Calhoun Chronicles Bundle

by Susan Wiggs

  But oh, Lord. Oh moons of Venus. He was talking to her, asking her something. “…quite an alliance, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes, indeed,” she said quickly. “Quite an alliance.”

  “I can’t say it surprises me.” Lieutenant Butler seemed totally unaware of his impact on the female wedding guests. Each time he passed, painted silken fans appeared like umbrellas in a rainstorm, fluttering in front of pretty faces that blushed at the very sight of him. With his every dark hair plastered in place with Macassar oil and every seam of his uniform ironed to knife-blade crispness, he was the American dream personified.

  She found herself studying his wonderful mouth, shadowed by a perfectly waxed mustache. If she were to kiss that mouth, what would happen to the mustache? Would the wax break? Would it be crushed by her ardor?

  Flushing with her brazen thoughts, Abigail took pride in the fact that he had chosen her. She was not nearly as pretty as the Parks girls of Albemarle County, not nearly as witty as the visiting New York heiresses, not nearly as graceful as the bride’s Baltimore cousins.

  But she was smarter than all of them.

  Not that this was any great virtue.

  “Why are you not surprised?” she asked, concentrating on the simple dance steps. She was still not sure what he was talking about, but he hadn’t noticed that yet.

  “Because my father is the presiding officer of the Senate and yours is chairman of the railroad committee. Between the two of them, they essentially control the entire Congress.”

  She nodded, frowning as she narrowly missed swirling into a passing couple. She recognized Mrs. Fortenay, now put together and gliding regally across the floor. To Abigail’s consternation, she recognized Mrs. Fortenay’s partner, too. He was the same one she had encountered on the veranda.

  Unbidden, a thrill of illicit heat curled through Abigail, and she caught her breath.

  “Does that trouble you?” asked Lieutenant Butler.

  “Of course not,” she hastened to say. “Our legislature could be in no better hands than our fathers’, wouldn’t you agree?”

  The stranger caught her staring at him over Lieutenant Butler’s shoulder. He winked. Winked.

  A shiver passed over her. At first she thought she had imagined it, but the broad, teasing wink had been unmistakable. So had her alarming physical reaction to him.

  “Who is that man?” she blurted out before she could stop herself. “The insolent one we just passed.”

  Butler turned slightly and looked beyond her. “Oh. Him.”

  “I take it you know him.” When they rotated again, the motion nearly threw her off balance, but she got a better look. He was remarkably tall, well over six feet. His suit fit with tailored perfection. He wore his light-colored hair too long, and unlike most fashionable gentleman did not sport a thickly waxed mustache or side-whiskers.

  “I know of him,” Lieutenant Butler corrected. “James Calhoun. He’s a freshman congressman from Virginia. Has a reputation for being wild and ruthless.”

  “James Calhoun.” She tasted the staid, almost conventional name, but in her mind she could hear the president’s sister crying out, “Oh, Jamie, Jamie…” He definitely looked more like a Jamie than a James.

  “He went to university in Europe, I’m told. I understand it was over the protests of his parents, who believe every proper Virginia gentleman should attend Old Dominion.”

  Abigail tried to imagine parents being disappointed in a son educated on the Continent. “And who are they?” she asked. “The Calhouns.”

  “His father, Charles Calhoun, raises racehorses, and I’ve heard the son has an eye for buying Arab stock, and has traveled to dangerous places in order to acquire horses.” Butler chuckled. “And now he’s become a congressman.” The lieutenant’s smile disappeared, eclipsed by a shadow of discontent.

  “What is the matter?” she asked, dragging her foot. He no doubt found her a tedious and inept partner.

  “I am reminded of my own duties,” he explained. “Sometimes I feel that the eyes of the world are on me.”

  She thought he handled public attention exceedingly well, but said nothing. It was no secret that his father’s party was grooming Lieutenant Butler for a stellar political career. Perhaps even the presidency one day.

  “I do understand that I’m needed,” he assured her without vanity. “I understand the need for leadership, but it’s a heavy burden. Sometimes even I have a need for…” His voice trailed off.

  “For what, Lieutenant Butler?” Oh please, she thought. Whatever he yearns for, let me be the one to give it to him.

  “Never mind. You will think me entirely daft.”

  “No, I won’t. Please tell me.”

  His gaze shifted to the floor. “Every so often I wish there could be nothing but romance and poetry in my life.”

  Abigail nearly lost her balance, and only by gritting her teeth through the pain did she manage to keep from falling. Why did the female partner always have to dance backward? she wondered. It wasn’t fair, and for someone like her, it was downright hazardous.

  “That is a noble human need,” she told him. Oh Boyd, Boyd, her heart sang. I’ll give you romance and poetry. Every minute of every day. Never mind that she hadn’t the least idea how to achieve that, but for his sake, she would find a way.

  “You are easy to talk to, Miss Cabot,” he said. “I feel such comfort in your presence. The pressures of my station lighten when you are around.”

  If Abigail were not hopelessly earthbound, she would have soared at that moment. Without the steady anchor of her dancing partner, she would have floated halfway to heaven by now.

  Here was her chance. This was the moment to tell him what had been in her heart since they were gawky adolescents. Taking a deep breath, she teetered on the precipice, then plunged over the edge. “Lieutenant Butler, I daresay I feel the same.”

  “Sweet mercy,” he said suddenly, staring at something over her shoulder. He nearly let go of her. Only by tightening her own grasp could Abigail stay anchored to him.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, terrified that she’d offended him with her bold declaration.

  “Who is that creature?” He asked the question without looking at her; indeed, he seemed to have forgotten her existence. “She’s a goddess.”

  Abigail craned her neck, following his gaze. The earth seemed to stop spinning, and her clumsy feet were planted firmly on the ground of reality. Lieutenant Butler, and every other male in the East Room—the bridegroom included—stared gape-mouthed at the arched entranceway. Abigail did not have to wonder whose arrival had created such a stir. This had happened dozens of times before.

  When every male eye turned, when every male head emptied of all thought save one, it could only mean one thing.

  Her sister, Helena, had arrived.

  Like Venus on the half shell, borne to the shore on the foamy crest of a wave, she glided into the East Room and stood beneath the doorway from the entrance and cross halls. As always, she eschewed the fussy fashions of the day in favor of a flowing, apple-green sheath of a gown that accentuated the virtues of her perfect figure. A glorious swirl of copper-colored waves crowned her head and framed a face so beautiful that the sight of it drew attention from even the most jaded of men.

  Abigail glanced up at her partner, who had all but forgotten her, and who clearly hadn’t heard her heartfelt declaration. She tried to let her hopes deflate slowly. For five minutes, she had felt genuinely happy dancing in Lieutenant Butler’s arms. She’d dared to hope he was attracted to her, and perhaps he had been for those few moments.

  Now, of course, he was lost to her.

  “That is my sister, Helena,” she informed him, unwilling to put off the inevitable. “Fashionably late as usual.”

  She braced herself, knowing what would come next. He would politely remark that Abigail looked flushed and overexerted; surely he’d taxed her strength to its limit and was duty-bound to deliver her to a chai
se by the refreshments table. He would try his best not to be entirely transparent as he begged for an introduction to Helena.

  And Abigail, for her part, would try not to feel crushed as she did so with a smile on her face, then stepped out of his way while he fell head over heels in love with her sister.

  Through no fault of her own, Helena had upset the pattern of the dance set. Too late, Abigail realized that Boyd had inadvertently moved her backward to the edge of the slick, polished dance floor.

  And then it happened. She stepped wrong, felt a shooting pain up her leg. She clutched him wildly but lost her grip and stumbled back. Over her shoulder, she could see the table laden with a towering wedding cake, priceless presidential china, Dolly Madison’s silver service, a pyramid of Irish-crystal champagne glasses. And she was falling straight toward it all, arms windmilling desperately, finding nothing to hold on to.

  Lieutenant Butler’s face registered pure horror. He lunged to stop her fall, but missed.

  Then a miracle occurred. A pair of strong arms caught her from behind and propped her against a massive, broad chest.

  “Easy now, miss.” The now-familiar voice was honeyed with a Virginia drawl. “You don’t want to become the main dish at the banquet.”

  It was the stranger, Jamie Calhoun. The warmth and firmness of his body startled her; it was a solid wall between her and disaster.

  Taking her hand, he casually brushed a smudge of dirt from her glove. “I do like a girl who’s not afraid to get her hands dirty in the line of duty,” he said, laughter edging his words.

  Awash in humiliation, she pulled her hand away. “Thank you for your assistance, sir. Now I wish—”

  “Hasn’t anyone ever told you to be careful what you wish for? Come along, my dear. The dance isn’t over yet.” Leading her as though she were a wayward child, he delivered her safely back to Lieutenant Butler.

  “Sir,” he said, “in the future I’d advise you to keep a closer bridle on your partner.”

  Jamie Calhoun stood to one side, hovering to make certain he’d linked them together and Abigail was steady on her feet once again.

  “You know what they say about fast women and blooded mares,” he added with the same wicked wink he had given her earlier. “Give them free rein, and they’ll trample you every time.”

  Chuckling with inappropriate amusement at his own witticism, he strolled away.

  Abigail burned with mortification. She was sure Lieutenant Butler could feel the heat like a fever.

  She despised James Calhoun, despised his crude wit and cynicism with the fire of a thousand suns. Yet even as she did, there was one key fact she was forced to acknowledge. When every other man in the room had been staring at Helena, Mr. James Calhoun had been watching her.

  Two

  What a pathetic creature, thought Jamie Calhoun, studying the brown-haired girl in Butler’s arms. When the set ended, the lieutenant’s face reflected the relief of a witness to a mercy killing.

  Observing the incident from a distance, with one shoulder propped against a gilt and fluted column, Jamie decided that the party had gone on far too long for his taste. The president and first lady had retired, but the bride and groom and their guests seemed determined to carry on the tedious celebration into the wee hours. Caroline Fortenay had her charms, but after that rude interruption in the garden, she had been avoiding him.

  Politics, and a loose association with the groom, had brought Jamie to the White House for the occasion. Newly elected to Congress, he needed to form alliances and this reception afforded the greatest concentration of political influence in the Potomac watershed.

  He wouldn’t have noticed the small, intense woman at all, but he’d been tracking Lieutenant Butler. An Annapolis man, dense as an andiron, but he had his uses. His father presided over the Senate, and therefore an association with the Butlers must be cultivated.

  This evening, little business was getting done, save, apparently, between Senator Cabot and Vice President Butler. Seated at a round table, the two of them conspired like a pair of old pirates. They were the only males in the room who did not seem completely distracted by the arrival of the redheaded goddess.

  The other women attempted to take the new arrival in stride, congregating at the buffet table so recently imperiled by the clumsy female dancing with Butler. The goddess had not been able to move far beyond the grand entrance, for a legion of male guests had made their way toward her, supplicants paying homage to a queen.

  She was beautiful, Jamie acknowledged, looking over the heads of the crowd to study her. She was, in fact, quite flawless, with a lithe, willowy body and a face right out of a Renaissance painting. Of course, beauty had its limits, unless it was accompanied by more useful attributes. Jamie admired her as one might admire a piece of fine art, in a remote cerebral fashion that excited nothing inside him except a vague aesthetic appreciation. Yet the baser part of him assessed her with a crude lust.

  He was about to go looking for Timothy Doyle, a reporter for the Washington Post who could always be counted on to fill him in on Capitol Hill gossip, when a movement caught his eye.

  It was the other one, the little wren of a woman, cutting through the crowd with Butler in tow. Intrigued, Jamie helped himself to a flute of champagne and edged in closer.

  “…my sister, Miss Helena Cabot,” the brown wren was saying.

  Jamie came to full attention. Two important facts struck him. First, their name was Cabot. And second, the goddess and the wren were sisters.

  They must be Franklin Cabot’s daughters.

  Intrigued, he found Doyle at the fringes of a group of congressmen, eavesdropping on their conversation. Grabbing Doyle’s arm, he pulled him aside.

  “Tell me about the Cabot sisters,” he said without preamble.

  Doyle rolled back his lips in a wolfish grin. “A mismatched pair, wouldn’t you say? They’ve been gossip fodder for years, if you must know.”

  “I must.”

  “Honestly, it’s not that meaty. Rumor has it that he’s given the command. He wants to see them married, and married soon. Miss Helena will have no problem in that department, you’ll notice.” He nodded in her direction. “But the younger daughter? Abigail’s her name.”

  “Abigail,” Jamie repeated, tasting the three syllables. Yes, she looked like an Abigail, watchful and earnest in her drab, old-fashioned gown, probably more at home with books and quiet, solitary pursuits.

  “Yes, poor Abigail. An odd bird, always dithering around at the university. They say she’s some sort of genius—though clearly not on the dance floor.” He snickered. “I swear, seeing Butler leading her around was like watching a buyer with a cow at the stockyards.”

  “That’s harsh, Doyle.”

  “The capital’s a harsh place, especially for a spinster with an odd bent. I’m told Cabot would give anything to see them married off.”

  “Anything?” Jamie’s interest sharpened. “His support in Congress?”

  Doyle tucked a thumb into his tight cummerbund. “Give it a try, Calhoun. But be warned. Better men than you have attempted, and failed.”

  “I’m not looking to marry,” Jamie said, his voice hard and flat. Given his history, a wife was the last thing he wanted, or needed. Or deserved.

  “See that fellow there?” Doyle indicated a heavy-jowled older man speaking with Senator Cabot. “That’s Horace Riordan, the railroad millionaire. He’s been trying to influence the railroad bill for months. But it’s a funny thing about Cabot. It takes more than money to get his attention.”

  “His daughters’ favor?”

  Doyle winked. “Maybe.”

  The beauteous Helena smiled and flirted with Butler, who lapped up her attention like a thirsty hound dog. The lieutenant probably didn’t intend to be rude, but the angle of his stance cut the lesser sister completely out of the conversation. Neither he nor Helena saw the woman’s face grow pale, then fill up with color. No one but Jamie saw the fragile tremor of her mout
h, nor the way she conquered it by momentarily sinking determined teeth into her lower lip. An expression of weary resignation indicated that she had endured this before.

  Jamie Calhoun had never been known for his chivalrous behavior; quite the opposite. But this vulnerable creature was Franklin Cabot’s daughter, and he was going to rescue her. In her undying gratitude, perhaps she’d give him access to her father.

  Tossing back the last of his champagne, he handed the glass to a passing waiter and excused himself from Doyle.

  “Miss Cabot,” he said, approaching them. “I’d be honored to make your acquaintance.”

  Both women turned toward him, Helena with artless expectation and her sister with mingled distrust and annoyance. Butler narrowed his eyes, assuming a territorial stance in front of Helena.

  Jamie sketched a bow. “How do you do? Lieutenant Butler, I remember you from the dedication ceremony for the Union Hall monument. You did a fine job standing behind your father on the podium, looking regimental.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Calhoun.” Butler didn’t seem to catch the sarcasm. With practiced manners, he made the introductions. Helena greeted Jamie with the confidence of a queen, her emerald eyes sweeping over him in flattering appreciation. Gawky, blushing Abigail had eyes he could only describe as remarkable. Those eyes had been the first thing he’d noticed about her, after the sneeze. They were wide and clear, of a blue so intense it made him think of rich velvet. At the moment, her keen eyes regarded him with a deep and abiding suspicion. The goose. Didn’t she realize he had come to rescue her?

  “Mr. Calhoun is newly elected to the House,” Butler explained to the ladies. “I’m pleased to say he’s a member of the right party.”

  Jamie made himself look appropriately grateful. The fact was, he’d chosen the party based on their need for a candidate to fill a key seat in Congress. None of his constituents knew much about him. If they did, they’d probably run him out on a rail, decked in tar and feathers.