The Pearl Brooch

by Logan, Katherine Lowry

  “Aren’t you helping the enemy?” Pete asked.

  “No. It’s part of the deal, and not a secret around here. It just needs someone to take the initiative to put the terms on the table and make a commitment. It should happen at dinner tonight with Thomas, Madison, and Hamilton, but if Hamilton is meeting with those two Virginians, he needs an edge. Give it to him.”

  Matt and Jack were bursting with the same kind of excitement she would have if she’d ever been awarded The Hugo Boss Prize—$100,000 and a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

  “Where will you be?” Jack asked.

  Sophia looked at Pete. They had to get things settled or neither one of them could ever move on completely. “Pete and I are going for a walk down by the river. There’s a private beach,” she pointed, “in that direction. When you finish with Hamilton, come find us.”

  Pete slipped her portfolio into his backpack and strapped the quilt to the carabiners and quickdraws. When the pack was settled on his shoulders, she looped her hand around his arm and they strolled off in one direction while Matt and Jack headed toward Hamilton.

  “That may not have been the smartest idea,” Pete said.

  “Why not?”

  “Jack has a history of going rogue. Is there anything he can tell Hamilton that will change history?”

  “He could tell him not to have an affair and not to participate in a duel with Burr. I don’t know what would happen if Hamilton doesn’t die in 1804. He might be president instead of someone else. He’s such a brilliant man, and he could accomplish so much more.”

  She watched the three men exchange introductions and had a moment’s panic. Was it possible to screw up a conversation and make a radical change to history? No, Mallory would be sensitive to the possibility. And if he wasn’t, surely Matt would be careful.

  “Let’s go take off our shoes and splash in the water.”

  He hugged her hand to his chest. “This is killing me, Soph-darling.”

  She gazed up into his glimmering eyes. “It brings up a lot of pain we don’t need to carry any longer.”

  “Should we just chuck it in the river?”

  “Great idea.”

  They crossed the street and climbed down the other side of a grassy knoll dotted with flowers. The area would one day be part of Castle Clinton National Monument and The Battery, but today no one was there. No one was ever there. It had become her own private beach, easily accessible from the back door of Mrs. Colley’s house. She could go in and out without anybody seeing her.

  Playing in the waves was an unheard-of activity. People didn’t swim because they were afraid of drowning.

  When they reached the sand near the lapping waves, the air was sweet, and a warm breeze was gently blowing through the nearby trees. The bank was alive with nesting ducks taking advantage of the shade provided by some tall reeds. Pete dropped his backpack and spread out the quilt. She immediately plopped down and pulled off her shoes.

  “This is where I came through the fog. I was hoping it was Paris so I could find you before you met Jefferson.” He pointed toward the tops of the townhomes visible from the beach. “The brooch dropped me almost at your backdoor.”

  “How ironic. Twenty years ago, we were separated at the backdoor to my parents’ house.”

  “Your parents shouldn’t have done what they did to us,” he said. “It didn’t screw you up, but it did me.”

  “It didn’t screw me up? Did you really just say that?” She threw her shoe at him. He was quick enough to dodge the bullet, and it flew past him. She spoke with more vehemence than she intended, putting her anger out there to be dealt with. “The hell it didn’t. Why else do you think I’m close to forty, unmarried, and childless.”

  He picked up her shoe and dropped it on the quilt. “I am too, Soph-darling.”

  “Don’t call me that again! Your term of endearment is no longer endearing.” She removed her other shoe, and he crouched to avoid the second missile coming his way.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just how I feel.”

  “It doesn’t offend me. It’s just outdated, and I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Well, tell me how you really feel, Soph—”

  She glared, daring him to say it again. When he didn’t, she dropped the shoe.

  He knelt beside her and undid her garters. “I’ve always dreamed one day I’d remove my bride’s garter at our wedding reception.” He rolled down her stockings, folded them, and placed them inside her shoes.

  “You removed my pantyhose. That has to count for something.”

  “I wanted the whole garter toss to the groomsmen deal. Jack did it at his wedding.”

  “Who caught it?”

  Pete chuckled. “I did.”

  “It’s not too late,” she said. “You can still do it.”

  “I’d have to find someone I love more than I love you.”

  “Don’t do that, please. If you’d loved me, really loved me, you would have come after me.”

  He propped his elbows on his knees and held his head. “Father Francis told me to let you go. He said your parents knew what was best for you, and that I couldn’t support you and take care of a family. He said you were better off without me. He also said your parents told you the very same thing. As the weeks went by and you never wrote or called, I got it in my head you believed the lies. When I thought of calling you, I was too afraid you’d tell me never to contact you again.”

  He scrubbed his face. “The only way I could see through the pain was to join the Marines. When I got out, I was accepted into the police academy and finished college at night. The years melted away. I hooked up with MacKlenna Corporation and now spend more time in airplanes than I do at home. I’m more than able to support a wife, but I can’t find one who comes close to you.”

  Tears pushed into her eyes. “You didn’t contact me because you were afraid? Impossible! The man I knew was invincible, not afraid of anyone, and you got it in your head to be afraid of me. That’s crap!”

  She wanted to jump up and kick sand or water at him, but damn it, she couldn’t do it gracefully. She pulled to her knees and pushed up using his shoulder.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To kick water at you.” She lifted her skirts and ran.

  “Wait.” He yanked off his shoes and stockings and ran after her, and they splashed and laughed as they plowed through the gentle waves. She scooped handfuls at him, and he scooped water at her. Then she ran away, laughing as he chased her.

  When he caught her, they held hands and walked back splashing through the shallow water. Her hand felt so natural in his. “How’s your family?”

  “We lost Dad two years ago.”

  “I’m sorry. He was a great dad. He was a better dad to me than my own.”

  “He loved you, that’s for sure. But even he told me I had to respect your parents’ wishes. Mom told me eloping was irresponsible of both of us.”

  “What about your brothers and sisters?”

  “They’re all still in the city. Mom stays busy. I get home every few weeks for a night or so, and I’ve taken her with me when I visit the company’s vineyards in Tuscany. She loves it there and wants me to buy a house so she can go more often. The Frasers have told her she’s welcome to stay in the main house whenever she wants to go, but she feels like she’s imposing.”

  “Are you going to buy a place?”

  “Probably. I have an agent looking for a small vineyard. If something comes along, I’ll buy it.”

  “Another irony in this saga. I leave Italy, and you move there.”

  “You don’t have to leave.”

  She gave him a bittersweet smile. “We’ll never see each other after today. Let’s not argue or pressure me to change my mind. Let’s just walk in the water and remember those days when we were young and in love. Let’s make this last memory the one we’ll cherish most.”

  “The memory I’ll always cherish is the
first time we had sex.”

  “We were so hot for each other, and so stupid.”

  “Hey, speak for yourself, sweetheart. I knew what I was doing.”

  She scooped another handful of water at him. “Really? I guess that’s why you had a smile and I had tears.”

  He splashed water on her. “It wasn’t so bad.”

  She gave him a fake smile. “Maybe not for you…” Then she brightened. “The next time, though, was awesome.”

  He clasped her hand again, and they swung their arms back and forth while they continued walking through the waves. The bottom of her skirt was soaked, her bodice drenched, and her hair was tumbling around her shoulders.

  He swung their arms up so he could kiss her hand. “I couldn’t wait to see you again. I sat in class and counted the seconds.”

  “We were so young.”

  “I always thought we’d have a thousand nights and a houseful of children.”

  “A thousand nights sounds like forever when you’re seventeen. I thought we’d have a houseful of kids, too. Now I know I never will.”

  “You can. Come home with—”

  She placed her hand over his mouth. “Please don’t say it.”

  He removed her hand, and without asking, kissed her. She didn’t know if it was the sand beneath her feet, the lapping waves, the choking call of the seagulls, but the years simply drifted away. She was no longer an ancient soul, but seventeen again, French kissing the love of her life, experiencing the sexy rush of adrenaline and butterflies in her belly. One of life’s sweetest, simplest, most honest pleasures. And just like when she was a teenager, she didn’t want it to end. Nothing else mattered. Only that moment in time.

  He bracketed her hips with his strong hands and pulled her down into the sand and surf and claimed her mouth again in a kiss so deeply passionate, so uniquely him, so heartfelt, and so memorable that she cried, but she couldn’t stop kissing him.

  Finally, she rolled off and sat there in the shallow water, weeping.

  “I’m sorry. I keep saying it, but I really am,” Pete said.

  She gazed at him, noting the little changes around his eyes, the gray streaks at his temples. He still looked the same—handsome and sexy—and he laughed the same. But it was different now. It had to be. They sat in silence for the longest time, holding hands, not speaking, just sharing the moment.

  “I’m so lucky to have had time with you all those years ago. I am who I am today because I was well-loved as a young woman. It’s my wish for you to find your soul mate as I have found mine.”

  Tears glistened in his eyes, and when he spoke again his voice sounded hoarse and scratchy. “I’ll never stop loving you.”

  She had a sudden constriction in her throat, a burning sensation, a spasm of her abdominal muscles. “It’s time to let go and move on. Deep down I always believed we’d have another chance, and it’s kept me chained to the past. I don’t blame you anymore for not coming after me. And I hope you don’t blame me for not reaching out to you.”

  Just then an image came to mind, and she knew how she wanted to paint him—here on the beach, his pants covered with sand, the sun reflecting off the water, a single set of footprints beside him, a comforting smile on his face. She would title it Forgiven.

  And she also knew it would take time and emotional distance before she could even sketch the portrait in her journal.

  “I’ve never stopped believing we’d have another chance, either. But, Soph, why didn’t you call me? Just to let me know how you were doing?”

  “When my parents told me you’d made a mistake and didn’t want a wife, I believed them.”

  “They did a number on you.”

  “They did a number on both of us, and I’ve never forgiven them. Maybe it’s time I did.”

  He squeezed her hand. “We should have trusted the love we confessed to each other on our wedding night.”

  “We were just too young.”

  They continued to sit there, letting the waves roll over them. The sun dip below the horizon, casting lengthening shadows over the city. She would have to leave soon to get ready for the dinner at Thomas’s house.

  “Pete! Sophia!” They turned to see Matt and Jack jogging through the sand, waving. The Second Coming couldn’t have put a more delighted expression on their faces. They simply glowed.

  Pete helped her up out of the water. “Did you set Alexander straight?” she asked.

  Jack frowned at her. “You’re soaking wet. How are you going to explain your appearance?”

  “There’s nobody to explain to, and it won’t be the first time I’ve gone home like this.”

  Now Pete frowned at her. “I’m not sure I want to hear about that.”

  “I fell in. I was walking backwards and tripped. Ruined a dozen sketches of the river. Fortunately, my townhome backs up to that slope, and I can come and go without anyone seeing me.”

  “Your lips are red and swollen. How are you going to explain that?” Jack asked. “I don’t want Jefferson challenging Pete to a duel.”

  She rubbed her finger over her lips. “That won’t happen. I’ll put a cold compress on them later. So tell us. What did you say to Hamilton?”

  “There’s no historical record of the meeting at 57 Maiden Lane when Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton met to hammer out the Compromise of 1790, but we just wrote the script for a play,” Jack said. “When Hamilton left us, he was primed for the dinner on Maiden Lane.”

  “You’re primed too,” she said. “You’re glowing.”

  “Must be the ale,” Jack said.

  “Jack secretly taped the entire conversation, which continued over ale at Fraunces Tavern. We just now left him. He had to go home to dress for dinner.”

  “We told him Madison would support assumption—or at least not oppose it—if something was granted in exchange,” Jack said. “It would be a bitter pill for Southern states unless something was done to soothe them.”

  “Was Hamilton at a loss?” Sophia asked.

  “Yes. So we suggested—”

  “You suggested—” Matt said.

  “Okay, I suggested,” Jack said, “that Philadelphia should be a temporary capital for a period of ten years, followed by a permanent move to the Potomac site, and if Madison seemed to hesitate, to work out a favorable treatment for Virginia in a final debt settlement with the central government.”

  Matt consulted a piece of paper he pulled from his pocket. “Hamilton said he would exert his utmost efforts to get the Pennsylvania congressional delegation to accept Philadelphia as the provisional capital and a Potomac site as its permanent successor.”

  “We explained to Hamilton, the quintessential New Yorker, that he would be bargaining away the city’s chance to be another London or Paris, the political as well as financial and cultural capital of the country, and his compromise on this testified to the transcendent value he placed on assumption,” Jack said.

  Matt consulted his paper again. “I told him the decision would not sit well with many New Yorkers, and they would see it as high-handed. But in the end it would work out, and eventually New York City would be the financial capital of the world, and every global business would have a presence here.”

  “You two are so wound up you’re about to explode,” Sophia said.

  Jack tossed his hat in the air and caught it. “I’ve never been in such a creative state. I’ve got to start writing.” He tossed his hat again. This time the wind carried it toward the water. He ran after it and plucked it from the sand a second before an incoming wave soaked it. “I’ve got to sit down with pen and paper.”

  Sophia laughed at him. “What did you think of Hamilton?”

  Jack brushed the sand off his hat. “Personally, I think he’s very boyish, but beneath the military bearing is an almost androgynous quality.”

  “During the conversation, he went from abject despair to inexpressible elation at the possibility of winning final backing for his funding scheme,” Matt said.r />
  Jack tossed his hat again, but this time Pete snatched it out of the air. “Stop it! It’s not a damn boomerang. And you smell like ale, but you act like you took a handful of uppers. Do your trance thing and get yourself under control.” He dropped Jack’s hat on the quilt. “Do it now.”

  “I’m not sure I want to. I like this feeling.”

  “But you’re driving me nuts. I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “It’s not my hyperactivity that’s bothering you, but if it will make you feel better, I’ll do it.” Jack closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

  Pete and Matt watched him expectantly. Nobody moved for several minutes. Then, Jack slowly opened his eyes and there was a calmness about him.

  “Did you see anything?” Pete asked.

  Jack shook his head. “Nothing that makes sense. Sophia was standing under the willow oak at Mallory Plantation weeping.”

  Pete’s eyebrows drew together. “Was she hurt?”

  “She didn’t appear to be physically injured.”

  “Mr. MacKlenna and I were standing near the willow oak when he told me I couldn’t switch brooches,” Sophia said. “I was teary eyed, but I wasn’t weeping. How did you learn to do that?”

  “I spent two years at a Tibetan Monastery studying an esoteric meditative discipline. It saved my sanity when I was in prison for conspiring to kill Lincoln.”

  “I take it since you’re here now, you got out. So tell me, were you in Richmond the night of the fire? I read your book, and the description was terrifying.”

  “My sister, her husband, and I were all there. It was hell.”

  “So your trances take you either to the future or the past,” Sophia said. “If you saw me at Mallory Plantation it was in the past.”

  “I’ve gone to the future before, but it’s rare. I can’t go into a trance to see where the stock market is going to close.”

  Pete removed Sophia’s portfolio and pencils from his knapsack and handed them to her. “If we could back up a hundred years, I want to know why your trance took you to Mallory Plantation.”