And just like that, she forced him to consider the rabbit painting and its artist in a new light. “The rabbit painting has more charm,” he conceded. “But the woman reading the letter has more heft.”

“And you like heft?” she teased.

“I like heft.”

“And I like laughing girls and impish rabbits. Does that make me hopelessly frivolous in your eyes?”

As she spoke, she slid next to the counterfeit painting to look back at him, her countenance alive with laughter and charm. She was breathtaking, and he’d be a fraud if he pretended otherwise. He’d been attracted to women before, but this felt different. Beyond her obvious beauty was a luminous spirit that drew him like a lodestone. She had intelligence and humor, and he longed for more time to bask in this magnetic attraction.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t. He had a job to do, and Caroline was a distraction.

“We should return to the White House,” he said.

“Must we?”

He had a duty, and so did she. “I’m afraid we must.”

“Why did I suspect that was exactly what you’d say?”

Without changing his expression, he cocked an elbow toward her, and she immediately curled her palm around it and smiled.

The oddest thing was that she didn’t seem disappointed. Quite the opposite. It was almost as though she’d been hoping he would adhere to his staid, pedantic routines.

And that made him want her even more.

Seven

Caroline sought out the best criminal attorney in the city to help her file the paperwork for a presidential pardon. Jeremiah Alphonse was also the only attorney to have won a pardon from President McKinley. Every window in his law office was open, and a ceiling fan slowly rotated overhead. Mr. Alphonse had a massive salt-and-pepper mustache but kindly dark eyes as he let her know what she was up against.

“McKinley has granted only one pardon after almost four years in office. Ever since I successfully petitioned for it, my office has been swamped with people hoping to repeat the miracle. Presidential pardons are as rare as hummingbirds in the Arctic. They take years and have only a minuscule chance of success. Who do you want pardoned?”

“I’m only asking hypothetical questions. No one in particular.” News of Luke’s arrest hadn’t yet been widely circulated, and she intended to guard his privacy.

“Hypothetically, then,” Mr. Alphonse said with a knowing tip of his head. “It all depends on the severity of the offense. How bad was the hypothetical crime?”

“Pretty bad,” she admitted. That was an understatement. Short of murder, treason was the worst crime imaginable.

“That’s a problem,” the lawyer replied. “Presidents are willing to extend a second chance for crimes of youth, cowardice, or perhaps trifling financial indiscretions. The man I won the pardon for had been found guilty of blasphemy. Still, even such minor offenses are hopeless this close to an election.”