Mr. Wiley glanced over at her supervisor. “Well, Bryant? Can my committee steal this young lady for a few hours each week?”
Mr. Bryant agreed, and Mr. Wiley walked Annabelle down the hall to show her the office where the chemists met. He gave her the date of their next meeting and a typed agenda of issues to be discussed. How wonderful that Mr. Wiley only discussed the article that would have a lasting impact on the nation’s health and not sensational stories about people’s personal lives.
Just before she left, Mr. Wiley leaned down. “Tell me, are you the oil or the vinegar?”
She put on a brave face. “I’m afraid I’m the laughingstock in this story.”
It was going to be a long time before she lived down Mrs. Sharpe’s article.
Thirty-Two
Gray carried a heavy suitcase down the steps of his Alexandria townhouse to wait for Mr. Holder, who had gone to fetch the carriage from the public stable a block away. This morning he would take the train to Baltimore, then catch the afternoon passenger ship to Cuba. For weeks he had been dreaming about presenting the issue ofGood Housekeepingto Luke in person. There wasn’t much he could do to brighten his brother’s life, but this article would help. Luke deserved to know of the success of his applesauce plan.
After setting down his bag, Gray looked down the street for a sign of Mr. Holder and the carriage. Instead he spotted Caroline disembarking from the Red Line streetcar and heading his way with fire in her step. In her hand she carried a copy ofGood Housekeeping, and Gray braced himself for a confrontation.
Caroline didn’t slow her steps until she stood less than a yard away. “A thoroughly modern couple?” she said as she whapped the magazine against his chest. He adroitly caught it.
“Good morning, Caroline. It’s nice to see you.”
“There’s nothing good about this morning. I just read an article that implied my brother is in the throes of enchantment with a scheming and traitorous woman. How could you!”
A pair of ladies taking their morning stroll stopped to peer at them, and he forced his voice to remain calm. “Do you believe everything you read?”
Caroline planted both fists on her hips while she took several calming breaths. “All I need is for you to assure me that not a word of that story is true.”
Mrs. Sharpe had gotten a lot wrong, but she had seen and understood more than he cared to admit. Hewasstill a little enthralled with Annabelle. Not that it would ever come to anything, but it was still there.
“I can’t do that.”
She flinched, apparently expecting an immediate denial he had no intention of delivering. An odd series of emotions played across her face. Surprise, anger, and ... fear.
“Gray, the two of us haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I would step in front of a bullet for you. She wouldn’t. She proved that on the day she walked into the War Department and turned over information that sent a cannon blast into the heart of our family.”
He didn’t want to hear it, but there was truth in what Caroline said. He didn’t doubt for a second that she’d take a bullet for him, as he would for her. He didn’t have much of a family left. In fact, Caroline was the beginning and the end of it.
Mr. Holder and the carriage rounded the street corner and would be here in less than a minute, but Gray needed to make peace with Caroline before he left.
He held up the magazine. “I’m sailing for Cuba to deliver this to Luke. The first article will send him over the moon. I don’t think he gives a flying fig about the other, which is mostly there to sell magazines. There’s no future between me and Annabelle.”
It hurt even to say the words, but the relief on Caroline’s face was palpable. Mr. Holder was waiting for him, but Gray pulled her into a hug and squeezed. It didn’t seem so long ago that he could pick her up and set her on his shoulders. Now she was a woman, and during this catastrophic situation withLuke, he had a new appreciation for Caroline’s strength and unswerving loyalty.
He must never do anything to endanger that.
September in Cuba wasn’t much cooler than it had been in July, but even those few degrees made a difference as Gray strode toward the prison where Luke was being held. Had it only been two months since he’d been here? It seemed like the entire world had been upended, yet Luke hadn’t moved more than a few inches within his six-by-ten-foot cell.
Gray carried the issue ofGood Housekeepingrolled in his hand. In his satchel he had more newspapers and pamphlets that covered the adulterated applesauce, but it wasGood Housekeepingthat had proven to be the loudest megaphone. Its huge circulation and incriminating headline were proof that Luke’s audacious plan had worked.
At least this time Gray knew what to expect as he moved through the layer of guards and locked doors in the stifling prison. He paid extra to meet Luke in the prison yard. Anything to get Luke out of that matchbox of a cell for a few minutes. The prison yard was surrounded on all four sides by barracks, but it was open to the sky, and that would be a blessing for someone who rarely saw it.
Gray waited at a rustic wooden table. He’d been warned that Luke would be shackled as a condition of using the prison yard, and the sound of rattling chains was harrowing as the door opened and a guard led Luke into the yard.
Luke’s beard was new, and his black hair was long enough to tie back with a leather cord. Gray ignored the smell as he pulled his brother into a hug. With his wrists shackled, Luke couldn’t return it, but Gray still held on for a moment before stepping back.
“You look like a pirate,” he said.
“I’d rather drink my water than shave with it.”
“Probably wise.”
