Four

Vera Magruder was sobbing as she dragged a trunk out of the storage closet and toward her bedroom.

“Mama, please,” Marianne urged. “Please put the trunk back. Papa will be home soon and will be able to explain everything.”

At least she hoped he would. Clyde had been in Baltimore to meet with his constituents and was supposed to have returned last night, and Vera suspected the worst.

Her mother opened the lid of the trunk to throw a handful of Clyde’s shirts inside. “He’s with that woman,” she wept. “I called home twice last night and the butler had no explanation for where he was. He’s with her! Her and that child.”

“Shh,” Marianne said. “Sam might overhear.” Her nephew was visiting them again, and he was too young to learn about Clyde’s infidelities.

It was impossible to know why Clyde had overstayed his visit to Baltimore, but it might well have been to see his young son, who was now eighteen months old. Clyde refused to cut ties with the boy’s mother because of the child they shared. He swore the affair was over, but he set Lottie O’Grady up in her own house and paid monthly support for her and the baby.

Vera normally insisted on accompanying Clyde whenever business called him to Baltimore, but she had been feeling poorly last Friday, and Clyde swore on a stack of Bibles that he would behave himself. His failure to return last night awakened all of Vera’s fears.

Vera threw some trousers atop the shirts, then dumped Clyde’s shoes into the trunk. “I won’t raise another illegitimate child. I won’t! I shouldn’t have agreed to it the first time.”

Marianne looked away. She loved her mother, but sometimes Vera could be so thoughtless, and it hurt. Vera noticed and immediately switched tones.

“Not that I regret it, darling! Come, give Mama a nice big hug.” She dragged Marianne into her arms. “You know I don’t mean anything by it. I love you like one of my own.”

Marianne had always known Vera adopted her. As a child she had been told that her real mother died, but that wasn’t true. Her real mother had an affair with Clyde and had been paid handsomely to surrender the baby to the Magruders. Clyde wanted more children, but the doctor warned that Vera could never carry another baby after the trauma of her only son’s birth. Clyde never asked Vera if she would accept another child, he simply presented his wife with the three-month-old baby from his short-lived affair with an opera singer. Although Clyde doted on her, there was always a hint of tension where Vera was concerned. They could go months in loving harmony, but then something could trigger Vera’s insecurities, and the coldness returned.

And that “something” had reared its head eighteen months ago when Clyde was caught in another affair. This time there was a little boy named Tommy as a result. At first Clyde tried to hide Tommy’s existence from Vera, but she found out, and their entire family had been walking on eggshells ever since.

“Don’t frown, Marianne, it will make those grooves on your face permanent,” Vera coaxed. “Smile! There’s my pretty girl. A lady must always pay careful attention to her complexion.” As if taking her own advice, Vera blotted away her tears and reached for a box of powder to begin repairing her face.

“Shall I hang Papa’s clothes back in the wardrobe?” Marianne asked. The bedroom looked like a bomb had exploded, with drawers hanging open and clothing mounded atop the open trunk.

Vera’s fingers stilled, but only for a moment. “Leave everything right there. If he returns today, he can see evidence of what he’s put me through. And if he doesn’t return today, I shall finish packing the trunk.”

The sight of the chaotic bedroom was a painful window into what Vera must have gone through twenty-six years ago when Marianne arrived as an infant in the Magruder household. Why couldn’t she have come from a normal family? It seemed there was always drama. A lawsuit, an affair, a scandal. The family patriarch, Jedidiah Magruder, had been born in a cabin with a dirt floor. He had a third-grade education, scars on his body from childhood labor, and a bottomless well of ambition leading to an aggressive style of business that always skirted the edges of legality. Everyone respected Jedidiah, even though he was too old to run the company anymore. Clyde had been in charge for a decade but had to step down when he was elected to Congress. Her older brother, Andrew, now led the company.

The clopping of hooves signaled the arrival of a carriage, and Marianne darted to the window to peek outside. She sagged in relief as her father stepped down from the carriage. “He’s here!”

She raced downstairs and outside, even though the damp chill of the morning was biting. She didn’t want to waste time grabbing her coat. They wouldn’t have long to speak, and Vera shouldn’t overhear.

“Welcome home!” she said as she embraced Clyde on the front stoop. “How was Baltimore?”

“Fine. Andrew has a good command of the business. He’s doing well.”

“Good. And little Tommy?”

A grin flashed across his face. “Cute as a button. Teething. The boy’s got a set of lungs in him, but already smart as a whip.”

She’d seen her half-brother from a distance a few times. He had sandy auburn hair like Clyde. As much as she wanted to meet the boy, loyalty to Vera prevented her.

“Mama dragged out one of the trunks and filled it with your clothes,” she warned. “We expected you home last night, and she tried placing a telephone call to the house twice. She suspects the worst.”

Clyde led the way inside and sent a critical eye toward the upstairs balcony. “I told her I broke things off with Lottie. It was a perfectly innocent visit with my son.”

“You overstayed the visit,” she whispered, hoping she didn’t sound like a nag and a scold. But didn’t he have any idea of what this did to Vera?

Clyde rummaged through his jacket, dragging out a slim velvet box. “Have a look at that,” he whispered as he opened the box to show her the diamond and pearl drop earrings inside. “Do you think she’ll like them?”

“Of course she will, but maybe you should wait before giving them to her.” The pearls would make Vera happy for about five minutes, but then she would be angry again. “Right now you should go upstairs and apologize for being late. Tell her she looks pretty. Make her feel like you missed her.”

It was horrible to be cast into the role of mediator between her parents. She loved them both, but ever since Tommy’s arrival, they fought incessantly, and Vera held all the cards. If she made good on her threat to leave Clyde, he would be destroyed, for he truly did love her. He also liked being a congressman, and a scandal could cost him his reelection in November.

“These earrings cost more than most men earn in a year,” he defended in a fierce whisper.

“They cost what you earn in a day. They won’t mean nearly as much as a genuine apology and saying whatever Mama needs to make her feel adored.”

Clyde snapped the lid of the box shut. “That was what these pearls were supposed to do.”

Her mother’s voice called out from upstairs. “Marianne, if that man is still in the house, tell him he’s not welcome home.”

Marianne took the velvet box. “Go upstairs and talk to her,” she urged. “Be nice. That’s what she wants.”

She watched Clyde trudge up the stairs like a man walking to his own execution. Even after he disappeared inside the bedroom, his pleading voice could be overheard downstairs.

“I didn’t lay a finger on her,” he said. “You know you’re the only woman I love. Vera, darling—”

His pleas were cut off when something crashed against the wall.

“That was an eighteenth-century vase,” Clyde shouted.

Vera shouted back, but Marianne didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want her nephew hearing it either, because Sam had enough family turmoil at his home in Baltimore. He was in the dining room, his dog snuggled beside him as he lined up toy soldiers to recreate the Battle of Bull Run. She snapped her fingers to get his attention.

“Let’s take Bandit out for a walk, shall we?”

Marianne took Sam to the Franklin Square park, where the dog would have plenty of space to run in the five-acre lawn. Marianne sat on a bench while Sam hurled a stick for Bandit to retrieve. The damp February morning was uncomfortably chilly, and she hoped her parents would finish their argument soon. Apparently the family trait for combat had been inherited by her brother. Andrew often locked horns with his son, which was why Sam was sometimes sent to Washington for a reprieve.

Sam was talkative as he threw the stick for Bandit. “I like coming here because I can play with Bandit whenever I want and Mama doesn’t get mad. She doesn’t like Bandit.”

Which came as no surprise to Marianne. Delia Magruder disliked most things that took attention away from her, and the fact that Bandit was a normal dog that barked and shed was a constant annoyance to her.

Sam continued prattling about life in Baltimore until an odd question came out of the blue. “Aunt Marianne, what’s a dynasty?”

It took a while for her to find the words to describe the concept. “It means a very powerful family. Like the Bourbon kings or the rulers of China. Those would be dynasties.”

“Oh.” Sam didn’t seem satisfied as he waited for Bandit to come racing back. After he hurled the stick again, he continued talking. “Grandpa says our family is a dynasty. And that I have to be a part of the dynasty.”

She quirked her brow. She’d never heard her father use that term, but it made sense. Clyde had a rather grandiose view of their family, but she tried to put it in positive terms for Sam. “Your grandfather is very proud of what the Magruders have accomplished. You’ve heard how your great-grandfather had to quit school when he was only ten years old. He still became very rich because he worked so hard.”

“And then Grandpa worked hard and got elected to Congress.”

“Yes, and now your father runs the company. All three of them worked to make Magruder Food a successful company, so that’s a kind of dynasty, I suppose.”

This time Sam didn’t smile when Bandit dropped the stick at his feet. “Does that mean I have to work for Magruder Food too?”

She had no doubt that everyone expected Sam to join the company someday, but maybe three generations was enough.

“You can do whatever you want when you grow up,” she said. “What would you like to do?”

“I think I’d like to be a mailman.”

She bit back a gulp of laughter, for he said it with the utmost seriousness. “Why a mailman?”

“They get to walk all over the city. See things. My father has to sit in an office all day, and I don’t think I’d like that.”

“Then I think you would make a very good mailman,” she said warmly. Sam would probably change his mind a dozen times before he came of age, and that was how life was supposed to be. He had the freedom to become anything he chose.

That wasn’t quite the case for women. Lately, her parents had been pressuring her to marry, and her father had already handpicked a candidate for her. She’d met Colonel Henry Phelps twice. He was a handsome and eligible bachelor, but he didn’t set her imagination on fire.

Not like Luke Delacroix.

Thinking about Luke made her heart squeeze, but she would forget him eventually. Someday she would have the sort of perfect family she’d seen depicted on sentimental postcards and in storybooks. She would have to choose her husband wisely. She wanted no raging fights or vases hurled through the air. No generational family feuds or lawsuits or people who schemed behind one another’s backs.

And that meant no Luke Delacroix. He would blast her chaotic family’s drama to new and terrible heights, so it was best to forget about him.

But she couldn’t help wishing it were otherwise.