Chapter Fourteen

Luke would have left right then for home, but reason prevailed, reminding him to wait until Mr. Magleby returned from Biddle & Bancroft with the verdict on whether drydock number three would begin with the new year, or wait a while. “Come on, come on, sir,” he muttered as time passed.

Ah, yes, he finally heard voices on the stairs, and then Mr. Magleby opening the door to his grander office across the corridor. Luke almost managed a leisurely stroll to his father-in-law’s office. He knocked.

“Come in, laddie.” Amused, Luke wondered if he would always be twenty-two years old and a talented and ambitious laddie in the older man’s eyes.

“Good news for us, sir?” Luke asked, as Mr. Magleby waved him in and pointed to a chair.

“Aye, and aye again,” Luke heard. “They couldn’t say yes fast enough.” Mr. Magleby chuckled. “Merry Christmas to us! I swore I almost heard Mr. Bancroft say, ‘Take our money, please. All of it!’”

Luke smiled. “I’m not really surprised. Mary’s sketch was bound to charm the stockings off two old gents like B and B. When do we begin?”

“With the new year,” Magleby said. “Are you going home now?”

“I am, sir, but I’ll be back tomorrow. I plan to…” Luke stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something familiar wedged partly behind the bookcase. It couldn’t be. He looked closer. It was Mary’s beautiful drawing of the drydocks, the work that was supposed to make the difference between aye or nay on that loan. “Wait a moment.”

Was he seeing things? Luke pulled out the very landscape that had sent him into raptures this morning, when he took it to his father-in-law. He stared down at it, then up at Mr. Magleby, who was starting to look like a boy with his hand in a cookie jar.

“You didn’t take this to any meeting,” he accused.

A long pause, then Mr. Magleby cleared his throat, his guilty look replaced by a genuine smile of affection. “Sit down, dear boy,” he said. “I have a confession.”

Luke sat, unable to think of anything to say.

Magleby sat next to him, and not behind his desk, his hands in his lap. He wore a momentary look of real contrition on his face, but it didn’t last. His eyes soon glowed with their usual good humor. “Was it two weeks ago that your aunt passed away? Maybe three?”

Luke nodded, unsure of himself and badly out of his league.

“You were so anxious to go to Liddiard and see how Mary was doing. I went past your office a few times, and I swear you were pacing a trench from window to window.”

“I knew I should be there. I have to say I resented you insisting that I remain here,” Luke admitted, unable to hide his anger. “Mary needed me! Well, I hoped she did. Dash it all, I wasn’t sure. Why did you do that?”

“I knew you were still getting acquainted with Mary, and I know you are a cautious man.” He sighed. “I also knew you were lonely. My wife knew it, too.”

Luke looked down at his hands. “I was. There was something about Mary, and I wanted to…Oh, I don’t want you to ever think I am being disloyal to your only daughter.”

Mr. Magleby reached over and put his hand on Luke’s. “Son – you will always be a son to me – I miss Clarissa, too, but it has been nearly seven years, and life goes on.” He strengthened his grip on Luke’s hand, then released it. “Mary Cooper was the first woman you seemed to be interested in. I thought if I manufactured a good reason for her to come here and paint, you might be able to decide yea or nay.” He chuckled. “And so I schemed. Was I wrong, lad?”

“Not at all, sir,” Luke said, but cautiously. “I’m not sure when or how it happened, but I did want to know Mary better. You’ve seen her. She’s lovely and quiet and never seeks attention. And she’s so smart! I may have decided she was the wife for me, but I didn’t know how she felt.”

“Just a moment, sir.” He hurried to his office, retrieved the landscape of his house and set it in his father-in-law’s lap. “I thought she left this here by mistake this morning, but now I think it was Mary’s way of letting me know how she feels. What do you think?”

He pointed to the silhouettes of the two lovers – what else could they be? – in his sitting room. Mr. Magleby laughed, then wiped his forehead, which had sprouted perspiration.

“I’m relieved,” Mr. Magleby said. “You won’t call me out for a duel then? Or sever our partnership? Or cut me off from ever seeing Sally?”

“No, no, and no!” Luke assured him. He steeled himself to look his father-in-law, a sympathetic man but a man of business. “You have been good to me, even when I think I am floundering.”

“You’re not floundering,” Mr. Magleby said kindly. He stood up, went to the window, and seemed to make up his mind. What now? Luke thought. There can’t be more to this. I’m already in his debt .

“I must confess all and not add another layer to my misdemeanor.”

“There’s more?” Luke asked, interested because this Mr. Magleby was more complex than he had suspected. “What else could there be? You just said they never asked for an illustration, and believe me, I appreciate that now.”

Mr. Magleby’s smile stretched across his face. “Here is the whole truth, I promise: There was never a rival for our proposal in the first place. B&B promised me weeks ago that they didn’t even need your presentation to give us the funds. It was already settled.”

Luke stared at his father-in-law. Generally a careful man, he forced himself now to think through the whole business. I wonder , he thought, would I have gone to Mary for a drawing? Or would I have dithered about and ruined a perfectly good opportunity to find a wife? He tried to be stern, tried to hide his smile, but he couldn’t. It wouldn’t do to let the old boy off too easy, now would it?

“You, Mr. Magleby, are a meddler and a scheming scoundrel,” he settled on, ruining the effect because he had to smile. Damned if the man wasn’t precisely right.

“Yes, I know,” Mr. Magleby said, with a certain complaisance that made Luke laugh out loud. “Would you have reached out to Mary if I hadn’t forced your hand?”

Luke considered the question. “I suppose I will never know.” A worse thought made him look away. “She could so easily have vanished and I might never have found her.” Mary, thank God you turned to the Gowers as a place to sell your landscapes , he thought. Still, he didn’t want to let his father-in-law off the hook so easily.

“Tell me, sir, did you really have the worst toothache since the invention of toothaches?” he asked, all innocence.

“Let us say, it was not quite as serious as I let on,” Mr. Magleby said, with no shame and a bigger smile.

“Then I thank you,” Luke said simply. “I might have dithered away a great event, which, of course, remains to be seen.” He patted his heart. “I don’t know what she will say when I go home.”

“Let me offer you some advice, oh cautious partner! Fling open your front door, haul her close and kiss her.”

The partners regarded each other. Luke took Mr. Magleby’s hand this time and kissed it. “In a perfect world, I would be going home to Clarissa, but this is not a perfect world.” He saw the struggle on the old man’s face, this grandfather to Sally. “I trust I have your blessing, you old schemer.”

Mr. Magleby chuckled, his good humor restored, the sorrow gone from his eyes. “You do. It’s time. Sally needs a mother and you need a wife.” He wagged his finger at Luke. “If there are more children, I fully intend to claim them as mine.”

“And so you may,” Luke said. He picked up Mary’s drawing of his house. “I believe I’ll frame this and put it where I can see it every day of my life.” He nodded to Mr. Magleby and went to the door. “I’m going home.”

“Good luck, lad. I trust you haven’t forgotten how to propose.”

“Indeed I have not. Good afternoon, sir.”

“On thing more, lad,” his father-in-law said. “Let’s you and I keep this little secret about the drawing of the drydock to ourselves.” He cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t want your mother-in-law to know what a schemer I am. And certainly not B&B!”

“Fair enough, sir, even though I think women are generally smarter than we are. And I intend to assure Mary that her work made all the difference to Biddle and Bancroft.”

“Our little secret.”

He took a hackney home. Home. What a grand word. That pile of stone and wood and handsome furniture had been a house for too long. He checked his timepiece. He had promised Mary that morning that he would be home for dinner – imagine that – and to hear Sally singing Christmas carols in the sitting room. It was only four o’clock. He wondered if Mary was even out of bed yet, considering her sleepless night.

Sally met him at the door, her eyes wide with surprise. “Papa! It is you!” she exclaimed, which made him resolve to never, ever work past their usual dinnertime of six again.

“It certainly is me. Where is Mary? Is she asleep?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he heard from the doorway of the dining room. She dropped the knife she must have been polishing, because Mary never gave herself an idle moment. He decided that was going to change, probably as soon as he could get a special license and marry this woman.

She gasped when she saw her rendition of 152 Palmer Lane in his hand. To his glee, Luke saw her blush all the way across the foyer. “I…I didn’t think you would find it! I was hoping to keep it for myself. If I was forward…”

“Mary.” Like home , it was one word that said everything. “Mary.” He set down the drawing, flung off his hat, grabbed her around the waist and pull her close. His lips were almost on hers when he said, “Let’s recreate the couple in the drawing. Aye or nay?”

“Aye,” she said promptly and quietly, as was her nature.

“Should we go into the sitting room for a true reenactment?” he teased.

“It’s too far,” she said, as if his sitting room was in Tibet and not mere steps away. She kissed him first, her arms under his, her hands on his back, pulling him close. Before he closed his eyes to completely appreciate this stunning moment in his foyer, he noticed the housekeeper gaping, Sally jumping up and down, and…and was that the greengrocer’s delivery boy? Oh, God, the vicar.

“You’re right, it was too far, Mary my love,” he said when they came up for air. He winced when their audience applauded, and wondered how fast this news would travel throughout Devonport and Plymouth.

“Perhaps they’ll go away if we keep kissing,” Mary suggested.

“We can try.”

“Let’s go to the sitting room,” she added. “It has a door.”

“And it locks, Papa.”

Luke hadn’t reckoned on Sally, the other little lady in his life. She hurried into the sitting room with them. Calmly, she turned the key in the lock and stated most formally. “Papa, a week ago, you asked me what I wanted for Christmas.”

“I did. Your present is upstairs in my room.” Thank goodness for a most useful housekeeper, who had hesitated not at all, buying a handsome hunk of fabric and assuring him she could find a seamstress.

But Sally was looking at Mary. “I really would rather have Mary close by forever. What do you want, Papa?”

He had to swallow down a lump in his throat as large as a boulder, but he managed. “My goodness, the very same thing.” He pulled Mary close. “What would you like for Christmas, Miss Mary Cooper?”

“Such a dull bunch we are,” she said. “I want exactly the same thing.”

And that was that. Luke held Mary tight, with Sally squashed between them.

To his amusement, Sally separated them in a formal way, which was somehow so touching in a six-year-old. “Papa, I believe you have something to ask Mary before anything else can happen.”

He copied her serious demeanor. “I do indeed, dearest.” He turned to Mary and took her hand. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, then looked upon him in her benevolent way that made his knees wobble a bit. If that was what a simple look did, he was a no-hoping goner.

In his lifetime so far, Luke knew he had made two wise decisions. He had married Clarissa Magleby, as charming a wife as a man could hope for. He also accepted Roger Magleby’s offer to become a ship builder and eventual partner, something he was truly fit for. Time and tide had changed things, but he understood now that those equally fine decisions had brought him to this moment.

He moved close to Mary, realizing that this would be the third wise decision, provided she agreed (and he thought she would).

He put it to the test. “Miss Cooper, it has finally come to this blockhead’s attention that he is in love again,” he began, which earned a chuckle from Miss Cooper.

“You’re no blockhead,” Mary said in his defense. “You’re tired, and torn so many ways. Napoleon is not helping, either. When have you had a moment’s time for yourself?”

When she paused, her eyes merry, he kissed her, no little peck, because he was more experienced than that. It was a bonfire of a kiss, the sort of kiss that might have shocked any number of prudes.

Sally was obviously no prude. She applauded. “Jolly good, Papa.”

Luke bowed to his daughter. “Thank you,” he said, and returned his attention to his rosy, smiling lady, for so she was. “And you, Miss Cooper. What say we marry, since I know I am in love, and greatly suspect that you are, too. Is it wise? Are we being smart? I don’t care. Please marry me.”

“Aye, sir, I will,” Mary replied. “You will have all my love and devotion, and Sally will, too.”

She spoke with such conviction that it humbled him. He took her in his arms gently this time, calmly, and with his own conviction. “And you will have mine,” he said quietly. He touched his head to hers, then, “Plus all the drawing paper and crayons you could possibly want.”

“And brothers and sisters for Sally?” Mary asked.

“You can depend upon it.”

She held herself off a little, looking deep into his eyes. “In all my life, I have never been able to count on anything. It may take me a little time to get used to the notion.”

Luke laughed then. “Dear Mary, it was notions that brought us together!”

“Aunt Luella Wainwright’s Notions,” she said. He heard the wonder in her voice. “I was so desperate that day.” She clapped her hands. “I kept that help wanted placard because I want to remember the scene I drew on the back of it.”

“We’ll frame it.”

“That, my dearest Luke Wainwright, is an excellent notion.”