The Prince of Spies (Hope and Glory #3) - Elizabeth Camden Page 0,61
back to her lap but refused to budge from the arm of Nathaniel’s chair.
Why was he being so prissy? Luke clenched his fists and averted his eyes from Caroline as jealousy flared inside. He was happy for Caroline. Truly. And if his situation with Marianne weren’t so precarious, this probably wouldn’t bother him so much, but the fake document on Nathaniel’s desk was going to ruin her father. Marianne believed everything Clyde said and would probably hold this against Luke. Even if their families didn’t already hate each other, this document was going to do the trick.
Nathaniel straightened and looked him in the eye. “It’s real.”
“No, it’s not.” The words instinctively burst from Luke. He had four months of consuming high doses of chemical preservatives to prove those things were dangerous.
Nathaniel held the six pages of the report aloft. “These pages check out. The letterhead from the University of Virginia Department of Chemistry is real. The cover letter has a watermark, which is almost impossible to manufacture.”
“It could have been stolen.”
“True,” Nathaniel agreed. “But other things indicate this is a legitimate report. The numbers in the charts are not tampered with. The handwritten signatures are executed in a free-flowing manner and are likely authentic. What makes you think it’s a fake?”
“Because it was submitted by Clyde Magruder, and he’ll lie on a stack of Bibles if it means he can keep dumping chemicals into the food supply. That report is a fake.”
“But the document is real.”
He shook his head and whirled away in frustration, pacing in the tiny space.
“Luke, if Nathaniel says the document is real, it’s real,” Caroline said.
“Whose side are you on?” he demanded.
“Yours, darling, which is why I don’t want you to go to war if this is the only arrow in your quiver.”
His frustration intensified, and it felt like the walls of the room were closing in on him. “How can you stand to work in this miserable office? I feel buried alive in here.”
Nathaniel’s voice was annoyingly calm. “It’s got a desk, electricity, and a functioning fan. I’m perfectly happy.”
Luke snatched the report off the desk. “I’m taking this somewhere else for a second opinion,” he groused as he left the office. Nathaniel was the leading counterfeit expert in Washington, but Luke would still try to find someone better.
His mood didn’t improve once he got outside, but at least he could breathe again. His headache pounded, the lab report he’d pinned all his hopes on might not work, and he was irrationally jealous of his sister’s happiness. He was poisonous company today, but then, he’d always had a foul, selfish streak deep inside. He usually managed to keep it buried, but every now and then it clawed its way back out. Was he really going to spend the rest of his life watching other men become captains of industry, steer the nation from the halls of Congress, while he pathetically translated old novels written by someone else? He was supposed to be a man, not an angry ball of frustrated ambition.
Sometimes the restless demon inside was hard to tame. He wanted to strike out for the horizon or put on a uniform and fight someone. He wanted to test his strength until he literally could not keep swinging anymore. Temptation clawed at him, but his aching head and the rules of the Poison Squad precluded getting into a boxing ring. Anything that put unnecessary stress on his already abused body was disallowed by Dr. Wiley.
So, like a dutiful boy, he would head back to the boardinghouse for lunch, tuck a napkin under his chin, and eat whatever he was served without complaint.
Caroline’s rapid footsteps clicked on the sidewalk as she raced to catch up with him. “What’s put you in such a snit?”
“Just one of those days.”
He didn’t need to say anything else. He and Caroline shared a crib until they were a year old. They grew up side by side. No one knew him as well as she did, and he didn’t have to pretend with her. Around others he would crack a joke or pretend lazy indifference, but not Caroline.
“We all have those days, but try not to have them around Nathaniel,” she said. “He doesn’t know you very well yet.”
It was Luke’s fault that Caroline had to play peacemaker. Luke’s fault he’d been locked up in Cuba for over a year and caused his family untold misery. He needed to tamp down this low, mean part of himself and do better.