Thirty-Five

It was going to take four days to travel by train to Washington, and Luke spent most of that time sweating bullets. Despite the confident air he tried to project, he was terrified of showing up at the Magruder household on bended knee, but he was going to do it. Marianne would carry a lifelong scar if she turned her back on her parents, and that meant Luke had to reconcile with them.

The long train ride gave them plenty of time to discuss what had happened over the past month. As anticipated, the reviews for Don Quixote were savage. Up until the date of publication, Luke had harbored a tiny hope it would be hailed as a masterpiece, but reality came crashing in with the first review.

He showed it to Marianne the morning after they’d settled in to their private compartment on the train heading back east. He watched as her eyes traveled over the review that called his translation an abuse of the English language that layered emotion on with a smothering trowel of overblown sentiment.

She scowled as she read, finally dropping the magazine onto her lap. “This is nonsense. Whoever wrote this was probably a fusty college professor who doesn’t have warm blood in his veins. I loved your translation! You should submit a rebuttal to the magazine. Defend yourself. Fight for the quality of what you produced.”

She continued ranting, but he no longer cared what highbrow professors thought of him. Uptight college academics had a right to their opinions, and people who liked a more passionate style were equally entitled to their view. They were both right, and the novel was selling amazingly well among ordinary people despite the reviews. Besides, he had bigger battles on the horizon.

Like winning Clyde’s consent to their marriage.

He clenched his hands and folded his arms, instinctively bracing himself for the coming implosion.

Marianne noticed and misinterpreted his actions. “Who cares what that reviewer thinks? If I ever meet him in a dark alley, he’d better fear for his life.”

He choked back a laugh, wishing his only challenge was battling the slings and arrows of lousy book reviews. Marianne was the real prize, and the only battle he cared about winning.

Luke held Marianne’s hand as they walked toward the Magruder town house. A chilly gust of wind sent a spray of autumn leaves scuttling down the street, and he sank a little deeper into his coat. He’d faced a lot of challenges over the past few years, but making peace with Clyde Magruder was going to be the hardest.

He released Marianne’s hand when they came in view of the town house. He wouldn’t further antagonize Clyde by flaunting his affection for his daughter.

“It’s a Saturday, so both my parents should be home,” Marianne said for the fourth time. She’d been babbling ever since disembarking at the streetcar stop. It was her nerves talking. Marianne babbled when she got anxious, while he got silent.

Frankly, they were both terrified.

They rounded the street corner and saw a wagon loaded with boxes right outside the Magruder household. A pair of laborers lugged a trunk between them, and Clyde stood on the front stoop, directing another man carrying a rolled-up carpet.

“What on earth is going on?” Marianne asked. “Oh heavens, I hope Mama hasn’t finally thrown him out. She threatens all the time, and that’s an awful lot of trunks. Look! Some of Mama’s hatboxes are stacked on the porch. Maybe she’s the one leaving?”

Luke’s unease grew. Arriving in the middle of a marital dispute would be the worst possible time to make his appeal for Marianne’s hand in marriage.

Clyde hadn’t noticed them yet. He was too busy securing the strap around a trunk on the front porch. Then Vera emerged, bringing Clyde a mug of something hot. Clyde nodded his thanks as he took the mug from his wife and drank. Vera placed a hand on Clyde’s shoulder, then returned inside.

“Okay, they’re not fighting,” Marianne said. “That’s good. I think I’d have to run back to Carson City if they were fighting, because my father can be—”

“Marianne,” Luke interrupted. “It’s all right. We need to take the bull by the horns.”

“Okay, you’re right. Of course, you’re entirely right. I’m just a little nervous and sometimes I babble . . .”

She jabbered the entire block until Clyde spotted them. He dropped the hatbox on the pavement, his face full of venom.

“Have you been with him?” he roared, gaping at Marianne in disbelief.

Marianne shook her head. “I went to Aunt Stella’s, just as I said in my telegram. Luke found me there, and we’ve come back home.”

“Together?” Clyde turned and hurled his mug against the side of the house, and coffee dribbled down the bricks. His face was white with anger as he vaulted down the stairs toward them.

Luke held up both hands in appeal. “We had separate sleeping compartments. I didn’t lay a finger on her.”

Clyde’s streak of curse words singed the air, but Marianne was staring at the wagon overflowing with trunks and household belongings.

“Papa, what’s going on? Are you moving somewhere?”

“Back to Baltimore,” Clyde said bitterly. “Congratulations, Luke. You got what you wanted. I’ve withdrawn my name from the November elections and will be returning to private life.”

Marianne’s face fell, and it looked like she’d been shot. “Oh, Papa, I’m so sorry.”

She rushed to embrace him. Clyde stiffened. He didn’t shove her away, but he didn’t return her embrace either. Clyde glared at Luke over the top of Marianne’s head, his face accusatory.

Luke swallowed hard. The cascade of scandals Clyde had endured would have been hard for any politician to overcome. They hadn’t been Luke’s doing, but Clyde’s acrimony was going to be directed at him anyway.

Clyde pushed Marianne aside and closed the distance between them. “What were you doing with my daughter?” he demanded, giving Luke a firm shove and pushing him off the sidewalk.

Luke retreated a few steps. “I didn’t touch your daughter—”

“Hogwash. You spent days in close confinement with her, traveling back from wherever my sister ran off to. Don’t tell me you didn’t touch her.”

The two men loading the wagon gaped at them. Luke kept retreating. “Let’s head inside,” he suggested. “This conversation shouldn’t happen on a public street.”

“Please, Papa,” Marianne said.

Clyde flung the hatbox on the porch at one of the laborers and stormed inside without a backward glance. Luke offered his arm to Marianne, and she took it. Her hand was shaking. His was too. It felt like their whole world was riding on the next five minutes.

It was cool and dim inside the house, but Clyde stood right behind the front door. He slammed it the moment they crossed the threshold, startling them both.

“Well?” Clyde demanded. “Explain yourself.”

This was it. Additional workers packed boxes in the parlor, but Clyde ignored them and was waiting for an answer.

Luke drew a deep breath and met Clyde’s gaze without faltering. “Sir, I love your daughter with everything I have. I can offer her a solid home and support both her body and spirit. I would like your permission to marry her.”

“Get out of my house.”

Luke ignored the order and continued speaking. “I will care for and honor Marianne forever. I will do my best to befriend her family. I am prepared to walk away from old offenses. I want a reconciliation between our families. This is Marianne’s deepest wish, and that makes it mine as well.”

The words didn’t make a crack in Clyde’s wall of ice. “I’m cutting her off, so you won’t ever get a dime from me. I’ll resurrect the charges against you and see you imprisoned. I’ll ruin that rabble-rousing magazine you work for.”

Luke kept his voice calm. “None of it will make a dent in my regard for Marianne, and no matter what you do to ruin me, I won’t retaliate. I will defend myself and my family as best I can, but from my point of view, the war between you and me is over. I love Marianne too much to strike at her father.”

“Clyde.”

The single word was softly spoken from the balcony above, and they all looked up. Vera Magruder stood on the balcony and had heard the entire conversation.

“We have discussed this,” Vera said tightly. Her face was stiff, and it was impossible to judge her mood, but her words were a quiet order directed at her husband.

A pause stretched as Clyde stared up at his wife, some form of unspoken communication flying between them. At last he turned to Luke, his face still hard.

“My wife thinks you proved yourself by staying in jail instead of betraying Marianne. She thinks Marianne can depend on you, but I don’t. I think you’re only in this to score another point by winning my daughter away from me.”

“Give him a chance to speak,” Vera ordered from the top of the staircase, and she turned her attention to Luke. “Continue.”

Hope took root as he spoke directly to Vera. “Marianne can depend on me to stand by her side, even when times are difficult. I will work to rein in the animosity within my family. I want to look forward, never back.”

He turned his attention to Clyde, searching for the words to undo three generations of hostility, but those magic words didn’t exist. He reached into his heart and simply told the truth. “The past can’t be changed, but I am willing to walk away from it. Trying to settle old scores with new malice is a losing proposition for all of us. I love Marianne. I won’t keep battling your family, even if a marriage between me and Marianne never happens. It’s over. You’ve won.”

Clyde’s eyes narrowed, his face turning speculative. Marianne was shaking in her boots beside him, and Luke felt just as helpless, but the ball was now in Clyde’s court.

Clyde broke his challenging stare to glance up at his wife on the balcony, then to Marianne, then to Luke.

“I haven’t always been the best or most honorable of husbands,” he finally said. “But I want better for my daughter. I am selfish enough to demand more in a son-in-law than I have delivered in my past.”

Luke’s heart pounded hard, and it was a struggle to control his breathing. Was Clyde about to bend? The pitiless look on his face was as cold as always, but there was no mistaking his words.

Clyde looked at Marianne. “Is he the one you want?”

She nodded.

“Why?” Clyde demanded.

Everyone in the room, including the laborers, turned to listen to her. She swallowed hard and began.

“He’s made me want to be a better person,” she whispered. “A better Christian, a better daughter. He’s the one who insisted we come back to ask your permission when all I wanted was to run away to San Francisco. Papa, when I’m with Luke, I have the courage to do anything, even when it isn’t easy. I think the family and the future I can build with him will be hard and challenging and full of joy. I couldn’t ask for more.”

Luke’s heart felt like it would burst. If Clyde wasn’t standing five feet away he’d scoop Marianne off her feet and whirl her in circles.

Clyde still wasn’t looking at him. His mouth was downturned as he watched Marianne carefully. “This isn’t going to be easy,” he warned. “Your grandfather will snarl and fight. Andrew and Delia will be even worse. But you have my blessing.”

He extended his hand to Luke. The relief crashing through Luke made it hard even to return the handshake. Clyde’s face was full of skepticism and annoyance, but also a hint of respect.

They could build on that.