Twenty

On Saturday morning Marianne went to the Gunderson Photography Studio and paid to have use of the darkroom for the entire morning. It took hours to develop all the film she had taken in Baltimore, but by noon she had it processed and the photographs enlarged. The problem was that she had no idea where Dr. Wiley could be found.

Luke would know. From the studio she went to the boardinghouse to turn the pictures over to him, but he wasn’t there.

“He’s visiting his family,” Princeton said when he answered the door. “Dr. Wiley is giving us all a week off the test, and Luke said he had business back home.”

Marianne thanked him and headed for the streetcar stop. The photographs felt like an albatross around her neck, and she wanted them out of her hands today. The quicker she could turn them over to Luke, the quicker she could shake this feeling of disloyalty.

Except when she stood on the stoop outside his town house and knocked, there was no answer. She knocked again and still had no response, but the sound of laughter carried on the breeze from behind the house. She skirted around the side of the house to a backyard surrounded by a brick wall.

The wall was too high to see over, but Luke’s voice could clearly be heard on the other side, engaged in some sort of good-natured argument with several others. She ran her fingers across the mortar of the old brick wall, quickly finding a crevice that provided a toehold. Slinging her satchel securely across her body, she reached for the top of the wall and hoisted herself up, the grit rough beneath her palms.

She peeked over the rim and saw a group of people lounging on a blanket on the grassy lawn, a picnic spread out before them. Luke had his back to her.

“Hello?” she asked.

Five people swiveled toward her in surprise, and Luke leapt to his feet.

“There’s the prettiest sight I’ve seen all day,” he said as he crossed toward her as if this happened all the time.

“I don’t want to disturb you,” she said to the others still sitting on the lawn. “I simply came to give Luke something.” That something being a photographic stack of reports that should have been submitted to the government instead of being buried in her family’s archive.

“Come join us,” Luke said. “My family is trying to evict me, and I could use someone on my side.” Her eyes widened in surprise, but he was laughing, as were the others, so the threat couldn’t be too serious. “Come to the front, and I’ll let you in.”

She scurried through the overgrown grass on the side of the house and met him at the front door. Before she could say anything, he swept her into his arms to steal a lingering kiss. Her tension from the past twenty-four hours drained away in the comfort of his embrace.

“Let’s go join the others,” he said after he finally released her.

He led her down the center hallway and out to the back garden, where he introduced her to Nathaniel Trask, his future brother-in-law, who didn’t look too stuffy, since he wore an open-collared shirt and rolled-up sleeves. She had already met Gray and Caroline, but Gray’s wife was the only one not sitting on the grass. Annabelle wore a loose white gown and sat on a bench beneath a pear tree, gently fanning herself.

“We’re not evicting Luke,” Annabelle said. “We just don’t know if we’re going to turn his bedroom into a nursery, or if it will be in the addition we’re planning to build onto the back of the house.”

A glance at Annabelle’s waistline explained why she was sitting on the bench instead of sprawling on the picnic blanket like the others.

“I’m sorry for intruding,” Marianne said. “I merely came to deliver some photographs to Luke.”

“Photographs?” Caroline said. “Show us! Luke has been bragging about your wonderfully artistic pictures.”

Her fingers curled around the satchel. Photographs of old recipes and scientific studies were surely the least artistic pictures she’d ever taken.

“They’re just dull, government pictures,” Luke said, neatly saving her from an explanation. “Let’s not change the topic of how I am to be banished from the family home to make way for the coming infant.”

Gray rolled back on the grass and covered his eyes. “Such melodrama!” he moaned. “Miss Magruder, please join us. Perhaps you can reel Luke back from the cliff of despair he is determined to enjoy.”

“Only if you call me Marianne,” she said, sinking to her knees on one of the blankets.

Caroline filled a plate with some sliced pears and a wedge of cheese. Everyone ate with their hands instead of silverware. How refreshing this was! Picnics in the Magruder household involved tables set beneath a tent with maids serving meals and a musician playing an instrument from a tactful distance. Here the only music was a couple of sparrows chirping overhead.

The next hour was perfectly delightful, but throughout it all, the cache of photographs tugged at her conscience. She needed to pass them over to Luke in private. Her fingers curled around the rim of the case that was hidden inside her satchel.

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.