aware of his own personal danger—gave his complete attention and heart to his words. “We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”
Finn drew his coat more tightly about him as he whispered, “Stay, boy,” to Piebald and dismounted. As he slipped through the crowd, most people barely noted him; they were silent, listening. Some, however, smiled as he passed, glad for a break from standing and staring. Many had now wandered off, Everett’s speech having left them fatigued.
Finn looked over toward the podium.
He knew that the Bigham brothers and their company were on assignment, and, by the president’s request, Finn’s own guard kept a perimeter. There shouldn’t really have been any trouble. Lincoln’s appearance here had actually been a last-minute consideration—after all, tens of thousands of men had died in many locations, and he couldn’t be present for every burial. But the battle at Gettysburg had demanded a price of American blood, Northern and Southern, like no other. Finn imagined that Lincoln’s host, Attorney Wills, might have believed the president would turn down the invitation to speak. But Finn also imagined that Lincoln had actually been looking for just such an opportunity. A victory like Gettysburg was hard-won, and this was the place to convince the people that the war could be won, and must be won. And that it would end not in retribution against the rebels, but in a true peace for all Americans.
President Lincoln was always hard to guard. He considered himself a man of the people. And he couldn’t be a man of the people if he didn’t see the people, and if they didn’t see him. This, of course, made gave his bodyguards more of a chore.
Finn had almost reached the woman. The president was still speaking, and it seemed that he had thoroughly gripped the attention of the people now. No one noticed as Finn politely slid closer and closer to the woman—who herself moved closer and closer to the president.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” Lincoln’s voice rang with sincerity, a tremulous quality to it.
And the woman was almost upon him.
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced,” Lincoln intoned somberly. “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The president of the United States stepped back from the podium. Some of the crowd applauded enthusiastically. Some stared ahead with such glazed eyes that Finn wondered if they’d really even heard the man.
But Finn’s quarry, she was a young beauty, and she seemed to be watching the president with rapt, splendorous eyes. Huge, hazel eyes fringed with impossibly dark lashes. Her long wavy hair fell down her back in shades of reddish gold—
A murderous agent didn’t have to be ugly on the outside to carry out a heinous deed! Finn reminded himself.
Just as he made it to her side, she reached beneath the encompassing warm cloak.
He’d expected a gun.
Or a knife.
His arms encircled her just as he saw what she carried….
A beautifully knitted scarf in the colors of the American flag.
Her eyes, gold and gleaming, turned on his. They seemed to burn with a strange fire, and yet, one he knew too well.
“Idiot!” she whispered at him.
She turned away, somehow escaping Finn’s grasp and backing out of the crowd.
The scarf fell to the earth.
Blood-soaked earth …
For a moment, Finn lost her, but whether or not she had been carrying nothing more lethal than wool, his instincts told him not to trust her. He moved quickly and saw her again, hurrying away, toward the woods.
The crowd was clearing, enough so that he could whistle for Piebald. His horse came to him, carefully moving through the dispersing crowd. He leaped atop the animal and urged it into a trot to clear the crowd, and then a lope to hurry in pursuit.
The beauty had already disappeared….
Finn rode into the woods and reined in, looking, listening. He heard the rustle of a tree, and quickly turned.
Yes, something moved, just ahead….
He urged his steed on and tore ahead. There … darting from one tree to the next!
When he was almost upon her, he jumped from his horse’s back and tackled her back down to the earth. She lay beneath him, staring up at him with hatred and fury.
“What? What?” she demanded. “What do you want from me?” “What ill intent did you intend President Lincoln? Who are your coconspirators? What is the plan?” he demanded.
“Coconspirators?” she said blankly.
But there was the hint of a soft Southern drawl in her speech….
She took him completely by surprise; that was his downfall. He knew his own power and strength, but he’d been so damned confident in it that he’d not bothered to ascertain hers.
“Ass!” she hissed.
And then she shoved him up off her and backward, much to his surprise.
She was on her feet in seconds. “For your information, I would do anything for that man! Anything at all!”
He leaped up, staring at her. “Then stand here and tell me who and what you are!”
She shook her head, and turned.
He lunged for her, and caught a lock of her hair. She cried out in fury and escaped his hold. And then …
She seemed to disappear into thin air.
He held nothing…. Nothing, save a lock of her hair.
He held on to the red-and-gold lock of that hair, intending to find her, come hell or high water.
He would hold on to it, until he found her again.
And find her he would.
But well over a year of war, bloodshed and death would follow before he did.
CHAPTER ONE
Winter, 1865
“LINCOLN,
