Fiddlehead

Perhaps John didn’t have anything better to do, but Grant still disliked asking him to for this.

He didn’t like asking John to perform any task, really. Didn’t understand the need for a secretary. It felt silly. And he liked John well enough, but could never shake the feeling that John was always watching, taking notes—even if only in his head—in order to write the inevitable biography that would surely follow him out of office.

Whenever that turned out to be. Three terms already, and another one on the way—if the polls could be believed, the impending election was his to lose. No one wanted to change leaders in the middle of the war, not again. No matter how badly he wanted them to.

Sometimes he wondered glumly if the only way out of the White House was a bullet to the head, and then he’d think of Lincoln and feel like a jackass.

Finally the double doors opened and Desmond Fowler joined the meeting, which looked increasingly like a party at a gentlemen’s club, as three or four cigars were already alight, and almost no one was seated. There weren’t really enough chairs for a meeting. Why was it being held here again? Someone had surely told him, but he’d be damned if he could remember.

He glanced down at his hand. He was still holding half a drink. His fourth since he’d arrived, so he was pacing himself. Julia would be proud, or maybe not. He wouldn’t mention it to her, and if she asked, he’d lie.

He swallowed what remained and set the glass down precariously close to the edge of the desk.

Turning around, he mustered a smile for Fowler, who wasn’t looking at him yet.

The smile melted into confusion. The Secretary of State was not alone. On his arm walked a tall, terribly slender woman in an expensive dress that Grant hoped his wife never saw, or else he’d be buying one very much like it … and there was already enough irritating public interest in his finances.

The woman in question was brunette. Very brunette. Her hair looked like a pile of carefully coiffed raven wings, and surely he wasn’t the first to think of that, because her navy blue hat was decorated with just such a taxidermied wing, set with a large, presumably fake, square-cut ruby.

She was pretty. No denying that. He guessed her for forty, but would’ve said thirty-five out of politeness, were he forced to make any sort of public assessment of the matter. Sharp cheekbones, cool green eyes. A thin mouth, but nicely shaped. A poet might have described her as “willowy,” but the word that sprang to Grant’s mind was “brittle.”

Her presence caused a minor hullaballoo: This was a gentlemen’s club, after all. Or, no, it wasn’t. It only felt like it to a man with (how many?) drinks in him. But men were smoking and speaking of war, so it was a manly gathering, if nothing else. Invitation only, and he was quite confident that this woman hadn’t been invited.

The office lights wobbled, and for one awful second, he wasn’t sure about any of this—where he was, what he was doing here, why Desmond Fowler had brought a date—should Grant have brought Julia?—but he composed himself in time to remember that, really, he was the goddamn president.

“Fowler,” he said, just a little too loudly. He checked himself and started again. “Fowler, there you are. We’ve been waiting.”

“My apologies, Mr. President, but there was a problem with our coach,” he said smoothly. Grant would’ve bet his life that it wasn’t true. The Secretary of State swa

“This isn’t a di

Desmond Fowler opened his mouth to reply, but took a moment too long to formulate his response. Katharine Haymes took a step toward the president and offered him her hand, and now he was on the receiving end of those unearthly eyes, whether he liked it or not. “Mr. President, it’s a privilege and an honor to meet you, I must say.”

Reptilian sprang to mind. Or maybe he was drunker than he thought. He had no idea what color the eyes of any given reptile were.

But he took her hand, because it’d go well beyond the casual appearance of rudeness to refuse, and gave it a perfunctory kiss before saying, “I’m sorry, I’ve been an ass.” Someone in the back of the room choked on a mouthful of something expensive, but Grant didn’t care, so he continued. “But there is a protocol to this sort of thing. Isn’t there, Fowler?”

With a fixed, unpleasant smile, Fowler replied, “Protocols were made to be tested, and occasionally revised.”

“If you say so. But what occasion do we have tonight?” Behind him, Grant heard mutterings that were halfway meant to be heard by all. He hated that kind of muttering. Speak up and make yourself heard, and take responsibility for having said it, that was his philosophy. Not that he strictly disagreed with the room’s general timbre, or its complaint that it would not do to have a lady present for such proceedings. He just didn’t care for cowards, that was all.

But Desmond rose to the occasion, or at least described it with enough gravitas and aplomb that he got everyone’s attention. “Because tonight we learn how we’re going to end the war.”

“Once and for all?” asked Emmet Wigfall, a man from someplace small and unmentionable in New York with an unfortunate name but a great fortune.

Fowler said peevishly, “Yes, once and for all. Or else why even take a stab at it? I mean really, Emmet. But we are going to end the war—and, more to the point, we’re going to win it—with the help of Miss Haymes and her remarkable weaponry.”

“Ah,” Grant said. It meant nothing, except that Desmond’s declaration seemed to require some answering syllable, so he provided it. And he followed it up with, “I see,” for suddenly he did see—they were talking about Desmond’s program. This was the woman who’d done the dirty work. Or she’d done some portion of the dirty work, that was for damn sure. Desmond Fowler never did much of anything that wasn’t dirty.

It had taken Grant entirely too long to figure this out about his Secretary of State. If he’d only paid attention sooner, he might’ve been able to do something about this man … a brilliant man, of course, and no one would say otherwise. But he was not a man you wanted to keep very close.

No, that was wrong.

Friends close. Enemies closer.

Grant thought—and very nearly said aloud—that he ought to keep Fowler in a box under his bed for safekeeping. Only a glimmer of sobriety pulled the emergency brake in time to keep him from airing the idea to the room at large.

He shook his head, which only made the room wobble. By the time it settled, Desmond Fowler had led Katharine Haymes to a seat, and she was sitting decorously with a fancy beaded bag in her lap and her legs crossed at the ankle, offering a peek at a pair of boots that might’ve cost more than a horse.

“So this is where you tell us about your program to end the war. Or how you got the money for it, behind my back, if I can infer a few things from your grand a

Fowler stood up straighter and placed a hand on Katharine’s shoulder. Grant couldn’t shake the impression that he didn’t mean to calm her, but to draw on her strength—and it u