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

ear it sounded out of balance, and ticked every half second instead of every second. Or perhaps it was because time moved faster when she and Braham were together.

In the room’s semi-silence her stomach fluttered like lightning bugs caught in a jar. Funny she should think of lightning bugs now. Didn’t fireflies blink their taillights off and on to lure a mate? Maybe the old cliché was more accurate for the moment—she had butterflies in her stomach.

She had a question for Braham, and it hung on the tip of her tongue, daring her to set it free—so she did.

“What are you going to do about Booth?”

“Gaylord’s keeping an eye on him.” Braham’s voice was heavily laden with emotion and guilt, as if he had assigned his retainer a despicable task. “I won’t kill Booth, but on the fourteenth, I will keep the president away from the theater. Marshal Lamon warns him daily. He’s even threatened to resign as his bodyguard unless Lincoln takes his concerns more seriously.”

“Why does Lamon believe there’s a threat?”

“He received a secret service report filled with warnings.”

“Did you write the report?”

Braham didn’t answer her question. He also had a way of hiding his expressions when he wanted to. She couldn’t read a thing from his face, nor could she read the gold specks in his eyes like tea leaves. But she knew his heart when it came to Abraham Lincoln, or at least she thought she did. Even knowing, she had to try once more to get him to do something he absolutely would not allow himself to do.

“Come home with me.” Her request ricocheted wildly around the room, as if looking for a place to land where it wouldn’t cause an explosion. The place didn’t exist.

With a sudden intake of breath, he came to his feet and strode across the room, where he paused to spin the globe, watching it twirl. It made several revolutions before coming to a stop. Then, as if his thoughts had settled, he pulled roughly at his collar and appraised her critically. “Abandon yer machinations, lass. My life is here.”

Her heart closed in on itself. His statement stung like alcohol on an open wound, but she wasn’t willing to let go of the conversation. “You could start a winery in Virginia, or write, breed horses, solve world hunger. I don’t know. You’re brilliant. You’d find something to give you purpose.”

“Solve world hunger?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it, merely a low, mirthless noise. “Why do twenty-first century women think a man engaged in serious thought must be trying to find an answer to feeding the world’s population?”

She smiled. Kit must have said the same thing to him.

She went over to the table holding the whisky, set down her glass, then joined Braham next to the globe. “The problem is not whether we can solve world hunger, it’s that we don’t. But it’s not what we’re talking about right now. We’re talking about—”

He wrapped her in his arms. “What are we talking about?” Their lips were mere inches apart. Their whisky-scented breath mingled in the space between yearning and wanting. “Or, should I say, what are we not talking about?”

She reached her arms up around his neck, stroking the skin beneath his hair. He slid one hand into her curly hair, sending hairpins flying in all directions, pinging on the floor. Then, without smiling, without saying a word, without doing anything other than gazing into each other’s eyes, Braham lowered his head to capture her mouth.

“The butler said they might still be in the library.” Jack’s voice preceded the opening of the door.

Jack, Mary Ann, and her parents staggered back, aghast, at the sight of Braham and Charlotte entwined in each other’s arms.

“Oh, ah…well, we’ll be waiting in the parlor.” Jack closed the door, leaving Charlotte and Braham in momentarily stunned silence. Then they laughed, and when their laughter died down, he cupped her face, softly tracing the bones of her cheek with his thumb.

“I do want ye so.”

If last night’s kiss had been a lesson in restraint, then this almost-kiss had been a blatant invitation to misbehave. She glanced longingly beyond his shoulder toward his tall four-poster bed.

A devilish spark rallied in his eyes. “I know where yer mind is roving. Mine’s been there and come back again, but I won’t sully yer reputation nor dishonor Jack’s trust in me. Come along now. Let’s join the others.”

He opened the door, but she backed against it and pushed it closed with her foot. Then she placed her palms on his chest. “Promise me you’ll come back from wherever you’re going.”

“I promise.”

“When you do, know this. I won’t let you use concerns about my reputation or your relationship with Jack as excuses for not doing what we both want, and damn the consequences.”

He put his hands to her cheeks and she placed hers on his. She painted the outline of his face with the pads of her thumbs, memorizing the look of him, the bones of his cheeks, the set of his eyes, the small scar on his forehead, capturing his image in case it should be her last glimpse of him.

“If ye still want me when I come back, lass, I’ll bed ye,” he said in a voice rich and smoky.

His arms tightened and brought her closer. She knew he wanted her, and she arched her body into his. He smelled of winter and whisky, fresh air and soap, and wood and leather. A moan slipped past her lips, husky with need. She was hot and wet and forged with liquid fire. Her fingers spread across his wide shoulders and pressed into the muscles beneath his jacket. He was deliciously made, and she longed to taste him.

His lips found hers, with a touch at first, molding shape against shape, and then with a burst of hunger his tongue plunged far into her mouth, amazingly intimate. She returned his passion in equal measure. Even as she yearned for greater