CHAPTER THIRTEEN: May 1, 1914

I sit on the floor before the fireplace with a piece of paper in my hand. The information on it is plenty scandalous. Throughout the decades, historians have discovered many details of the president’s love affair with Mary Hulbert Peck, including the vacations they’d spent together in Bermuda while his wife was home with their children, and his clandestine visits to her New York apartment. There’s also notes on his health issues, including strokes, high blood pressure, and chronic stomach problems that he tried to keep hidden from the public. And, most recent to the current date were reports about his wife Ellen. Just a month earlier, he’d publicly disputed claims that her health was deteriorating, claiming that a fall she’d taken was merely because the floors were so well-polished. According to the page in my hand, we’re only four months out from her death.

Madeline has asked for it twice already, but each time I’ve made excuses not to give it to her. In my time—my past, in the future—all this is searchable, documented knowledge. And yet here, now, this amount of evidence and documentation could ruin the man’s career, if not his life.

And yet, if Madeline only intends to use this information to establish the truth of my other claims… Do the potential benefits outweigh the cost?

I shove the paper into my knee-high stockings, once again cursing the fact that none of the clothing Madeline loaned to me has pockets, and slip to the doorway.

Downstairs, the manor is abuzz with activity. Workers hammer and saw and construct some structure in the gardens below my window. Savory scents rise from the kitchen. The number of servants seems to have multiplied in the days since our return to the estate, all bustling about, carrying parcels and moving furniture. Hugh stands, as permanent as a statue, in the foyer, directing the others in his short, clipped tone, and each time I descend the stairs, he scowls at the sight of me, as if he’s forgotten that I’m still here and doesn’t want to be inconvenienced by my presence.

“Madame Barker left a note for you,” he says. “She is hosting a party tonight and wishes you to know that, throughout the course of the event, you are to remain in your quarters. She indicates that this is for your protection. Oh, yes, and she says that she will be needing the list she requested from you this evening.”

He hands me the card, seeming smug as I read it and find that, yes, that’s exactly what Madeline said.

Stay in my quarters? The paper shakes in my hand. I’ve been waiting patiently for days with no news, no company, and nothing to do except dig up dirt on the president, even after that awful experience in the city, and she just expects me to sit in my room like a naughty child while she has her party downstairs?

Not happening.

This is not what I traveled two centuries down the timeline for, not what I traveled across the country to accomplish. Madeline promised to help me, not to act like a house mother over me, deciding when I do what and who I’m allowed to speak to. If Madeline thinks I’m just going to keep sitting around waiting for her permission to show my face, then she’s dead wrong, and I intend to tell her so.

Hugh still stands before me, obviously awaiting a response. His mousey whiskers twitch as if in anticipation.

A heavyset maid passes through the foyer, balancing two massive floral arrangements on her hips, and I wait until she’s disappeared into the parlor before tucking the telegram into my stocking alongside the notes about President Wilson.

“Thank you, Hugh,” I say, forcing a smile. “And where is Mrs. Barker now?”

“She’s gone out for lunch. I’m afraid she’ll be very busy in her preparations this afternoon and will likely be unable to meet with you before the guests arrive, so perhaps you ought to give me the list to which she referred so that I may pass it along to her. She’s a very busy woman, you understand.”

“I’m afraid it’s not quite ready yet,” I say through gritted teeth. “I still need to check it over and make sure I’m not making any foolish mistakes.”

Or one big mistake.

With that, I turn on my heel and climb the steps, my heart racing. At the landing, I happen to glance out the window to where the chauffer is polishing up the Rolls Royce in the circular drive, and it gives me pause. I hadn’t heard the car leave this morning; could Hugh have lied to me about Madeline’s whereabouts? Is it possible she is still here, upstairs maybe, beyond the third-floor staircase that the butler had shooed me away from earlier?

I lean over the banister and check that Hugh is still standing guard in the foyer, then quickly slip off my shoes and tiptoe through the corridor and up to the third floor.

***

Somewhere on the lawn, an orchestra is tuning their instruments. Their discordant tones waft up the stairs and through the empty rooms. There’s something strange about how they reverberate through the hallways as I pad silently up the third-floor staircase. At the landing, I survey my surroundings. This corridor is shorter than the one on the floor below, darker and quieter as well. Framed landscapes line the walls, painted in earthy colors that remind me of the stones at the bottom of the koi pond at my parents’ apartment.

The first door opens easily, revealing a suite nearly twice the size of the one I was provided, with deep purple bedding on a huge, platformed bed. An elaborate wardrobe and matching desk hunker on either side of the room, with a great fireplace gaping between them.

This room faces the opposite side of the estate as mine, and the noise from the party preparations below sound like whispers in a dream—fragmented and indistinguishable.

The writing desk draws my attention. If there’s anything interesting at all in here, I suspect that’s where it would be. The top drawer creaks beneath my fingers, and I freeze, waiting for an alarm to sound. Nothing. I slide it the rest of the way open and dig through the piles of stationery, envelopes, paperclips, and scratchpads before moving on to the next drawer and then the next.

Most of the contents aren’t the least bit interesting, but in the final drawer are a pile of dossiers that are each tied with a string and have the word “confidential” stamped upon them.

Can they be any more obvious?

Paperclipped to the first folder is a photograph of a bride and groom, dressed for their wedding—her in a lace gown, him in a dark military jacket and felt hat. Peering closer, I recognize Madeline as the blushing bride. The gentleman, who leans heavily upon his cane, is at least thirty years her senior. Unused to skimming through physical documents, it takes me some time to understand what I’m looking at as I sift through the papers inside. A marriage certificate. A death certificate. A last will and testament. A certificate for an honorable discharge from the Union army. All perfectly normal things for a widow to keep, but there’s more.

Shipping records. Page after page of cargo manifests from fifty years prior. I skim the documents, trying to make sense of them. The cargo doesn’t seem out of the ordinary: clothing, food, munitions. I glance at the dates again. 1862. 1863. 1864. The harbors: Charleston. Beaufort. Mobile. All Confederate ports during the Civil War. And yet the owner of the ship listed on the manifests is none other than Madeline’s war hero husband.

My hands shake as I re-tie the string and move on to the next dossier. Another wedding photo, this time with a younger Madeline, going by a different name. Another death certificate. Another will. Another stack of financial records indicating the man’s wealth. Another pack of incriminating documents, this one involving the murder of a beautiful young dancer.

And a third dossier. And a fourth. Each heavy with secrets dark enough to ruin a man’s life.

I remember Madeline’s words: “There is more than one way to get a man’s attention.” And what was it she’d said about her marriage? “I tried to fight my way into the business world, but no one wanted to listen to a woman, regardless of her experience or expertise. So I found another way: I married.”

Fortunately, President Wilson is still married and therefore safe from that particular fate, but if there was any question in my mind what Madeline intends to do with the information I have about him, it’s gone now. At least if the trail of blackmail she’s laid out here is any indication.

My hands shake, and I set the dossiers back into the drawer, trying to leave them just as I found them. I should have known that Madeline wasn’t who she said she was. Or I at least should have found out more about her before leaving my position with the Harvey Girls to travel across the country with her. I’d been so drawn in by her poise and confidence, so relieved that someone believed me, that I let myself get carried away.

A shadow falls over me, though I hadn’t heard any footsteps approaching.

“Find anything interesting?”