The Firebrand Read Online Free PDF Page B

moment, excitement flashed in Kathleen's eyes. How beautiful she was, Lucy thought. What would it be like to be that beautiful?
    But then Kathleen sobered. "I lost my reticule. Miss Deborah's reticule, actually, for haven't I borrowed every stitch I have on except my bloomers? And I made a fool of myself altogether over Dylan Kennedy."
    "So did half the female population of Chicago," Phoebe pointed out, sounding unusually conciliatory.
    "All those worries seem so small now." Kathleen turned her face to the window. "Blessed Mary, the whole West Division is in flames. What's become of my mam and da?"
    "I'm sure they're fine," Lucy said. "You'll find them once everything is sorted out."
    '"Tis easy enough for the two of you to relax. Your families, bless them, are safe in the North Division. But mine..." She bit her lip and let her voice trail off.
    Lucy's heart constricted. Inasmuch as she envied Kathleen's beauty, Kathleen coveted Lucy's wealth. How terrible it must be to worry and wonder about her parents and brothers and sisters, living in a little wood frame cottage, her mother's cow barn stuffed with mill shavings and hay.
    Lucy thought of her own parents, and Phoebe's, secure in their mansions surrounded by lush lawns and wroughtiron gates. The fire would surely be stopped before it reached the fashionable north side.
    She'd grown up insulated from the everyday concerns of a working family. She knew better now, and in a perverse way, she wanted to repent for her privileges, as if by being wealthy she was somehow responsible for the ills of the world. Phoebe thought her quite mad for staggering around beneath a burden of guilt. Phoebe just didn't understand. Because women of their station were complacent, ills befell those who had no power, women forced to endure drunken abuse from their husbands, giving birth year in and year out to children they could not afford to raise.
    Lucy patted Kathleen's hand. "I'll help you find your family if you like."
    Phoebe pointed out the window. "Not tonight you won't. Honestly, Lucy, I believe you would try to save the entire city if you could. You and your crusades."
    "If we don't take the lead, then who will?" she asked. "The washerwoman bent over her ironing board? She doesn't have time to eat a proper meal much less lead a march for equal rights. We're the ones who have the time, Phoebe. We know the right people, for Lord's sake, we were just at a gathering with every person of influence in the city. And what did we talk about?" She flushed, thinking of her conversation with Randolph Higgins. "The weather. The opening of Crosby's Opera House tomorrow night. The contention that women are gates of the devil. It's absurd, I say. I, for one, intend to make some changes."
    "Ah, Lucy." Phoebe sighed dramatically. "Why? It's so...so comfortable to be who we are."
    Lucy felt a stab of envy. Phoebe was content to be a society fribble, to let her father hand her—and a huge dowry—in marriage to some impoverished European nobleman, simply for the status of it all. Phoebe actually seemed to be looking forward to it.
    Lucy felt a stronger affinity with Kathleen, an Irish maid who felt certain she'd been born into the wrong sort of life and had other places to go.
    As she looked out the window and saw well-dressed families in express wagons and carriages practically running over stragglers clad in rags, outrage took hold of her.
    "There is plenty of room in this coach," she said, a little alarmed at the speed now. "We must stop and take on passengers."
    "Oh, no, you don't." Phoebe grabbed the speaking tube. "You'll start a riot, the horses will balk and then no one will get where they're going."
    Lucy spied a woman in a shawl, burdened with an infant in one arm and a toddler chnging to her other hand. Rolling up the leather flap covering the side window, she shot Phoebe a defiant look and leaned out the door. A flurry of sparks stung her face, and she blinked hard against a thick fog of smoke.