Susan Wiggs Great Chicago Fire Trilogy Complete Collection

by Susan Wiggs

  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.

  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.