She held up the slip of paper. “We don’t use this much.”
“Prove it.”
Her father always refused to release their recipes. Could Dr. Wiley and the Delacroixs be right? She’d always blithely accepted what Clyde and Andrew said about preservatives, but it was hard to dismiss what she’d seen tonight.
Her mouth went dry as she pondered Dr. Wiley’s challenge. All the family recipes and canning procedures were in the company archive in Baltimore.
Dr. Wiley kept pressing. “Over the past few months, the Magruder company worked with the government to commission five studies regarding chemical preservatives,” he said. “They released two but have refused to disclose the others, and that’s worrisome. Why didn’t they release the other studies?”
Down the hall, Luke leaned forward, rubbing his temples. Even from a distance she could hear him moan as he repositioned himself on the chair. The only reason Luke signed up for this ghastly experiment was because of what happened when he partnered with her father to sell coffee in Philadelphia. Luke and all the other men sprawled in misery were willing to sacrifice for a higher cause. Was she?
“I can probably get the information you’re looking for,” she said.
A gleam of appreciation lit Dr. Wiley’s tired face. “It would be much appreciated.”
The thought of returning to Baltimore in search of those recipes was dreadful. She couldn’t even bear to think about Andrew, let alone politely ask him for the recipes. She was going to have to use another way to get that information, and it wasn’t going to be easy.
At two o’clock in the morning, St. Louis declared that he needed to get some sleep because he had to be up at five to train for the Olympics. He dragged himself upstairs, but Big Rollins, the only other healthy man still awake, said he would stay.
As would Marianne. Her parents were still in Baltimore, and if the men took a turn for the worse, Big Rollins would need help. Most of the sick men had dropped off into a restless sleep, but Marianne sat with Luke on the long window bench. With his back propped against the sidewall and his legs stretched out, he looked as tired as a wrung-out dishrag. His skin was pasty white and still had a sheen of perspiration, but his eyes were alive.
Indeed, they hadn’t torn their eyes off each other for hours. She sat on the other end of the window bench with Luke’s feet cradled in her lap, wishing the sun would never rise. They had been talking for hours—softly, so as not to disturb the others who were too dizzy to climb the stairs, but it still felt like they were the only people in the world. She told him about Delia’s grandiose decorating tastes and her mother’s painful insecurities in Washington. He spoke of his twin sister Caroline and the adventures they’d had over the years.
When he talked about Caroline’s coming wedding, he seemed terribly glum. “I feel her starting to pull away already,” he said. “Ever since we were infants, Caroline and I have been a team. Two peas in a pod. Now she’s moving to another pod.”
Marianne never felt a sense of loss when Andrew married, but they weren’t very close. Despite occasional moments of kindness, Andrew never treated her like a full member of the family, and he resented every scrap of attention their father spared her.
“I’m jealous,” she said.
Luke’s brows rose in surprise. “Why?”
“Don’t you know how rare that is? To have someone’s unquestioning loyalty no matter what? To feel like you can belong, even if you disappoint?”
“You don’t have that?”
Luke’s question was so softly whispered that she could barely hear it, but it slammed into her like a fist. No, she’d never had that. Aunt Stella was a glaring example of what could happen to a Magruder who displeased the family. The loyalty Luke described sounded wonderful.
“What’s wrong with the man Caroline will marry?” she asked, sensing this was at the root of Luke’s sullen mood.
She must have guessed correctly, because his eyes lit with embarrassed amusement, but he didn’t have any difficulty answering her question. “He’s a rule-follower. Stuffy.”
“The horror.”
He laughed, all the tension draining from his body. “Oh, Marianne, I think I love you.”
The words hung in the air. Based on Luke’s expression, he hadn’t meant to say them. They had slipped out in a moment of inattention and exhaustion from a long night.
“Actually, I don’t think it, I know it,” Luke clarified.
“I love you too,” she said. There was no point in denying it. It would probably go nowhere because they both had families to consider and nothing would be easy, but she’d never felt such a sense of belonging with anyone before. What an irony that the undiluted love and affection she’d craved all her life should finally come from a Delacroix.
On the opposite side of the window seat, Luke simply gazed at her in tired, happy exhaustion. Over the next few hours, they drifted in and out of sleep. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they checked on the others.
The first hint of dawn finally arrived, but Marianne remained with Luke on the window seat, knowing they only had a few more minutes together. The steps of the cook and Nurse Hollister sounded on the front porch as the morning began.
“You survived the night,” she said with a tired smile.
Luke winced as he rose from the window seat, holding firm to the side of the wall. “Still dizzy, but my head doesn’t ache as much.”
Some of the others also suffered lingering effects, but most were able to climb the stairs. Luke remained with a hand braced on the wall.
“I was supposed to drive Caroline to meet with the minister this morning,” he said. “I don’t think I can go. The thought of driving over cobblestones is enough to start my head aching again. Our home doesn’t have a telephone, but maybe I can get Big Rollins to deliver a message.”
“I’ll go,” she said. It would give her a chance to meet Luke’s sister and possibly take the first tentative steps toward some sort of détente between their families.
The town house where the Delacroixs lived was a shock. Marianne double-checked the address Luke had written on a slip of paper, because the modest three-story home simply wasn’t what she expected. The Delacroixs were old money. She expected to see something like Versailles with gold trim or a castle like the Vanderbilts’ home.
Instead she stood before a brick town house that looked like it had been there since before the revolution. It had the simple colonial lines of strength and solidity, but nothing ornate or lavish.
She took a steadying breath, mounted the staircase, and knocked on the front door.
A feminine voice called out from inside, “I’ll be right there, Luke!” The patter of feet sounded just before the door yanked open. Caroline’s face fell. “Oh, my apologies. Who are you?”
“I’m Marianne Magruder. We met briefly at the gala.”
Caroline masked her surprise with a gracious smile. “How silly of me,” she said and held the door open wide. “Come inside. I’ve been dying to get better acquainted with you. Luke is supposed to meet me for some wedding preparations.”
Old floorboards creaked as Marianne stepped inside. She liked the scent of lemon wax in the front hall. “Luke asked me to tell you he can’t be here today. He had a difficult night. All the men on the Poison Squad did.”