“Yes, suh, Mistah Sean.” Joe shuffled toward the back of the house, mumbling, “Yankee Major. Trouble comin’. Sur’ ’nuff.”
The masculine leather furniture in Sean’s office hadn’t been changed since Braham’s previous visit. The surface of the large, burnished mahogany desk was unsullied by papers or knickknacks. The shelved books in the cases were lined up flush with the edges. The trees outside the windows were kept clipped back to avoid interfering with the expansive view of the paddocks. So different, yet so similar to the look of Elliott’s office.
Braham placed the brooch on the top of the desk. As he took away his hand, a chill hit him. He quickly clasped his hands behind his back. “I told Elliott I’d make sure the brooch was placed back inside the desk. I don’t want my actions to interfere with Kit’s future.”
Sean reached into the center drawer, pushed the hidden lever, and the compartment popped open, revealing the rosewood box. He placed the brooch inside and closed the desk’s secret pocket. “When ye see him, ye can let him know ye fulfilled yer obligation.”
Braham gave Sean a direct look, while his gut tightened involuntarily. “I won’t ever see him again.”
“I canna believe it,” Sean said. “Let’s sit, and ye can tell me how ye got to the future to begin with, and what brought ye here.”
Once the men were settled in chairs by the fire with drinks in hand, Braham began his recitation, leaving nothing out except the primary reason Charlotte had refused to bring him back. Sean had made it clear years earlier he didn’t want to hear anything about the future.
Sean listened attentively, his chin resting pensively on his hand. “Both ye and Cullen turned down the chance to live in the twenty-first century. Was there nothing to hold ye there? Not even the love of a bonny lass?”
Braham sipped his drink, preparing to deny having any feelings for Charlotte. He cleared his throat. “Charlotte Mallory is a beautiful, intelligent woman.”
Sean cocked an eyebrow. “And…”
Braham breathed in and out slowly to loosen the tightening knot in his throat. He propped his elbows on his knees, and after some more throat-clearings and hemmings and hawings, said, “I know the stone’s legacy, but this situation is not the same as Cullen and Kit’s.”
“Once the stone’s power touches ye, fighting the magic is useless. My great-great-grandmother shared the mystery with my father. Auld granny said, ‘The stone will take ye to a world unknown, through amber light to a time not yer own, to the one of yer heart, and the truth ye’ll be shown.’”
Braham dropped his head, shaking it and feeling his thoughts slosh around truths he preferred to ignore. Charlotte might come after him. If she did, the magic would weave its spell, and they might surrender to its sweet promise. But the promise could never be fulfilled in their case.
“There has to be a way to resist the magic before hearts are broken. I have no passion for living in the future, and Charlotte’s passion is for twenty-first-century medicine. She would never give it up. It was different with Kit. She knew she belonged in this time.”
Sean refilled both their glasses. “Being born in a time doesn’t mean ye belong there. Remember, when the stone weaves its magic, it reveals the truth.”
“Nonsense.” Braham heard the gravel in his voice. He took a big gulp of whisky. “I need to get back to Washington.”
“I’ll take ye to the Lexington railroad terminal in the morning. From there ye can catch the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to Washington City, assuming the Federals have control of the lines along the way. Several weeks back, Mosby derailed a Union train on the Baltimore and Ohio at Harpers Ferry and made off with a large payroll. They’re calling it the Greenback Raid.”
Braham flinched. “What’s today’s date?”
“23 November 1864. How long have ye been gone?”
“Five weeks. The president will believe I’m dead.”
Sean steepled his fingers and tapped them at the tips. “Then he’ll rejoice to learn ye’re not. Do ye want to send him a telegram?”
Braham shook his head. “I can’t explain how I disappeared from the hospital in Richmond and then ended up in Kentucky. I’ll wait until I return to Washington and tell him I’ve been holed up in Virginia until I was well enough to travel.”
“Under the circumstances, I believe it’s a wise decision.”
A gunshot shattered a window in the office and crashed into a tea set on the table, scattering sharp fragments onto the Oriental rug. Stacked books toppled over, and Braham and Sean dropped to the floor.
Braham drew his revolvers. “What the hell’s going on?”
Sean peeked over the edge of the sofa, his face white, eyes wide. “Deserters been causing trouble lately. I thought they were farther north.”
A barrage of gunfire splintered the front door and pinged against the brick. The glass in two windows in the office exploded. Sean ducked.
Braham’s heart pounded against his ribs so hard he thought they’d crack. He was battle-hardened. Why was he reacting like a raw recruit?
Gutshot once, battle leery forever.
This wouldn’t do at all. He wiped away the sweat streaming down his forehead and into his eyes, clouding his vision. He was a trained soldier. This was like getting back on a horse after a fall. He had to push on without being impeded by fear. He swallowed hard. It was true one of those bullets could rip another hole in him. And if it did, he’d either die or recover, but he wouldn’t cower in a corner. He stiffened his spine.
He belly-crawled to the window to the sharp crack of bullets which flew over his head and ricocheted off the walls. “Keep yer head down,” he yelled to Sean. Bullets smashed the wooden muntins separating the windowpanes, turning them into the sharp-edged projectiles which flew across the room and wedged into the furniture.
“Do ye have guns in here?” Braham asked.
“Desk drawer.”
“I’ll cover ye. Get ’em.” He fired several rounds. “There’re three in the tree line, two more by the paddock.” He craned his neck to see the far side of the house. “Are ye sure yer family’s inside?”
“Aye.”
“Where’re the slaves?”
“Don’t have any. My father freed them years ago. Treating men like animals didn’t sit well with a Scot’s love of freedom. Most are still with us, working for wages. My men carry guns, but they’re all in the fields. The women are in the cookhouse, and they have guards.”
Braham raised his head far enough to see over the windowsill. The deserters were maintaining their positions. He kept them in his sights, but he couldn’t afford to shoot and waste ammunition. He had to wait until they were closer.
“Will the men guarding the women come to the house?” he asked.
Sean shook his head as he cocked his rifle. “They have orders to lock the doors and protect the women and children.”
Memories of being close to death warred once more with his soldier’s battle instincts. “What about the men in the fields?”
“They won’t hear the shots.”
“Where’s yer warning system?”
“The bell is between us and them.” Sean nodded in the direction of the attackers while swinging his rifle toward the front of the house.
Braham swept his tongue across dry lips. “What’s yer plan for protecting the house?”
“Delay long enough to allow Lyle Anne and the children to get to the safe room and through the escape tunnel.”
“If they haven’t been watching the front door, they probably believe ye’re alone. It’s a definite advantage for us.” Movement to the right caught Braham’s attention. “They’re about to make a move. How’s yer ammunition?” Braham asked.
“Got enough. And ye?”
Braham steadied himself. “Elliott sent me back battle-ready. Thank God.” As Braham spoke, he couldn’t deny the raw sound of mingled worry and fear in his voice. The odds of repelling the attack weren’t worth betting on. He sighed, hoping the carnag
e wouldn’t extend to the family.
Firing in a single deadly salvo, five men rushed the porch. Braham got off several shots before taking cover behind the solid brick wall bordering the window.
“Did ye hit any?” Sean asked.
“Maybe one.”
“I got one rolling on the ground. Another one’s limping.”
Braham peered above the windowsill. “Three of ’em are hiding behind the columns. Is the front door bolted?”
“No,” Sean said.
Braham ducked, giving vent to a loud expletive. “All hell’s about to break loose. I’m going to the hall.” He staggered to his feet. “If they burst through before I get into position, cover me.”
He sprinted across the office to the door then glanced quickly around the doorframe toward the main entrance. Two men were peering through the sidelights, and the others were a shadowy presence behind them. Braham took aim and waited for the Rebels to crash through the front door. He held his arm steady and swallowed hard.
The Rebs fired indiscriminately into the front door, peppering it top to bottom. The gunfire shattered the glass panes in the sidelights, sending shards across the floor. There was a loud bang, and the door burst open, followed by three men barging in with guns blasting in both hands. Plaster on the ceiling crashed down and glass crunched beneath the scallywags’ boots. The chandelier tinkled and paintings smashed to the floor, shattering the frames. Gunfire smoked up the foyer and bullets whistled around like hailstones in the gunpowder-scented air.
Braham fired through the smoke. One man dropped to his knees then fell face forward—dead or alive, hard to tell. Two others ducked into the parlor. He signaled to Sean his plan to go through the dining room and sneak up behind the intruders.
As they prepared to move out, Braham whispered, “If I get hit—”
“I’ll send ye back to Charlotte.”
Sean dashed across the hall to take cover behind a cabinet. The Rebels pushed the parlor sofa to the doorway, creating a shield, then fired at them from behind it. While Sean returned fire, Braham ducked, rolled across the hall, jumped up, and ran for the dining room. He drew both Colts and waited behind the wall separating the two rooms until he heard the floorboards squeak. Immediately he turned into the open doorway and fired, hitting both intruders.
“Got ’em.” Braham kept his guns pointed at the two men as he cautiously approached the bodies. He kicked weapons out of their reach and checked for pulses. “Both dead.”
“This one’s dead, too,” Sean said from the hall.
Braham holstered one revolver and reloaded the other as he approached the front door, heart pounding. He hugged the wall and peered out onto the porch. “One dead outside. Three inside. Don’t see the fifth one.” Braham inched out onto the portico, sweat pouring down the sides of his face, guns cocked.
Sean joined him at the doorway. “I think he’s on the ground toward the side of the house.”
“Cover me.” Braham darted from one column to the other until he reached the end of the portico. “Looks dead from here.” He kept his gun trained on the deserter while he jumped off the porch and checked the man’s pulse. “He’s not going anywhere. Believe we got all of ’em.” Braham picked up the dead man’s weapon and holstered his revolver. When he climbed back up onto the porch, he stopped at the bullet-riddled door.
“I asked Elliott the other day where the holes came from. Now I know.”
Sean looked stunned. “As splintered as the door is, I’m not sure we can save it, but I’ll ask the carpenter to do what he can.”
They entered the house, crushing broken glass.
“It’s over. Come on out,” Sean said.
Joe was the first one to reach the foyer, shuffling and shaking his head. “Sur’ ’nuff trouble came a home today.”
Other house servants followed, carrying brooms and baskets, and talking low-voiced among themselves.
“Let’s get these bodies out of here. Joe, send a message to the barn to bring a wagon, canvas, and a burial detail.”
“Yes, suh, Mistah Sean.”
Joe left the house, and the other servants went to work sweeping up glass and pieces of frames and plaster.
“I need a drink.” Braham went into the office, dropped the dead man’s gun on top of Sean’s desk, and headed straight for the whisky. His hand shook as he poured.
Sean joined him. “If ye hadn’t been here, I’d have died.” He picked up the whisky bottle, but set it down with a thud. His hand shook too much to pour.
Braham filled a crystal glass and handed it to Sean. “We should have jumped out of the window and run for help.”
“Being a Scotsman is a blessing and a curse.”
Braham took a long swallow then refilled his glass. “Damn stubborn pride kept me in a fight with terrible odds.”
Sean laughed. “Ye didn’t see me heading for the window, did ye?”
“I’m glad to see you’re both laughing.”
Sean and Braham jerked around to find Lyle Anne, Sean’s wife of ten years, standing in the doorway, hands on hips, dressed regally in a forest green silk gown, her hair still perfectly coiffed.
“Did you have to shoot up the house?”
Sean opened his arms and pulled her into an embrace, holding her close. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped his shoulders. “I had to give ye and the bairns time to escape.”
Lyle Anne gazed into her husband’s eyes while she stroked his face tenderly. “You weren’t supposed to put your life in danger. From the looks of the foyer, you should be on the floor bleeding, or worse.”
Sean kissed her soundly before burying his face in her honey-colored hair. “Aye, if Abraham hadn’t been here, I would be.”
She glanced at Braham as if seeing him for the first time. The corners of her full lips turned up slightly in a constrained smile, but the tightness around her eyes remained, and her porcelain skin still lacked color. While the servants swept and picked up broken pottery and portrait frames, they kept glancing at her, as if their own composure depended on hers. If she broke down, they, too, would shatter into millions of pieces like the glass on the floor.
A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, but she didn’t draw attention by wiping it away. Instead, she lifted her chin and kissed her husband’s cheek. “I’ll go settle the children. Their naps were interrupted.” Her dress swished as she left the room, and her shoes made soft clicks against the floor.
“Sukey, Mr. McCabe will be staying for dinner, and please have a guest room prepared,” Lyle Anne said.
Her exit was as smooth as her entrance.
Braham had never seen a woman so composed. Five minutes earlier her world had hung by a weak thread. Her home, her husband, her children, her life could have ended if he and Sean had failed. Kit, Charlotte, Lyle Anne…three Southern women with amazing strength and beauty.
For the first time, he had a visceral sense of what it must have cost Charlotte to be caught up in a battle, dragged to Washington, and have her family and property threatened if she didn’t do what the president required of her. She did what she had to do without complaint, but the experience had terrified her. After seeing the look on Lyle Anne’s face, he realized Charlotte’s fear had been the same or worse. Had anyone noticed her silent tears? Because he was sure she had to have shed at least one.
Braham finished his drink. “I’ll help ye haul off the bodies.”
“Nay. Ye’re bleeding.”
Braham patted down the front of his jacket. “Can’t be bad, I’m still standing.” Then he noticed blood on his hand. “Must have gotten cut on the glass when I rolled across the floor. I’m very glad I didn’t get shot again.”
“I’ll take care of the bodies,” Sean insisted. “Ye go find Sukey. Let her dress the wound, or I’ll have to send ye back to Charlotte for sure.”
“I wouldn’t be happy if ye did.”
“I hope I’m around when ye finally admit ye’re in love with her.”
“It won’t happen, and for God’s sake, don’t tell Kit I used her brooch. She’ll send Cullen to find out what happened.”
“Maybe he can convince ye to go back,” Sean said.
Braham shoved the guns into the smooth-grain leather holster. “There’s no reason. I’m not in love with her, and she’s not in love with me. She was my doctor. That’s all.”
Sean harrumphed.
Braham threw up his hands. “I’m going to find Sukey.” He dragged himself along, trying to ignore a splitting headache, a burning incision, a fresh wound, and shaky legs. He’d thought driving fifty miles an hour had been scary. The prospect of getting shot again was a hell of a lot worse.
27
En Route to Washington City, December 1864
On Monday following the MacKlennas’ Thanksgiving Day celebration, officially set by President Lincoln as the fourth Thursday in November, Braham departed the farm, leaving behind a swarm of workmen repairing plaster and cutting new glass for the windows. Bloodstains had been meticulously scoured. Broken tables and chairs had been replaced with furniture brought down from the attic.
Though their faces were stoic, the MacKlennas couldn’t mask their lingering fear. The war had hung around near their door, poking and prodding, for almost four long years. Finally, it had barged in with guns blazing. Thankfully he and Sean had emerged with only a handful of cuts and bruises, but the bloody skirmish still left people and property indelibly stained.
Braham and Sean drank and talked late into the night and, in a moment of weakness, Sean asked when it would all end. Braham gave him a peek into the future. Knowing the date seemed to lessen Sean’s fears for his family and property. Although Braham didn’t tell Sean about Lincoln’s assassination, he did imply the outcome of the war, for many people in the South at least, would take decades, if not centuries, to accept. Now, as Braham prepared to leave Lexington, he wrestled again with the decisions he had made.
“All aboard,” the station manager announced.
Braham lingered on the platform, statue still, part of him pulled in a westerly direction, and the other determined to go east.
The Sapphire Brooch Page 19
