“So you do,” Prescott said. “But you’ve come through it well. I only hope the same will be true for me and mine.”

After Leland died, my brother Eli and I finally threw a pair of dice to decide who got the vineyard, the farm, and Highland House, our home. He’d wanted to sell it and get his money. I wanted to keep our land and the farm since it had been in the family for more than two centuries. As our lawyer said while trying to get us to quit our wrangling and settle things before the money all went up in smoke for legal fees, “Blood is thicker than water, but money is thicker than blood.”

Wasn’t it the truth?

I thought of the warring factions between Alex and Scotty at the Washington Tribune. My best friend, Kit Noland, ran the Trib’s Loudoun County bureau in Leesburg, the next town over from Middleburg, so she didn’t work in the Washington newsroom. She’d told me more than once that if she had to be in D.C. these days she’d rather put out her eyes with hot pokers.

“Come,” Prescott said. “As I promised, you’re the first person to see this since it was delivered Wednesday morning. The day before Thanksgiving.”

He was standing next to what I assumed was a painting hanging on the wall, except that a black cloth covered it. I’d noticed it as soon as I walked into the room.

He removed the cloth with care, but like a magician revealing a special trick, he waved it with a flourish. “What do you think?”

I was expecting something related to the Masons, so it took a moment to realize what it was.

In Congress, July 4, 1776. The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.

I caught my breath. “It’s the Declaration of Independence. How in the world did you get this? Isn’t it supposed to be in the National Archives?”

He flashed a smile, looking well pleased with himself. “Don’t worry, the original—the Matlack Declaration, to give it its proper name—is still in the National Archives in Washington, under lock and key with full-time guards and maximum security. But this…” He waved an expansive hand. “What you’re looking at is an extremely rare copy that was given to James Madison in the fall of 1776. November 12, to be precise. There’s a date on the back.”

Given to James Madison, who had been the president the year Ian’s cases of Madeira were bottled.