Calhoun Chronicles Bundle (87 page)

Helena took a sip straight from the bottle. Then she held it to the light and frowned. “There’s something rolling around in here. A little swollen brown thing.”

“That would be the worm,” Rowan said.

“The agave worm,” Jamie added. “It’s usually found only in bottles of Mezcal, but this is very high-quality tequila.”

“A worm?” Helena held the bottle close to her face, almost going cross-eyed as she studied it with disgust.

“Aztec priests started the custom,” Rowan said. “Gives the drink an actual life spirit.”

Jamie took the bottle and refilled Abigail’s glass before she could stop him. To her horror, the worm flowed into her tumbler. “
El gusano
is prized as an aphrodisiac,” he said. “It’s meant to be eaten, my dear.”

She studied the grublike thing, pale and grotesquely swollen in the bottom of her glass. “Why would anyone eat that?”

“Within the worm lies the key.”

“The key to what?”

“To freedom, to enchantment, to a new world of wondrous experiences.”

“It’s a worm, not the Holy Grail.”

“There’s only one way to find out if I’m right,” he said. “You have to try it.”

She recalled that he was the one who’d made her eat a raw oyster. “Never,” she said, shoving the glass into his hand.

“You don’t know what you’re missing.” He drank the liquor, worm and all, making a big show of chewing it with exaggerated relish.

Helena and Abigail exchanged a look. Abigail closed her eyes, inhaling fresh air through her nostrils. Helena headed for the nearest spittoon.

“So you wish to contact the
Washington Post,
” said Professor Rowan, ignoring their disgust. He seated himself by the tall wooden box on the wall and set to operating the telephonic device. The machine crackled to life, and the operator connected him with the telephone at the paper. A faint voice sounded at the other end. “Yes? This is Timothy Doyle, at the
Post.
”

“Can you hear me? It’s Michael Rowan in Georgetown.”

“Yes, indeed, Professor Rowan, I hear you quite clearly.”

“Good. I have a bit of news for you to print. The vice president’s son is going to marry Senator Cabot’s daughter.”

“You don’t say? Boyd Butler and Helena Cabot?”

“No,” Rowan said quickly. “Boyd Butler and Miss
Abigail
Cabot.”

“The short, odd one? Very funny, Professor. I can hardly print that. It would be taken as a joke, and I don’t do satire.”

Jamie severed the connection with a swift flip of the lever. Abigail felt as cold and empty as an abandoned cave. Rowan’s face went pale. He muttered an apology and shuffled away to check on Helena.

“Abby, I’m sorry,” Jamie said.

A joke.
The reporter was probably right. “You’ve nothing to apologize for,” she said to Jamie. “I am a fraud, and soon everyone will know it.” Ugly doubts etched themselves across her thoughts. “In all fairness, I should give Boyd a chance to back out. He was a bit confused today, a bit emotional. I should not have accepted so swiftly.” She was inches from tears she refused to shed.

He took both her hands, frowning at their clammy chill. “Look, the world hasn’t seen the new Abigail Cabot yet. When they do, careless reporters will eat their words like agave worms.”

She studied him, that wickedly handsome face, those merry eyes. He was so sure of himself; he was so sure of her. No one had ever been so sure of her before. He believed in her in a way no one ever had in her life. He looked as though he cared, though she knew better. “I’ll see to it that my father understands your part in this. I must, after all, give credit where credit is due.”

“Abby—”

“I shouldn’t want you to think me ungrateful.” She stood up, swaying a little in the faint aftereffects of the tequila. “Truly, I am.”

“Fine,” he said. “That little remark you heard on the telephone is only the beginning. You’re going to have to be strong.”

“I can do that,” she insisted.

“Society is a harsh place, Abby.”

“But so is loneliness,” she said softly.

W
ith clocklike regularity, letters and floral arrangements arrived from Lieutenant Butler, who seemed to have forgotten Abigail’s sensitivity to flowers. Like those fits of sneezing, doubts assailed her. But this had to be right, she told herself. Everyone was so pleased—her father and sister, the Butlers, the astonished local gentry who had once believed her a hopeless misfit. She even received a note of congratulations from the first lady, and an invitation to the opening gala of the brand-new National Aquarium.

Yet even as her excitement rose, so did her uncertainty. Everything was happening so quickly—too quickly. Boyd was going to be given a command at sea, and he wished to marry her before setting sail. That gave her only a few weeks to prepare, and she didn’t know where to begin. She needed help. And there was only one person who could help her with this sort of thing. She marched next door to pay him a visit.

Frustrated by the surly Gerald Meeks, she barged past the servant and rushed into Jamie’s room without knocking. He was unkempt, half dressed, unshaven and clearly in no mood for company. Legislative documents and a half-eaten pie littered his work area. “You are the last person I wish to see,” he said with a glower.

“You got me into this, you must be the one to get me through it.” She flipped the invitation onto the bed. Being anywhere near a gentleman’s bed should have thrown her into paroxysms of horror, but she was too agitated to worry about decorum now.

He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “You don’t need my help. You’ve got Butler for that now.”

“He wouldn’t understand. It’s you I want—er, you’re the one who proposed this bargain in the first place.”

“And you’ve accomplished what you set out to do.”

“How can I explain this to you, Jamie? I still need you.” The words came out softly, on an aching whisper. Abigail bit her lip.

He caught his breath with a hiss, but quickly assumed a mocking smile, read the invitation and gave a low whistle. “The National Aquarium, no less. Stingrays and electric eels. You must be ecstatic.”

“I am, of course, but—” She kept feeling twinges of alarm at the rapidly unfolding events. “This is all happening in such a rush,” she said. “I’m afraid I might be having second thoughts.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” He paced the room. “Do you think Napoleon had second thoughts before embarking on his march through the Alps? What if Galileo had had second thoughts during his inquisition by the Vatican tribunal? What would he have said? ‘Oh, well, perhaps I’m wrong after all and the sun is nothing but a random star, circling the earth…”’

Abigail couldn’t help herself; she giggled. Even when he was exasperated with her, Jamie could always make her laugh. In the frenzy of her new social whirl, she’d nearly forgotten how.

“So, is your impending state of matrimony everything you thought it would be?” he asked.

She hesitated. He had dedicated himself to bringing her and Boyd together, and she didn’t want to disappoint him.

In that brief hesitation, he must have read her mood. “Don’t get cold feet now,” he said in a joking tone. “I’ve won your father over to my cause, and he’ll secure the vice president’s support. So there’s a lot at stake here.”

She laughed again, relieved to be talking to someone who didn’t study her, who didn’t wonder what on earth a Butler was doing with Senator Cabot’s odd daughter. “Only you can make me feel responsible for the well-being of all the farmers of the Chesapeake lowlands.”

“You are, my dear.”

“And here I thought I was simply getting married.”

“Nothing’s simple,” he muttered, then turned quickly away, shuffling through the stack of printed papers on his desk.

She watched him for a moment, curiously moved by the stiff set of his shoulders, the weary deliberation of his movements. “Can I ask you something?” Before he could deny her the chance, she said, “Why are you so soured and cynical about love and marriage? What happened to you, Jamie?”

He froze, then she saw his shoulders relax. By the time he turned to her, his easy grin was in place. “Isn’t it obvious? I’ve had my heart broken.” He spoke so lightly that she couldn’t tell whether or not he was serious. “But that’s not the issue before us. The issue before us is getting you ready for your first public appearance with your beloved. Now, pay attention. We’ve got work to do.”

Over the next hour, they discussed what she would wear, how she would comport herself, what she would do and whom she would see. He reviewed the art of curtsying, demonstrating his technique with the exactitude of a drill sergeant. Whistling a waltz, he helped her hone her dancing skills. Regarding the art of conversation, he cautioned her against laughing too loudly, speaking too softly and weighing in with her opinion too often. When he approached the art of fan-fluttering, she could no longer hold back, and collapsed with laughter on the bed.

The next thing she knew, he was beside her, and she could feel the warmth of him, could smell the starchy scent of his shirt, and when she turned her head, she found herself close enough to make out every facet of his remarkable eyes. They reminded her of stones trapped in ice—chilly, unfathomable.

A wave of emotion curled through her. She wasn’t certain which one of them moved first, but their lips met, tasting, exploring. With soft demand, his tongue slipped into her mouth, and she shuddered delicately. Small shocks of dangerous, invisible heat darted through her, igniting fiery aches in secret places. The seductive spell held everything he had taught her about kissing, and more, because now she brought her own feelings into it, her own confusion and disquieting passion.

He ended the kiss before she was ready, pushing her back and standing up, turning to the window. In the half light, he looked dissolute, slightly angry.

“Jamie?” she asked.

“You’ll be fine,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken at all. “You’re as ready as you’ll ever be.”

J
amie Calhoun arrived unfashionably early for the gala opening of the National Aquarium on Constitution Avenue, not far from the White House.

He didn’t want to miss a single moment of the event, not because he was keen on looking at specimens of alligators and sharks, but because the event would be Abigail Cabot’s first official outing as a society bride-to-be. At the opulent new facility, the first of its kind in the nation, she would appear on the arm of Boyd Butler, whose father would deliver a short address and preside over the cutting of the ribbon.

All the elite of the capital would be present to inspect her. Everyone was curious about the girl who would become daughter-in-law to the second-most important man in the land. Her last appearance in society had been less than successful, so the buzzards were circling now.

It was well known that Boyd Butler III expected to take up a career in politics, and some boldly suggested that a future run for the presidency would not be out of the question.

When Jamie considered this, he felt an amused incredulity. Abby—his Abby—as first lady. It boggled the mind. And yet he couldn’t help thinking how appropriate it would be, and how healthy for the American people. The White House had its Dolly Madison and its Mary Todd Lincoln, first ladies who brought refinements to the office, but the White House had never seen the likes of Abigail Cabot.

Hell, no one had ever seen the likes of Abigail Cabot.

Jamie discovered something startling—he would miss her. He should be glad his dealings with the Cabots would soon be over. He
was
glad, he told himself. He didn’t mind using people but he wasn’t a sadist. He didn’t enjoy hanging about and seeing everything falling apart in the aftermath of his manipulation. And it undoubtedly would, for that was the nature of romance and love. But he was, he confessed to himself, curious about the way Abigail would be received tonight.

“You’re scowling, Congressman.” Caroline Fortenay greeted him the moment he descended the marble stairs into the main gallery.

Willfully, Jamie smoothed out his brow. He felt like a different man than the one who had found her seductive, not so long ago. “I often do that when I think too much.”

“And what were you thinking?”

Jamie studied the gleaming new gallery with pretended interest. A gilded ceiling arched over the length of the wide hall. Along each wall and down each artery, thick glass windows displayed exotic marine specimens. At one end of the marble gallery, strains of a Saint-Saëns melody shimmered in the air. At the opposite end, white-coated waiters put the finishing touches on tables laden with food and drink.

“I was just trying to remember the last time I held a beautiful woman in my arms.” His flattery rang with sincerity. “My dear madam, it’s been far too long.”

Actually, he recalled his seduction of the lively widow Fortenay quite well. With a grin, he remembered the rude interruption that had ultimately saved Mrs. Fortenay’s virtue—a loud, wet sneeze from the shadows.

“Is it funny, then?” his companion asked. “Your long loneliness?”

“It is a personal tragedy,” he said, retracting his smile. “I insist that you rescue me from it by honoring me with a dance, Mrs. Fortenay.”

With a barely hooded suggestion on her face, she accepted his offer. “Since you addressed me as Mrs. Fortenay, I take it you haven’t heard. I’ve found a new husband.”

She’d wasted no time remarrying, Jamie reflected, torn between admiration and cynicism. “Ah, you shatter my heart,” he said, watching her eyes light up as she drank in the flattery. “But congratulations are in order. To you, and most especially to the lucky groom.”

Despite her newly wedded state, she sent out signals like a semaphore flagman—the flickering tongue moistening her lips, the smoldering looks, the inviting squeeze of her hand in his.

The flirtation left him curiously unmoved. Or worse, it wearied him. Illicit affairs no longer held much appeal; there was a sameness and a hollowness to the intricate dance that made the effort seem pointless.

When he failed to respond, his partner pressed her thumb into the muscle of his upper arm. “I believe I need more than one dance with you, Congressman.”

“Ma’am, you slay me with kindness. What have I done to deserve it?”

She laughed, the sound brittle, like the breaking of crystal. “You don’t deserve it. According to my husband, you deserve to be dragged to death behind a runaway horse—or train, I should think.”

The graphic, violent image intrigued him. “And your husband is…?”

Leading backward, she turned him to indicate a rotund older man with a bald pate surrounded by a fringe of wiry hair. Oversize jowls weighted his cheeks, and his large nose blossomed with the ruddiness of habitual overindulgence. “Horace Riordan. President of the Chesapeake Union Railway Company,” she said.

“I’m clearly not his favorite person,” Jamie observed, catching Riordan’s poisonous glower from across the room.

“I am supposed to be charming you into dropping your pursuit of anti-railroad legislation. If you succeed, we’ll have no railroad corridor through the Tidewater region.”

“That would be the general idea, ma’am. Your charm is working, by the way.” The fact that she had an agenda added interest to the game. He slipped his hand suggestively down her back. “I find you charming indeed.”

She arched her back with a subtle ripple of movement, pressing closer to him. “Then you’ll drop the issue?”

Of course, he thought. Why let a few thousand subsistence farmers stand in the way of one’s personal fortune?

Jamie put on the smile that had won him many a luxurious night during his travels. “Darling,” he said, “I never mix politics and pleasure, but I will—” Leaning down, he whispered one of his most shocking diversions into her ear.

Even at close range, he saw the color deepening in her cheeks. He prayed he’d read her correctly, that she would be intrigued rather than offended, but the blush worried him. She drew back, and he braced himself for a slap.

“When?” she asked.

He glanced again at Horace Riordan. It would serve the greedy bastard right if Jamie seduced his brand-new wife. But of course, a man like that was probably used to having his women seduced right under his bulbous nose.

“When?” she repeated in a fierce whisper. “Tell me, do.”

Before he could answer, a babble of speculation erupted. Jamie drew Caroline to the edge of the dance floor. Senator Franklin Cabot had arrived in the company of the vice president and his wife, and the three of them stood at the top of the wide marble staircase. Like visiting royalty, they paraded down into the sea of party guests. Then a fresh wave of anticipation rolled through the gathering, and a young couple appeared at the top of the stairs.

“That’s Boyd Butler,” said Caroline.

“Yes. So it appears.”

“And that must be his fiancée with him.”

“I imagine so.” He edged away from his partner and somehow managed to keep his expression composed. Abigail was as lovely as a dream. The new Abigail. He had encouraged this, he thought. He’d wanted this for her.

“But it cannot be,” Caroline said. “I read in the
Post
he was marrying Miss Abigail Cabot.”

Following the disastrous telephone call to the
Washington Post,
Jamie had gone straight to the offices of the newspaper, found Timothy Doyle and stood over him, dictating the announcement until every last word rang with praise for Miss Cabot, her vivacious manner, her style and her wit.

It was one thing for people to read the item. It was yet another for them to see Abigail in person, to compare what they’d read in the paper to what they saw with their own eyes.

“Well?” Caroline prodded him. “Was the
Post
mistaken?”

“Not at all. Butler’s engaged to Miss Abigail Cabot.”

“Then who—” She broke off and pressed forward to get a better look. “Good Caesar. That
is
Abigail Cabot with him. She cleans up rather more nicely than I would have imagined.”

Judging by the storm of whispers sweeping through the room, everyone present shared her amazement. “She used to be a perfect wretch,” someone said. “Messy and plain and quite hopelessly gauche,” another woman agreed. “Who would have thought she could be so transformed?”

Anyone who bothered to look at her, Jamie thought. But of course, no one had bothered.

Not even the man she planned to marry.

Along with everyone else in the room, Jamie watched the young couple’s descent into the grand gallery. Abigail’s large, wide-set eyes shone with a rare and special excitement, and her face bore the dazzling confidence of triumph. Her victory was twofold. She had won the man of her dreams. But perhaps even more importantly, she had achieved the one thing that had eluded her all her life, the one thing she craved above all others. The approval of her father.

Jamie couldn’t understand why that mattered so much to her. Why would she allow her worth to be measured by another person?

Beside him, Caroline and Mrs. Whitney, the navy secretary’s wife, wondered aloud at what magic had transformed the senator’s mousy daughter into a ravishing creature suitable for someone as exalted as the son of the vice president.

“I believe that’s one of Madame Broussard’s creations,” Caroline said, craning her neck to get a look.

“She’s outdone herself,” said Mrs. Whitney. “That is the most cunning gown I’ve seen in ages.”

Jamie could see the dress was pretty; its long lines and iridescent hues gave Abigail the illusion of a regal height.

“Yes, how clever,” Caroline agreed. “The dress is perfectly suited for the occasion of the opening of the aquarium. The silk positively shimmers, doesn’t it?”

Jamie had no idea how they could read so much into a dress, but this was an aspect of womanhood he had never understood.

“With that diamond necklace, it’s absolutely brilliant,” Mrs. Whitney concluded.

By God, she’d worn it. His parting gift to her.

Caroline ran a furtive hand down his arm. “There. We’ve all admired the vastly improved Miss Cabot,” she said. Lifting on tiptoe, she reminded him of his outrageous proposition, adding her own creatively wicked twist. “Shall we? Quickly, while no one is watching.”

But as she spoke, Jamie saw a disaster in the making. Inundated by dignitaries, Butler and Abigail still hadn’t made it all the way down the stairs. Near the bottom of the steps, Butler turned away from his fiancée to greet a dark-skinned foreigner in a burnoose. It was probably not deliberate, but he gave Abigail’s arm a tug. That was all it took to upset her balance on the wide, bowed-out marble staircase.

Swift instinct propelled Jamie forward, leaving Caroline complaining under her breath. He reached Abigail just in time to avert her fall, positioning himself on the stair below her, angling his shoulder so she could grab onto him for support. In the crush of the crowd, his rescue wasn’t apparent, except to Abigail.

Relief washed the terror from her huge, beautiful eyes. “I nearly disgraced myself,” she said. “Again.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Lieutenant Butler, turning back. “Oh, hello, Calhoun.”

“See to Miss Cabot,” Jamie warned in a whisper. “If you let her fall, I’ll—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, there was no harm done,” she cut in, then aimed an adoring look at Butler. What a change this was from the Abigail he had first met—gauche and carelessly put together, afraid of her own shadow.

“If you’re quite through being gallant,” said Caroline, shoving a path toward Jamie, “I should like some refreshments.” She latched on to his arm and led the way to the long candlelit tables laden with a feast. Sybren van Zandt, the celebrated chef from the Netherlands who was all the rage among Washington hostesses, had created a fantasy meal for the occasion. The spread was contrived to resemble an undersea scene, with weathered nets and colorful arrangements of coral and shells, a sunken chest overflowing with a treasure of marzipan doubloons, a selection of seafood and sauces, and enough caviar, it appeared, to feed the Russian army.

Jamie grabbed two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and offered one to Caroline, but she was busy inspecting the food. A moment later, her doddering husband decided to reclaim her, so Jamie quickly gulped down one glass of champagne, set it aside and started on the second. Standing back from the crowd, he tried to figure out why he was feeling out of sorts. This was the culmination of his project. He had set out to win Senator Cabot’s favor and influence his vote, and he had done so. He should be feeling a sense of accomplishment. Instead he felt…irritated. Cheated, perhaps, though he could think of no reason for that.

His gaze kept wandering to Abigail, who looked flushed and nervous, yet freshly becoming as she clung to Boyd Butler’s arm, moving along beside him like a leaf caught in a strong current. The lout all but ignored her, Jamie observed, as the social elite of Washington, D.C., welcomed them into their midst. Abigail might as well have been another medal pinned to his chest.

If his disregard bothered her, she gave no sign. She kept a close eye on her father as if to be certain his newfound esteem for her had not wavered. The senator was engaged in jovial conversation with the vice president, and all appeared to be well in that quarter.