He gestured to the old stone wall bordering the river and braced his elbows atop it. She joined him as he laid out the story of how he and Gray worked hard to produce a gourmet blend of coffee, only to see it adulterated with cheap fillers and chemical flavorings. Three people died, and their ghosts were still with him.
Marianne swallowed hard. “How do you know it was the additives? Surely thousands of people drank that coffee.”
“True, but we spoke with physicians. The chemical flavorings are known to cause an allergic reaction in a tiny fraction of the population, and there was no indication on the canister that there was anything other than ground coffee beans inside.”
Marianne was ready with more arguments to dismiss his position, but he wasn’t going to debate with her. Their time together was too scarce to spend it bickering over a topic on which neither of them would ever budge, but he needed her to understand why he fought.
“God has set eternity in the human heart,” he said, looking out over the river at the tiny bit of fading light on the edge of the horizon. What a huge and wonderful world God built for them, and the wildness inside him began to swell in the face of its immensity. “There is a longing to do something great in all of us, and I’ve always had a yearning to be tested. I need a mission and a purpose to fight for. Ever since the coffee debacle, I’ve known I had to make things right somehow.”
He turned to face her, hoping she could understand this wildness inside, but he hadn’t made a dent on her.
“Luke, what if you’re wrong? What if those five congressmen on your list are the good guys, and instead of making the world safer, you end up hurting it instead?”
He folded her hand between his and squeezed. “That’s why I eat three meals a day with the Poison Squad. We’ll know soon.”
Marianne closed her eyes in resignation and touched her forehead to his. “No one can accuse you of taking the easy way out.”
He enclosed her in his arms, loving the way she fit perfectly against him. “No matter what happens, please know that I adore everything about you. Your intelligence and curiosity. Your loyalty. Someday that loyalty is likely to drive us apart, but for tonight, we have each other.”
Sixteen
Visiting her sister-in-law’s house was always a challenge for Marianne. Delia and Andrew lived only two doors down from her parents’ home in Baltimore’s wealthiest neighborhood. Andrew’s house was like a museum. Most of the furniture was antique, and the fabric for the draperies was imported from Europe. Delia’s pride was the mantelpiece surrounding the fireplace in the front hall, which had once been owned by the Earl of Rutledge before he had to sell his estate. Somehow Delia managed to make sure each guest to her home learned of the mantelpiece’s exalted lineage within moments of arrival.
Marianne’s task today was to help plan Andrew’s birthday party on Friday without letting a war break out. Vera and Delia had a massive dislike for each other, which Marianne thought was probably because the two women were so alike. Neither ever openly acknowledged their antipathy, but it simmered beneath the surface as each subtly vied for supremacy at every encounter. Marianne’s loyalty would always be to Vera, but Delia was Sam’s mother and doing a good job raising the boy, so she maintained cordial relations with her difficult sister-in-law.
“I’d like a cake sculpted to look like the America’s Cup trophy,” Delia said. With her tiny frame and carefully styled honey-blond hair, Delia had always been one of the prettiest people Marianne knew. “I heard that Mrs. Astor had one like it, so I think it will be perfect for Andrew.”
“I can’t see your cook being able to pull that off,” Vera said. “The Neapolitan cake she made for lunch today was on the lackluster side.”
Delia’s mouth thinned. “I plan to get the cake from the bakery on Carleton Street. They do exceptional work. I’ve also arranged for a magician to surprise everyone with a release of doves during the party. Won’t that be nice? Oh, and Marianne, you can take photographs of the guests. That job of yours ought to come in useful for something. After you develop the pictures, I shall send them to the guests along with a thank-you note.”
“I’d be happy to.” Marianne had heard the sideways swipe at her profession but didn’t bother defending it. In Delia’s eyes there was no higher calling than being a mother, and she often managed to craftily point out Marianne’s failure to marry and continue building the Magruder family dynasty.
Marianne wandered to a chair and sat, fiddling with the pendant at her throat and wishing she could be with Luke. He was always so fun. He never indulged in underhanded gamesmanship. When they disagreed, he came straight out and told her his issue.
“Marianne, please don’t sit on that chair,” Delia said. “It’s an antique, not really a piece of furniture.”
Marianne immediately stood, but Vera’s tone turned icy. “And which piece of furniture is acceptable for my daughter to sit on?”
“Mama, it’s all right,” Marianne said, eager to smooth her ruffled feathers.
“Of course it’s all right,” Delia rushed to say. “Please sit anywhere except the chairs that have the curved gilt legs. They’re from the Regency era and very fragile.”
Before Marianne could sit again, there was a disturbance in the front hall. It sounded like a child was crying, followed by Andrew’s voice as he stomped inside. It was a Wednesday, so Andrew was supposed to be at Magruder Food and Sam ought to be in school, but something must be wrong.
“Now, stop that sniveling and go apologize to your mother,” Andrew ordered, his tone furious.
Sam came down the front hall, shoulders cringing and his hands fisted in front of his chest as he sobbed uncontrollably. “I’m sorry, Mama,” he managed to stammer through his tears.
Delia looked horrified as she rushed to kneel before the boy, pulling him into her embrace. “My goodness, what’s happened?” she asked, looking to her husband for an explanation.
Andrew stood in the doorway of the parlor like a thundercloud, two bright spots of anger on his cheekbones. “Tell her, Sam.”
Sam flung himself deeper into Delia’s arms and shook his head against her neck, too distraught to speak.
“Andrew, what’s going on?” Delia demanded, her voice losing patience.
“Our son was caught cheating on a mathematics test. Isn’t that right, boy?”
Sam only cried harder. Marianne’s heart ached for him, but there was little she could say to heal the wound. He was obviously guilty or he wouldn’t be so distraught. Andrew continued to fulminate, recounting how he’d been notified at the office of Sam’s transgression and how he immediately went to the private school to yank the boy out of class for a good dressing down.
Marianne gestured to Vera. “Come, Mama. Maybe we should leave for a while.”
“No, no,” Andrew said. “This sort of humiliation is what happens to boys who get caught cheating. It is a stain on the family name and will require a public show of remorse.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said again, still not lifting his head from Delia’s neck. “I said I’m sorry, and I don’t know what else to do.”