The Firebrand

Lucy Hathaway perched on the edge of her seat, pretending to hang on every word spoken by the evangelist. Anyone in the crowded salon who saw her attentive posture would admire her piety. Observers would find the sight of the dark-haired young woman, with her hands clasped in religious fervor, uplifting. Inspirational, even. Commendable, most assuredly.

"Your eyes are glazing over," said a deep, amused voice beside her.

She didn't recognize the voice, which was unusual, for Lucy Hathaway made it her business to know everyone. The man must have slid into the seat beside her after the start of the lecture. But she didn't turn to look at him. She pretended not to notice that he'd spoken at all.

"...St. Paul is clear on this point," Reverend Moody intoned frop in the same way she submits to the Lord...." The message rang through the room full of people who had braved a drm the podium. "A wife must submit to her husband's leadershiy windstorm to attend the event at the fashionable Hotel Royale.

Lucy blinked slowly, trying to unglaze her eyes. She kept them trained straight ahead with unwavering attention. She tried to govern her mind as well, batting away the preacher's words like bees at a picnic, when she really wanted to leap to her feet and object to this claptrap about the superiority of man over woman.

And now, despite her best intentions, she found herself wondering about the insolent man sitting next to her.

The man whose whisper had come so close that she could feel the warmth of his words in her ear.

"You know," he said, leaning even closer. "You might try--"

"Go away," she said between clenched teeth, not even moving her lips as she spoke. He smelled of bay rum and leather.

"--leaning on me," he continued insolently. "That way, when you fall asleep from boredom, you won't attract attention by collapsing on the floor."

"I will not fall asleep," she hissed.

"Good," the man whispered back. "You're much more interesting wide-awake."

Ye gods. She mustn't listen to another word of this.

The Reverend Dr. Moody came to a lull in his address, pausing to fortify himself with a glass of lemonade from a pitcher.

She sensed the man next to her shifting in his seat and then leaning back to prop his ankle on his knee in an easy, relaxed pose. By peeking through lowered eyelashes, she caught a glimpse of his pantleg. Charcoal superfine, perfectly creased, fashionably loose-fitting.

Lucy herself was being slowly strangled by a corset designed, she was certain, for use in the Spanish Inquisition, and she resented him more than ever.

"We should leave," he suggested, "while we have the chance."

She glared stoically ahead. This was the first lull in forty minutes of the stultifying lecture, and the temptation to flee burned like a mortal sin inside her. "It's interesting," she said, trying hard to convince herself.

"Which part?"

"What?"

"Which part did you find so interesting?"

Lucy was chagrined to realize that she could not recall one single word of the past forty minutes. "All of it," she said hastily.

"Right." He leaned in closer. "So now I know what bores you. Suppose you tell me what excites you."

She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, for no man had ever voluntarily made small talk with her. He was probably...