The Pearl Brooch

by Logan, Katherine Lowry

  “New York Times best-selling historical author Jack Mallory isn’t going to write a romance novel. Trust me. He was just teasing Amy. If Pete and Sophia were ever going to get back together, it would have happened before now.” Kevin unfolded more monitor sheets. “You hear stories of people finding a former boyfriend/girlfriend and living happily ever after, but it’s mostly crap.”

  “Now who’s the cynic?”

  He refolded the paper and stacked it neatly. “What you don’t hear about is how those couples hook up and then break up. You can’t rekindle teenage love.”

  Suddenly, pain thundered around her back to her abdomen like an approaching freight train, slamming into her brain in a cataclysmic explosion. Fluid gushed out and soaked the bed. She grabbed the bedrails. “Water…broke.” She kicked back the sheet and a cry mixed with pain and fear ripped through the interior of her lungs. “Blood!”

  Kevin turned from the monitor just as she looked up to see the veins in his neck hammering while he looked down at her blood-spattered gown. He tried to relax his face so his fear wouldn’t show, but JL could see it in his eyes, and knew without a doubt that this was bad.

  “Jesus!” He reached over her, hit the nurses’ call button, and slapped an oxygen mask on JL’s face at the same time. Then he hurried to the door, yanked it open. “Fetal’s down!”

  “Can I help you?” the nurse asked through the intercom.

  “Find Dr. Winn. Fetal’s down! Stat!” Kevin roared from the doorway.

  JL’s brain flipped from panic to fear to terror, and she squeaked, “Call Charlotte.”

  He came back to the bed and shoved the over-the-bed tray out of the way. It clanged against the wall. “I’ll text her 911. She’ll come back immediately.”

  As people rushed into the room, everything started spinning. The contractions rocked off the scale. She groaned, and more warm blood gushed out between her legs.

  In the dark recesses of her mind, JL was alone in a dark alley, blood seeping from a bullet wound above her hip. She was sweaty and cold all at the same time.

  Kevin’s voice sounded distant to her, and she became aware of the room seeming to shrink smaller and smaller. She was floating away, disembodied, apart from everything happening around her physical body thrashing in the bed.

  I’m going to die…

  8

  Paris (1789)—Sophia

  Sophia gazed out a window in the salon overlooking the Champs-Élysées. A stiff breeze picked up, rustling the tree branches, sighing through the grass, masking the faraway sounds of angry Parisians.

  Fingering the silk drapery with rococo flower motifs, she watched Mr. Short and Jefferson swing easily into a phaeton. Because of the way they interacted and their obvious fondness for each other, it was easy to understand why Jefferson called William his adopted son. They were related distantly through one of his late wife’s half-sisters.

  She continued to gaze out the window long after the men drove through the gate, watching a robin waiting on an open perch. He flew off to catch an insect in flight, oblivious to the turmoil in the city.

  Jefferson had been too curious after listening to her account of the events of the day to accept only one version. He decided to find Lafayette himself and get news of the actions of the Assembly, and then collect his daughters. Since Jefferson was attending to both tasks William had volunteered for, William agreed to visit the queen’s jewelers to sell a few of Sophia’s pearls.

  She was left in the capable hands of Mr. Petit, who just now returned carrying a properly laid tea tray with a flowered porcelain teapot, matching clotted cream cup, a covered sugar bowl, cup and saucer, lemon, and a plate of mouthwatering pastries. Before she could settle in with a cup of tea, however, she needed sketching materials.

  “Does Mr. Jefferson have chalk? I’d like to start sketching while he’s away, but I need either chalk or pen and ink, plus several sheets of paper.”

  “In his cabinet, mademoiselle. If you’ll come with me… Oh, you can’t walk. If you tell me exactly what you require, I will bring them to you.”

  “I can’t walk, but I can hobble. Is it far?”

  “Down the hallway. Will a cane help?”

  “It might.”

  Mr. Petit disappeared and returned a few minutes later to offer her an extravagant walking cane made with a Malacca shaft, a long brass ferrule, and a handle in ivory pique with gold and tortoise shell. She’d seen a similar one in a museum.

  If she only had a limp, the cane would have been helpful, but having the use of only one leg, it wasn’t very practical. After struggling through three torturous steps, Mr. Petit offered, “Lean on me, mademoiselle.”

  Together they made their way down the hall to a room at the corner of the house. Her back hurt, her stomach muscles were tender, and her knee throbbed. But pain had never stopped her before. If anything, pain was a motivator. Not that she sought it out, but when an injury tried to stop her, perseverance overcame the setback. But perhaps not this time…

  “Please stop a minute,” she said, biting back tears.

  “Certainly mademoiselle. Let me get a chair,” Mr. Petit said.

  “No. I just need to be still for a moment.” She should have let Mr. Petit collect the supplies. She couldn’t stop now, though. She latched on to Mr. Petit again and continued hobbling until they finally reached the corner room, and the limits of her endurance and pain tolerance. She grabbed the doorframe.

  “Is this Mr. Jefferson’s office?”

  “Yes, his cabinet.”

  “I thought you meant a cabinet with shelves holding supplies. I didn’t realize it was an actual room.”

  The rectangular office had large windows to capture the full southern exposure. The light wasn’t what she would choose for painting but for sketching it would work nicely. She studied the high walls, which were bulging with leatherbound tomes, and additional freestanding bookshelves jutted out like ribs.

  An ingenious revolving bookstand with five open books on adjustable shelves allowed Jefferson to consult multiple works at one time. The room was a living, breathing space that captured her imagination, and she mentally sketched him standing there, spectacles balanced on his nose, reading from two books at once. The use of different books for props, maybe to add texture, would bring different points of interest to a composition.

  “Do you think Mr. Jefferson would mind if I sit at his desk for a while?”

  “I don’t know, mademoiselle. Only Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Short have ever worked in this room.”

  “I won’t make a mess, and I promise to be out before he returns.”

  Still holding onto Mr. Petit’s arm, she hobbled over to a lectern and a revolving tabletop on the other side of the room. Even the leather chair, pulled up close, revolved for easy access.

  She pointed to a contraption holding a pen. “What is this?”

  “A polygraph,” Mr. Petit said with a knowing grin. “The device holds two sheets of paper and two connected pens. When Mr. Jefferson writes, the other pen follows to make an exact copy.”

  “The original copy machine? Very impressive.”

  “He has written the inventor, Charles Willson Peale, to suggest improvements.”

  “The painter? Interesting.” Her mind continued to sketch Jefferson here and there, reading books and composing his correspondence.

  She let go of Mr. Petit’s arm and hopped on one foot toward the desk. Mr. Petit opened a drawer and withdrew several sheets of paper and a box. “You’ll find sticks of chalk in here. An array of quill pens and ink pots there. If you’ll sit, I’ll go get the tea service.” He held the chair out for her. Bracing herself on the desk, she lowered to the chair.

  While Mr. Petit went to reclaim the tea, she squirmed a bit in the swivel chair to get the feel of the leather seat, which was overstretched from constant use.

  She considered the man she intended to sketch. He was more physically impressive than his paintings and sculptures suggested. How could she t
ap into that? How could she show the idealist, the man who had a greater talent for envisioning what ought to be than the skill to lead others into the future he imagined? She wanted to paint the man who feared exposing his soul again to the pain.

  A pain she could relate to.

  Mr. Petit returned with the tea tray and set it down on the desk. “Would you like me to pour?”

  “I can manage. Thank you.”

  “Is there anything else you require?”

  “Not right now. If I do, is there a pull cord in here? I don’t think I’ll be able to come find you.”

  He pointed to a thick cord dangling from the ceiling. “It’s here, mademoiselle.”

  After Mr. Petit left, she propped her legs on the leather-covered bench under the revolving desk. Dang. She forgot the pillow. Mr. Petit returned moments later with a pillow, ice bucket, and the rest of the towels. “I thought you might have need of these.”

  She almost cried. What a sweet man. “Thank you so much.”

  He gently lifted her injured leg and slipped the pillow beneath it. As soon as she had some privacy, she’d dig into her pocket and take a couple ibuprofen. Willow bark tea, nature’s aspirin, would help, but right now she needed more than nature could provide.

  Finally situated, she picked up the silver strainer and placed it over a cup as she poured, added a slice of lemon, and then nibbled on the pastries, very carefully, to avoid spilling crumbs on her drawings and Mr. Jefferson’s desk.

  She was pleasantly surprised with the contents of the box. The natural red chalk was a warm, vital color and would add liveliness to her drawings. Thinking about where she was—in Jefferson’s cabinet—she hummed “The Room Where It Happens” from Hamilton: An American Musical.

  She’d been so enthralled with Hamilton’s story that, after seeing the musical in London, she went on an audiobook spree starting with the Ron Chernow book that inspired the musical, followed by Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, James Thomas Flexner’s Washington: The Indispensable Man, David McCullough’s John Adams, Walter Stahr’s John Jay: Founding Father, Paul Staiti’s Of Arms and Artists: The American Revolution through Painters’ Eyes, and finished with Walter Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. The audiobooks had kept her entertained at night while she made her reversible dress and undergarments, but by the time she finished Franklin’s memoirs, she’d satisfied her curiosity and moved on to stories about eighteenth-century painters.

  While she flipped mentally through the audiobooks she’d listen to about the Founding Fathers, she drew a sketch of the room without details, just positioning his contraptions, books, and furniture in the space. Then she experimented with placing Jefferson in the room, interacting with different props. Her favorite was of him standing at the revolving bookstand with his hand marking his place in one book while his finger flipped the corner of a page in another.

  The light changing to amber and the daylilies visible from the window folding in on themselves were the only indication of time passing, but she kept working, too manic to stop.

  She also sketched a few pictures of the mob storming the Bastille, and even drew a pair of crutches, complete with measurements based on a previous pair she’d used. Jefferson might know of a carpenter who could make them quickly.

  Her hand couldn’t keep up with the outpouring of ideas, as evidenced by the diminished stack of paper in the drawer. The next time Mr. Petit came in, she’d ask for more paper and directions to the water closet the house was rumored to have.

  A gaggle of voices in the hallway distracted her for a moment, but she quickly went back to her sketch. It didn’t concern her. She had exhausted her ideas for this room and only needed a few minutes to finish up. Tomorrow she would tackle the garden.

  The annoying sound of someone clearing their throat forced her to look up, and what she saw standing in the doorway caused a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. The expression “hair on fire” must have originated with Jefferson.

  A last ray of the waning sun beamed through the window directly onto his sandy-colored hair, setting it afire with sunset colors.

  His fists were clenched at his sides, and tension hunched his shoulders. Oops. She had planned to be out long before he returned, but time got away from her.

  Dozens of sketches were scattered on the desk, but most were on the floor, a habit she’d developed long ago—her controlled chaos of creativity.

  He didn’t say anything as he moved slowly into the room, stooping to pick up the closest drawings.

  “Oh, hi…you’re home.”

  Jefferson’s ruddy complexion was even redder now. “Our agreement was that you would paint the garden.”

  “Well, I didn’t make it there today.” She returned pieces of chalk to the box and straightened the papers on the desk. “This is one of the most fascinating rooms I’ve ever been in. It’s like a peek into your mind. It looks like you, feels like you, smells like you.”

  She could keep talking, but it wouldn’t do any good. She doubted if anyone, especially a woman, had ever transgressed Jefferson’s unwritten law—Thou shall not, under fear of severe discipline, meddle with the master’s cabinet.

  She returned the empty teacup to the tray and brushed away pastry crumbs scattered on the desk. “I was so enthralled that I had to get my ideas down on paper. I didn’t intend to spend the afternoon here.”

  He picked up several more pieces of paper and thumbed through them. Not only was his face turning a brighter red, but his hair was too. He held up a handful of sketches, shaking them, mimicking the sound of fluttering wings. Then he held one sheet separate and apart from the others.

  “What is this?”

  Jefferson wasn’t as angry as Sophia’s father was when he discovered she and Pete had eloped, but close. She had refused to show fear then, and she refused to show fear now.

  She was in the wrong, no doubt about it. Not only had she invaded Jefferson’s space, but she had drawn a sketch he probably considered inappropriate.

  “Why, pray tell, am I only half dressed?”

  “Oh, that one… Well, you’re looking only at what’s not there, instead of what is.” If she’d been able to walk, she would have gotten up and taken the sketch away from him. “Instead of focusing on you in the sketch, tell me what else you see.”

  “A grapery.”

  “Look closely. It’s a place that provides physical and emotional protection. It’s a vineyard or grapery at sunset. Can you smell the sensual flavors of the flowering vines, the earthy scent of soil after a thunderstorm, the sunburned grass?”

  The same look of puzzlement he had earlier returned, but with more intensity. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “This isn’t about what I see. It’s about what you see.”

  “I see a man half dressed.”

  “Then I’m sorry for that, because I see much more. Thick, ropy muscles in your neck, shoulders, and arms, strained from hours of toiling in your vineyards. You wouldn’t be working in the soil wearing a coat, embroidered waistcoat, and linen shirt. No, your collar would be open, your sleeves rolled to your elbows, shirttail partially untucked, hair unbound. It’s an earthy, sensual experience.

  “Look at the sketch. You have dirt in your hand, studying the life in the soil. A man wearing a coat with lace on the sleeves doesn’t feel the soil, doesn’t smell it, doesn’t squeeze it between his fingers. And that, Mr. Jefferson, is why you’re only half dressed.”

  “Sophia.” The way he whispered her name, with his mix of accents, might have been the second most seductive sound she’d ever heard.

  “Thomas,” she said, matching the softness of his voice.

  He sat in a chair next to his revolving bookshelf and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “How do you know?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

  “Your painter’s eye saw a man others haven’t seen. How’d you know?”

  “I work with my hands, but I
paint from my heart. I take in sensory information and push it out through my paintbrush. Anyone can make art, but not everyone can make you feel something when you view it.” The conversation was straying in a direction she didn’t want it to go, and tension was palpable in the room. Painting him might be the most difficult commission she’d ever undertake.

  She changed the subject. “Did your daughters return with you?”

  He nodded and slowly got to his feet again. “The girls have gone to their rooms to rest before dinner. We’re having guests. I’ll ask their chambermaid Sally to see if she can find something in Patsy’s wardrobe to fit you.”

  “That’s not necessary. I came prepared.” Her jacket was slung over the back of his desk chair. She waved a sleeve. “My jacket and skirt are reversible. I have a necklace and earbobs for some bling and a rhinestone comb for my hair. After a bath I’ll be respectable again.” She glanced down at her hands. “My hands need a good scrubbing, too.”

  He wiped his finger down her cheek. “And your face.”

  “Having chalk on my cheeks is an occupational hazard.”

  “What is bling?”

  “Whatever the queen wears—anything expensive and ostentatious.”

  “Is it French?”

  She laughed and then converted it into a more tactful cough. “No, it’s universal. One of those words that’s the same in all languages.”

  He slipped her jacket off the chair. “Reversible clothes? I’ve never heard of such a thing.” He held up the blue-green wool and silk jacket, then turned it inside out and examined the reversed side, which featured hand-painted flowers on silk and linen. “Two in one.”

  “Much like your polygraph.”

  His gaze shifted from the jacket to the polygraph and back to the jacket. “A very clever design, and practical for traveling.”

  “Thank you.”

  He gave her the same surprised look he had earlier when he discovered she spoke English. “You designed your traveling dress?”

  “Designed and made it. I wouldn’t do it again. I spent almost a year working out the patterns for both dresses and sewing them together, and I swear I ripped out twice as many seams as I sewed.”