Susan Wiggs - The Firebrand

“I—” He would never learn the proper way to answer that question. “No. I do not.”

“But if you did, they would certainly be left in the care of your wife while you attend to business,” she said.

“Miss Hathaway—”

“I apologize. I sometimes get carried away with my own ideas.”

He could not recall the last time he’d spoken to a woman who was so irritating—or so entertaining. But of course he could recall it, he reminded himself. It was the last time he’d met Lucy Hathaway.

The sooner he concluded his business with her, the better. Perusing the profit and loss statements, he tapped his pen on the file. “Please remember, it is my business to cultivate productive loans for this institution.”

“I was never in any danger of forgetting it, Mr. Higgins.”

Her comment assured him that she knew exactly what was coming.

Bluntly he said, “I don’t believe a woman alone is capable of managing a business on the scale you envision for your bookshop.”

“I have managed for three years.”

“And you’ve fallen deeper into debt each year.”

“That’s not unusual in a new enterprise,” she countered.

“I see no end in sight.” He flipped to a recent balance sheet. “Your receipts show no sign of outpacing your expenditures. Eventually your credit will be cut off, artery by artery.” He pressed his hands together, peering at her over his scarred fingers. “It sounds harsh, but that is the way of commerce. Businesses fail every day, Miss Hathaway. There is no shame in it.”

He braced himself for tears, but she was as stoic as any young man pulling himself up by his bootstraps. “You are looking at columns of numbers, Mr. Higgins,” she stated. “That’s your mistake.”

“I don’t make mistakes in banking, Miss Hathaway.” His arrogance was justified. Sound judgment, strict rules and a tireless capacity for work formed the cornerstones of his success. Banking was his life, the source of his greatest satisfaction. He knew nothing else.

“You should be looking at the heart of the matter, not just the numbers.”

He tried not to seem patronizing as he leaned back in his chair to listen to her womanish ramblings.

“There is something that I bring to the table,” she said, “that cannot be shown in any ledger. Something that will make the difference between success and failure.”

“And what, pray, is that?”

She leaned forward, pressing her dainty hands on the desk again. The angle of her pose proved the truth of what he had suspected the moment she’d walked into the room—she wasn’t wearing a corset. “Passion,” she said in her naturally husky voice.

Rand cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon.”

“Passion,” she repeated, pushing back from the desk. “That is what I have for my enterprise. You cannot put a value on it, but it is the most tangible of all my assets.”

He tried not to stare at her uncorseted…assets. “And you contend that your passion for selling books will turn these figures around.”

“Exactly.”

“Have you any proof of that?”

“I do. You see, my shop is not merely a place where people come to buy books.”

“That would be entirely too simple.”

She sniffed. “The Firebrand is a meeting place where people exchange ideas. They talk about the books they’ve read, and of course buy them.”

“Then why aren’t you showing a profit?”

“Look at my balance sheet. The foreign tariffs on my imports are exorbitant.”

“Then why import foreign publications? Sell American works.”

“Spoken as a true chauvinist. I’ll have you know I am the only bookseller in the area who carries French periodicals. Everyone else thinks they’re immoral, just as everyone else thinks the science tracts from Germany are ungodly and English periodicals are tedious. I proudly carry them all.”

“And pay a small fortune in tariffs. Tell me more about these immoral French magazines. I’m fascinated.”

She turned bright red but didn’t shrink from replying. “The most recent issue is about techniques of physical love. If you like, I could send you a copy.”

“No, thank you.” He felt his face turning redder than hers. “We don’t all share your views on free love.”

She grinned, but her blush deepened. “So you do remember.”

He took refuge in anger. “Tell me, did you ever manage to find what you were looking for the night we met? Did you find a lover, Miss Hathaway?”

“Of course,” she said, her hands twisting in her lap. “Dozens of them! Mainly Frenchmen, for obvious reasons.”

“In that case, you should qualify for a reduction of your tariffs. They’re cutting into your profits.”

“When it comes to the hearts and minds of my customers, sir, I can wait for profit.”

The odd thing was, Rand realized, she did have a passion for what she was saying. She had built her shop out of idealistic dreams. A bookseller. What a perfect occupation for this woman. How she must love knowing what everyone was reading. How she must love telling people what they should read next.

The receipts from the shop were unusually high, which indicated that she was indeed selling books. He suspected it was quite impossible to get away from Lucy Hathaway without buying at least one book.

“An admirable sentiment,” he said, not allowing his judgment to be swayed by the force of her personality. “But the trouble is, the bank won’t wait. Your notes are due.”

“I expect receipts to pick up,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him. “I’ve had lectures from some of the most respected leaders of our age—Miss Clementina Black, Mrs. Kate Chopin and Mrs. Lillian Paul in the past year alone.”

“Radical activists are always a lucrative draw.”

She dismissed his sarcasm with a wave of her hand. “I’ve been corresponding with Miss Harriet Beecher Stowe, who has agreed to present a lecture and sign books when she comes to Chicago.”

“And this event is scheduled?”

“Not…exactly. Miss Stowe is currently in South America, observing the mating habits of the Andean llama.”

“Fascinating.”

“I also create events for my customers to draw them into the shop. Mrs. Victoria Woodhull is coming for the Centennial March this summer, and last year, I set up a registry for voters.”

He removed a newspaper clipping from the file. His predecessor had been thorough in keeping records on this particular client. “It says here you were arrested for encouraging women to register illegally to vote.”

“And does it say that I protested the arrest on the grounds that I was simply exercising my constitutional rights?”

“It says you created a public scandal.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “A public scandal occurs with every election in which women are denied the right to vote.”

“According to this report, you had a mob of radical suffragists in your shop trying to corrupt decent women.”

She laughed, looking genuinely incredulous. “I had a group of voting registrars, assisting American citizens in registering to vote.”

“You were arrested.”

“My constitutional rights were trodden upon.”

“You were made to pay a fine.”

“By a twisted, unfair, corrupt judge. And I never did pay.”

He slapped the file shut. “So this shop is where you advocate free love and divorce on demand? Where you meet your lovers?”

“So what if I do?” she retorted.

“My point, Miss Hathaway, is that the loan committee is bound to view your so-called passion in quite a different light. To them, your actions will seem a sign of irresponsibility and immaturity, making you a bad risk.” He wondered why he was taking the time to explain all this when it should be a foregone conclusion. “I’m sorry, Miss Hathaway. The loan is due, and there can be no extension.”