Unrivaled (14 page)

I’d watched as that same man the Queen of Love and Beauty had talked to at the ball ran off toward the air machines. I’d watched as everyone else followed suit. But I wasn’t prepared to watch as she shuffled around, trying to get down off that stage.

What was the point of wearing a skirt that couldn’t be walked in?

I’d have thought at least one of those fancy fellows would have stopped for just one minute to help her, but none of them did. They all jumped off the grandstand like tramps from a railcar. As my father went off toward the airfield, I moved in the opposite direction.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her, even though I knew I should. She looked even more beautiful in the daylight than she had at the ball. Back in Chicago, I might have whistled my appreciation, but I had the feeling she wouldn’t take it the way I meant it. When I got there, I took off my hat, held it to my chest, and
bowed. “My Queen of Love and Beauty!” I reached up and offered her my hand.

Her eyes widened, and she smiled down at me. “Will you forever be my champion? I was wondering how I’d make it down off these steps.”

I held her hand firmly as she descended. And though I probably shouldn’t have, I kept hold of it once she’d made it to the ground.

“I’m afraid I can’t remember your name.”

I winked. “It’s because I didn’t tell it to you.”

She arched a brow and drew her hand from mine. “Then you have me at a disadvantage, because you must know mine.”

In fact, I didn’t. I only knew my father didn’t like her. But then I didn’t like my father much either. Maybe that meant she and I could be friends. “What would you like my name to be, then?”

“I’d like it to be what it is.”

Enjoying the blush that colored her cheeks, I held out my arm. “Want to go take a look?” I nodded in the direction of the airfield.

Though I’d hoped she’d link her arm with mine, she didn’t.

“I can’t go anywhere with a man I don’t know, and there’s no one here to introduce us. Surely you agree it wouldn’t be proper.”

“The name is Charlie.”

She seemed to smile in relief. “And mine is Lucy. I’ve been wanting to apologize for walking into you on the street that day . . . and to thank you for looking after me at the ball. I don’t normally require the assistance of complete strangers. You must think me terribly foolish.”

My only clear memories of the ball were of her tear-stained cheeks and the caramel scent of her hair. I didn’t think she was foolish at all. “No. I don’t.”

When she looked up at me from beneath the brim of her
hat, I was the one to blush. I ushered her ahead of me and was reminded of just how tight her skirt was at the bottom when she could only hobble forward. But why go anywhere? The person I most wanted to be with was right beside me. I hailed a hawker who was selling Royal Taffy. I bought two of them, before I realized she probably wouldn’t want one. As a candymaker, she must be used to fancier sweets than taffy. But I handed it to her anyway. It would have been rude to eat both of them in front of her. “Would you like one?”

She paused so long that I thought she would refuse. But then she smiled once more. “I probably shouldn’t, but they’re my favorite.”

“They’re my favorite too.” They always had been. Long before I’d found out my father owned the company.

“Then we have something else in common.”

In common? Me with her?

“Something besides being wont to lurk in dark balconies during important balls.”

I shoved mine into my pocket as she pulled at the red wrapping. “Here.” I took the stick from her, ripped open the top, and then handed it back.

She smiled what looked like an apology. “I don’t have the chance to eat these very often. But there’s something about them. Something . . . I could just never . . .” Her words trailed away as she put it to her mouth and then her eyes closed as she took a bite.

I could fall in love with a girl like this. I could fall in love with
this
girl . . . if I weren’t the kind of man I was. I might have planted a kiss on that pretty mouth of hers, but thankfully, Charles reminded me a gentleman would never do that. No wonder they looked so annoyed and irritated most of the time.

Her eyes opened.

“Have you ever tried to make one of these? Like you tried with that other candy?”

She colored. “Oh! No. No. I never have.” But she took another bite and a look of pure pleasure crossed her face.

I crooked my elbow for her. “Let’s go see the air machines.”

She slid her arm through mine. “Do you think it’s . . . safe?”

“The president must think it is.” I pointed toward an air machine that Roosevelt seemed to be inspecting.

“He’s not going to go flying in it?” There was a catch in her voice.

“I don’t think . . .” The pilot had come to stand beside him. He spoke to the president for a moment, then gestured toward the seat.

She grabbed at my forearm. “He wouldn’t!” She sounded frightened. “It looks like it’s only held together with string and India rubber bands!”

I placed my hand atop hers and gave it a squeeze.

The president smiled and clapped the pilot on the back.

Then the aviator shrugged and put a foot to the machine. But someone yelled from the crowd, “Go on, Mr. President!”

“Do! Go for a ride!” The cry was caught up and repeated, and a few more cheers were given before the policemen began to enforce the perimeter again.

Beside me, Lucy nibbled at the rest of her Royal Taffy.

I wondered what would happen if I told her who I was? Maybe . . . if she knew who my father was . . . wouldn’t that be something else we had in common? That we both came from candy families? But how could I say it without seeming to brag? And why say it at all? When I wasn’t quite sure what I thought of my father, it seemed dishonest to try to use him for my gain. Besides, there couldn’t be that many candymakers in the city. She probably already knew him. And if she did, then how was I supposed to
explain myself? As a long-lost son? I sent a sideways glance at her. Probably better not to mention my connection to Standard at all.

She stiffened. “Look!”

The president, hand on his hat, was climbing into the air machine. Was he actually going to do it?

Lucy had gone pale. “He’s going to fly.”

A man jogged up to the machine and started the propeller as the pilot strapped the president into the seat. A second man pulled blocks away from the wheels.

With a wave from the president and a salute from the pilot, the air machine began bumping down the airfield.

Lucy clutched the empty taffy wrapper to her chest.

We leaned forward with the rest of the crowd as the air machine rolled past us down a grassy strip of airfield. In spite of the policemen’s shouts to stay back, the crowd surged toward the machine to watch as it raced toward the end of the runway.

“It’s not going to make it.” Lucy’s voice was low and her face was white.

It was reaching the end of the airstrip.

“Sure it will.” It had to, didn’t it?

“I can’t look!” True to her word, she clutched at my lapel and buried her face in my coat.

I put an arm around her, urging her to turn with a nudge from my shoulder. “You have to look. It’s going to be all right. Trust me.”

When she looked up at me, her blue eyes had darkened with fear.

I couldn’t help laughing. “It’s going to be fine.” I pulled her close and kissed her on the cheek, beneath the feathery hat she wore.

She looked up at me, hand on her hat. Her glance focused on my eyes. My lips.

As I bent toward her, she lifted her face toward me.

I put a hand to her cheek. “They’ll make it. I promise.”

Somewhere behind us, a band broke into a song.

Her eyes widened, then she dropped her gaze and pulled away to stand beside me. Together we watched as the machine took a short hop and then vaulted up into the air.

Her hands flew to her mouth. “They’re flying. They’re flying!”

A cheer went up around us.

The crowd pivoted as the air machine made a wide turn and came back around to swoop over us. I lifted a hand to wave, glancing over at her. She was doing the same. It flew past us and then out so far away it was no larger than a speck. Then it turned and came toward us again before plummeting toward the ground.

The crowd gasped, and Lucy’s hand seized mine.

I would have told her again that everything was fine, but I wasn’t at all sure that was true. A shriek rang out before the machine suddenly turned its front end up and began climbing once more.

Lucy’s hand went limp.

I looked down at her, but she didn’t see me. Her eyes were fixed on the air machine, a look of wonder on her face. We watched the rest of the president’s ride, hand in hand, until the machine came skipping back down the airfield. She turned to me and opened her mouth to speak as I bent to drop a kiss on her pretty little mouth. But that man who’d abandoned her on the stage returned and interrupted us both.

“Did you see it, Lucy? Did you—?” His eyes dropped to our hands.

She pulled hers from mine with a start. And a blush. Her gaze crept up toward my face, then veered toward his. “Yes, Sam. Of course I saw it. Everyone saw it.”

Ignoring her, he addressed himself to me. “I don’t think I know you.”

What would a gentleman do?

Who cared? I’d been acting like Charlie all day. I stepped forward. “No. I don’t think you do.”

“Sam, this is Charlie. Charlie, this is my . . . Sam. Sam Blakely.”

Her
Sam. I felt like someone had just kicked me in the gut.

My father hailed me from the crowd. “Ah! There you are.”

Lucy stared at him a moment before turning to look at me. Her brows drew together, then sprang apart.

I put a hand on her arm. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

My father nodded at her and then spoke to me. “I see you’ve met Miss Kendall. Again. Lovely to see you, Lucy, my dear.”

Kendall? Had he said
Kendall
? But . . . she couldn’t be a . . . a Kendall? Could she? A City Confectionery Kendall?

Lucy turned to me, a smile as brittle as toffee fixed to her face. “It was very kind of you to attend to me. Thank you for your assistance, but I won’t be needing it any longer.” She turned her back on me and joined Her Sam.

“Please. Don’t—don’t go.” I reached for her hand.

“I have someone I’d like you to meet, Charles.” I could tell my father was getting impatient.

“
Charles?
” She said the name as if she didn’t know me. “Charles
Clarke
?”

I stepped toward her.

She retreated.

“Charlie. It’s
Charlie
.”

“So you said. You just forgot to mention that your last name is
Clarke
.”

“It’s not like—I mean—when I met you—Lucy, you have to believe me! I didn’t know who you were. I don’t—” I stepped
close so I didn’t have to speak so loudly. “
He’s
not me!” I glanced over my shoulder at my father. “I’m new to town. From Chicago.” Why did she keep looking at me like that?

“I thought—I’d hoped.” She took another step away from me. “You seemed so different from all the others.”

“I
am
different.” She didn’t know how true those words were. “Please, believe me: I didn’t know who you were, back then, at the ball.”

“So you Clarkes only try to ruin the companies of people you
don’t
know? Is that supposed to be some sort of recommendation? Are you trying to make me feel better?”

“If you would listen for just a minute—”

“Why?” She raised her skirt with such force that I heard the fabric tear. And then she stepped forward so quickly that I almost stumbled trying to move from her path. She pressed a fist to my chest. “So
you
can steal from us too? Is that what you were trying to do at the ball? Find out what kind of new candy I was making?” When she removed her fist, a Royal Taffy wrapper fluttered to the ground between us.

“No—no! I didn’t even know your father was in candy. As a profession. Believe me, if I had—”

“If you had known, you would have stopped trying to push us out of the business? Or given back the recipe your father stole from mine?”

“Now, wait just a minute!”

“I thought you were a gentleman.”

“I was. I am.” I wanted to be. “I’m your friend.” That last bit I hissed because I didn’t want my father to hear.

“I will
never
be your friend, Charlie Clarke. And you can tell your father that we’re not giving up. We have just as much right to make candy as he does.”

My father shook his head as we watched Lucy lurch away
into the crowd. That skirt she was wearing tried to trip her with every step.

“You didn’t mention your rival had a daughter.”

“That’s her. She used to be such a charming little girl.”

“It’s
her
father’s business you’re trying to destroy?”

“That’s the one. City Confectionery.”

It was the worst news I’d ever heard.

“Are you all right, Lucy?”

I was not.

“I meant to tell you.”

I was trying to put as much distance as I could between Charlie Clarke and myself. It wasn’t easy in a hobbled skirt, even if I had ripped the seams, so it took a moment for me to comprehend Sam’s words. “Tell me what?”

“That . . . well, I mean . . . that the man you were talking to was Mr. Clarke’s son.”

I stopped dead in my steps and turned to face him. “You knew?”

He shrugged.

“You
knew
who he was?”

“I . . . might have.”

“And you didn’t tell me? Were you
going
to tell me?”

“I figured you knew. He met practically everybody at the
ball. And everyone’s been going on about it. Mr. Clarke’s son come to town and all.”

Nobody had been going on about it in front of me. Except for Winnie. And I hadn’t once imagined that my man in the balcony was
him
. “I can’t believe I . . .” Trusted him. Had been talking to him. Had let him hold my hand. Had almost kissed him. Twice! I couldn’t believe I had genuinely liked him. And the whole time he’d been a
Clarke
!

“Lucy?”

“What!”

“The carriage is over there.” Sam put a hand to my elbow to steer me in the opposite direction. “And you don’t look much like you’re the queen of anything right now. Just so you know.”

I fixed a smile to my face and greeted the city’s citizens as Sam escorted me to the carriage. Once inside, I bit my cheek so that I wouldn’t shed the tears of humiliation that were building behind my eyes. Had Mr. Clarke’s son been laughing at me the whole time? The whole time he was standing beside me, holding my hand, pretending as if he wanted to kiss me? “He is going to
rue the day
.”

Sam shifted forward. “What’s that?”

“Mr. Clarke’s son.” Charlie. May that name never pass my lips again. I’d changed my mind: I was
not
going to allow Mother to sell the company. I was going to put Standard Manufacturing out of business instead. “That man is going to rue the day he ever met me.”

Instead of dropping us at the house, I had Sam ask the coachman to take us to the confectionery. I meant to ask for Mr. Blakely, but I hadn’t seen any of the employees since my return. And even though I was more than mad at Charlie, I wanted to
know how Edna’s mother was doing and whether Hazel’s sister had married the man who’d been courting her when I left. And then Velma told me her daughter was back with a new granddaughter in tow and Morris asked me to taste a new coating he was experimenting with for Fancy Crunch. And that was before I’d even made it past the roasting ovens. By that time, Sam had disappeared. When I finally found him, I asked if I could speak to his father.

Sam scratched at his ear. “He’s probably back in the packing area.”

Mr. Blakely hadn’t been brought up from the kitchen to work in the office without protest. He’d been the only one to leave Standard Manufacturing with my father. And like my father and me, he preferred candy making to bookkeeping. He still snuck back into the confectionery whenever he could. “I really need to see him. Do you think you might be able to find him? I could wait in the office.”

Sam went off to get him while I walked over to the office and turned the lamp on. I went around to the desk and tried to make sense out of a teetering stack of papers.

As I was dusting off the desk, Mr. Blakely walked into the office, Sam trailing behind.

“Miss Lucy—welcome back! You wanted to see me?”

I went over and returned the embrace he offered. “I wanted to ask you a question. When was the last time we had advertising posters printed?”

He tugged at his ear as he consulted the ceiling. “I think . . . it must have been . . .” He sighed. “To tell you the honest truth, I don’t know exactly.”

“So we haven’t put up any new advertising since the Royal Taffy posters covered all of ours up?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I hadn’t realized . . .” Mr. Blakely tugged at his ear again. “They covered
all
of ours?”

“Yes! There’s not one Fancy Crunch poster remaining in the city.” If there was, I hadn’t seen it.

“Well, that doesn’t . . . that’s not right!”

“It’s not right. And it needs to be rectified.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “I agree.”

“Good. So . . . who does all that?” I couldn’t recall whose job it was.

“Your father.” Sam and Mr. Blakely both said it at the same time.

I sighed. If it was my father who had been supposed to do those things, then for certain it had actually been my mother. She was the only one who had ever done anything that wasn’t related to the actual candy making. And I couldn’t consult her about this because she wanted so badly to sell the company. And all the money in it was hers to begin with. “We need new posters.”

Mr. Blakely nodded vigorously. “Yes, we sure do.”

“So I’ll need you to order them.”

He shook his head just as vigorously. “I don’t mind ordering the sugars or the nuts and all of that, but I don’t know anything about posters.”

I looked at Sam, but he refused to meet my eyes.

“We’re going to let Standard run us out of business for want of a few posters?”

Sam shifted his feet. “And for the fact that they have Royal Taffy.”

“There is
nothing wrong
with Fancy Crunch!”

He and Mr. Blakely looked at me glumly.

“Is there?”

Sam lifted a shoulder and let it fall back into place. “It’d be better if . . .”

It would be better if people would buy it. It would be better if it wasn’t so expensive to make. And it would definitely be better if Charlie Clarke hadn’t gone out and covered up all of our advertising posters, as I suspected he’d done. If I ever saw him again, it would be too soon! “Sam?”

He flinched. “Yes, Lucy.”

“I’m going to need your help with something.”

We headed back home, Sam and I. I asked him to distract Mother so that I could sneak into her sitting room and rummage through her chest of drawers. She had insisted upon looking after the company’s correspondence and ledgers herself. As many times as I had headed for the kitchen with my father, she had called me to come look over the accounts with her.

“It’s all well and good to make candy, but someday I hope you’ll marry someone who can make
money
.”
She would fix me with her keen-eyed stare.
“Never marry a dreamer. They haven’t a care in their head for dollars and cents.”

She would complain about this thing or that thing. She would deplore the convention that kept her running the business from a distance instead of being present at the confectionery.

I would tally the figures and the columns just as quickly as I could and slip out while her back was turned. For all that he was a dreamer, I much preferred caramelizing sugar with my father to writing out receipts with my mother.

But now I needed information. I needed to look at the accounts in order to find out how much money there was to spend. But I had forgotten that her plans included not only selling the confectionery, but also securing a good marriage for me.

“Lucille.” She stepped into the front hall as we came in the front door. “I was just telling Mr. Arthur about your voyage to the Continent.”

Mr. Arthur. My hopes withered.

Curse my fashionable skirt. I hadn’t been able to sneak by fast enough! “I’m rather busy right now.” I whispered the words to her as I tried to shuffle past.

“Not too busy to gallivant about town with Samuel Blakely.” She hissed the words at me. “The air meet must have ended hours ago.”

“It only—”

“Mr. Arthur was there.” She seized my hat from me and pushed me toward the parlor. “I don’t need to remind you of his prominence in this city. And it’s no secret that he’s in need of a wife.”

I caught Sam’s eye as I went and gestured with my chin toward Mother’s sitting room. If I was to be stuck in conversation, at least Sam could do the sneaking for me. I was certain Mother would join me in the parlor.

But she didn’t.

“I would like to have a word with you, Samuel Blakely.”

He sent a terrified glance in my direction.

I bit back a sigh, fixed a smile to my face, and reminded myself that I was, indeed, the Queen of Love and Beauty. And then I went into the parlor and resigned myself to entertaining Mr. Alfred.

Mr. Arthur.

Mr. Alfred Arthur.

Oh dear.