The Sapphire Brooch by Katherine Logan (best novels to read to improve english .txt) 📕

Excited voices from the hall alerted them only seconds before the door swung open and Braham stomped into the room, noticing Cullen immediately.

She fixed Braham with a direct look but he hadn’t noticed her yet.

The lines of his face curved in sudden joy. Braham went quickly to the desk and embraced his friend, clapping Cullen several times on the back. “Damn, it’s good to see ye.” Then he noticed David and his eyebrows shot up. “What are ye doing here?” He glanced from Cullen to David, and then back at Cullen.

As if remembering there was another person in the room, he jerked his head in Charlotte’s direction. The red of his scar was clearly visible above his eye. He pressed his lips so tightly together they were barely evident in the depths of his neatly clipped beard. He took a step toward her, and she moved backward, her heels scraping against the wall. The air seemed sucked from the room. She bit her lower lip, trying to think of what to say, but nothing came to mind as he advanced closer, then closer still, until he stopped within inches of her.

The memory of their last moments together seemed to cross his face, and the hint of a smile, wry yet painful, showed in his glistening eyes. He traced the curve of her lips, and then a pinched look of shock replaced the smile, giving way to slump-shouldered sadness. He pulled her into his arms, and in a voice as soft as his breath on her cheek, he said, “Ah, Charlotte, I’m so sorry.”

His tears fell silently upon her cheeks.

81

Washington City, 1865

Charlotte left the men and retired to her bedroom to compose herself, change out of her miserable Ace bandages and facial hair, and clean up a bit. When she returned, only a little refreshed but more comfortable without the beard and wig, she heard voices behind the closed doors leading into the parlor. She put her ear to the door but couldn’t distinguish voices or words. She doubted anyone other than Braham, Cullen, and David were in the room, so she knocked and opened the door at the same time. The men made a move to stand, but she made a stopping motion with her hand.

“Don’t get up on my account,” she said.

Braham stood anyway and came up to her. “I hope, since ye’re my guest, ye’ll at least allow me to fix ye a drink.”

She fingered the hair above his scar and pushed strands out of the way so she could see the injury. “It’s healing well. How’s your shoulder?”

“I had a surgeon at the hospital where ye worked remove the stitches. He asked me if ye’d sewed me up. Said he recognized yer handiwork.”

“Really?” She smiled, pleased by the compliment.

Braham poured a glass of whisky and handed it to her. “They thought well of ye.”

She took a restorative gulp, sighing blissfully as the amber-colored liquid trickled down the back of her throat, extending tendrils of warmth and comfort into her chest. “What have I missed?”

Braham waited until she settled into a corner of the sofa before taking a seat across from her. “We’ve been talking about Cullen’s lad, Thomas. We knew you’d want to be part of the discussion concerning Jack, so we’ve been waiting for ye.”

Braham wasn’t being truthful. There was no look of subterfuge, no averting of his eyes, but she could feel heaviness in the air. They’d been discussing her. Maybe she was overly sensitive right now, but she didn’t think she was completely off her game.

“I’ve asked Stanton what evidence the commission has against Jack, but he’s refused to tell me. I believe whatever he has is circumstantial. If Jack had sold at least one article to the newspaper, it would support his claim of being a writer. But he didn’t. Do ye know why?”

“He never told me,” she said, “but it probably has something to do with his writing style. His undergraduate degree is in journalism, but he writes differently than reporters do now.”

The muscles tightened around Braham’s eyes as if he were confused. “He told me he studied prelaw, not journalism. I asked specifically why he studied prelaw before going to law school.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re mistaken. It was journalism. In fact, he had a part-time job working for the Richmond-Times Dispatch.”

Braham leaned forward in his seat, both hands gripping his glass. “He said his mother arranged a position with a Richmond law firm. He worked in the file room and ran errands while in college.”

A sinking, twisting knot wrapped around her throat. “My mother didn’t have any friends who were lawyers.” She said it slowly, enunciating each one, as if he was a child who couldn’t hear or comprehend.

“Charlotte,” David said in a warning tone, and her head shot up. “This is what Elliott was talking about when he said ye’d have different memories.”

Braham glanced at her and repeated David’s statement as a question. “Why would ye have different memories?”

“Elliott believes it’s because of Jack’s execution—” David said.

Braham came up out of his chair. “His what?”

Cullen shoved a piece of paper into Braham’s hand. “Read this. It’s a copy of his death warrant.”

Braham read out loud, his face crumpling like the paper in his shaking hand: “Finding. Of the specification, guilty. Sentence. And the commission does therefore sentence the said Jack Mallory to be hung by the neck until he be dead, at such time and place as the president of the United States shall direct, two-thirds of the members of the commission concurring therein.” Braham grabbed the edge of his chair, swaying slightly, his face ashen. “How in God’s name is this possible?”

Faintly startled by his tone of voice, she said, “It won’t happen now, but it did happen. Let me ask you this. We found a letter Jack wrote to me, asking me to claim his body and bury him in the cemetery near the homeplace