The Sapphire Brooch by Katherine Logan (reading eggs books .TXT) 📗

stairs to the second floor. At the top, they entered a reception room where at least a dozen men waited.

A thin, dark-haired young man with a widow’s peak and goatee approached the captain. “Can I help you?”

She recognized Lincoln’s secretary, John Nicolay, from old photographs in Jack’s Civil War collection.

The captain handed Nicolay an envelope. “From General Sheridan.”

“I’ll make sure the president receives this.”

The captain cleared his throat and nodded toward Charlotte. “The letter refers to this surgeon.” Then he lowered his voice. “We gave him a Union coat. Didn’t think he should come in here dressed in Confederate gray.”

“Oh, I see,” Nicolay said. “Wait here.”

A few minutes later, Nicolay returned. “Mr. Lincoln wishes to relay his thanks to General Sheridan,” he said to the captain. Then to Charlotte he said, “If you’ll follow me, the president will see you now.”

She gulped and pushed aside all thoughts of why she was flung into another time or how she was going to get home. The Make-A-Wish Foundation, sponsored by the time travel gods, had granted her wish to meet Abraham Lincoln. She pressed down the sides of the borrowed, loose-fitting, and filthy jacket, wishing she could stop in the ladies’ room to make herself presentable.

Nicolay led the way into Lincoln’s office.

The president stood at the back of the room, holding a document and gazing forlornly out the window toward the Potomac and the encampments of Union soldiers, a shawl draped across his shoulders. Secretary of War Stanton, an identifiable, round-faced man with a graying beard, was absorbed in reading a document, standing next to an old mahogany writing desk with pigeonholes full of books and papers. This was a snapshot in time, a photo which would trend on every social media site, and she blinked rapidly as if taking multiple pictures, hoping her memory wouldn’t run out.

While waiting for the president or Stanton to acknowledge her, she took a quick inventory of the room. Blink. Blink. Blink. Jack would ask her later to set the scene for him, and he would expect her to describe the room in detail. Blink. Blink. Blink.

From her previous visits to the White House, she was familiar with the public rooms and the main rooms in the private residence. The room Lincoln used for his office, located in the southeast corner of the second floor, was referred to as the Lincoln Bedroom in the twenty-first century, and it was the same room in which she now awaited the president’s acknowledgement.

The gas lamps’ dim golden light provided spotty illumination of the green and gold wallpaper and dark green striped carpet covering the floor. There were no recognizable pieces of furniture. The only painting she could identify was the portrait of Andrew Jackson hanging over the fireplace. In her time, the painting hung over a doorway behind her. Folios of maps leaned against the wall next to the sofa. Blink. Blink. Blink.

“How did you come to be captured, Major Mallory?”

Lincoln’s question jolted her. She snapped to attention then took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “I was tending General Ramseur when his ambulance was captured in Strasburg.”

Lack of sleep showed in the president’s dark-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. He shuffled away from the window and sank into a chair at the end of a long walnut table piled high with maps and books. Directly in front of him was an eight-inch-high pile of documents written on heavy parchment.

“How’s the general now?”

“He was mortally wounded, sir. There was little I could do. God was not on the Confederate side at Cedar Creek.”

“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side—”

The Lincoln quote was one of many Charlotte had memorized. She finished it, saying, “For God is always right.”

Lincoln nodded. “Indeed, He is.”

“Please, Doctor Mallory, have a seat,” Stanton said.

She hovered over a chair before sitting, studying Lincoln closely as if he were one of her patients during morning rounds. Although lanky and plain-looking, his face radiated intelligence and kindness. The mole on his right cheek, the asymmetry of his face, large jaw, and drooping eyelid were all consistent with photographs and historical observations. He also appeared to be several pounds lighter than his reported one hundred eighty pounds. His hair was disheveled, but his clothes were neatly pressed. Blink. Blink. Blink.

She eased into the proffered chair, sat near the edge, and leaned forward, never taking her eyes off him.

“You’re probably wondering why you’re here, Doctor Mallory,” Stanton said.

“It has crossed my mind several times since General Sheridan threatened me,” she said with a thread of steel in her voice.

“We need medical assistance which only you can provide.” Stanton impaled her with a fierce glare having nothing to do with her and everything to do with her allegiance. To have to ask the enemy for help must have riled him.

“The Union has very capable doctors, I’m sure,” she said.

Lincoln clasped his hands and rested them on the table. “This is a delicate matter and requires more than simply a capable doctor.”

Stanton sat heavily in an armchair next to the window overlooking the unfinished Washington Monument. “One of our best agents has been wounded and captured. He’s currently being held in Chimborazo.”

“Chimborazo isn’t a prison hospital. Why is he there?”

“He was shot while escaping. Chimborazo was the closest hospital. They want him alive for questioning.”

“He should receive excellent care. Why do you need me?”

“You don’t need to treat him. You need to get him out.” Stanton enunciated each word for effect, especially the get him out part.

Whatever she’d expected to hear, this wasn’t it. Chimborazo sat on top of a hill in Richmond. She couldn’t march up there and steal a patient. “Do you have a plan for how it might be accomplished?”

Stanton tapped his cigar against the edge of an overflowing ashtray. “No. You’ll have to devise a plan once you’ve made an assessment of the major’s condition. It’s to your advantage, though, that he’s not in a prison hospital.”

Lincoln’s