The Sapphire Brooch Katherine Logan (best beach reads TXT) 📖

Someone behind Braham cleared his throat and said, “Excuse me, Major.”

Braham turned on his heels, quick as a panther, to find Nicolay several feet away holding out an envelope with a shaking hand. “Yes, what is it, John?”

“The president would like you to deliver this to Secretary Seward.”

Braham backed away from Charlotte and took the envelope, giving it a cursory glance. He made a rough noise in his throat. His jaw muscles bulged, his limbs trembled, but he kept his temper in check. He didn’t want to leave the White House unless it was to guard the president, but he couldn’t explain why to Nicolay. He paused for a moment, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth as though to rid himself a lingering rancid taste.

“Why me?” Braham asked.

Nicolay flinched slightly at this; his lips compressed. “You were with him at the War Department this evening and can answer the secretary’s questions, if he has any.”

Braham frowned, contriving to look menacing as he once again gathered his hat and gauntlets from the table. “Don’t let the president leave for the theater until I return.”

“I’ll ask him, but I can’t make any guarantees,” Nicolay said.

The color had left Charlotte’s face, and she stared at Braham with a glint in the dark blue of her eyes, watching intently, brow creasing with new worry. “Lewis Powell will try to murder Seward tonight,” she told him quietly. Tiny pinpoints of perspiration glistened on her forehead, reflected by the light of the hall sconces. “Be careful.”

Braham’s narrow-eyed glance roamed hungrily over her slender form. How could he still desire her with such intensity? He had taken her several times during the night and again early this morning. If they were in his bedroom, he would have her once again. He swallowed, worked his jaw, and finally with effort asked, “How’d ye get here?”

“I walked. I’m only across the street. Go on.”

“I’ll go with ye to the corner.”

They reached the front door of the White House and a soldier jogged up to meet them, wearing an urgent expression on his flushed face. He took a moment to catch his breath, and then said, “Major, Secretary Stanton wants to see you right now, sir.”

“I’m on my way to Secretary Seward’s house. I’ll stop on the way,” Braham said.

The soldier saluted then ran back across the lawn, holding his hat firmly to his head.

Charlotte and Braham walked in silence side by side, barely touching. Her satin skirt swished about her legs, and the breeze blew tendrils of hair around her face. There was a small love bite on her neck where the muscle curved into the shoulder. The memory of morning light on her face, her lips, and nibbling on the silky flesh made him feel a bit wistful and reflective, in spite of his fears for Lincoln.

She glanced at him for a moment, and then her eyes traveled to some indeterminate spot to the side of him and grew distant, as if looking into the future. “If Lincoln dies tonight—”

“He won’t.”

“If Lincoln dies tonight,” she continued, “he’ll be remembered as the greatest president the country ever had. If you change history, you change how he’ll be remembered through the ages.”

A vein in Braham’s temple throbbed, and he fell silent, finally accepting he would be unable to persuade her to his position.

“The president’s party will fight him over policy, over reconstruction. Possibly, he could be impeached for overstepping executive powers, over passing amendments and laws, or blockading Southern ports. He’ll end his term battling criticism, to be remembered as a mediocre man and a mediocre president. You’ll rob him of his immortality. Is that what you want?” She let out a long, shuddering breath, her shoulders sagging. The last vestiges of her focused determination seemed to crumble and fall away. “There’s nothing more I can say.”

While he stood alone, watching her, she went across the street to the townhouse. Each step she took carried her farther away from him. The bond they had created stretched to the point of breaking.

When the front door closed, he swallowed with regret, but there was nothing to swallow. His mouth was dry and scratchy as sand. He bit the inside of his cheek trying to summon a little saliva. Nothing. A sudden instinct engulfed him, as if the blazing roof he had rescued Charlotte from was about to crash down on his head.

68

Washington City, April 14, 1865

When Braham arrived at Secretary Stanton’s office in the War Department, the door was closed. A loud, unrecognizable voice could be heard through the walls. He heaved an impatient sigh, blowing air through pursed lips. Should he wait or go on to Seward’s house? Stanton was the most powerful man in Washington, aside from the president, and he was also Braham’s boss.

He decided to spend a few minutes there, and give his mind time to search the untidy cupboards in his brain for the information he’d read months ago in Jack’s books about Lincoln. Large blocks of text simply remained unrecoverable, specifically the exact sequence and time of the evening’s events. This had never happened to him before. He blamed the unusual memory loss on the intensity of his shock when he read the account of the assassination. He had remembered Secretary Seward was attacked around the same time, but he couldn’t recall if it happened before Lincoln was shot or afterward.

The thrum of conversation in Stanton’s office showed signs of strain and then went quiet. He would give the secretary five more minutes before he would have to leave for Seward’s house. Braham lingered in front of the window, hands braced on each side of the frame, and gazed out over the White House. A torchlight procession of employees from the Navy Yard was marching by singing “Rally Round the Flag.” He rocked to and fro on the balls of his feet, as if readying for a quick getaway.

Only a handful of people knew what was