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.
Five
To call Luke’s one-man office the “Washington bureau” of Modern Century was a stretch, but he believed in putting a good face on things. The magazine was based in Boston, but they needed someone stationed in Washington to advance legislative reform. Someday Luke might be able to hire a secretary and additional reporters, but for now he was a one-man operation.
He’d been writing for Modern Century for six years, covering gritty subjects like graft and child labor. Last month he’d written an eight-page article exposing corruption in the War Department, in which an officer was caught diverting funds and stoking the rebellion in Cuba. Luke uncovered the source of the corruption by enduring a fifteen-month stint in a Cuban prison and spying on imprisoned members of the rebellion. Luke had been privately awarded a medal by President Roosevelt upon his return to the States, but his undercover work for the government would forever remain a secret.
He sat at his desk and continued scanning government reports about the need for better testing for food preservatives. Current safety standards required a rabbit to be fed a dose of the preservative. If the rabbit was still alive the next day, the substance was deemed safe for use.
Luke took a long drink of milk and continued munching on a wedge of apple strudel. Anything to get his weight up. The Department of Agriculture would begin interviewing volunteers for their “hygienic table trials” tomorrow. What an awful name for such a daring experiment. Nevertheless, he needed to prove himself fit and healthy enough to qualify for the trials. According to the Surgeon General, a man of Luke’s height should weigh between 161 and 183 pounds to be considered healthy. He currently weighed 153. He finished the milk, then started on the second slice of the apple strudel. He was going to qualify for that experiment if it killed him.
He bit back a smile, because it truly might kill him, but he never shied away from a challenge. Besides, it shouldn’t be too hideous. According to the advertisement, only half the men would be subjected to the chemically tainted meals while the other half would be in the control group eating wholesome food.
Luke secretly hoped he’d be in the group with the tainted meals. He wanted to tough it out. It would be a privilege to volunteer his own body in a quest to prove the danger of chemical preservatives.
A knock sounded on the door. “Come in!” he said through a mouthful of strudel. The man from the telephone company must be early to set up the service, but all to the good.
It wasn’t the man from the telephone company. It was Clyde Magruder, looking like a black cloud.
Luke masked his surprise, wiped his mouth, and stood. “Hello, Clyde,” he said casually.
It had been almost two years since they’d seen each other. Aside from a few more strands of silver in Clyde’s sandy hair, there had been little change. He still looked big, imposing, and had the mean-eyed charm of a python.
Clyde’s nose wrinkled in distaste as he surveyed the office. “Such a shame that your two-bit magazine can’t afford decent office space.”