The Sapphire Brooch (The Celtic Brooch Trilogy Book 2) (39 page)

As he stroked the side of her face, tugging once again on her curls, a hidden smile popped out, dimpling one cheek. “Jack told me you won’t leave until Lee surrenders. I catalogued all the reasons you should go, but he scratched off each one. I know now he won’t alter his plans, and neither will you. It’s reckless for you to stay, but you’re both too damn headstrong to listen to reason.”

“There’s a triangle here,” she said forming the shape with thumbs and forefingers, “and Jack and I are only two of the points.” She wagged her thumbs. “You fit the definition of headstrong, too, and I’ll add stubborn, bullheaded, mulish, obstinate, and pigheaded to the list.”

“You’ve made your point, lass, and mayhap I am stubborn, bullheaded, mulish, obstinate, and pigheaded, but I’m nay reckless.”

Reconsidering, she picked up the dog figurine again and fingered the fine whiskers carved along its muzzle and above its eyebrows.

“Before I leave tonight, I’ll make arrangements for your safety. Gaylord has worked for me for a number of years in a variety of positions. He’ll act as your bodyguard while I’m away.”

Braham rose and crossed the room to a table holding a crystal decanter and glasses. He poured amber liquid into two whiskey glasses and handed one to Charlotte. “If you need him, whistle this tune.” He puckered his lips and whistled.

“It’s very familiar. What’s the name?”

“Bach’s
Minuet in G
. Try it.”

“I’m a terrible whistler. Don’t laugh.” She wet her lips, puckered, then whistled. At first nothing but air came out. She tried again, blowing a steady stream of air, but managed only a single note.

“Curl your tongue, lass.”

She wet her lips once more, curled her tongue and tried again and again. Finally, more than one note replaced the hissing, and she actually whistled a tune. “Okay, I’ve got it now.” She took a mouthful of whiskey and let it trickle down the back of her throat, a warm and pleasing sensation.

“If you need anything, anything at all, Gaylord will come to you. You can trust him implicitly. He’ll even deal with Gordon if he causes you more trouble.”

“What created the bad blood between you?”

Braham sipped his whiskey, making no comment. Finally he said, “He wanted the position with Lincoln, but Sherman recommended me over him. Henly has a fine military record, and no one would suspect a violent streak twisted his character.”

“He lives with constant pain. It can change people.” She thought a minute. “He must blame you for his injury. If he’d had the job working for Lincoln, he wouldn’t have been wounded at Cedar Creek.”

One of Braham’s eyebrows rose in an ironic arch. “But he might have been hanged in Richmond.”

“Could Gordon cause a problem for you since he works at the War Department?”

“I’m assigned to the President. He’s the only one who dictates where I go and what I do.”

They sat in silence, save for the annoying tick-tock of the grandfather clock. To her 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 theatre. Marshall 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 spinning 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 your 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 whiskey, 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 whiskey-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 you 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 your mind is roving. Mine’s been there and come back again, but I won’t sully your 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 you still want me when I come back, lass, I’ll bed you,” 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 whiskey, 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 intimacy, she feared it. What if he transported her to another dimension with sensations so strong and rich and vital she wasn’t able to let him go?

His mouth slid warmly down the side of her neck toward the slope where the muscle of her shoulder joined it, nuzzling her cool skin. “Undo the rest of your buttons.”

Her fingers fumbled with the small buttons, but finally her blouse opened to him, the tops of her breasts spilling from her corset, full and inviting. He kissed the fullness of her and then he stopped abruptly and stiffened.

She opened her eyes and was no longer met by his bold, appraising look, but by blistering eyes blazing with fury. He dragged her across the room until the waning light from the window fell on her. With a frown, he pushed her blouse off of her shoulders. His hand shook as his fingers swept down the lines of each one of the marks Gordon’s nails had raked when he grabbed her bodice and scratched her.

With a face twisted in agony and malevolence in his voice Braham said, “The son of a bitch did this to you?”

She jerked back, as if stung, as much from the memory of the initial trauma as from the vengeance ignited in Braham’s voice. He stomped over to the table and strapped on his revolvers.

Charlotte dashed for the door and plastered herself against it. “You’re not going after him. You promised me.”

“It was before I knew the extent of your injuries.”

“They’re scratches, for God’s sake.”

He buckled the belt and adjusted the weight on his hips. “He’ll not get away with this.”

Charlotte buttoned her blouse and tucked the tail into her skirt. “What are you going to do? Challenge him to a duel? You can’t. He’s a senior officer. And you gave me your word. Are you going to break it after only a few hours?”

“It’s your honor I intend to protect.”

“The
hell
it is.” She didn’t know if it was what he said or the emotion behind it, but something reached into her heart and squeezed hard. “We were so caught up in the moment you were ready to yank up my skirt and take me against the wall after twice—” She paused and held up two fingers for added emphasis, “
Twice
telling me it wasn’t honorable.” Her face flushed hot and blood throbbed dully in her ears. She barreled up to him and jabbed her finger into his chest. “Running off with your blasted guns cocked is about
your
frigging honor, not
mine
.”

She stumbled over to the settee, collapsed onto the cushions, and dropped her head in her hands. Something cold slid down her back, leaving icy uneasiness.

“I’ve never felt such desire,” she said sadly. “If you hadn’t stopped when you did, I would have ripped your clothes off, and after we’d screwed each other’s brains out, we both would have been furious with ourselves. Me, because I don’t want sex without love, and you because making love to me would have violated your blasted code of honor. Instead of running off to shoot Gordon Henly, we should pen a joint thank-you note to him.”

Tears weren’t flowing from her eyes because she had a well-honed ability to grasp temporary composure on demand. “I’m done here. I’m ready to go home. Do whatever you have to do.” She knelt and scooped her hairpins off the floor and then, with a steady gait and her chin held high, she glided past him, slamming the door behind her.

After all, composure only lasted so long.

48

Washington City, March, 1865

T
here had been
no word from Braham in more than a month. She shivered every time she thought about the day in Georgetown. They should have found time later to talk about their differences, but he had disappeared, again, making it impossible. How could two people be so attracted to each other when they had opposing views on almost everything else? Maybe the brooches had bewitched them both. Great. She hoped it didn’t mess Jack up, too.

Since arriving in Washington several months earlier, Jack had attracted the fervent attention of a handful of young women Charlotte referred to as his groupies. Women flocked to him, falling easily into his bed, but rarely into his heart. Charlotte secretly blamed their mother for his behavior. If she hadn’t withdrawn emotionally after their father’s death, and left her children to sprout in an unattended garden, Jack might be able to form attachments that lasted longer than a few months. Charlotte’s own issues were probably similar, but it was easier to be critical of him and ignore her own inadequacies. She would never admit it to him, though.