The door to the bedroom still hung open, and three other security guards had gathered to listen.

Mrs. McKinley lowered her head and spoke in a simmering tone like a mother reprimanding a wayward daughter. “Caroline, you’re asking for trouble.”

“You may be right, ma’am.” Her plan in Cuba was plenty of trouble, but it was time to let Ida salvage her dignity in front of the others. “I know I have duties, which is why I feel so terrible about leaving you. Your sister and nieces from Ohio have already agreed to stay on after the inauguration. Everything in the house will operate like clockwork.”

Mrs. McKinley opened her mouth to retort, but they both knew it was true, and she stammered in frustration. Instead, she turned to glower at the men in the open doorway. “Oh, be on your way,” she ordered.

In the end, Caroline got her permission to go to Cuba, but it was a blow to her relationship with Ida. This sort of dereliction of duty was not something the first lady was going to forget.

Nathaniel began the morning of the inauguration on his knees, praying for a calm head on this most chaotic of days. So far, this country had inaugurated twenty-four presidents without incident, but never on Nathaniel’s watch, and his anxiety made sleep the previous evening almost impossible.

By four-thirty he had dressed, eaten, and headed out into the early morning sleet to patrol Pennsylvania Avenue. He walked with a dozen other guards, all looking for potential security flaws along the parade route. Members of the local police had been stationed overnight to be on the lookout for suspicious activity, but they reported no concerns. Nathaniel trusted the police but still walked the entire mile-and-a-half route to be certain all was in order.

He didn’t like the president being escorted by elderly Civil War veterans, but there had been no dissuading him. Most of the veterans were in their sixties or older. Some of them walked with canes due to age and some with crutches due to lost limbs. They simply weren’t adequate bodyguards, which was why Nathaniel was planting Sullivan among the old veterans, dressed like a Union infantryman and carrying two six-shooter revolvers.

Nathaniel recruited Rembrandt to make Sullivan pass for an old man. Rembrandt was in his element as he swiped talcum powder through Sullivan’s chestnut hair.

“And now for a little color beneath the eyes,” Rembrandt said, opening the cosmetics palette Caroline had loaned him for the occasion.

“I’m not wearing makeup,” Sullivan growled.

“It’s not makeup, it’s a disguise,” Rembrandt replied.

“Fine. I’m not wearing a disguise if it means wearing makeup.”

All Rembrandt wanted to do was smudge some bluish-grey shading beneath Sullivan’s eyes so he didn’t look so baby-faced. They weren’t trying to fool the other veterans. They just needed to make Sullivan blend in with them.