He chose them carefully. “It’s as if I don’t feel worthy if I’m not aiming for something big.”
“Have you ever failed?”
He had to stifle a laugh at the question. “Over and over,” he admitted.
He was a failure in his father’s eyes before he was even out of short pants. Gray was a hard act to follow, and his father constantly pointed out his shortcomings compared to his older brother’s brilliance. Luke didn’t want to rehash his many shortcomings to her. And yet . . . why not? He wanted her to truly know him, so he told her.
“I got expelled from college a semester shy of graduation,” he said. “All over a silly prank. Then I helped a friend out by poking around in Cuba, looking for traitors. You know how that one ended.”
“But they caught the bad guys in the end.”
“Not before I put my family through fifteen months of misery.” To top it off, he couldn’t even walk into an enclosed space without getting the vapors, another failure to add to his list.
“And now the Poison Squad,” Marianne added.
“Yes, now the Poison Squad.” Even saying the name made his joints ache worse.
Marianne clipped another photograph to the clothesline and turned to face him. “When will it be enough? Why do you keep tilting at windmills?”
Since she didn’t seem inclined to develop the next picture, he would do it. He carefully lifted one of her freshly prepared enlargements and lowered it into the tray of chemical solution. Somehow it was easier to talk about painful things while part of his mind was occupied elsewhere.
“My father lost everything in the Civil War,” he said. “His home was burned down to its foundations, his wife died, his fleet of merchant ships was seized, and his savings were rendered worthless through inflation. Gray was five at the end of the war, so he lived through those years restoring our business from scratch. By the time my father remarried and I came along, I was born into the lap of luxury. Success in business was the only thing my father admired, and I was never good at it.”
Luke had tried a few times to join his father and Gray in business meetings, but none of it made much sense to him. How could he concentrate on international tariffs or production schedules when there was a sailboat race calling his name? Or a curfew to break? A pretty girl to court?
All those amusements had been fun, but the problem with amusement was that the moment it was over, it no longer sustained him. A few years ago, he learned that it was in doing the hard things that he found the most sustenance. The countless hours spent translating a three-hundred-year-old manuscript weren’t particularly fun, but he was proud of it. Nothing about those months sweltering in a Cuban jail had been fun, but he would forever be proud of enduring the deprivation that led to rooting out corruption in the military.
Marianne took pride in hard work too. Born into one of the richest families in America, she didn’t have to work, and yet she did. For the hundredth time he wished her last name was not Magruder. He moved to stand behind her. She was facing away from him, but he set his hands on her shoulders.
“I wish we were in San Francisco right now . . . Miss Jones.”
She leaned back against him, laying her head on his shoulder. “What would we do in San Francisco, Mr. Smith?”
He held his breath, wanting her so badly he ached. “I would build you a house with my own two hands,” he whispered against the side of her cheek. “I’d carry you across the threshold, and we could be Mr. and Mrs. Smith, two people who risked everything to be together.”
He couldn’t resist the temptation and pressed a kiss to the side of her neck.
“Turn around,” he said quietly, and she did. The amber light from the lamp was almost like candlelight, softly illuminating the side of her face in the dim room. He lowered his head and kissed her properly.
Then he kissed her improperly, and she twined her arms around his neck. He might regret this, but everything about cradling Marianne Magruder in his arms and kissing her as if there was no tomorrow felt completely right.
Ten
The scorching kiss in the darkroom stayed with Marianne the rest of the day and all through the night. Was this what it felt like to fall in love? The most amazing thing was that Luke seemed to be falling right alongside her with no fear, only that joyous sense of excitement.
But Marianne was afraid. She wasn’t a risk-taker. She only wanted a normal peaceful family with no bellowing voices or vases hurled through the air. If she threw her lot in with Luke, she would probably have to become like Aunt Stella, and that wasn’t a possibility. Her dream of a perfect family included her parents, and that would never change.
By breakfast the forbidden joy of Luke’s kiss still lingered with her. Even the fact that her brother was visiting couldn’t dampen her mood.
“Andrew, would you like another slice of strudel?” Vera asked from the head of the breakfast table. “I know it’s your favorite, and I brought home two from the bakery especially for you and Sam.”
But mainly for Andrew, Marianne thought as she sprinkled salt on her scrambled eggs. Her brother and nephew visited Washington at least once a month. Andrew’s wife rarely came, because everyone knew that Delia didn’t get along with Vera. The way Vera hovered over Andrew annoyed her sister-in-law, and Marianne was glad not to put up with Delia’s disapproving presence.
From the opposite end of the table, her father was lording over the gathering. “There will be a vote on shipping tariffs this afternoon. Would you like to see your grandfather vote on that?” he asked Sam, and Marianne held her breath, hoping the nine-year-old would eagerly agree. Clyde was justifiably proud of his position in Congress and wanted his grandson to witness him in action.
“What’s a shipping tariff?” Sam asked.
“It’s when the government makes other countries pay a fee to sell their goods in the United States,” Clyde explained. “Tariffs are good. They protect our business, so you can come and watch me fight for the good of Magruder Food. Won’t that be fun?”
Sam looked to his father for how to respond. “Um, yes?” he said uncertainly.
The lack of enthusiasm didn’t sit well with Clyde, who grabbed a copy of The Washington Post and snapped it open. “You need to start educating your boy about the world around him,” he said to Andrew.
“That’s not fair,” Vera rushed to say. “Andrew is a wonderful father. Just look at how often he brings Sam to Washington to teach him about the ways of the nation.”
It was more likely that Andrew visited because he was still struggling at managing the company. Andrew had taken over Magruder Food when Clyde began serving in Congress, and he still needed plenty of advice.
Vera listed all of Andrew’s wonderful achievements, but her father was completely absorbed in the newspaper. His entire body went stiff, and his eyes narrowed in an expression that always frightened her as a child. Something in the newspaper had made him angry, and she was glad it wasn’t her.
Then he lowered the paper and skewered her with a piercing glare across the breakfast table. “Marianne,” he said carefully, “didn’t you tell me that you took the official photographs of the men volunteering for that pointless study at the Department of Agriculture?”