“A wedding gift,” he said casually as he set the box on Caroline’s dressing table.
“Can I open it now?”
“Please do.”
She lifted the lid and gasped at the brooch. He needn’t have feared she would miss the symbolism, as her eyes misted in understanding.
The brooch was five perfectly cut diamonds nestled in a green enameled hull. Five peas in a pod. Over the past year, the bond he and Caroline shared had finally widened to include their sober older brother. When Gray married last year, Annabelle became a part of their family too. And now Nathaniel made five. They were five peas in a pod. No more Luke and Caroline, the intrepid duo who’d set Washington society on fire. It was time for them to loosen the bond and permit sunlight between them.
Caroline rushed to him, surrounding him with her lemony perfume as she embraced him, careful to protect the sculptural masterpiece of her hair.
“Thank you, Luke. You can’t imagine how much this means to me. Nathaniel has no family. He’s been alone most of his life. I know you aren’t natural friends, but—”
“Shh,” he interrupted. “In a few hours, Nathaniel will be one of us. Never doubt it.”
A knock sounded at the door. “The carriage is here,” Gray said from the opposite side. “It’s early, but perhaps we should leave now. Rumor has it there will be quite a crush at the church. Something about a big wedding with all of Washington society invited.”
Luke offered his arm. “Shall we go?”
Luke sat in the front row of the church next to Annabelle as Gray prepared to walk Caroline down the aisle. He spent these last few minutes scanning the guests in the pews. No Magruder would be invited to Caroline’s wedding, but Luke was on the lookout for Colonel Phelps, Clyde’s hand-picked suitor for Marianne’s hand. Luke had met the colonel a few times over the years and had never heard anything but praise for the army’s youngest colonel. That didn’t mean Luke had to like him.
At ten minutes to eleven, the church was almost full. He was used to pomp and ceremony, and it was on full display this morning, with the church bedecked in white orchids and the guests wearing satins, silks, and uniforms.
But not everyone was lavishly dressed. Caroline and Nathaniel had lived at the White House during the final year of the McKinley administration, where they formed tight friendships with their fellow staff, and those people were here in force to celebrate Caroline’s wedding. For once, instead of cooking, cleaning, or gardening, the White House servants would be treated as honored guests at the most festive party in town.
His gaze strayed to a cluster of men in uniform. There were probably half a dozen officers here, but Luke instinctively focused on his rival. Colonel Phelps wore his blue dress uniform with epaulets at the shoulders and a chest full of medals and ribbons. The colonel caught Luke’s gaze and sent him a polite nod.
Luke turned around. He wasn’t going to let that man spoil his enjoyment of Caroline’s wedding, but he didn’t feel the need to extend the hand of friendship either.
Nathaniel stepped into place at the front of the church, dressed in tails, a starched white collar, and an indigo satin vest. Nathaniel usually dressed like a puritan, but there was nothing fusty about him today. He looked flushed with good health and happiness.
Then Nathaniel’s eyes widened in surprise, and quiet whispers stirred through the crowd. Luke turned to see what had caused the commotion, and it wasn’t hard to see. Ida McKinley, the former first lady of the United States, was walking down the aisle with the aid of a cane on one side and her middle-aged sister on the other. Caroline had been Ida’s personal secretary and almost like a daughter to the infamously difficult first lady. Their falling out last year was a wound that still ached for Caroline.
Nathaniel beamed at Mrs. McKinley’s unexpected arrival and stepped forward to escort her into the pew behind Luke. A few minutes later, the organ began playing Mendelssohn’s classic wedding march, filling the church with its joyful and majestic chords. Pride filled Luke’s chest, and he turned to see the church doors at the end of the aisle open, revealing Gray and Caroline.
She looked as radiant as a queen. The bodice of the gown had a high collar and long sleeves made of ivory satin but shot through with gold embroidery. She beamed as Gray walked her down the aisle. Luke flashed her a wink, and she winked back.
Then she saw Mrs. McKinley, and her composure cracked. Once Caroline was alongside the older woman, she dropped Gray’s arm and leaned over to embrace the former first lady.
“Thank you for coming,” she whispered. “A thousand times, thank you!”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Ida McKinley said. “Although it looks like you’re driving your brother into the poorhouse with that gown.”
Caroline beamed. “You would be disappointed in me if I didn’t.”
Luke laughed but still had to reach for a handkerchief. His embarrassing tendency for getting weepy-eyed was coming on strong, and it looked like Caroline’s wedding was going to be his Waterloo.
The wedding reception was held in a clubhouse on the outskirts of town. It was a good thing the weather was fine, allowing them to open the French doors so the crowd could spill out onto the flagstone patio. Flowers adorned the tables, music filled the air, and uniformed waiters circulated with a selection of delicacies.
Luke ate nothing. His stomach growled during the champagne toasts, during which he casually held aloft a flute of wine to toast the bride—it would have looked awkward if he hadn’t—but he was still a member of the Poison Squad and needed to abstain from eating or drinking anything other than plain water.
He met Gray’s eyes across the dance floor. His older brother raised a toast to him and drained the glass. This was a change of pace! Luke was supposed to be the hard-living, reckless one. Now, when he should have been popping corks and kicking up his heels at Caroline’s wedding, he obeyed the rules and didn’t let a morsel pass his lips while Gray picked up the slack.
It was stuffy inside the clubhouse, so he made his way outside into the warm evening. Then a tiny old woman with a surprisingly strong grip pulled him aside to castigate him for supporting Caroline’s work on the McMillan Commission.
“Tell your sister I cannot countenance the removal of the arboretum outside the Department of Agriculture,” she said in an iron-hard voice. “Those trees are a treasure to the city, a green oasis amidst the concrete rubble.”
“Ma’am, they will be replaced by miles of open parkland. The view will be—”
“Who cares about a view?” she barked. “It’s shade trees this city needs.”
Others joined the conversation. Political chatter was commonplace whenever more than a dozen people in Washington gathered, and soon the talk drifted to the upcoming budget, the restructuring of the War Department, and even the arrival of two bald eagles at the zoo. Maybe it wasn’t the thing to discuss politics at a wedding, but Luke loved it. He loved it. What a blessing that after years of struggling to find a meaningful purpose in this world, he’d found it right here in his hometown.
Then Caroline and Nathaniel came outside, and attention shifted to them as a photographer set up his tripod to take a special photograph Caroline requested. During her time at the White House, she shared a dormitory with nine other women who worked in the building. Two cooks, two telephone operators, three maids, a seamstress, and a laundress. Today they were all respectably dressed, but their work-roughened hands gave them away.