“So you can leave as quickly as possible? I can’t let you—”
Gordon started to laugh. Marigold glared at him for a moment, then as the reality of her words sank in, she laughed, too.
“So if I leave, I’m forcing you to stay.” She stifled another fit of giggles, and unsuccessfully tried to stifle a different kind of fit—a wish to fling her arms around Gordon and tell him to laugh again so she could see his eyes dance.
She reached out to him instead, though she had stepped too far away to touch him. “Why do you want to leave us—I mean your family? Surely the past is behind you, whatever made you leave in the first place.”
“I had hopes that it was.” He began to pace around the library, laying a hand on his desk then his other hand on a vase sporting a spray of marigolds atop the mantel. “My father sent me away because I was so selfish I tended to hurt others without realizing it or, too often, caring that I had. The last straw—” He faced her. “Marigold, will you walk down to the boathouse with me? Is your ankle up to it?”
She would have walked to New York City on her sprained ankle if he asked her.
“Yes. But the girls—”
“Without the girls. Mrs. Cromwell can watch them. I need to get some supplies ordered for Dennis. . .and other things.”
“All right. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“Make that at least a quarter hour.”
“It won’t take me that long to tell Mrs. Cromwell we’re stepping out and to get a hat.”
“But it will take you that long to change out of that ugly dress.”
She stared at him. “You don’t like my dress?”
“I detest it.” One corner of his mouth tilted up. “In fact, as your employer and your friend, I’m requesting you never wear it again.”
And his friend.
The words lent wings to Marigold’s feet. She raced into the kitchen to tell Mrs. Cromwell she would be gone with Mr. Chambers for a while, then charged up to her room to yank off the ugly dress. Buttons flew in all directions. She let them fly. The gown would make excellent rags for cleaning brass.
Beryl came in while Marigold was struggling to button up the back of a muslin gown sprigged with tiny purple flowers. “Are you angry, Miss Marigold? We’re being good.”
“You’re being angels.” Marigold hugged the child. “And, no, I’m not angry. I’m going for a walk and need something nicer to wear is all.”
“Can we go, too?” Ruby asked from the doorway.
“Not this time. It’s business.”
“You look too happy for business,” Ruby observed.
Beryl tilted her head to one side. “Are you going alone?”
“No.” Her cheeks warm, Marigold plopped a hat onto her head and skewered it into place with a pearl-headed pin. Curls tumbled over her ears, but she left them alone.
Her fifteen minutes were up.
“If you’re finished with your arithmetic,” she told the children, “you may play in the yard or read out there, but I want you outdoors for a little while. Mrs. Cromwell will give you some lemonade.”
“Is Uncle Gordon going with you?” Ruby persisted.
“We’re going down to the boathouse.”
“I want to come,” Ruby said.
“Not this time. We need to talk about grown-up business.”
Not the business Marigold thought they should talk about, the business she wanted to talk about—why she wanted him to stay. He would have to figure that out on his own. She wasn’t laying her pride on the line with a man again.
She descended the steps and joined Gordon on the front porch. She didn’t need to ask if her gown was acceptable; his glance said it all.
He offered her his arm. “Let’s walk. I want to talk to you.”
“About me leaving your employment? About you hiring me to do your bookkeeping instead of—”
“About me.”
She winced. She would have to add me to all the I pronouns that pricked her conscience with their implication of self-centered behavior and thinking.
“I need to tell you why I left Cape May.” Gordon set out at a leisurely pace that didn’t strain her ankle. “Then you can decide. . . .”
He didn’t say what he thought she could decide. She didn’t ask. She waited for him to speak.
“I thought I was helping. . .someone.” He passed the walkway leading to the boathouse and directed their steps to the boardwalk. “It was a young lady. Well, most considered her a maidservant, not a lady, but she was soft-spoken and polite and—she acted like a lady.”
“Unlike me.” Marigold tried to ease the tension she felt radiating through his fingers.
He smiled faintly. “As to the soft-spoken part, yes, different from you, but you’re a lady, Marigold. Never doubt that.”
“Thank you. Go on, if you must.”
“I must. You need to understand why I found coming back so difficult, why being here has been difficult for me.”
“You owe me no explanations.”
He covered her hand where it rested on his forearm. “Don’t I? I thought. . . Perhaps I was wrong. I don’t trust my own judgment much, and it’s difficult learning to rely on the Lord to direct me.”
“I do understand.” She smiled. “I’m better at directing the Lord. But go on. Tell me about this lady.”
And let her heart break, if he’d been hopelessly in love, if he still loved.
They strolled along in silence for several moments, with the sea and sun spread out beside them in blue and gold splendor. Then Gordon took a deep breath and began. “She worked for us. She was a maid. She was a fine girl, but her brother wasn’t a good man. He kept coming around and stealing her wages and trying to get her to make more by dishonest means like stealing from us. But he stole from us, and she was going to be arrested. My father didn’t tolerate rule breaking of any kind.”
“Oh, no, that’s so unfair.”
“It happens too often, you know. I had a bit of a soft heart for her. No, it was more than that. I’d fallen for her prettiness, her sweetness, though my father always warned us to not even make friends with the maids, for the sake of propriety and, I suppose, because he didn’t think they were good wife prospects.”
“My great-grandmother was a maid. And I—”
“Have never been a maid, whatever work you’ve done.” He smiled down at her and laced his fingers through hers. “But Louisa was. I bought her ice cream a time or two and some chocolates. It was all innocent from beginning to end. I was barely eighteen and she the same.” He fell silent, his face pensive.
Marigold’s gut tightened with the realization that he recalled another maid, another female, one who had indeed held his heart even a little.
Another stab to her pride that he would think of another female with such depth while he was with her.
She remained silent, waiting for him to continue speaking.
“I helped her escape from being arrested,” he said abruptly.
“You did? Gordon—I mean, Mr. Chambers, that was very bad of you.”
“I didn’t think she’d go free if they arrested her, so I used my position as heir apparent to the boating business to take out one of the boats. I got her aboard without anyone knowing and intended to sail her across the Delaware Bay to Philadelphia. She could have gotten a train to anywhere from there, gone out West, and found a new life without anyone knowing the better for it.” He sighed and turned his face to the sea. “But I failed. It was the only sailboat we had, and I capsized it. She couldn’t swim.”
Marigold stumbled. “She didn’t—didn’t—”
“No, she didn’t drown. I got her to shore, but we were alone for a long time until someone rescued us, and on top of being accused of stealing, her reputation was further ruined. And it was my fault.”
“But your intentions were good.” Marigold’s heart ached for the kindhearted boy.
“My intentions were selfish, Marigold.” And his tone was harsh. “My fathe
r had often accused me of not ever thinking of others, so I wanted to prove I did. Except I really didn’t. I did it for my own reasons and harmed her in the end.”
“What reasons?”
“That I was man enough to take care of myself and others—that I deserved to run the excursion company. . . I’m not certain I know any longer.”
“But—” Marigold stopped and instead of pressing him further, inquired, “What happened to her?”
“My father dropped the charges against her so I wouldn’t be complicit in her crime, then he found her work in another city. He didn’t tell me where.”
“Then she got away from her brother.”
“She did, but she also got stuck right back into a situation where something similar could happen to her. And the new people knew her background, so I doubt it was comfortable for her.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“But—” Marigold stopped again, words failing her except for the next question she didn’t think she should ask.
They had reached the lighthouse. Gordon stopped and leaned against its white-painted wall, away from the door where people streamed in and out.
“My father said I’d abused my position of authority with the company to do harm, not good, and disinherited me. I thought my brother, my twin, would support me. He sided with Father, called me a fool. An irresponsible fool.” He looked away toward a flock of seagulls diving for food on the sand. “Gerald was a good man, but he was business-minded like Father, and that scandal was bound to hurt some of his connections. So I left the next day and never came home again.”
“Why?” Marigold could hold back no longer. “I don’t mean why would your father do that? I expect he’d get over his anger and change his will back, unless he was a tyrant, so why did you leave and never come home? Didn’t you miss your family? Didn’t you miss having a home and friends and the same church every Sunday?”
“Every single day. But every time I let myself be too friendly with someone, I seemed to interfere somehow, making matters worse. I decided that I’m better off alone.”
“Because you can’t fix everyone’s problems, either?” Marigold grinned at him.
He grinned back.
Marigold wanted to hold the moment, but she needed to hear everything from him, from past actions to future plans. “So you were afraid to come home for three months, even though you were needed here.”
“Yes, but now I see that I have to let the Lord guide me through, to take the risk with His help. If I leave now, I’ll hurt the girls and those depending on me for work at the excursion company, and I want to stay, especially if—but I cost you your fiancé, your wedding, your inheritance.”
“Yes, to the inheritance, but it’s just a piece of glass. A glass with sentiment and meaning behind it, but a piece of glass—nothing more.” Marigold smiled. “And as for the fiancé, I’d say your delay saved me. If he couldn’t wait for me for a little while longer, how much could he have loved me? That’s a marriage I didn’t need.”
“You believe that? I mean—” He stared down at the toes of his shoes, up to the top of the lighthouse’s flame—nearly invisible in the daylight—and not quite into her eyes. “Your heart isn’t broken?”
“On the contrary.” Marigold’s heart raced like a colt in a derby. She now knew what she needed to say, but if she was wrong, if his feelings for her didn’t run deeply, she would face the worst humiliation of her life. Without the risk to her pride, though, she would gain nothing.
She started to take his hands again, then stepped closer and rested her hands on his broad shoulders. “Gordon, in these past weeks, I’ve come to realize that I—that I—” Her throat went so dry she could scarcely talk. “I convinced myself that I loved Lucian because I wanted to get married and he offered for me. But when I met you, something happened to me. I stopped thinking about him, even before I knew there was no hope of getting him back, and. . . . Trying to persuade you to stay wasn’t wholly for the sake of the girls. And coming back here after my sister’s wedding wasn’t all because I didn’t like the humiliation of everyone knowing I’d been abandoned. Even though that was part of it.” She laughed. “If my father wanted to teach me humility, he should have just bribed Lucian to jilt me publicly, instead of making me work for a year. But I’m glad he did. I found you here. If you leave for Alaska, I’ll probably follow you.”
“Marigold, are you saying—” The afternoon sunshine lit his features as though the lighthouse flame burned from within him. He clasped her shoulders then cupped her face in his hands. “Are you saying you care for me?”
“I’m saying that I love you.” Words tumbled from her lips. “It’s all right if you don’t love me, too. I just had to tell you so you wouldn’t think your staying away had hurt me or ruined my future somehow. But don’t think you’re hurting me if you don’t feel the same—”
He pressed his forefinger to her lips. “Marigold, please be quiet.” He replaced his finger with his mouth, kissing her longer, more deeply than he had before. Long enough to draw a crowd of appreciative onlookers. Long enough for Marigold to grow too breathless to even think of speaking. And amid the cheers and congratulations of the vacationers, Gordon raised his head for the moment it took him to say, “I love you, too.”
epilogue
Cape May, New Jersey
June 1900
Marigold and Gordon waited nearly eight months to marry—eight months in which they worked long days and into a few evenings to restore the business. As Gordon’s bookkeeper and not his nieces’ nursemaid, Marigold moved down the street to the Morris house, where one of their widowed cousins lived with her for propriety. So close to Gordon and the girls, Marigold managed to spend a great deal of time at their house, trying—and often succeeding—not to interfere with the girls’ governess and Mrs. Cromwell’s replacement.
Though Marigold worked with Gordon, she didn’t see that much of him during the day. She spent her days in Randall’s old office unraveling the man’s ledgers and setting up a new bookkeeping system. Gordon worked with Dennis Tripp and some other employees, inspecting and repairing the boats and converting two of them into craft able to carry supplies across the bay, to increase the company’s productivity even more than Gerald had begun to do.
By Easter the books were in order and two reliable clerks were hired to replace the ones who had disappeared along with Lawrence Randall, who had yet to be found. So Marigold went home to plan her wedding.
The weeks dragged by without Gordon, without Ruby and Beryl, without daily work. But at last, her family in tow, Marigold returned to Cape May to discover Gordon had conspired with her mother about one wedding arrangement.
“We’re getting married on a boat?” Marigold exclaimed.
“Unless you object.” Gordon held her hands as though never intending to let them go. “I’m sure I can talk the pastor into letting us have the church, but your mother and I have made all the arrangements.”
“I don’t object.” Gazing into his root beer–colored eyes, Marigold feared she would agree to anything he said. “I’m just surprised. It’s so. . .romantic.”
“We’re getting dozens and dozens of roses in.” Ruby scampered into the library, braids escaping from their pink ribbons.
Beryl followed, neat and clean in her sky blue dress. “Not dozens and dozens. Well, maybe.” She grinned.
“Roses?” Marigold shuddered. “But—”
“White ones,” he assured her, “so they don’t rival your hair.”
Marigold laughed and hugged him.
“Tomorrow,” he assured her, setting her from him with gentle firmness. “After tomorrow, we don’t have to say good night and part.”
“Tomorrow won’t come fast enough.”
But her mother and sister made plans that would hasten the time. She needed one more fitting for her dress. She needed to wash her hair, so it had time to dry before bed. She had gifts to unwrap.
“S
houldn’t Gordon be with me? And the girls wanted to be with me for the present-opening,” she protested as they set her down amid her bridesmaids and a pile of packages tied up with white satin bows.
“Not for these.” The bridesmaids, friends from college, giggled.
Marigold blushed, guessing that the parcels held delicate undergarments. She opened each box, sighed over the fine silks and intricate lace, then tried to rise, suddenly desperate for sleep to bring the next day faster.
“One more.” Rose, not in the wedding because she was expecting her first child, sank to her knees before Marigold. “This is from me.”
“But you and Adam already gave me that lovely tea service,” Marigold protested.
“Yes, from Adam and me. This is just from me.” Rose set a small box on Marigold’s lap but didn’t let go of it.
A rustling filled the room, then silence followed. Marigold glanced up to see the last of her friends whisking away.
“Why are they leaving?” Marigold asked, her stomach suddenly uneasy.
Rose smiled. “Because I asked them to. This is special. Between us.”
Marigold’s heart skipped a beat. “You’re my sister, my best friend. I don’t need more from you than that.”
“I know, but you gave me so much. You sacrificed so much last year, staying here to take care of the girls, losing Lucian.”
“No loss.”
Lucian had broken his engagement to the Grassick girl and left New Jersey for parts unknown. He’d proven Father to be right in thinking that young man had too little of a sense of responsibility to be a good spouse.
“Maybe he wasn’t a good catch,” Rose said, “but it hurt you to see me marry first.”
“I deserved it after being so awful to you.”
“You were awful, but it’s forgiven. I forgave you a long time before I even met Adam. Our friendship is too important for me to hold a grudge.”
“Thank you. That’s the most precious gift you could give me.”
“Then let me seal it with this.” Rose pushed the box more firmly into Marigold’s hands.
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