Unrivaled (33 page)

“I heard it.” I walked past her toward the front hall.

“Don’t you want any breakfast?”

I wasn’t hungry.

“You’re mean and bossy and selfish. . . . You’ve never been nice.”

Winnie was right. I’d been all those things. I still was. What I’d felt as I saw the smoldering ruins was triumph, not pity. Only it wasn’t a victory. The Clarkes weren’t the villains in all of this. My father was.

And so was I.

We were two candies pressed in the same mold who wanted to blame others for their failings. I took after my father in more ways than I had ever wanted to. But now, I could finally see the truth. My mother was the hero of my family. She’s the only one of the three of us who had always maintained a firm grip of the possible, who had never stooped to lying, cheating, or sabotage . . . until I’d forced her to.

I begged off going to church that morning, saying I wasn’t feeling well. But the fire was all anyone wanted to talk about. Mother mentioned it in passing when she came up to see me after church. And that’s all Sam could speak of later that afternoon when he came over with his father to have dinner with us. By then, nerves had driven me from my room down to the parlor. I couldn’t stand to be alone with my thoughts any longer.

“It burned all the way to the ground. You should see it, Lucy!” He whispered the words as we ate dessert.

I had.

“I doubt they’ll be able to rebuild.”

That’s what I’d wanted, wasn’t it? I’d wanted Standard to be destroyed.

“It’s uncanny, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“That fire. It’s like God heard your prayers or something.”

After Sam and his father left, I wrapped the fur coat around me and headed out the door. I needed . . . something.

I needed not to be myself anymore. I needed to change.

Though I had no place to go, I struck off down the street and out of Vandeventer Place. Before I knew where I was going, I was walking up the steps of the church.

It’s not that I wanted to talk to God.

That’s what I’d been trying hard not to do ever since I’d left for the Continent. In all of the churches that I’d visited in Europe, in all the cathedrals that I’d seen, I’d made a point of ignoring the divine. If God had given me such a passion and talent for something I wasn’t allowed to do, I’d decided He deserved it. But it turned out my passion was misguided, and I didn’t have all that much talent for making candy anyway.

Everything I’d thought His fault was actually mine.

I paused at the top of the steps. When I couldn’t think of anywhere better to go, I opened the door and went inside. And then I slid into the back pew; I didn’t have any right to sit up closer. Not until I set a few things straight.

I’d thought the church a safe bet for some peace and quiet. Things were glum back at the house. The fire summed up my life to this point. All my hopes, all my dreams, all my hard work come to nothing.

Mrs. Kendall and my father. Who would have thought it?

Maybe I should have put my efforts into helping Lucy and her company instead of trying to destroy them. At least I would have been helping an honorable cause.

Father had vowed to catch whoever had set fire to the factory, but having seen the factory from the floor, I knew there were a thousand ways a fire could have started that had nothing to do with criminals or arson.

I heard the door to the church scrape open and was surprised, a moment later, to see Lucy slide into the pew opposite mine. I was going to say something, but then I saw tears making a trail down her cheek.

I’d dried those tears once, but I had no right to anymore.
Not when she had looked at me with such shock and betrayal before she’d run from the club.

She folded her arms atop the pew in front of her and rested her head on them with a sob. “I give up!”

“So do I.”

She gave a cry as she jumped. “Charlie Clarke.” Her protest wasn’t very loud, and it wasn’t very heated. In fact, she seemed kind of tired. And worn.

“Sorry.”

“Are you . . . are you following me?”

That made me smile. “No. Can’t a person talk to God in private? Not that it will do any good. Talking to Him, that is.”

Those tears kept snaking down her cheeks.

I dug a handkerchief from my pocket and slid down the pew, passing it across the aisle toward her. “It looks like you’ve won after all. We’re through.”

The news didn’t seem to cheer her. “What are you going to do?”

I shrugged. “Something different. Head out west.” Go somewhere no one knew me. Find someplace to start over . . . again.

“Do you know what happened?”

I shook my head. “My father thinks someone set the fire, but my bet’s on a spark from one of the machines.” I left my pew and went to sit beside her. “What’s wrong?”

She turned her head from me. “
You’re
asking
me
what’s wrong? When it’s your company—your whole future—that’s been burned to the ground?”

I reached out and turned her chin toward me.

“Can’t you even be mean when you have the right to be?” A tear slid down her cheek. “I accused you of such terrible things. But I’ve done worse—I’ve been worse—than you ever have. You only watched while someone died. I actually wanted to see you destroyed. I did! You were only suspected of being a criminal;
I would have turned myself into one given half the chance. I’ve been so selfish and mean and . . . just plain awful. And I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve any of it. And neither did your father. Ten years I’ve spent hating him for stealing our candy, and all for no good reason.”

“Same here. I thought, after he left that day, that my father didn’t care about me. I thought he didn’t love me. But he did. I’ve spent so many years hating him . . . and I just . . . can’t anymore.”

She wiped at her nose with the handkerchief. “But now you have him . . . and everything else.”

“I did. But the taffy’s gone. It’s over.”

“It’s not that difficult to make.”

I shook my head. “It was made in such big batches. And now, without the machines . . .”

“Can’t he buy new ones?”

“Well, sure. And he will. Insurance should cover it, but the old machines were . . . old.”

“Just ask them to be re-made. Shouldn’t the company that made them before be able to do it again?”

“The company’s gone out of business. So new machines would have to be found. Different ones.” At least that’s what my father had said. “Different kinds, different sizes.”

“They’d still make fine taffy,” she insisted.

“But how would we know much of the ingredients to use? If the drums and vats are different sizes . . .”

“Just use the recipe.”

“Nobody knows where it is. And besides, when your father created it, he wasn’t using any machines. He was working with pots and ovens and people.”

Lucy straightened, brows bent. “Then how were you making it?”

“I don’t know.” I’d never gotten involved with the actual process. “Everybody just did what they’d always been doing, I guess . . . and now, with everything ruined . . . Say! You don’t think your father still has—”

She shook her head. “He wouldn’t have the recipe. And besides, he said he’d never make it again. And now he can’t.”

“But maybe he could remember. Maybe he could tell you and—”

“He can’t even get up from bed. How could he make a batch of taffy? Or the five or six he’d need to recreate it?”

“I just wish . . . if we could figure out how to make the taffy—”

Lucy suddenly rose from the bench and pushed past me, handkerchief to her face. “I’m sorry, Charlie. For everything.”

I’d had Nelson drive me to the church, but I told him to go on home. I wanted to walk. Halfway home, an idea came to me. It was a long shot, but I hoped it might just work. When I reached Vandeventer Place, I turned onto it. I needed to talk to Lucy.

The maid answered my knock and invited me in. It didn’t take long for Lucy to appear at the top of the stairs. As she came down, I could see she wasn’t crying anymore, though her eyes were still red. When I explained to her what I wanted, she only blinked as if she didn’t understand what I was asking. “You want me to what?”

“I want you to figure out the recipe for Royal Taffy. I know you can do it. Please? You once told me you could make anything. And make it even better than it had been before.”

“I don’t know, Charlie. . . .”

“Don’t you know how to make taffy?”

Her shoulders dropped. “You tasted the result of my last attempt to create a candy.”

I took her hand in mine. “Please, Lucy. I know you can do it. I need you to do it. I’m begging you. Regardless of your personal feelings for me and for Standard . . . you’re our only hope. You could save it all. You could save 
me
.”

Those last words seemed to reach her. “I’ll try.” She squared her shoulders as her chin tipped up. “I’ll do my best. For you.”

I wanted to reach out and kiss her, but she had already agreed to do me one favor. I couldn’t bring myself to press her for two.

My heart stuttered at Charlie’s words and then it started once more at a gallop. Make a taffy? I’d always longed to make a taffy, but it was the one thing that had been forbidden when my father lost the company.

After Charlie left, I sent the coachman down to the confectionery for Sam. While I was waiting for him, I gathered all the ingredients that I would need. By the time he appeared I was ready.

“I need your help, Sam.”

“Now, Lucy, Jennie’s made me promise not to do anything else underhanded. I won’t—”

“I’m not going to ask you to steal anything. I don’t want you to break any laws. I just. . . .” I wanted it to be like old times again. “Would you help me make some candy?”

His face brightened. “Caramels?”

“No. Taffy.”

“Taffy?” He spoke the word slowly, sounding it out, as if it were a trap. “You mean . . . like . . .”

“Yes. Like
Royal
Taffy.”

Father’s recipe had been a cross between butter taffy and pulled taffy. It had the mouthwatering, creamy taste of the former and the chewy texture of the latter, but the combination meant I might have to do a lot of experimenting. I mixed sugars, water, and vinegar in a big pot. Once it had started to boil, I added some butter. When it was done, I poured it onto a buttered pan and sprinkled some vanilla flavoring on top. Once it cooled enough to handle, I buttered my hands and then gathered it up and gave it to Sam.

He stared at it for a moment before he tried to hand it back. “This doesn’t look like Royal Taffy.”

“You have to pull it first. Don’t you remember?” I pointed to some hooks that had been fastened to the wall years before.

He threw it over one of them, pulled to stretch it, then swung the long ribbon up to re-loop over the hook—looping and pulling and looping and pulling until it stiffened and lightened in color. And by then it was cool enough to taste.

Crossing my fingers behind my back for luck, I lifted a piece to my mouth, closed my eyes, and took a bite.

It was nothing like a Royal Taffy. Wrong taste, wrong texture. “Throw it away.”

“Throw—? What! Why?” He was already chewing on a big hunk of it as he wiped sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Throw it away. It’s not right.”

I made five batches of taffy that afternoon, varying the amounts of white and brown sugar, adding more butter to some, using less in others. But they were all wrong. I’d finally gotten the texture, but I hadn’t yet discovered how to match the taste.
There was something distinctive about Royal Taffy that my own taffy lacked. There was a sweetness to it that I couldn’t seem to duplicate. It wasn’t about sugar. I’d tried adding even more, but it had only made everything worse.

The next morning, I woke determined to fix my recipe. The texture was perfect. More than perfect. If I couldn’t taste anything, I would swear I was making Royal Taffy. But the proof was in the taste, and I hadn’t yet mastered it.

It looked right, it felt right, it even smelled right.

But something was off, and I had to figure out why. Duplicating Royal Taffy was the only way I knew to show Charlie how truly sorry I was about everything.

The kitchen door slammed as I was eating breakfast.

Sam!

I excused myself from Mother and went back into the kitchen to catch him before he disappeared.

He took one look at me and went right back outside.

I went after him. “Sam—I need your help this morning. I want to make more—”

“No. No more taffy!”

“I really need you, Sam. I can’t pull it by myself.”

He took his hat from his head. “I’ve more work to do than candy making. I’m paid to get things done around here.”

“Please, Sam. I’m desperate.”

“My arms won’t work anymore! And I still have to muck out the stables; I was supposed to do it yesterday. I’m not some machine, Lucy, I’m a man.” With that, he clapped his hat back on his head and stalked out toward the stable.

I went back into the kitchen. He’d have to come into the house sooner or later. And when he did, I’d ask him again to help me.

I peeled some potatoes and chopped some carrots for Mrs.
Hughes. But after that, I gathered the ingredients for taffy again and started once more from the beginning.

I’m not a machine.

That much was true. Only a machine would never tire of pulling taffy. I’d always quickly wearied of it as a child, back when my father still made the candy.

It had been magical back then, seeing those batches turned out of the copper kettles and the workers pulling it out into ropes. Even though I always buttered my hands before working with the taffy, I used to lick my palms afterward, enjoying the mix of my salty sweat and the sweet candy.

As I thought about my candy making days, back when my father had been well, I felt a smile lift the corners of my mouth. I closed my eyes, and I could almost taste the product of our time together.

My eyes flew open. That was it! Sam was right. He was a man, not a machine. That was the whole problem. I stepped out onto the back porch. “Sam!”

This time there came no footsteps in response to my call. No answer to my plea.

I stepped from the back porch and out into the yard. “Sam?”

“I’m not coming, Lucy.” His cry drifted out from the corner of the house.

“Sam—I figured it out! You have to help me.”

“Jennie’s waiting for me. I told her I’d take her out for a soda. I’ll be back later. I can help you then.”

“But—this is more important! I need you now.”

He peered at me from the corner. “There’s nothing more important than my Jennie.”

His
Jennie? “What am I supposed to do?”

“You got along just fine without me on that long trip you
took. I expect you’ll get along just fine without me now.” He disappeared.

Frustrated and determined, I turned on my heel and hurried inside. I needed help, and I needed it now. Running upstairs, I grabbed my hat.

“Lucy?” Mother called as I ran out the front door. “Your father! Be quiet.”

“I have to do something. I’ll be back.” I shoved the door closed with my foot as I pulled on my gloves.

I followed Sam to the Clarke house. While he went around to the back, I walked up the steps to the front. A butler opened the door at my knock. I put my card into the silver tray he held out, then stepped into the front hall.

“Mr. Clarke, please. Mr.
Charlie
Clarke.”

His brows quirked, but he showed me to a parlor, bowing as he took his leave. I sat on a chair and passed the time looking at the room around me. I had always thought Vandeventer Place the ultimate in addresses, but I realized as I sat there that time and progress had conspired to surpass it. The homes here at Portland Place had doubled in both size and elegance.

Fifteen minutes passed before Charlie appeared. I marked each minute by the mantel clock.

“Lucy?”

Thank goodness! I was beginning to think he might not be home. “I need your help.”

“Then I’m at your service.”

“Come with me. And please don’t wear anything you don’t want dirtied.”

“So now you want me to . . . ?”

“Here.” I handed him two sheets of cellophane that I’d rubbed
with sweet butter. “Wrap them around your hands and then pull the taffy from those two hooks.” I gestured toward them with a lift of my chin. I was measuring out ingredients to boil up another batch.

“I don’t know how.” He was just standing there looking at me as if I’d asked him to leap over the moon.

“Then you have no business selling candy, Charlie Clarke!” I took the cellophane from him and picked up the lump of taffy, looping it over one of the hooks. Then I pulled, hard. It stretched out into a long rope. I swung it around like a jump rope to loop it over the hook again. “Like that. You’ll have to do it until the color lightens.” I left the taffy hanging there and handed him the cellophane.

“Doesn’t look that hard.”

Ten minutes later, he was puffing and panting, wiping the sweat from his brow with a swipe of his forearm. “Tell me it’s almost done.”

“It’s almost done.”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“No.”

“I can see why we had machines to do this. How much longer?”

“A couple more pulls.”

He pulled once. Twice.

“Now three more.”

“If you weren’t doing me such a big favor, I’d have left by now.”

I let him pull for a few more minutes and then stopped him mid-pull. “It’s done.” I stood on tiptoe and took it down from the hooks. Putting in on the table, I patted and smoothed it. And then I cut it, forming it into Royal Taffy-shaped pieces. I wanted so much for it to be right! I handed him one. “Try it.”

“Don’t you want to go first?”

I shook my head. I was too afraid that I would taste what I wanted to taste instead of what was.

He bit into it and then pulled. The taffy trailed long threadlike strings as he pulled it from his mouth. He closed his eyes as he chewed. A look of triumph flashed across his face and then relief relaxed his features. He opened his eyes. “You did it!” He passed the rest of the piece to me.

I took a bite.

It felt right.

I chewed. Swallowed.

It tasted right too!

“I did it!”

With a whoop, he embraced me. For just a moment, I enjoyed the feel of his arms around me, but then I pushed him away. I didn’t deserve his thanks or admiration. I didn’t deserve anything.

I sent Charlie home with the promise that I would transcribe the recipe. After checking and re-checking the amounts that I’d used, I wrote it down using proportional measures. That way, no matter the size or capacity of the machines, it would always taste the same.

I went to see Father before dinner.

He smiled when he saw me and put aside the book he had been reading. “I never had much time for books before.” His smile was apologetic.

“It’s the third one I’ve seen you with this week.”

He held it up so I could view the cover.
Tom Swift and His Airship
. “It’s difficult to stop.” He placed it on the table next to a pitcher of water. “You seem distracted lately, Sugar Plum.” His glance was fixed to my cuff.

I looked down and saw a splotch of taffy clinging to it.

“I’ve done something, Papa. Said some things. And now I don’t know how to fix them.”

“A candy coating covers a multitude of sins.”

I wished it were that easy. “But what if . . . I’ve gone too far? What if I’ve done something . . . bad? Denied forgiveness and understanding to people who truly deserved it?”

“Well . . . if you’ve reached the hard-crack stage, there’s no point in trying to get back to firm-ball.”

No. Nothing could be the same between Charlie and me, or between my mother and me, as it had been before. “Do you think a person can do something bad enough that they can’t ever be forgiven?”

He sighed. “Well, now . . . I don’t know. God, for instance—He can forgive anything.”

“Do you really think so? Truly?”

“He’s supposed to love us. Forgiving comes with the loving, to my way of thinking.”

“I’ve never . . . I mean . . . how can you
know
that He does? What if things don’t make any sense? What if there’s no way to make a happy ending out of how I’ve acted? Or what I’ve done?”

“A good candymaker can use almost anything, can’t he? Just because you’ve got sugar and butter doesn’t mean you have to make a caramel. Why can’t you make something else? And besides, who’s to say a caramel is better than a brittle?”

But I liked caramels. I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. My dear, sweet Papa. It used to be that candy could solve all my problems.

“You’re frowning.”

“Not everything has to do with candy.” I’d spent a lot of time wishing Charlie weren’t a Clarke. For the first time, I could remember, I wished I weren’t a Kendall.

I made another batch of taffy that night, after everyone had gone to bed. I owed the Clarkes something more than a recipe. The recipe was theirs by right. If I wanted to make a true apology, I owed them something more. Something true. Something of myself. And like Father always said, a candy coating covered a multitude of sins.