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 I’ve withdrawn my name from the November elections and will be returning to private life.”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.
