Beyond All Dreams (33 page)

“Will you quit eating if I say she did?”

“No, I just want to know if I can expect to be poisoned.”

He kicked her under the table. “The two of you don't need to be enemies.”

“I know,” she admitted. “When will I hear wedding bells? And am I going to be invited to the ceremony?”

“Of course you are. We don't want to wait very long, so probably sometime this spring.” He rolled the ball of paper in
his hands, took careful aim, and lobbed it into the wastebasket, where it landed with a thud. “So, any plans on purchasing that ticket to the Yukon Territory?”

She looked up in surprise. So much had happened since she'd last seen Neville, and she realized he was still burning with curiosity about what caused the Zanettis to turn up alive and well in Canada.

And she could never tell him.

“No,” she said, scrambling for some explanation to account for her abrupt change of heart, but came up empty. This was a secret she would have to carry forever, and it wasn't going to be easy. “No, I'm not going to the Yukon.”

“Why not? Why do you look so skittish?”

Her mouth went dry, and she began fanning herself to cool the rush of heat flooding her body. She couldn't tell Neville the truth, but she couldn't lie to him either. She'd been wounded to the quick when Luke lied to her. His motives had been good, but she still wished he'd found another way.

“You found out what happened to the
Culpeper
!” Neville's voice was triumphant. He could always read her so easily, and his face glowed with excitement as he leaned forward and waited for her answer. “Well?”

She looked away from the anticipation on his face. “I can't tell you about it.”

“What do you mean you can't tell me about it?” he hollered. Anna dashed to slam the door, anxious to avoid even a word of this conversation from being overheard.

“Please don't yell in the library,” she said, still unable to meet his eyes.

“Anna, what happened? You've
got
to tell me.”

“I can't,” she said. “Please don't ask me. I wish I'd never seen that error in the
Culpeper
's report. I wish I'd never started
prowling around all this ancient history, because nothing good will ever come of it.”

Neville looked at her as though she'd grown a second head. From the time they were children, they had foraged through libraries on treasure hunts for arcane knowledge and answers to their incessant questions. The
Culpeper
's fate was the most fascinating quest they'd ever embarked upon, and he naturally wanted an explanation.

“That's all I can tell you. Please don't ask me about it again.”

Neville stared at her, dumbfounded. The waiting was endless, but she couldn't say anything. She'd sworn on the Bible to keep her silence, and the political situation with Spain was more precarious than ever before. And still Neville waited . . .

At last he closed his mouth, shifting in his chair and crossing his arms in frustration. “Okay, I'll back off.”

“
Thank you
,” she gushed, almost doubling over in relief. What a magnificent man Neville was. He respected her wishes, even though he was about to split at the seams with curiosity. She hadn't let Luke off the hook so easily. She'd hounded him relentlessly, pestering him with notes, following him down hallways and shouting questions at him. Thank heavens Neville was more respectful than she had been.

“Can I walk you home?” Neville asked.

She shook her head. “The lights are still on in the Capitol. I'd better stay in case they send over more requests for information.”

Neville finally left, and by eight o'clock the lights were beginning to dim at the Capitol. It was chilly and damp outside, and she pulled her coat tighter across her chest before heading to the streetcar stop on Second Avenue. Just ahead of her was St. Joseph's, the old red church standing in the shadow of the Capitol. It wasn't where Anna attended, but the doors were open and lights glowed inside. Tonight, more than ever, she
needed the simple spiritual comfort of falling to her knees in prayer.

Aside from a man kneeling in the front row, the church was empty. Just being inside the timeless sanctuary lent her a sense of comfort. The last few days had been full of anxiety, confusion, and despair, but peace descended on her as she slipped into a pew at the back of the church. She prayed for the leaders in both Spain and America. She prayed for the sailors of the USS
Maine
whose lives had just been lost, and for their wives and orphaned children who would soon be getting the news. She prayed for Luke.

The man on the front row rose and started walking down the aisle. Anna looked up and flinched. Lieutenant Rowland, the snarling naval officer who had first hounded her over the
Culpeper
, had never been a friend to her.

He caught her eye and paused. “Ma'am,” he said, then continued down the aisle. He was in full uniform and looked exhausted. In all likelihood he'd been in those tense Capitol meetings all day. She stood and intercepted him.

“Do you know anything?” she asked. “Is there going to be a war?”

“I'm not at liberty to share any information.” He tried to step around her, but then paused. “I'm sorry for the circumstances of our previous meetings. I didn't enjoy them any more than you did, but I understand that you've been fully apprised of the situation and have agreed to silence.”

He spoke softly, though his voice still echoed in the quiet of the church. Anna clenched her fists. Everything about keeping silent seemed wrong and disloyal, but she'd sworn on a Bible, and Luke had risked his career bringing her into a trusted circle of people capable of keeping the secret.

“Yes, I have.”

“I wish I could have been kinder, yet we couldn't risk the real story getting out. No one wants peace more than the men in uniform.”

He didn't wait for a reply. After he left the church, Anna slipped back into the pew and said a prayer for Lieutenant Rowland and for all the soldiers who might soon be called to duty.

But a small part of her wanted this war. It would mean revenge for her father and for the other men of the
Culpeper
and the
Maine
. And from what she'd learned over the past few hours about the strength of the Spanish military relative to the United States, she knew America would win.

And that small, hard piece of her wanted this war.

I
n the days that followed, the newspapers printed numerous lurid stories about the sinking of the
Maine
.
Luke held his breath each day as William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer waged a war in their respective newspapers to outdo each other reporting the grisly details of charred American bodies floating in the Bay of Havana. The
Maine
had a crew of 327 men, 260 of whom were killed in the initial blast. Speculation was rampant as to whether the explosion had been caused by a torpedo, an underwater mine, or sabotage, but all the newspapers agreed on one thing: Spain was to blame.

Luke was a member of the committee charged with drafting the government's official response to the attack, and additional members from the State Department and War Department were added, with dozens of support staff recruited to attend the meetings. They needed military counsel, language experts, note takers, and research support.

Luke intended to ask Anna's advice about a decent research librarian to attend their meetings. It was too much to hope that
she'd be willing to serve, but he trusted her recommendation more than one from a brand-new library director.

The freezing drizzle was a perfect reflection of his gloomy mood as he crossed the street to the new library. People from his district had been flooding him with cablegrams, letters, even telephone calls urging him to stand up for the downtrodden Cubans by supporting their rebellion against Spain. He listened, yet had no intention of moving toward armed conflict. Reason and logic were going to triumph over war and lawlessness. If he worked hard enough, the lion would lie down with the lamb. They lived in an era in which men of goodwill and honor would help build a world of rules and order and prosperity, but it would take courage to face down the war hawks.

He arrived at the map room to see Anna looking impossibly lovely in her prim white blouse and narrow black tie. She hadn't noticed him enter the room, which gave him a chance to savor the view as she scribbled notes at her desk.

“I see you found a new home for my dragon map,” he said, nodding to the antique map he gave her all those months ago. It hung right beside her desk, the whimsical dragon and frost monsters oddly incongruent among the scientific order in the rest of the map room.

“I can see it better from here.” Anna gave a fleeting smile of welcome, but didn't rise from behind her desk. There was still a distance between them, a sense of reserve he hadn't been able to crack. The fact that she'd hung the dragon map so close to her desk indicated she hadn't rejected him altogether, although she was hardly running to him with open arms. Not like that moonlit night in the breakfast room, when they held hands all night long. Had it only been a month ago? That magical night seemed like another lifetime now. A much better one.

He strode into the room. There were people studying at most
of the worktables, so he'd have to behave himself. He slid a chair over to sit beside her desk.

“I gave that map to
you
,” he said quietly. “The last thing I wanted was for you to donate it to a library that just spent more money on ostentatious displays of art than the Louvre.”

Anna fixed him with a polite smile. “How can I be of service today, sir?”

He glanced at the patrons a few yards away. They weren't paying any attention, so he leaned in closer to whisper, “You should know that I get a charge when you act all prim and efficient. Very fetching, O'Brien.”

She tried not to smile, but her eyes danced with humor. “If by
charge
you are referring to the interaction between negative and positive ions, I am surprised but pleased by your knowledge of electricity. If you are referring to lowly male impulses, I'm sadly disappointed.”

This razor-sharp intelligence and good humor were the reason he adored her. “Brace yourself for disappointment, Anna. My references are so lowly they're in a puddle at your feet. They also soar into the heavens. My feelings for you are to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.”

She cocked her head. “Are you plagiarizing Elizabeth Barrett Browning?”

“Shamelessly. She's a better poet than I.”

“How would I know?” she asked. “You've never shown me anything you wrote.”

“I respect you too much to inflict it on you.”

Now she was trying not to laugh. “Are you ever going to tell me why you've come? I'm hanging in breathless anticipation to hear something sensible from you.”

“Even if it relates to boring politics?”

“I've been enduring it all my professional career. Let's hear it.”

“The Foreign Affairs Committee needs a research consultant.” He explained how the committee was gathering support staff and their need for a librarian to attend the meetings. That librarian would record questions and forward them to the appropriate person at the library for additional research. “Can you recommend someone willing to sit through tedious meetings and who can be trusted not to blabber with journalists? We need complete confidentiality.”

Anna set her pen down, studying her hands clasped in her lap. At first he thought she was contemplating his question, but the longer he waited, it seemed as though she might actually be praying. He shifted a bit uncomfortably.

“The committee will need someone with cartographic expertise,” she finally said. “I'm the best person for that, and I've also got a sound head for general research. I'm your best bet.”

The last thing in the world he'd expected was for Anna to volunteer. “I thought you hated these things.”

“I do, but I don't want to be a coward about this. I want to do my part, so if you think I'm qualified, I'd be happy to serve.” Perspiration glistened on her skin, and she rubbed her throat. Luke knew what this was costing her, and it made him love her all the more.

“Thank you,” he said. “Just knowing you'll be in the room is going to make things a little easier.”

Anna couldn't sleep the night before her first meeting at the Foreign Affairs Committee. What foolish impulse prompted her to volunteer for this assignment? One moment Luke was outlining the most tedious and stressful tasks imaginable, and the next she had volunteered for service.

Her nerves were frayed as she walked down the marble corri
dor toward the meeting room, certain she'd be the most agitated, nervous, and uptight person in the room.

She was wrong. The air crackled with tension as senators, generals, congressmen, and diplomats filed into the chamber, taking their seats at an imposing table dominating the center of the room. Luke sat at the tightly packed table, papers and files mounded before him. There were shadows under his eyes, and the spark of energy that normally powered his every moment was missing. It was as if the stress of this assignment had aged him two decades. Briefly he made eye contact with her when she entered. His nod of greeting was swift as he turned his attention back to the general sitting beside him. Anna sat alongside other staff members in the chairs along the perimeter of the room.

Cornelius Jones called the meeting to order, and then the debate began. It immediately became clear that the committee was split down the middle as to support for the war. Anna took notes throughout the meeting, jotting down a huge range of research requests, and funneled the messages to congressional pages, who carried them across the street to be answered by librarians standing by to receive them. Throughout the day, the answers would be sent back to Anna, who then passed the information to the committee member who first asked the question.

The chair was hard and uncomfortable as the hours progressed, but Anna was too engrossed in the debate to care. The men around the table were all so well-spoken, and her opinion swayed with each new speaker. Luke proposed direct negotiations with Spanish officials, insisting that war should be a last resort. It was hard to see how anyone could disagree, until a general countered that the longer they delayed, the more time Spain had to strengthen their defenses in Cuba, and in the interest of sparing American lives they needed to move quickly.

As the day wore on, Anna's spirits began to wilt. Luke warned her that these meetings would last for a minimum of ten hours each day. There were a few breaks, but even during the reprieves the politicians broke into smaller groups and the negotiations continued. Anna stepped outside to take in a bit of sunlight and fresh air before going back into the windowless chamber for another round.

A book was sitting on her chair when she returned. Had one of the pages arrived with an answer to another research request? But when she picked up the thick volume, the title indicated it was an anthology of poetry. Flipping to the marked page, she read the underlined passage.

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will some new pleasures prove

Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,

With silken lines, and silver hooks.

John Donne, 1610

Her gaze flew to Luke at the main table, who winked at her. The whimsical passage was a fleeting glimpse of the beauty of the world, and it fueled Anna for the rest of the afternoon.

It was dark by the time the meeting adjourned for the night. The streetcars had stopped running, and Luke insisted on hiring a private carriage to take Anna directly home. She didn't quibble with him. The soft leather and scent of lemon wax was soothing as she climbed inside the carriage. Sitting opposite him on the gently rocking carriage, she passed the fat volume of poetry back to him.

“Thank you for the John Donne,” she said. “I marked a little Emily Dickinson in reply.”

“You did?” Luke grinned as he flipped the book open to the page she had marked. He had to tilt it to the window for the
streetlamps to illuminate the page. He must have already been familiar with the passage, for he nodded and smiled broadly the moment he saw it. For the first time that day, Anna saw a spark of energy galvanize Luke's body, driving out the day's tension.

“She had a way with words, didn't she?” Luke said as he closed the book. It had taken Anna her entire afternoon break to find the perfect passage, but she was glad she had. It had given Luke his only smile of the day.

That day set the tone for the next week. The meetings were filled with tension, frayed nerves, and tedium, while the periodic exchange of poems was a perfect way to quickly communicate. Luke's vast command of poetry helped him identify the perfect passage within moments. Anna took much greater care, usually spending her lunch hour flipping through the book until she landed on precisely the right passage. The verses Luke chose were typical Luke: flamboyant, reckless, and burning with the force of the sun. Anna's passages were cautious, more likely to speak of hope rather than the blaze of love.

She was particularly proud of the passage she found at the end of the committee's first week. She'd already taken her seat after the noontime break when Luke arrived at the table and saw the slim pamphlet by John Keats. He flipped it open to the marked passage:
The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved
by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the
obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things
that never were.