The Prince of Spies Page 5

  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.

  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.”

  A flash of blue sparkled on Clyde’s hand. Clyde excelled in all the pretentions of the newly rich, so a pinky ring shouldn’t be a surprise, but Luke couldn’t resist a little mockery.

  “Nice ring,” he said. “Very classy. Then again, I’ve always said you can spot a Magruder a mile away by their vulgar jewelry and the gilt paint they slap on everything.”

  “Would you care to make more insults about my family?” Clyde said. “I’m not due in Congress for another hour, so please. Let it all out, Luke. Perhaps it would do you good to get rid of some of that bile.”

  “And as a Magruder, you know all about bile.” Luke opened his top desk drawer and tossed a can of Magruder’s potted ham at Clyde. “My brother had a chemist dissect this. It’s eighty percent ham and ten percent beef tallow. We couldn’t figure out what the rest of it was. Mind helping us out?”

  Clyde tossed the can back to him. “It’s a moneymaker that bought me a summer house in Maine. Do you mind telling me about this?”

  Clyde set a slip of paper on his desk. It was the card that accompanied the roses Luke had sent to Marianne. He hadn’t known who she was when he sent them, or he wouldn’t have done it. He hoped it hadn’t landed her in trouble.

  He used a single finger to slide the card back toward Clyde. “It’s nothing.”

  “Any time you tamper with my daughter, it’s something,” Clyde said, his voice lethally calm. “I saw the photograph of you with my grandson’s dog. I’m giving you only one warning. Stay away from my family. If you want to lob your nasty assaults at me, have at it, but if you ever touch my daughter, there won’t be enough of you left to mop off the ground.”

  He grabbed the can of potted ham and threw it at the window, shattering the glass as the can arced outside. Clyde left the office without another word, slamming the door so hard that the glass in the door’s window broke too.

  Luke’s hands clenched. He really hoped Marianne hadn’t caught grief for those roses. He hadn’t known who she was! He wouldn’t have gone within ten yards of her if he’d known she was Clyde’s daughter.

  He fought to rein in his breathing as he strolled to the window, the glass shards crunching beneath his boots. The can of ham had fallen harmlessly to the street below, which was a blessing, since they were on the fourth floor and there could have been people beneath the window. Clyde’s act was a typical low-class Magruder tantrum.

  Cold wind blew into the office. Luke would have to hire a glazier to repair both the window and the door, but in the meantime, he had work to do.

  Clyde’s visit was like waving a red flag before a bull. Every instinct cried out for Luke to go find Marianne and start courting her in earnest. He could shower her with gifts and compliments and charm her until she was breathless. Two years ago that was exactly what he would have done in response to Clyde’s threat.

  But his time locked in a Cuban jail cell had taught him a great deal. He had been taught patience and wisdom. He would do nothing to hurt Marianne, but he would double his fire at Clyde. The man had to be removed from Congress.

  Luke swallowed back his anger and thought strategically. He cut another slice of strudel and made himself eat. There were so many reasons he wanted a front-row seat in the government’s study of poisonous food additives, but at the top of the list was a chance to personally strike a body blow against Clyde Magruder.

  The advertisement calling for medical volunteers instructed men to apply at the Department of Agriculture beginning at nine o’clock. Applicants would be required to pass a physical exam and fall within the acceptable weight range for their height. Luke was still seven pounds underweight, but a gallon of water weighed eight pounds. He could fake it. He’d already drunk a quart of water but felt so bloated he didn’t know if he could get the rest of it down. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to, because there probably wouldn’t be many volunteers.

  Slinging the jug of water over his shoulder, he meandered toward the Department of Agriculture, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face. Winter was such a dicey time in Washington. Sometimes it was a frosty misery, but today he barely needed a coat.

  As he rounded the corner, he was stunned to see dozens of men lined up outside the Department of Agriculture. Who were all these people? The line snaked down the steps and around the front of the building. Luke approached the last man in the line.

  “What’s everyone waiting for?”

  “Free room and board!” the man said. He held out a copy of the advertisement for the experiment. “All we need to do is pass a physical and agree to eat all our meals here. The doors open at nine o’clock.”

  Luke scanned the crowd of young healthy men. There had to be over a hundred people in this line, and the department was only taking a dozen volunteers.

  Luke uncorked the jug of water and began drinking. He was going to have to get the whole gallon down, and fast. It was going to take some quick thinking to convince the test administrators that he was as healthy as the other men in this line, but Luke had always been good at quick thinking.

  By ten o’clock all the men had filled out basic forms to apply for the research study, then were ushered into the room where a doctor would make the first round of cuts. Luke reluctantly followed instructions to shuck off his heavy winter coat and boots before stepping on the scale. Nature was calling, but he couldn’t use the restroom until after he’d been weighed. A doctor and a nurse were doing the preliminary screen, weighing the men, shining a light into their eyes, a tongue depressor down their throats, and banging a hammer on their knees.

  “We’re all insane for being here,” a tall volunteer with curly blond hair said. “They should probably use that hammer on our heads.”

  “My head is harder,” a man beside him said. They looked so much alike that they had to be brothers.

  “But mine is bigger,” the other replied.

  “Yeah, but Mom still loves me the most.”

  The two brothers kept up a nonstop stream of competitive banter all morning. When the doctor complimented the taller brother for how fast his eyes dilated, the other begged to be tested so he could dilate faster. They gave their names as Ted and Bradley Rollins, two brothers currently attending Georgetown University who rowed crew for the college. Luke simply thought of them as Big Rollins and Little Rollins. They were eager to flex their muscles for the fresh-faced nurse who seemed charmed as they argued about who had better grades, who had more muscle, and who could hold their breath longer. Big Rollins began boasting about the five-minute mile he’d run last weekend.