked up their pace.

Blessed be, thought Kathleen. They’re freeing the jailbirds.

The lieutenant opened the back of the wagon, then joined the crowd rushing toward the north and east. Men poured out into the middle of the street. She recognized their striped garb, but even more, she recognized the harsh, deep lines in even the youngest faces. Their eyes were hard and darting, even when they looked up at the flaming sky and, suddenly aware of their freedom, dispersed like sparks in the air.

She did not know any of these men, but the look of them was familiar to her. These were the faces of men who had grown up as poor as she, but rather than toiling for a wage at the stockyards or a lumber mill or a varnishing factory, they had taken to crime. Some of the men had the very look of violence in their gleaming eyes and badly healed broken noses, while others might have been altar boys in church in their younger years. A body just couldn’t tell, she thought, keeping to the side of the street, away from all the commotion.

Appearances could be so deceiving.

She concentrated on forging a path through the smoldering debris to the nearest bridge, and tried praying through her gritted teeth. But the words to even the simplest prayer simply would not come. She did not know how to ask for all that she wanted—for her family to be safe, their home to be standing. Forgiveness for seeking beyond her means for a life not meant to be hers. Safety for her friends, whom she had abandoned in order to make the desperate dash across the city.

Some of the newly freed convicts started looting the shops and businesses that lined the street. They helped themselves to jugs of liquor, lamps, bolts of cloth, anything that wasn’t nailed down. Despite her understanding of these men, the pillaging shocked her, and she hurried faster. Even so, she was not quick enough to elude a heavyset, mean-eyed convict who shoved himself up against her on the walkway. He was a black man with a sculpted mouth, a bald head and a thin, raised scar under one eye.

“Let’s have a look at those jewels now, sister,” he said, his meaty paw reaching for her borrowed necklace.

There was no time for fear or hysteria. Kathleen had been raised in the rough West Division, and she didn’t hesitate. “Over my dead body, boyo,” she said, and at the same time, she brought up her knee. The mean eyes bugged out, and she felt the rush of his hot breath as he doubled over, wheezing, leaning against the concrete base of the bank building. Kathleen knew she had only seconds before he recovered, angrier than ever, so she darted down a side alley.

Away from the bridge. But there was nothing else for it. Too many of the convicts overran the vicinity. She preferred the unknown perils of the fire to the very familiar dangers of newly freed prisoners. She hoped the narrow, smoke-shrouded alley would lead to another westbound street, but instead found herself in a maze of walled-off mews. After a few sharp turns to the right, she became disoriented. She passed no one; the area had been evacuated. Stable doors hung open to empty stalls, the stores of hay fueling the conflagration. Only the occasional rat streaked past, seemingly as lost as she.

Suddenly a crashing sound ripped through the air. Looking back the way she had come, she saw that the walls on either side of the alley had caved in on themselves. A fountain of dust and ash rose from the sky. But out of the ashes came something…someone. A man. Staggering, wounded. She blinked and squinted against the stinging smoke.

There was another crash, and she lost sight of the man. Then the wind screamed through the alley, scouring the air so that, for a few seconds, she could see clearly.

He wore prison stripes and a look of hideous fury.

He had a bald head and a scar under one eye.

And he was hopelessly pinned by a fallen roof beam.

Kathleen wheeled around and started to run away, for the first time truly afraid for her life. After a few yards, she dared to turn and look. He fought with the charred, smoking beam, desperately trying to drag himself out from under its weight. With one arm, he reached toward a shadowy doorway. Bright embers and sheets of tarred roofing wafted down, setting fire to all they touched.

Kathleen hurried away, expecting to feel a rush of relief.

Instead, she kept thinking of the way the Negro man struggled, the twist of his open mouth. She imagined his bellows of pain and rage, drowned by the roar of the storm. She wondered if he knew how to pray.

And against all common sense, she stopped running and turned back. He was a convict, a thief and possibly a murderer, but was it for her to condemn him to the flames of eternity?

She trembled as she returned to his side, crouching down and tugging at the huge beam. Tears of hot sap spurted from the wood, burning her hand. She flinched, but kept pulling at the beam.

“Best get on out of this place,” the man said in a low voice.

She didn’t pause. “You can’t stay here,” she said. “You’ll burn like Saint Joan if you do.”

He managed to push one leg out from under the beam. His foot was clad in a cheap China canvas shoe with holes cut for his toes. His arms were still pressed to the ground.

“Can’t move,” he said with a rough sneer. “An’ that ought to make her ladyship happy.”

She swallowed hard, tasting a dry grittiness in her throat. “Hush up. I’m trying to help you.”

He eyed her with suspicion. “Help me what? Burn like the sinner I am? You done enough already, thank you very kindly.”

Realizing that she lacked the strength in her arms, Kathleen sat down in the roadway and pressed her feet to the beam. “Look, I don’t have time to argue with you. Push from below, and I’ll push with my feet until we move this thing off you. Unless you prefer to sit here and caterwaul like a bleedin’ infant until you suffocate.”

He seemed to respond to her sharpness more than her compassion. With a nod, he indicated that it was time to push. With him heaving from below and Kathleen pushing with both legs, the beam finally moved. Crawling inch by inch, the convict freed himself. Kathleen jumped up with a shout of triumph. Then, seeing that he might be injured, she stuck out her hand.

He closed his soot-blackened hand around hers, nearly pulling her down as he levered himself to a standing position.

“There now,” she said, “I’ll help you walk. But keep your greedy mitts off the necklace.”

“You’re no bigger’n a minute,” he said. “How you going to help me?”

She angled a glare up at him. “Didn’t I just? It’s not the size that matters,” she reminded him. “Come, and be as quick as you can.”

He settled a big, heavy arm across her shoulders and they started along the smoke-filled alley. Kathleen could feel him wince each time he put weight on his injured ankle. His bald head, shining with sweat, had a gash across the right side. Still, he drove himself to match her pace.

“Why?” he rasped, wheezing with the rhythm of their hurried footsteps.

She knew what he meant. “You’re a bully and a thief, but so are most men. That doesn’t mean they should all be burned alive.”

He coughed out a laugh. “I can name a dame or two who’d disagree.”

The injured man smelled, and he weighed heavy against her, but Kathleen just wanted to get the two of them to a place of safety. The fire pursued them like a deadly enemy with a mind of its own. The wind drove the flames to lick at their heels. They needed to find a place of relative quiet, where the air was at least breathable. They walked for what seemed like hours, encountering dead ends and blocked passageways. Sometimes the smoke blinded them utterly.

“Do you know where we are?” she asked the convict.

“Not a blamed notion.” He grunted as his foot struck a stray brick in the road. “My name’s Eugene, by the way. Eugene Waxman. Friends call me Bull.”

She didn’t have to ask why. He was as big as an untrimmed side of beef, and just as muscular. Her back and shoulders ached under the weight of him even though she sensed his effort to support himself as much as possible.

“Kathleen O’Leary,” she replied.

“It’s good we should know each other’s names,” he said.

Somewhere overhead, a window exploded outward. He tucked her head under his arm to shield her from the falling glass. When she looked up at him, she could see flecks of blood on his head where he’d been hit.

“Why?” she asked, chilled despite the heat of the fire.

“So we don’t die among strangers.”

But they didn’t die. They fought and struggled through the maze of streets and faintly, between the bellow of the flames and the howl of the wind, they heard bells. The courthouse alarm or a church bell, perhaps. They followed the sound, and finally emerged at an intersection overrun by people racing to and fro, encountering barriers everywhere they turned.

Kathleen didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. After all her struggles, she had wound up in Courthouse Square, not four blocks from the salon where the evening had begun so pleasantly.

“Shit,” said Bull, drawing out the syllable in disgust. The huge, gothic building housed the jail in its basement. “I just left this place.”

“I’ll save you from that monster, miss!” hollered an earnest-looking man. He raised a tasseled horsewhip high overhead, aiming it at Bull.

Kathleen realized that the man assumed she was being mauled or abducted by the convict.

“Stop!” she yelled. “Leave him alone!”

The earnest man retreated, shaking his head.

“Take off your shirt,” she ordered Bull. At the look on his face, she gave a harsh laugh. “Modesty is no virtue on a night like tonight,” she added. “I’d best find you something to wear that doesn’t make people so suspicious.”

He looked mortified as he peeled off the horizontally striped shirt. In the heated glow of the fire, she saw that his back was marked with a furious crosshatching of scars. He might have been a slave at one time, she realized.

Half a block farther, a flatbed wagon, overloaded with salvaged goods, rumbled by. She made no apology as she helped herself to a wicker laundry basket. Rifling through a jumble of clothes and linens, she found what appeared to be a man’s nightshirt.

“Put this on,” she said, tossing it to him.

She caught his look of wary gratitude as he tugged on the stolen shirt. It stretched taut across his massive shoulders but was far less conspicuous than the prison stripes.

Kathleen scanned the area, craning her neck toward the west. “I need to get across the river,” she said, thinking aloud.

“Best get to the lakeshore, miss. Nowhere else is safe—”

“My family’s in the West Division. I have to find them.”

“Be like finding a needle in a haystack tonight.” He gestured at the press of humanity surging through the streets.

She felt a twinge of exasperation. “I won’t be arguing over it with the likes of you.” She took a deep breath, wincing at the harsh, sooty flavor of the air, and started up the street toward the bridge.

But tonight, the world was clearly against her. She could not take two steps forward without being shoved three steps back. A hose cart crew rushed past, forcing her to plaster herself against a stone wall in order to avoid being trampled. An open tar tank from a roofing plant had caught, and the whole area was wreathed in flame.

A marshal in a peaked hat and long coat put a brass speaking trumpet to his mouth. “Clear the area,” he boomed. “We can’t save the gasworks. Clear the area.”

Kathleen looked fearfully at the gasworks complex. At least one huge gasholder blazed with eye-smarting brightness. Men with buckets climbed to its top, while others led horses away from the company barn.

“Why can’t you stop the fire, for pity’s sake?” Kathleen demanded. She recalled Lucy Hathaway’s politician friends, promising that the new waterworks could pump the whole of Lake Michigan over a fire if need be.

He halted, just for a moment, while the false light of the fire played over his grimy, sweating face. “Don’t you see, miss?” He was panting in ragged gasps. “We’d sooner stop the wind.”

She forced herself to accept what she had not dared to see until this moment. The very sky itself roared with flame. Windblown sparks rained down in a deadly storm. This was different from the other fires that had plagued the city throughout the dry season. In the summer, a good neighborhood blaze might attract spectators like a baseball match at the White Stockings stadium.

Tonight, curiosity had turned to terror.

“Move along, miss,” the fire marshal said, his brass buttons flashing importantly. “You don’t want to be around when the gasworks blow. See if you can flag down a hack.”

She moved out of the way so he could direct his crew toward the blazing Hinkler’s Stage and Omnibus Company. With a deepening sense of dread, she headed north to the Lake Street Bridge, ever aware that her options were running out.

She felt a tingling at the back of her neck, a presence, and she whirled around. The man called Bull loomed like a shadow over her.

“Why are you following me?” Kathleen demanded.

“You all alone and the city’s going crazy. Somebody might take a notion to grab you. Rob you, maybe.”

“A shocking idea,” she said, leveling a look of accusation at him. But she could not cling to her anger. She was too desperate to find her family. “You’re right about the robbing,” she conceded. Without slowing her pace, she unclasped the precious Tiffany necklace and removed the matching earrings and bracelet. She had a fleeting memory of Dylan Kennedy putting the earring on her. Even now, in the middle of mayhem, she felt a sweet, melting sensation deep inside her. She wondered why she hadn’t thought to hide away the valuables before. She simply wasn’t used to wearing anything of value. She would have put the jewels in her reticule, but she had managed to lose that somewhere. A bad sign, losing Gran’s mass card. It was supposed to have been her good luck token.

“Don’t look,” she said to Bull, and turned away.

“You just a skinny little thing, anyway,” he grumbled.

She stuffed the jewels down her bodice, grimacing at the sharp feel of the priceless stones next to her skin. He was a convict, guilty of Lord-knew-what heinous offenses. He had tried to rob her. Yet now, with him limping along beside her, bleeding from the head, she felt unaccountably safe.

The next bridge was impassable. Seeing it, she had a sinking sensation in her stomach. Carts, buggies, wagons and pedestrians poured across the span.

Bull said nothing, but she could feel his “I told you so” emanating from him as if he had spoken it aloud. Shouts and the clatter of wheels filled the air and she had to jump back to make way for the fleeing populace. In their arms, people carried the things they could not bear to leave for the fire to devour.

Some looked grateful to escape with the clothes on their backs. Others wore layer upon layer of clothing despite the heat. There was one old lady in a fur coat and hat with so many layers beneath that she appeared as swollen as a tick. One nervous, suspicious woman grasped at her valuables, looking over her shoulder and hovering over her treasures like a hen with a clutch of eggs. In contrast there was a man wearing nothing but a nightshirt and a silk top hat. In one hand he held a bottle of brandy, in the other a cigar. He sat calmly in a crowded hack, watching the mountain of fire beyond the bridge. A woman hurried past on foot, pushing a baby carriage. From the expression on her face, it was clear that everything important to her lay within the carriage.

Kathleen wondered what she would save if she stood to lose everything. And she discovered, with a flash of resentment, that the answer eluded her. She had nothing of her own, nothing worth saving. Unlike the woman with the pram, she had no idea how to cherish what she had rather than wishing for something different.

Her gaze fixed on a man clinging to the tailgate of a stout insurance patrol wagon. She squinted through the smoke and—

“Pegleg!” she yelled, pushing toward the street. “Daniel! Mr. Sullivan!”

Daniel Sullivan, known to all as Pegleg for his wooden prosthesis, lived in her family’s neighborhood. At the sound of her voice, he glanced around, craning his neck.

“It’s me, Mr. Sullivan,” she cried. “Kathleen O’Leary!”

“Lord bless you, child, so it is.” The man shifted on the cart. Crammed with too many passengers and driven by Commissioner Benjamin Bullwinkle himself, the wagon lumbered along at a snail’s pace. “Can you climb aboard, then?”

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