Luke must have noticed, for he sprang to his feet. “Let me show you the harbor at the end of the street. I spent half my childhood escaping my chores there.”
His hand was warm as he helped her rise. She said farewell to the others and followed Luke down the hallway of the house. He slipped inside a book-lined study and turned to her.
“Here’s what I found,” she said, turning the case over to him.
“What did you get?”
“Everything, including all five studies commissioned by the Committee on Manufactures. Recipes too. Dr. Wiley swore he wouldn’t use the recipes for anything other than assessing their safety.”
Luke flipped through the recipes quickly but slowed as he reached the scientific studies, letting out a low whistle. “I’ve been looking for these,” he said. “The committee released two studies, but the other three seemed to disappear.” He held up a few of the photographs. “Voilà. You’ve found them.”
She shifted uneasily. “I can’t make any sense of them. Will Dr. Wiley be able to figure them out?”
“You can bet on it,” he said confidently.
“What happens then?”
Luke paused, studying her with a scrutiny that made her uncomfortable. “Those studies were commissioned by the government. The people have a right to know what they found. Don’t you agree?”
Of course she agreed, she just didn’t know why they had been buried in her father’s archive and what would happen if news of them became public. When she said as much to Luke, he was ready with an answer.
“If there is anything dangerous in those studies, that’s all the more reason for the results to be made known to the public.” He secured them in a locked cabinet, then turned to her, his expression light and cheerful once again. “Let’s go to the harbor,” he said. “I adore my family, but I don’t want to court my favorite girl in front of them.”
As always, his smile melted her heart. She felt better now that the photographs were out of her possession, and she eagerly followed where he led.
Luke held Marianne close to his side as he led her toward the port of Alexandria a few blocks down the street. Wooden boardwalks lined the harbor, sea gulls wheeled in the breeze, and the briny tang of salt filled the air.
“Your family seems so friendly,” Marianne said. “They seem easy. Natural.”
He glanced down at her. “Yours isn’t?”
“My family is friendly. They just aren’t easy.”
They had arrived at the harbor, their footsteps making dull thuds on the old wooden boardwalk. Marianne drifted to the fence overlooking the choppy water, looking pensive as she stared into the distance.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.
“You can tell me anything.” He gently turned her shoulders to face him. She glanced around the harbor as if she feared being overheard. A crew of longshoremen were off-loading a ship, but they were a hundred yards away. Marianne still lowered her voice to a whisper.
“My mother . . . Vera Magruder, I mean . . . isn’t really my mother. My father had an affair with an opera—”
“Shh,” Luke said, laying a finger on her lips. He knew what she was going to say. Dickie Shuster had told him everything months ago, and Luke wished he could smooth the anxiety from her face. “I know all about it,” he said gently.
“How could you possibly know?”
She looked mortified as he told her about a journalist in Washington who made it his business to know all manner of unseemly gossip.
“Dickie Shuster?” she repeated when Luke mentioned his name. “I think I met him. He was an odd little man. Strange clothes.”
“That’s him,” Luke confirmed.
Marianne groaned and plopped down onto a nearby barrel. “This will kill my mother if it ever gets out. How can I stop him?”
Luke hunkered down beside her and took her hand. “Dickie has known forever,” he said. “He tends to sit on information and will only use it if he thinks he can milk it for something big. In this case, I don’t think he will. Dickie likes your father and would rather keep him as an ally.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because I keep my ear to the ground. Dickie and I are a lot alike that way. This city is full of powerful congressmen, but there are people behind the scenes who can move the chess pieces without sitting in elected office. Dickie is one of those people.”
“You are too.”
He kissed the back of her hand, then flashed her a little wink. “That would be bragging.” Emotions whirled inside as he struggled to define them. “I feel like I’m at a turning point in my life. I was drawn to you the moment we met on the ice. You’re smart and pretty enough to tempt a monk, and I’m no monk. Marianne, I can’t walk away from you again. I want to marry you someday. If you don’t want that too, tell me now.”
She gazed back at him, hope mingled with fear in her face. “I can’t.”
He swept her into his arms, knowing he should be daunted by the challenges ahead of them but only caring about the here and now. They loved each other and would find a way forward, no matter what.
Twenty-One
The next month was the most exhilarating of Marianne’s life, mostly because of her clandestine meetings with Luke. She no longer felt guilty about meeting him. The icy time last February when her father put his foot down felt so long ago. Besides, respect for her family’s position regarding the Delacroixs had plummeted ever since she saw those files. The Delacroixs didn’t file false insurance claims, look the other way when a dog was killed, or hide inconvenient scientific studies.
Her life was busier than ever because the McMillan Plan was gathering steam. The proposed park in the middle of the city meant each building slated for demolition needed to be photographed inside and out. The reclaimed space would be filled with acres of open lawn where tourists could exhaust themselves walking hither and yon, more than two miles of parkland in all.
Luke passionately endorsed the McMillan Plan, but Marianne mourned the loss of the buildings and the arboretum. Luke accompanied her every day as she created photographic memories of the buildings that would be torn down. Although they got along like a house on fire, they argued incessantly about the coming National Mall.
“We will finally be able to appreciate the grandeur of the city,” Luke enthused. “We can’t do that with this standing in the way.”
He gestured to the Redwood Tree House, a charmingly ridiculous exhibit that had once been on display at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. It was an actual redwood tree that had been imported from California. After the World’s Fair, it had been moved to a permanent home outside the Department of Agriculture. It had a twenty-six-foot circumference, large enough to have been hollowed out to accommodate a staircase inside that led to a viewing platform at the top.
Her task today was to photograph it. The rough texture of the bark made for an interesting image, especially since she included Luke in the picture. She regularly asked him to be in her photographs, but at least today she had a good excuse. How could one appreciate the size of a redwood unless a person stood next to it for scale?