The Sapphire Brooch (The Celtic Brooch Trilogy Book 2) (26 page)

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 you 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, then 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 whiskey. His hand shook as he poured.

Sean joined him. “If ye’ hadn’t been here, I’d have died.” He picked up the whiskey 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 Ann, 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 Ann 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 Ann 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 Ann…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 Ann’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 you 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 you 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 lot worse.

27

En Route to Washington City, December, 1864

O
n 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, but 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.

“All
abooaaard
.”

The train began to chug slowly out of the station. If he didn’t go now, he wouldn’t go at all.
Why am I hesitating?
Half the train passed the platform and still he didn’t budge.

Charlotte’s face flashed before his eyes. So did Lincoln’s. Without honor, Braham had nothing. He had no choice. He snatched up the food basket Sukey had prepared for him and chased after the train. As the caboose neared the end of the platform, Braham grabbed the car’s iron railing and hoisted himself aboard. He claimed a cracked leather seat in the back of the musty-smelling car, where he sat very still, staring off at nothing for a long time, with a gunmetal taste in his mouth.

The wheels clacked as they rolled off one rail onto the next. The snow flurries had stopped, leaving behind a brilliantly clear sky. The rolling hills of Kentucky’s Bluegrass Region passed by quickly, one conical hill after the other. Dormant tobacco fields dominated the landscape while the weeks he’d spent in the twenty-first century dominated his thoughts—Charlotte’s almond-shaped blue eyes and full, kissable lips, Jack’s friendship, the Internet, driving a car with wind blowing in his face from the open windows. The lure of these memories had to be sealed away, hidden in his heart—forever.

In hindsight, the skirmish at MacKlenna Farm had been a blessing. The next time he encountered men with guns, he would be protected by his battle-hardened determination, now fully prepared to engage the enemy.

28

Washington City, December, 1864

T
he train arrived
in Washington two days later, during a cold December rain. At a station prior to his final destination, he’d gotten off and sent a telegram to his Lafayette Square townhouse butler, advising the staff of his arrival. He often stayed in the city instead of taking the long ride out to Georgetown, and meeting with Lincoln and Stanton should keep him in Washington for at least a day or two. After a bath and change of clothes, he would present himself to the President and Secretary of War.

Though he knew they would press him for an explanation, he also knew he could never tell them the truth unless he wanted to be committed to the Government Hospital for the Insane. He would have to use the same answer he gave the police officers:
I don’t have any memory of what happened.

As to where he had been for the last few weeks, he would have to tell them Doctor Mallory had kept him at an undisclosed location until he was fit to travel. Would they believe him? He shrugged. They were more likely to believe a lie than the truth. At this point, all they cared about was when he’d be ready to return to work.

Two hours later he strode, outwardly confident at least, into the White House. When he reached the second floor, he ran into the President’s short-tempered, dyspeptic private secretary, John Nicolay. Braham got along well enough with Nicolay, but he preferred to deal with Lincoln’s other private secretary, the witty John Hay.

“Major McCabe, you’re alive. Mr. Lincoln will be pleased. Come quickly. He’s descending the private stairs to visit the War Department. We’ll catch up to him in the basement.”

The gaslights threw a warm, mellow glow along a stuffy hallway lined with unwashed patrons. “We’ve had no news of you since Doctor Mallory was sent to arrange your escape. We assumed you were dead.”

Braham followed the secretary through the colonnade. “I should be, but I’m not, yet.”

“We’re greatly relieved,” Nicolay said. “There he is.” A dozen yards ahead, the President lumbered across the lawn. “Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln.
Wait
, Mr. Lincoln.” Nicolay waved his arms.