“Marigold?” Mrs. Morris called from the back gate. “Is that you?”
“It is.” Marigold descended the steps and crossed the lawn to greet the older lady over the wicket. “What brings you down the alley?”
“I was taking the shortcut from visiting some friends down the way.” The older lady’s bright blue eyes scanned Marigold from head to foot, growing troubled as they did so. “My dear, why do you continue this masquerade? Your father only required a year of service for you.”
“I couldn’t abandon the children. They’re so. . .lost without their parents, and their uncle—” Marigold’s hands tightened on the top bar of the gate.
“But you put these children before your marriage. Are you sure that was the right choice?”
“Would leaving them to no familiar faces except for Mrs. Cromwell’s been the right choice?”
“They have an uncle.”
“Who couldn’t be bothered to come home.” The gate bar creaked.
Mrs. Morris laid her hand, soft in its silk glove, atop Marigold’s. “If you’d told him what you had to sacrifice, perhaps he would have come sooner.”
“I wasn’t sacrificing really.” Marigold gazed past Mrs. Morris to the glint of the sea. “This is a grand place to spend the summer, as you know. And I love the girls.”
“But you made a promise to Lucian.”
“Lucian,” Marigold enunciated, her chin lifted, “needs to understand about patience and giving, if he wants to marry me.”
“Yes. Yes, he must.” Mrs. Morris frowned. “Perhaps that’s why. . . Has he written to you?”
“Not in weeks.”
And that letter had been impatient and demanding.
“Well, it doesn’t matter now.” Mrs. Morris’s brow still lay in deep furrows. “I’ve come to tell you that he is sailing into town with my daughter and son-in-law tomorrow.”
Seven
By Monday morning, Gordon knew his idea of leaving within two weeks was ridiculous. He still didn’t know if he gave any credence to Dennis Tripp’s warning, but before putting the business up for sale, even if he trusted an agent to oversee the particulars, Gordon couldn’t hire an agent without being certain the business was sound.
The problem he was encountering lay in finding the discrepancies in Lawrence Randall’s bookkeeping. Twice he presented himself at the boating office. Both times, Randall was out, either on one of the excursion boats, according to the clerks, or at the bank. They didn’t feel right giving him the ledgers without asking Mr. Randall which ones were the right ones.
“That is the one for this year,” one of the mousy little men clarified. “Since Mr. Chambers has been gone. The other Mr. Chambers, that is.”
The third time, that Monday morning, when Mr. Randall just happened to be absent, Gordon made his way to the attorney’s office to ask what recourse he could take.
“You have a right to the books, of course.” The rather youthful-looking Mr. Phillips, attorney-at-law, drew off his spectacles, making him look even younger. “Just take whichever ones you like. Randall has no right to stop you. But the real problem you’re facing is that you can’t sell the business until the will is probated.”
“Probated? I thought—” Gordon subsided onto a chair he’d refused to take a few minutes earlier. “I thought that had already been done.”
“No, it’ll take a few more months to go through the court. Your long absence slowed matters. I thought you would know this.” Phillips raised his eyebrows.
Gordon resisted the urge to squirm like a schoolboy caught not knowing his lessons. “I’ve never inherited anything before.”
“Of course. Then let me explain.”
Gordon listened and wondered if he would get to Alaska before the great glaciers melted. Or before he melted from the heat.
At last freed, he returned to the house to find a stack of invitations awaiting him in a silver bowl that resided on the foyer table. Apparently mindful that he was in mourning for his brother, none of the invitations were objectionable, being quiet and small affairs, but Gordon cringed at the idea of accepting any of them. They would first gasp at his resemblance to Gerald, as many had done in church. They would then ask about what he’d been doing for the past dozen years, why he had gone away, what he would be doing now, why he had stayed away for months after his brother’s death—all questions too painful to think about, let alone discuss. Besides that, single young women would swarm around him, an affluent eligible bachelor in their eyes, and he would want to head for the nearest boat and out to sea.
He’d felt that way in church: stifled, hemmed in, trapped. He wanted to forget about his life in Cape May, not recall every childhood memory. He certainly didn’t want to get into a young lady’s clutches simply by being too polite to her.
He didn’t want to encounter anyone who might know why he’d been asked to leave home and been cut out of his father’s will. At the same time, he couldn’t ignore the invitations. Good manners had been drilled into his head deeply enough he hadn’t lost them in the roughest of living conditions. He’d enjoyed comfort from the knowledge he wasn’t shaming his mother’s teachings, even if his father thought him a failure as a good and obedient son.
He spread the invitations out on the table. He needed advice on which ones he absolutely could not reject and which ones he could get away with declining. Perhaps Marigold—
No, the less time spent with that minx the better. She was a bold piece, brazen in her manner toward him. She acted as though she didn’t care in the least whether or not she pleased him.
No, on second thought, she wasn’t acting. She didn’t care if she pleased him or not.
A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. Odd for a nursemaid—but refreshing amid fawning females. Even the men seemed to want to see him happy. And now the hostesses had left their mark in the form of too many invitations for a man who preferred to spend his days alone.
Alone was safer.
With a flick of his wrist, he sent the invitations flying into a disorderly pile and turned from the table.
“You can’t ignore them, you know—sir.” Marigold came around the end of the staircase, a stack of clean rags over one arm, a pot of something reeking of lemon and beeswax clutched in her other hand. She wore another one of those hideous gray dresses, and an enormous white kerchief nearly covered her hair.
His fingers twitched, and he clasped his hands behind his back to stop himself from snatching the cloth from her hair. The action would not only be rude and obtrusive, it was an absurd idea. She should keep that mop covered all the time, if that’s what it took to control the wild red mass.
“Mr. and Mrs. Morris invited you personally yesterday,” Marigold continued, “so ignoring them would be unconscionable.”
“Thank you for your advice.” He didn’t keep the edge of sarcasm from his tone. “I was brought up in a barn, you know.”
“I know no such thing. But you have been away from civilization for a while.”
“And would like to be away from it again, if it’s all as vapid as this.” He waved one hand at the invitations.
“The Morrises aren’t vapid. They’re smart and amusing and love the Lord.” She began to polish the newel post, turning her profile to him. “And one of Mr. Morris’s sisters is married to a Grassick.”
“Is that supposed to impress me?”
“No, not if you don’t know who they are. I’m sorry to interfere.” Her voice sounded suddenly thick.
“Miss Marigold?” Gordon stepped closer to her before he realized his intention. “Is something the matter?”
She shook her head. A red curl popped out from under the kerchief.
He touched a fingertip to the tear tracing down her cheek. “Then the polish is too strong and making your eyes water.”
“No, I—it doesn’t concern you. Excuse me, please. This banister gets terribly dusty with the windows open.” Wafting the nose-tickling scent of lemon behind her, she plowed up the ste
ps, her head bowed, her face hidden.
Gordon watched her for several moments, seeking words to make her come back, while wondering why he should care. He couldn’t befriend her. He didn’t dare. Even if a friendship between master and employee was appropriate, which it wasn’t, he was no good as a friend, as a brother, son, uncle. . . .
He returned to the table, gathered up the invitations, and carried them into the library. Of the twelve, he accepted three. The dinner party at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Morris was the first one—on Saturday. The other two were invitations to nights of music. He loved music, and all he’d heard since returning to Cape May, other than the hymns in church, were his nieces’ painful renditions on the piano and Marigold singing Christmas carols in August.
They were young. They would learn. He suspected Miss Marigold wasn’t the best of music teachers. All the more reason to find them a school.
With that in mind, he accepted a fourth invitation, to a luncheon with just men, business associates of his brother and people he’d been introduced to at church. Reintroduced to. Some of them probably had daughters in school, judging from their ages. He could talk to them about where to send the girls.
He needed to talk with them about something. Long social conversations weren’t among his talents. Talking to anyone for more than half an hour hadn’t been part of his life for so long that dinners with his nieces left him feeling exhausted. After an initial shyness, they’d begun to ask him questions and wouldn’t settle for the concise responses he gave adults.
❧
“No, Uncle Gordon, tell us how you got back on the ship after you fell in the water,” Beryl insisted.
“Did you do something bad?” Ruby asked. “Is that why God made you fall?”
“God didn’t make me fall, child.” Gordon gazed at the little girl, wondering how she got such a notion. “I made myself fall by not putting away the rope I’d been splicing together. I tripped over it and. . . Splash!”
“But how did you get back aboard?” Beryl persisted.
“Someone saw me fall and sent me a line.” Gordon grimaced at the memory. “It’s a good thing the water was calm.”
“Because you were naughty?” Ruby asked.
Beryl cast her a glance of annoyance. “People don’t drown because they’re naughty.”
“But—”
“Mommy and Daddy weren’t bad,” Beryl continued with dogged ruthlessness.
Gordon flinched. Perhaps he hadn’t chosen a good story. Next time—
He couldn’t think about next time. Ruby had begun to cry.
“Not again,” Beryl groaned, but her own eyes shimmered with tears.
Marigold! Gordon cried silently.
As though she heard him anyway, she swept through the door leading into the kitchen, dressed in a plain but attractive dress of white with little pink flowers on it, and dropped to her knees beside Ruby. “It’s all right, baby. No one’s been naughty.”
“I was,” Ruby wailed. “I left my doll outside in the rain.”
Over Ruby’s shoulder, Gordon met Marigold’s eyes. She looked as bewildered as he felt.
They hadn’t had rain in the week he’d been back in Cape May.
“Your doll is in your room.” Beryl pushed her plate aside. “I would like dessert, please. Mrs. Cromwell said we have ice cream.”
“We have to go get it. Would you like that, Ruby?” Marigold tugged one of the girl’s pigtails.
Ruby blinked away her tears. “I like strawberry ice cream. But I only get it if I’m good.”
“You’re good.” Marigold rose, holding Ruby’s hand. “You even got your arithmetic right today. Are you going with us, Mr. Chambers?”
“I think I must.”
He didn’t want to. In the cool of early evening, the streets would be crowded with vacationers swarming toward ice cream shops and soda fountains for refreshing treats after dinner or on their way home from the beach. But he felt responsible for Ruby’s bout of tears and thought the least he could do was take her for ice cream.
Alone.
“You don’t need to come with us, Miss Marigold,” he said.
Her face tightened, whether with annoyance, anger, or hurt he couldn’t tell, for she smiled immediately. “I wasn’t going to go with you, Mr. Chambers. I have. . . I have a guest calling tonight.”
“Indeed?” Gordon raised his eyebrows in query.
Marigold turned to the children. “Go wash your hands, girls.”
A note had arrived from Mrs. Morris in the middle of the afternoon, warning Marigold that Lucian had reached Cape May. A message from him had arrived shortly afterward with the information that he would call upon her that evening after supper. An appeal to Mrs. Cromwell’s kindness had arranged the ice cream expedition.
“It’s about time you saw that young man you’ve moped over for the past year,” the older lady had declared.
So Marigold donned a dress suitable for everyday wear, a step above her gray maid’s dress, and paced from the library to the music room to the front parlor, waiting, praying, willing Lucian to call before Gordon Chambers and the girls returned. And waiting. . . And waiting. . .
Mrs. Cromwell had cleared away the supper dishes and gone to her room by the time a rap sounded on the back door. Marigold flew down the hall, through the baize-covered door and through the spotless kitchen.
Spotless except for the puddle of water where the icebox pan had overflowed. Her right foot landed in the pool and slipped. She flung out her arms for balance, dislodged a copper pan hanging on the wall, and slammed her shoulder into the door. The pan flew across the room with a resounding clang, and her cry of pain accompanied the thud of her body striking wood.
“Marigold?” Lucian called through the portal. “Is that you?” He opened the door, and she tumbled into his arms.
“So sorry.” She clung to him, his sturdy shoulders, his arms wiry with tensile strength. She smiled up into his handsome face and waited for the rush of warmth she’d always experienced when near him, the thrill of being in his presence.
The only heat she experienced was a flush of embarrassment for her clumsy introduction to a man she hadn’t seen since his last visit in June, the day he’d arrived to persuade her to leave, to go ahead with their wedding regardless of the inconvenience to the girls.
The day he’d suggested she take off her engagement ring until she had her priorities straightened out.
She rubbed her bare finger and scanned him for the lump of a ring box in his pocket. Seeing nothing, feeling a little unwell, she said, “I expected you at the front door.”
“I wasn’t aware servants could receive callers in the front.” The merest hint of a sneer curled his upper lip.
“It would be all right here. Mr. Chambers isn’t strict or all that formal.”
“Humph.” He laid his hands on her shoulders and set her from him. “What was all that racket?”
“Just me being a bit clumsy.” Marigold shrugged. “Shall we go onto the porch? No one else is home except for Mrs. Cromwell, and she’s in her room. Would you like some lemonade?”
“No, thank you, I won’t be here long.”
“No?” Marigold gripped the edge of the door to support her now wobbly knees. “Do you—do you have another engagement?”
“I may.” He turned and strode to one of the wrought iron chairs scattered around the wide veranda. “It all depends on your answers.”
“Well, since I haven’t heard the questions, I guess I can’t give you those answers, can I?” Marigold didn’t intend the note of asperity that slipped out.
At the moment, with Lucian showing no affection toward her, she felt no inclination to take back the words or apologize for the tone.
Lucian laughed as though she’d made a joke. “Let’s be comfortable so I can ask them.” He turned one of the chairs so she faced the sliver of ocean visible between the neighboring houses.
She settled herself and waited for him to sit.
He didn’t. He leaned against the white-painted railing and faced her. Evening light gleamed in his blond hair. His countenance lay in shadow. “When are you coming home?” he demanded.
“When things are settled here.” Marigold clasped her hands hard enough to hurt her fingers. “I think Mr. Chambers will hire someone else, but it takes time. Perhaps October?” She hated the uncertainty in her voice, the queasiness in her stomach. “I know it’s a long time, but—”
“It’s too long. We were supposed to be married at the end of June. Do you know how embarrassing it is for me to have to tell people my fiancée thinks more of some children than me?”
“Perhaps as embarrassing as it is for me to keep telling my friends I never hear from you.”
“I have work in Salem County to keep me busy.”
“And so do I.”
“You don’t need to. Your father said a year away to make sure I—” He snapped his teeth together and paced to the end of the porch and back, his hands clasped behind his back.
Marigold stared at him, her ears buzzing. “To make sure you what?”
“Never mind.” He bit out the words like someone eating a distasteful dish. “You were sent here to these business associates of your father because you needed to be reminded of your humble roots before marrying a mere glassblower.” Now the bitterness rang as loud and clear as the crickets in the grass chirped with the advent of sunset.
Head spinning, Marigold rose and approached him. “Lucian, it’s not like that at all. I got above myself, was mean to my sister, was too proud of marrying—”
“So you could get the goldfinch first.” Now the sneer was more than a hint. “I’d say your father is the one who needs to remember his humble roots, far more humble than the original Grassicks.”
“No one looks down at even apprentice glassblowers now, Lucian. You’re artists, as well as artisans. Half the Grassick family are glassblowers. You can’t think my father. . . .”
Apparently that was exactly what he thought.
Marigold held out her hands to him. “My dear, yes, my father sent me here to learn humility—”
“To get you away from me—”
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