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 ifnews 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 whatshe 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.
