Unrivaled (27 page)

Lucy came at me on Tuesday evening in the club dining room, eyes blazing, finger wagging. “I’ll admit that what I did was wrong, but what you did was completely and absolutely underhanded, sneaky, and patently unfair!”

“I really don’t—” She wouldn’t stop coming, so I took a step backward and then another. And still she kept at it. People at the club were starting to stare at us.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know about the contract with Stix.”

What could I say? I tried the obvious. “What contract with Stix?”

She poked me in the chest with her finger. “You despicable, loathsome liar!”

“What do you want me to say? You caught us red-handed.”

That shut her up. The eyebrows that had slanted with suspicion now gathered with hurt. “You . . . you knew about it?”

“We’re not playing a game, Lucy. My father means to run your father out of business. I could tell you it’s not right or
it isn’t fair, but it doesn’t make any difference. And if delaying only means you’ll keep playing dirty tricks, then can you blame us?”

“How could you?” The words came out in a whisper that ripped into my heart.

“Lucy, I’m sorry.”

“But—you can’t do that!”

“I think . . . in fact, that we did.” All legal and proper. That’s what the lawyer had been for.

Her chin trembled for just a moment. And then she lifted it, nostrils flaring.

“But I agree with you. It
was
dirty and underhanded.” It didn’t hurt to admit to what was true, did it? I stepped closer. “And if Stix signed the contract, I wonder how many others did too?”

“No one else but Stix refused their deliveries.”

“
This
week.”

Her brow furrowed for a moment; then she looked at me through narrowed eyes. “Why are you telling me all this? Why are you being nice to me?”

“There’s more to life than winning. And I don’t want to win anything this way.” It was bad enough that City Confectionery would be given to me once my father had bought it. And it was bad enough that Alfred was sneaking around with Evelyn behind Lucy’s back. How much worse could things get? I nodded and then stepped around her.

She touched my arm with her hand. “Thank you.”

I couldn’t even bring myself to look at her. “Please, don’t thank me.” I didn’t deserve it.

I stayed with the car until after Nelson had parked it in the garage, and then I helped him pull the cover up over it. As I
walked back to the house, I caught sight of Jennie as she went in the back door.

Wondering why she was out so late, I followed her inside and then up the back stairs. A nice girl like her shouldn’t be out alone after dark. I caught up with her as she opened the door to her room.

“Mr. Clarke!” As she put one hand to her chest, the other shoved something into her pocket. “You gave me a fright. Do you . . . do you need something?”

No. Yes. “I just . . .”

She took her hand from the doorknob and stood before me, hands folded in front of her.

“I’m sorry. Never mind.” She reminded me of my baby sister, and I’d just wanted to make sure she was all right. And to be honest, I’d wanted someone to talk to. A regular person. Someone who didn’t have to worry about dinners and balls and what people might say about her. But I’d forgotten that she hadn’t known me as Charlie; she only knew me as Charles. “Never mind. Enjoy the rest of your night. And be careful out there after dark.”

She bobbed her head before turning and slipping through her door. But not before I had a glimpse once more of what was inside: an iron bed and a dresser with a pitcher and basin. A small, threadbare rug on the floor. And all those fanciful flowers and wreaths she’d made of candy wrappers. Royal Taffy’s red mixed with Fancy Crunch’s green. There was more furniture and more warmth, more hope in that small room than there had been in the house where I’d grown up.

How was it right that a maid in my father’s house could look forward to a better future than either of my sisters would ever have? That she could hope for things from him—food, a bed, and board—that my sisters had never received.

Why was I so bent on staying here? Why didn’t I leave? I stood there at the top of the stairs and thought of doing just that. Why should I stay and help a man so bent on destroying others . . . even though he insisted he was just returning a favor?

Because he left.

I had to stay because he had gone. I had to prove to myself that I was worthy of his having stayed. If I could just—just be the son he’d needed. If I had been that son back then, maybe he would have stayed. That’s what I had always thought. That it was some fault in me that had driven him to leave.

But . . . that wasn’t what he’d said, was it? He said he’d thought I could do a better job than he had.

I hadn’t understood it when he’d said it, and I didn’t understand it now. The only way I could make sense of it was if I stayed. No matter what he asked, no matter what he planned. I’d just have to trust that he was telling the truth about returning that favor. But could I? Especially when it was hurting Lucy? Could I trust that he was telling me the truth?

I passed a quiet Wednesday morning reading to my father. When I went downstairs for lunch, Sam was in the kitchen talking to Mrs. Hughes. He was leaning against the counter as he ate. “It’s the strangest thing!” He was shaking his head as he bit into an apple.

“What is?” There was a terrible feeling of doom in my stomach and an insistent prickling at the back of my neck.

He glanced over his shoulder at me and then straightened, setting the apple down on his plate. “Everyone’s returning their Fancy Crunch orders.”

“Returning . . . ?”

“Pa says they keep insisting that we’re using spoiled ingredients.”

What? “But . . . we aren’t! We never did. Not even back before the law changed when we could have.” It was something Father would never do.

Sam shrugged and went back to eating his apple. “Of course not. But that’s what everyone’s saying.”

“Did you ask why?”

“Why what?”

“Why they’re all saying that.”

“No.” He took another bite, breaking the skin with a crunch. He chewed for a moment, then swallowed. “They must have heard it from someone, though.”

Someone? I knew exactly who that someone was. Desolation swirled through my chest, stealing the wind from my lungs. What was there to hope for now? If everyone thought our candy was spoiled, then it was just a matter of time before they stopped placing orders altogether.

Of all the dirty, no-good tricks! Hell was too good for Charlie Clarke. I hoped there was someplace even darker and hotter and more miserable for his soul to go and rot. If he thought that this was going to make me stop fighting, then he was sorely mistaken!

By the time Mr. Arthur picked Mother and me up for the electricity company’s annual ball, I was furious . . . though not so furious that I failed to note there was something different about Mr. Arthur. He seemed . . .
more
 . . . somehow. More interesting, more vital. Even . . . was he more handsome? I took a long look at him. Definitely more handsome. As he escorted us up the walkway, his step was almost jaunty.

Unfortunately, he left me little time to admire him in close proximity, his attention being devoted to the details of the evening. There was to be an electrical light demonstration interspersed with the dances. But even his neglect was benign. And he was ever the gentleman. He’d invited Charlie to the ball in
order for me to have some company. And no matter how much I protested, Mr. Arthur insisted that Charlie and I dance.

When Charlie offered me his arm, I must admit that I might have taken hold of it with a bit of unladylike violence. Once on the dance floor, he looked down at me as if the whole world was coming down on his head instead of mine.

How dare he look more miserable than I felt!

I felt like pinching him, but I rapped a gloved fist against his chest instead.

He glanced down at me as if startled.

“How can you be so—so—
mean
?” I’d wanted another word, a better word, but there was just no other description for the way that he was being. And once I said it, tears began to leak from my eyes.

He’d stepped away from me, and the hand that had held mine was now cupping my elbow. “Oh . . . Come on, don’t—!” He looked around the room wildly as if he didn’t know what to do with me.

“I am
not crying
!” I swiped at my tears with a crooked finger. How could my tears betray me at a time like this! “I’m not like you, Charlie Clarke. The company is all that we have. It’s all
I
have. You father has piles of money, and he’s earned it all from
our candy
. Can’t you just leave us alone? How much more do you have to take from us?”

“I don’t—”

One of those colored searching lights of Mr. Arthur’s electrical demonstration found us. In that sudden bright clarity, Charlie’s features were frozen in relief. As soon as it moved on, he grabbed me and tried to pull me off the ballroom floor. But I had tired of being pulled around by him. “Will you stop!” I wrested my arm away.

But he seized me and dragged from the dance floor anyway.
And then he pulled me to his chest and kissed me, stealing my breath just as surely as his father had stolen Royal Taffy.

I broke away, my thoughts in a whirl. What had we been talking about? I’d completely forgotten. “Wh-why did you do that?” And why were my hands clenching his lapels?

“Because I wanted you to stop talking for just one minute.” There was a look of astonishment and wonder in his eyes. He put a hand to my face and caressed my cheek.

Something had gone wrong with my ears. I couldn’t quite understand what he was saying. “I didn’t—I mean—”

“Hush. Just . . . stop.” He bent once more, and this time I stood on my toes to meet him halfway.

I’d never imagined that a kiss could be so delectable. So sweet. I forced my hands to let go of his coat, but instead of returning to my side, they wandered up to his hair. And then around to the back of his neck. Oh my! “Charlie . . . ?”

He stopped, pressing his forehead against mine for a moment, looking into my eyes. “If it’s all the same to you, I think it’s better if we just don’t talk.”

“I . . . I couldn’t agree more.” I was still having trouble breathing. But for once, a Clarke had stolen something from me that I didn’t care if I ever got back.

“Maybe if you just—” We both spoke the words at the same time. And we both had the same air of desperation. And regret.

He gathered me fiercely into a tight embrace, and when he released me he took a step back, holding up a hand to stop me when I would have followed. “I’m trying to do the right thing.”

I was too. There was his father to think of. And my father. And—oh my goodness!—Mr. Arthur. My hands flew to my cheeks as I considered what it was that we’d just done. What I’d just done.

There was agony and misery mixing in his eyes. “I just wish that our fathers—that you—that I—”

I dared to look at him again, and in doing so I discovered that whatever had just happened was something I desperately wanted to happen again. I closed the distance between us and pressed a kiss to his cheek. How could it be that I had finally discovered what it was that I wanted? And that this, too, was an impossible wish? “We can’t do this, Charlie. There are too many things between us.”

He smiled then, but it was sad and somber. As if he were saying good-bye. “Don’t worry. I hardly think a man with a past like mine has a chance with a girl like you.”

He flinched as I laid a hand on his arm, and then he backed away. When his eyes met mine again, the window to his soul had been curtained.

I settled myself into one of the plump, upholstered chairs at the club while I waited for Alfred on Thursday, but it wasn’t very comfortable. Nothing had been comfortable since I’d kissed Lucy Kendall at the ball. Alfred Arthur might be kind of stuffy, and I suspected he might be spending too much time with Evelyn, but he was the one engaged to Lucy. Not me. And no matter how I felt about her, I had no right to even
think
about kissing her. Even back when I’d worked for Manny, I’d never been good at stealing things. And I wasn’t about to start now.

But really, there were some things a man just couldn’t bear. Was it my fault I thought of caramel every time I saw her? Or that she had lips that just begged to be kissed?

I got up and grabbed at a newspaper someone had left lying around, and there was Lucy’s picture on the inside page. Why did she have to be so pretty? And so pigheaded? And why did she keep clinging to her company? Couldn’t she see that City Confectionery could never succeed? Standard was too big, and
my father was too stubborn. The only move left for her was to admit defeat. If she’d just give in, then maybe we could be friends again.

Friends—and
nothing more
!

No meetings, no dances, and definitely no more kisses.

Her picture in the newspaper seemed to turn and glare at me. I closed the paper, folded it, and tossed it onto the table bedside the chair.

“Ah! I thought that was you.”

I glanced up to find Alfred heading toward me.

“I need you to come with me.”

“Sure.” I got to my feet. We were supposed to have lunch together. And from now on, I was determined to be a better friend. The best friend a man could have. Even though he didn’t deserve the girl he was going to marry. Not with the way he’d been seeing Evelyn. But then, he hadn’t been the money boy for a man like Manny White. And he hadn’t stood by and watched while a man got murdered. He deserved Lucy more than I did.

Alfred nodded over toward the entrance.

I headed out at a fast pace. I was more than ready to leave.

Alfred caught up with me. “I have something to tell you.” There was a set to his jaw that I didn’t much like.

I stopped. “Do I have to beat you up again?”

His eyes twinkled as a corner of his mouth turned up. “You never beat me up in the first place, if I remember correctly.”

I should have. I would have if he hadn’t jumped around like one of those circus kangaroos. I sighed as I followed him out the door and into his car.

He directed the driver to Forest Park. “I wanted you to know that I’ve come to a decision about Lucy.”

So had I. She was probably going to be the death of me. “And?”

“I’m going to tell Evelyn good-bye. It’s the wise thing to do.”

I should have felt relieved, but all I felt was guilt. I’d kissed his best girl at his own company’s party.

“I just . . . wanted you to know.”

I nodded.

“Because Lucy ought never to know.”

“Well, I’m not going to tell her!” In fact, I’d planned never to speak to her again.

Alfred knocked on the glass that separated us from the driver. The car stopped and the driver got out and came around to open my door.

I looked at Alfred. “That’s it?”

He nodded. “That’s it. I hope you won’t mind . . .” He inclined his head toward the clubhouse, back in the distance. “I don’t quite feel up to lunch today.”

I gave him a nod as I got out, then watched the car drive away. And I couldn’t help but feel like he was taking a piece of my heart with him as he went.

I skipped lunch; I wasn’t hungry anyway. Word must have got around that I was back at the office, because Mr. Mundt came to get me for a meeting. I tried to concentrate on what my father was saying, but I kept seeing Lucy’s eyes. Those big blue eyes that had gone soft and starry when I’d kissed her.

And I kept thinking about her mouth.

I must have kissed at least a dozen girls, but none of them had ever had lips as sweet as hers. If I closed my eyes and thought back to that night, like I’d done a hundred times since, I could still taste them. And smell her. And remember what it felt like to hold her in my arms.

But I shouldn’t have done it.

Not when she was engaged to Alfred. There were some things a fellow just shouldn’t do.

But it was something I could always remember. A thought to get me through the long, dark nights. I used to imagine a table filled with food when I was a boy. And a warm, crackling fire. Now I could imagine Lucy with her beautiful hair and her glittering blue eyes. And I could think of pulling her into my arms and kissing her as if I had a right to.

I fiddled with the pencil that sat in front of me, picking it up and balancing it atop my hand. But why was I wasting so much time thinking about her? I’d never had a chance with her anyway.

If only we could go back to the way it was before, at that first ball. And at the air meet. Before she’d known I was a Clarke and I’d found out she was a Kendall. But why regret what could never have been? I couldn’t have hidden my past from her forever. And once she found out, I’d be sitting here, just the same.

I slammed a fist down on the pencil, making it cartwheel over my hand.

“Charles!” At the sound of my father’s voice, my vision of Lucy vanished.

“What?”

“Is this not important to you?”

I blinked, trying to clear thoughts of Lucy from my mind. “I’m sorry. Of course, it’s important.”

“So what are your thoughts?”

My thoughts? He wanted to know my thoughts? “Well . . . I . . .” I grabbed hold of the pencil and tapped it a couple times against the desk. “I . . . agree.”

“About which?”

“Both . . . ?”

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he grunted. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I am?” I wondered exactly what it was that I was right about. Did it really matter? “I am. Of course, I am.”

“You’re thinking the end justifies the means? Is that what you’re saying?”

Was I? Had I? I nodded.

“We’ll just have to keep in mind that I’m doing this as a favor. It might seem underhanded. It’s a bit sneakier than I’m used to. I would prefer, of course, to just have this business all over and done with. It’s costing me every day this drags on! But you and I both know the truth. Even if it looks like . . . well, it’s not
il
legal. People are free to make their own choices, aren’t they?”

“I’m sure—”

“It isn’t our fault if their choices make life easier for us.”

“I don’t think—”

“The company fell into my lap to begin with, so we’ll just call this whole thing good luck and make the most of it, then.”

Make the most of what?

“It’s a good idea, I think. No reason why we shouldn’t do it ourselves. For a limited time. Wouldn’t want to do it forever. We’d run ourselves right out of business.”

“Can I ask . . . what exactly is it that we’re going to do?”

“We’re going to do what you suggested.”

Had
I suggested something? “I don’t quite—”

“We’re going to lower the price of Royal Taffy, just like City Confectionery is going to do with Fancy Crunch.”

“But if they’re already going to do it . . . ?” What was the point?

“Exactly. That’s why your idea was so clever. They’re going to lower their price to four cents. We lower ours to three and we undercut them. Don’t know if I would have been brave enough to do it myself. I hate to do business that way, but when you’re right, you’re right. No use in prolonging the inevitable. Let’s
get this done and over with. And then you can have City Confectionery for yourself.”

I knew my mouth was hanging open, but I couldn’t seem to close it. I’d never suggested that. I couldn’t have! “You mean—”

He winked at me. “It’s a winning strategy, son. With your plan, we’ll finally be able to put this rivalry to rest.”