The Sunstone Brooch : Time Travel Romance Katherine Logan (no david read aloud TXT) 📖

had plenty of food to eat, a roof over her head, and a buffalo robe to keep her warm.

“You look beautiful,” JC said in a soulful tone. “There’s a glow about you this morning that I haven’t seen since your freshman year.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. An unfamiliar world stretched out in front of you, and you were in awe. Is that how you feel now, Ensley MacAndrew Williams?”

She’d been hoping the caffeine would wake her up, but JC’s comment did a fine job all by itself. “You forgot the Fraser part.”

“That’s just borrowed for convenience. It’s not who you are.”

Or who I’ll ever be.

She stopped rocking and strolled over to the edge of the porch, where she leaned against the railing, sipping the fortifying brew. “As far as the ‘beautiful’ comment, I’m not sure what to say.”

“‘Thank you’ will do.”

The melancholy in his tone was something she’d never heard from him before, and she wasn’t sure what caused it.

“Thank you. That was nice. I don’t think you’ve ever commented on my looks before.”

He looked away, toward the river. After a thoughtful pause, he looked at her again, squinting in the sunlight. “Are you sure? I remember one Christmas when you, George, and I were invited to a holiday party in Boston. You came down the stairs in a royal blue gown, and I nearly dropped to my knees. Surely I complimented you then.”

“Not that I recall. And a girl remembers stuff like that.” In fact, at the time, it hurt her feelings. She’d dressed with him in mind, and he didn’t even seem to notice. If he’d been about to drop to his knees, he hid it successfully behind a champagne flute.

She took another sip of coffee, letting go of that old rejection. “How late did you and TR stay up after I went to bed?”

“We’re still up, I’m afraid.”

“You never went to sleep?”

“Nope. And I haven’t stayed up all night talking about esoteric shit since I smoked pot in college.”

“Oh, wow! I don’t think I have, either, but I’m glad I didn’t try to hang in there with you guys. As soon as I climbed under that buffalo robe, I was a goner. What’d you talk about other than literature and hunting?”

“He talked. I listened, and occasionally he stopped to take a breath, which gave me a chance to slide in there with a question.”

Her ears perked. “And?”

JC chuckled. “I asked for his thoughts about Abraham Lincoln.”

She was now fully awake. “Really? What’d he say?”

“He talked about the first time he saw the late president.”

“How old was TR?”

“Six. TR was at his grandfather’s Union Square mansion, hanging out the window while Lincoln’s remains were paraded down the boulevard to the sound of pipes and muffled drums.”

“That would make quite an impression on a little boy.”

“I think TR was already well aware of Lincoln,” JC said. “According to TR, the Lincolns befriended and went to church with TR’s father during the Civil War. He said last night that Lincoln was his greatest hero and meant more to him than any other man in public life.”

JC glanced around, then leaned closer, lowering his voice. “As president, TR will keep Lincoln’s portrait in his office. In times of trouble, he’ll look at it and do what he believes Lincoln would have done.”

She dumped the dregs in her coffee cup on the ground and set the cup on the railing. “I bet you know tidbits like that about every president.”

“I do, except for the likes of Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Warren Harding, Franklin Pierce, and a couple of others who failed to safeguard America during a crisis or tainted the office with scandal or incompetence,” JC said. “I just finished reading a book on the presidents, so the abuses are fresh in my mind right now, but TR made the protection of human welfare his highest priority.”

“Probably thanks to Lincoln’s influence.”

“I think you’re right, but the biggest surprise was that TR isn’t a big Shakespeare fan.”

“Oh, but he is—or he will be,” Ensley said. “When he’s in his fifties and travels around Africa, he’ll have a collection of Shakespeare with him. He’ll write Henry Cabot Lodge and tell him that only a couple of Shakespeare’s plays ever appealed to him, but suddenly the sealed book is open, and he’s reading all the plays over and over again.”

“Was that in the Roosevelt manuscript you read?” JC asked.

“Actually, no. It’s from a discussion in a literature class about Bardolatry and famous Bardolators.”

JC squinted again. “That’s a new one for me. I suppose a Bardolator is someone who idolizes Shakespeare. Hmmm.” He paused for a moment. “Wait till I tell Uncle Cullen. He’s the one who got me started reading the Bard when I was in high school. I don’t think he knows about Bardolatry. But since you do, this is your chance to introduce TR to The Great Bard, and maybe the sealed book will open much sooner.”

She gave him a level look. “That’s messing with history.”

“Is it?” His brows lifted. “Is causing something to occur sooner rather than later altering history?”

“If I alter the past to change the future based on what I believe is best for the rest of the literary world—then, yes, of course. I don’t see how you can ask that.”

“It’s like his passion for conservation that we talked about the other day. You’d just be helping to open his eyes sooner than they would have been. Reading Shakespeare will open him up to so many new literary discussions, in-jokes, and puns. He’s losing years of enjoyment.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I’m still not sold.”

“After I discovered the plays were full of universal themes like love and war and fart jokes, I devoured them. Almost all of Shakespeare’s comedies explore gender, complex relationships, and cross-dressing women. And Othello and The Merchant of Venice address privilege and racism. How can you not lead him to a shorter path that will take him directly to a place he’ll eventually reach without interference?”

“I’ll think about it.” She pushed