Instead of contrition, she saw rage on her brother’s face.
Seventeen
Luke climbed the stairs of the Department of the Treasury, one of the grander buildings in the government, with a row of white granite columns stretching across the front. From the outside it looked like the epitome of strength and stability. Inside it was a rabbit warren of small offices and a maze of hallways.
Luke headed toward the bureau for counterfeit detection, where his future brother-in-law worked. Caroline, his dazzling sister who held Washington high society in the palm of her hand, was getting married next month to one of the most buttoned-down men on earth. Nathaniel Trask loved rules so much that he probably slept with a copy of the Constitution tucked beneath his pillow, but Caroline was madly in love, so Luke had been trying to get along with him.
Today he was determined to be polite to Nathaniel no matter the cost, which would be a challenge since he already had a raging headache. Luke had no idea what he was being dosed with this week, but his symptoms had started abruptly yesterday, and they were severe. Everyone dining at his table had the same throbbing headache right behind their eyes, and Luke could only hope that Dr. Wiley would have mercy on them and stop the test early.
The good news was that Nathaniel was the Secret Service’s leading expert on counterfeit, and Luke had a document he was almost certain had been faked. If so, the document would sink Clyde Magruder’s chances for reelection. All Luke needed was for Nathaniel to validate his suspicions about this laboratory report so he could unleash the damaging scandal against the Magruders.
He walked through the maze of hallways until he reached Nathaniel’s office. He’d made an appointment because Nathaniel’s entire life was so rigidly structured that drop-in visits were discouraged. It was already three minutes after their appointment time, so Luke knocked on the door and proceeded inside, expecting to be scolded for being late.
He found his sister sprawled on Nathaniel’s lap, her arms looped around his neck. At Luke’s entrance, Caroline giggled and sprang to her feet, but Luke was most fascinated by Nathaniel’s reaction at being caught. He straightened his tie, adjusted his cuff links, and immediately assumed the mask of a sober Secret Service agent despite the flush creeping up his neck. Luke quietly rejoiced at the evidence that Nathaniel actually had a beating pulse beneath that plain black jacket.
Caroline was completely unperturbed. “I heard you had an appointment and couldn’t resist being here. You’ve found counterfeit?”
Luke set a folder on Nathaniel’s desk. “I found a document I believe is a forgery. I need my hunch authenticated.”
Nathaniel flipped open the file, his brows lowering in concentration as he inspected the laboratory report. Luke dropped into a chair opposite the desk and held his breath, watching Nathaniel closely.
“Where did you get this?” Nathaniel asked, his eyes still traveling over the lines on the report.
“Clyde Magruder commissioned some laboratory studies on chemical preservatives. The tests were done at the orders of the Committee on Manufactures, and what a surprise . . . they found that all those chemicals are perfectly safe. I don’t believe it. It’s got to be a fraud.”
Nathaniel laid the pages on his desk and used a jeweler’s loupe to scrutinize the document. Luke knew in his bones the report had to be a fake. The experiment measured bacterial proliferation in beef juices after the meat was preserved with boric acid. It claimed boric acid was an effective agent in reducing spoilage. It was deemed safe for human consumption after being tested on laboratory mice, which showed no negative effects from consuming the tainted beef juices. Luke could only wonder how the chemists asked the mice if they suffered from throbbing pains behind their eyes like the ones he had right now.
Caroline perched on the arm of Nathaniel’s chair, pretending to study the report, but actually she was simply tracing her fingers along the back of her fiancé’s neck. It annoyed Luke. He ought to be happy for Caroline, but it was hard.
“A little decorum, please,” he said when he couldn’t stand it anymore.
Caroline quirked a surprised brow at him. She lowered her hand back to her lap but refused to budge from the arm of Nathaniel’s chair.
Why was he being so prissy? Luke clenched his fists and averted his eyes from Caroline as jealousy flared inside. He was happy for Caroline. Truly. And if his situation with Marianne weren’t so precarious, this probably wouldn’t bother him so much, but the fake document on Nathaniel’s desk was going to ruin her father. Marianne believed everything Clyde said and would probably hold this against Luke. Even if their families didn’t already hate each other, this document was going to do the trick.
Nathaniel straightened and looked him in the eye. “It’s real.”
“No, it’s not.” The words instinctively burst from Luke. He had four months of consuming high doses of chemical preservatives to prove those things were dangerous.
Nathaniel held the six pages of the report aloft. “These pages check out. The letterhead from the University of Virginia Department of Chemistry is real. The cover letter has a watermark, which is almost impossible to manufacture.”
“It could have been stolen.”
“True,” Nathaniel agreed. “But other things indicate this is a legitimate report. The numbers in the charts are not tampered with. The handwritten signatures are executed in a free-flowing manner and are likely authentic. What makes you think it’s a fake?”
“Because it was submitted by Clyde Magruder, and he’ll lie on a stack of Bibles if it means he can keep dumping chemicals into the food supply. That report is a fake.”
“But the document is real.”
He shook his head and whirled away in frustration, pacing in the tiny space.
“Luke, if Nathaniel says the document is real, it’s real,” Caroline said.
“Whose side are you on?” he demanded.
“Yours, darling, which is why I don’t want you to go to war if this is the only arrow in your quiver.”
His frustration intensified, and it felt like the walls of the room were closing in on him. “How can you stand to work in this miserable office? I feel buried alive in here.”
Nathaniel’s voice was annoyingly calm. “It’s got a desk, electricity, and a functioning fan. I’m perfectly happy.”
Luke snatched the report off the desk. “I’m taking this somewhere else for a second opinion,” he groused as he left the office. Nathaniel was the leading counterfeit expert in Washington, but Luke would still try to find someone better.
His mood didn’t improve once he got outside, but at least he could breathe again. His headache pounded, the lab report he’d pinned all his hopes on might not work, and he was irrationally jealous of his sister’s happiness. He was poisonous company today, but then, he’d always had a foul, selfish streak deep inside. He usually managed to keep it buried, but every now and then it clawed its way back out. Was he really going to spend the rest of his life watching other men become captains of industry, steer the nation from the halls of Congress, while he pathetically translated old novels written by someone else? He was supposed to be a man, not an angry ball of frustrated ambition.