Joseph and Stella retreated outside to discuss what was to be done with her. This wasn’t the sympathetic welcome she’d expected. Hadn’t they once been young and insanely in love? Hadn’t they risked everything to elope? More than anyone, they ought to be understanding of her plight.
“All right, you can stay,” Joseph said when he and Stella finally returned to the kitchen. “Sometimes it’s good to escape into the wilderness for a while to sort things out. You can stay for forty days, a good solid biblical number that will be time enough to get your priorities straight. You are to send a telegram to your parents, assuring them you are safe and being looked after. We’re not rich like the Magruders, so I’ll be putting you to work. Stella and I both work at the silver mine west of town, and there will be a job for you there. I’m a pastor, so you’ll be going to church on Sundays, and you can help me finish building the bell tower on Saturdays.”
Joseph leaned forward to pierce her with a hard, disconcerting look. His voice was firm as he continued. “And at the end of each day, in the quiet of night while the world sleeps but your soul awakens and searches, I want you to think about why you felt compelled to run here and what role God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit ought to have guiding your choices in the future.”
She rocked back in her chair. Well! She’d never had a preacher size her up so bluntly before, and she didn’t like it.
But that didn’t make him wrong, and she reluctantly agreed to Joseph’s conditions.
Thirty-Three
Luke couldn’t find Marianne, and it was driving him crazy. She had quit her job at the Department of the Interior, and three consecutive days spying on the Magruder town house revealed nothing.
That meant he had to pay a call on Dickie Shuster, the man who had his fingers on the pulse of everything that went on in Washington. It took him an entire day to track down the wily reporter at the horse races, where Dickie sat in the stands with a pair of binoculars—presumably to watch the horses but actually to observe people. Luke intended to rip Dickie’s head off his shoulders for leaking that claptrap about Marianne’s parentage, except Dickie didn’t do it.
“Her brother spilled the beans,” Dickie said. “Rumor claims old man Magruder always liked Marianne better than Andrew, and the young princeling thought he could throw a little mud on his sister without his parents ever figuring out who squealed. I only know about it because I have a weekly lunch with the reporter who let the cat out of the bag.”
“Does Clyde know?”
Dickie nodded. “He knows, and Vera finally figured it out too, but she’s blaming Andrew’s wife for it. Vera and Delia have always despised each other. According to the servants in the house, Vera and Delia had a huge shouting match. Vera accused Delia of forcing Andrew to expose Clyde’s affair because Delia was jealous of Marianne—something about how Marianne is naturally charming while Delia had to buy approval with a fortune in cosmetics and artificial hair extensions. All nonsense, if you ask me, but Vera refuses to see reason where Andrew is concerned. Anything he does wrong will always be blamed on Delia.”
Luke mulled over the appalling tale. In exposing Marianne, Andrew had taken a hatchet to his parents as well. But was Luke any better? He had systematically gotten men booted out of Congress, heedless of the collateral damage, in order to advance his private objective.
“Why don’t you ask what you really want to know?” Dickie prompted.
“And what’s that?”
Dickie didn’t even bother to hide his gloat. “Let’s see if I can remember. I recently read a charming bit of commentary. It suggested that in the last thousand years, a handful of women have achieved immortality in the world’s collective imagination. Guinevere. Juliet. Dulcinea. And dare I add . . . Marianne?”
Luke fidgeted in embarrassment. Maybe he’d gone a little overboard in that public declaration, but he wouldn’t take back a word of it. “Do you know where she is?”
“I have no idea,” Dickie said, raising his binoculars to stare at something in the crowd. “Good heavens, have you ever seen a frumpier ensemble than that beige coatdress Congressman Dern’s wife is wearing? She’s far too young to be dressing like a matron in a convent, but I guess some women have conservative tastes.”
Congressman Dern was the chairman of Clyde’s only congressional appointment. That Dickie chose to mention his wife could not have been a coincidence.
“And why do you suspect Mrs. Dern is dressing like a grim Mother Superior?”
“Probably because she doesn’t like being associated with scandal.” Dickie turned the binoculars toward other sections of the bleachers. “Neither does her husband. I heard Mrs. Dern paid a call on Mrs. Magruder for tea. That was quite a reversal in the social pecking order. My hunch is that she is putting on a public show of support for the embattled Mrs. Magruder, but she isn’t happy about it. And Marianne, the catalyst of the entire scandal, is nowhere to be seen. I’d guess she was sent back to Baltimore.”
Luke doubted it. Ever since the incident with Bandit, Marianne despised her brother. That made him worry something else had happened to her, and he’d already squandered the past three days looking for her. He wouldn’t waste any more.
He needed to go confront the lion in his den.
Luke waited across the street from the Magruder town house until Clyde returned well after dark. He watched Clyde pay the cabbie, then head up the stairs into his house.
Clyde wasn’t going to welcome this visit, and Luke prayed for wisdom and patience as he mounted the steps. The first floor was fully illuminated, and masculine voices came from inside. Luke adjusted his collar, dragged his fingers through his hair, and braced himself before knocking on the door.
Footsteps sounded, and Clyde soon opened the door. His eyes narrowed. “What do you want?” Hostility crackled in his voice.
Luke held up his hands, palms forward in a placating gesture. “I’ve come to inquire after Marianne. I’m worried about her.”
“You can’t see her,” Clyde said. “Go home.” He tried to slam the door, but Luke stuck his foot out to block it.
“I don’t want to cause trouble. I just need to be sure she’s all right.”
“Of course she’s all right. I know how to take care of my own daughter.” Clyde came out onto the porch, driving Luke back a few steps on the narrow landing. “I would never let my daughter be lured into a distasteful alliance with a scoundrel who only wants to use her to score a point against me.”
Luke straightened, refusing to let Clyde push him back any farther. “I love Marianne. I would never do anything to hurt her.”
“You’ve already hurt her,” Clyde shouted. He grabbed Luke by the lapels of his jacket and slammed him against a pillar, but Luke wasn’t going to retaliate. He needed to keep a cool head to learn what had happened to Marianne. He shrugged out of Clyde’s grasp and moved a few feet away.
Old Jedidiah Magruder soon came plodding onto the porch as well, his face a mask of distrust. “Throw him out,” the old man growled.
“I’m not here to cause trouble,” Luke said, his hands again raised in supplication. “I just need to know where Marianne is.”