A Revolutionary Romance Read online

  A Revolutionary Romance

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  A Revolutionary Romance

  By Melody Clark

  Published by Melody Clark at Smashwords

  Copyright 2011 Melody Clark

  Editors: Annie Booker, Lyn Townsend

  Cover by Melarry Graphics

  Discover other titles by Melody Clark at http://melodyclark.net

  Chapter One

  "Mr. Thomas Jefferson, as I live and breathe," the cabbage rose organza-clad Asian man said to his long-time employer.

  The employer entered his office for the first time that morning and shined at the Asian man, his secretary, a genuine if patient smile. "Please, Lee, just Tom Jefferson ... I have exaggerated enough expectations, thanks to the press." He moved across to hover a moment by the other man's desk. "So how is my morning to unfold?"

  Lee handed Jefferson his morning messages. "Here is the paper trail, as you requested. I’ve also emailed it all to your PDA, my liege. You have a press conference on the Senate steps and then a meeting with Senator Paulson."

  Tom smiled a little to himself at the morning's prospects. He pouted a little at the messages in his hand. "No word yet from the Founders Committee?"

  "No, nothing. And since you mentioned it, mind if I ask what that thing is anyway? You're certainly all worked up about it."

  "It is only the most prestigious social group in Washington,” T.J. said. “They're all direct descendants of the US founding fathers. You have to have a lot of friends inside the organization to get in, even with the right family tree.”

  “Sounds like a bunch of boring dumbasses to me,” Lee said. “Let’s face it, you only want in because Jack’s in there.”

  Tom nodded a little. “Yes, and there’s something to be said for acceptance as well. Jack wrote an introductory letter for me. I'm a little nervous for an answer."

  "Aw, come on, a popular new Senator like you? If they let in the Beltway's top sparring partner, Jack Paulson, then you're a shoo-in. I mean, how many inside friends can he have?"

  Tom tilted a cautionary eyebrow in Lee’s direction. "You were saying what about my dear friend?"

  "Oh, I'm sorry but even you must admit he's never going to win Mister Congeniality on the Hill. So I mean, you know, they'll have to like you."

  Tom laughed, glancing dully through his messages again, as if he might have missed something. "It isn't that simple, I'm afraid. My ancestor was President Jefferson’s French love child, you see, and I myself was born and raised in England, so all of that together -- "

  “-- doesn't matter a whit beside the real issue which is that you're a big old queer," Lee said.

  Jefferson nodded. "Probably. Jack says I'm crazy to care about it at all, but it would sort of be a formal acceptance into the larger family of the American Revolution. The first revolution, I mean, not the ongoing one. Speaking of which, did you hear that insane fascist bastard this morning?"

  "How could I not? He ran his mouth on TV all this morning about how the Bill of Rights is Marxist propaganda. I thought our old King George was a fascist. This one makes him look like Mr. Rogers."

  "On that note, I'd better go feed the press. You'll want to pencil in for tomorrow that Senator Paulson and I will be driving in a bit early for the Independence Hall re-dedication."

  Lee flipped open his laptop, hitting a key for the right screen. "I still can't believe the monuments people actually invited him."

  T.J. lowered his voice a little. "This is solely between you and me, but they didn't invite him. I'm inviting him. If I don't, I'll have to hear for days on end about how my ancestor's more beloved than his ancestor."

  "So that's the real reason for the pricey threads ... a road trip with Jack," Lee said, grinning wisely as he pointed at the other man's clothes. "I thought the Armani was for the unveiling."

  "It is. I'm gussied up for the press, as they say among my constituents."

  "Then why are you wearing it today, my captain?" Lee asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "For the same reason. The press. Remember, the p-conference?"

  "Bull. You wore Harvard sweats to your last p-conference,” Lee said, thumping a finger at his boss’ chest. “You bought the suit for tomorrow for Jack and you wore it today in case he doesn't go tomorrow. I just hope for your sake he notices this time."

  Tom shook his head a little tiredly as he peeled open his office door again. He let himself smile a little. "If he did notice it, he'd die in agony before he admitted it."

  Lee evoked an audible sigh as an overt reply then tapped his Gigantor the Space Age robot wristwatch. "And speaking of dying in agony, my captain, your journalistic firing squad awaits.”

  He always stopped along the Potomac to jog in place just long enough to give the finger at the Jefferson monument before he journeyed on. His destination was an amphitheater-shaped pit of despair, wholly of stone and of an iron color, also known as Dante's fourth level of hell and sometimes, the US Senate building.

  The Beatles blasting into his ears, he ran up the steps to the Senate, past the gaggle of reporters with their lollipop mikes all aimed in the direction of the media’s latest Senate darling – the new gentleman from Virginia. The darling’s attention darted for a moment in his direction before the Virginian tossed him a regretful smile – a smile Jack briefly met with a more grudging one of his own.

  He had trod all the way to the top of the steps before one of the reporters on a live feed recognized him. She said loud enough to be heard, “Massachusetts Senator Jack Adams Paulson has just jogged past us, perhaps we can get his opinion on Senator Jefferson’s domestic partnership legislation -- ” And Jack replied by pointing at his ear buds, shrugging his shoulders and making a mad dash through the doors to relative safety.

  His office lay on the shallow end of chaos, which usually made for a quiet morning.

  His secretary, Taneesha, looked like one very unhappy young black lady, waiting for him at his lobby office door. She waved the messages in her hand while stabbing a long acrylic nail at the muted overhead TV. “I know it’s awful to say, but I swear I hate Republicans. Did you hear what that pickle-faced, two-bit one-trick-pony dictator of ours said this morning?"

  “First of all, you don’t hate Republicans, you just hate idiots. But yeah, I wish we had a non-idiot in office right now.” Jack pulled the buds from his ears as he slowed down to a circling walk to keep leg cramps at bay. He grabbed his messages from her hand. "What do we expect? Nobody with more than a quarter-inch of forehead voted for him."

  "Well, I'd like to kick his tiny ass from here to Katmandu."

  Jack pointed to his Revolution t-shirt and gave her a one fist salute. "Sing it, sister."

  "I swear, I gotta get me that t-shirt. It’s so -- "

  "Senator Paulson!" rang out a reedy little voice he knew too well, from the inner direction of his office.

  On the other end of the voice stood one of those well-dressed social barnacles who forever set his teeth on edge. There hovered Ms. Anna-Beth Franklin from the Founders Renaissance Committee – a group of pretentious busybodies who used their incidental descent from a founding father to curry social favors on the Hill.

  “Good morning, Ms. Franklin,” he called out as if accepting the terms of his surrender. “Wonderful to see you, as always, but I'm sorry to say I have a monstrously busy morning ... don't I, Taneesha?"

  His secretary nodded avidly. "He does. Busy. Monstrously so."

  "I swear I won't have but a few minutes of your time," the lady barnacle said. “It's about Senato
r Jefferson's membership application. I felt I should come to you directly ... as you are his sponsor advocate to the Committee."

  Jack groaned softly, pinching at the space between his already tired eyes. He nodded. "Five minutes," he said, motioning her to follow him through the door to his private office. He yanked a bottle of water from his office fridge. Uncapping it, he drank from the bottle while he slumped backward into his desk chair. "So, enlighten me. What's all this about?”

  Ms. Franklin gestured with a little primal despair. "The Senator is ... a friend of yours, is he not?"

  "Most of the time. Why? Is there some problem with T.J.'s candidacy?"

  "There are ...” she said, gesturing once more, as if beyond words in a land where she barely knew the language. "There are a few issues I'd like to address with you confidentially, as his host to the committee."

  "Such as?"

  “Well … for one thing, it's my understanding that his real last name isn’t even Jefferson."

  “No, it’s Thomas Jefferson Delaney, Jefferson is his middle name. He changed it for political showbiz purposes. Why does that matter? My last name is Paulson but I’m still an Adams.”

  “Of course,” Ms. Franklin said, emphasizing the words. “But you must see how this name-change might suggest, well, that the Senator is trying to trade publicly on his ancestry.”

  “Ms. Franklin,” he said, trying to laugh only politely, “you are the head of a whole organization of people who trade publicly on their ancestry. You have your Benjamin Franklin family tree on your personal letterhead, for heaven sakes. Anyway, it’s Tom’s ancestry to trade on, isn’t it? I know that he submitted ludicrously exhaustive proof of his family heritage. And I know he had to pony up the blood and bucks for the background study like the rest of us did.”

  “Yes, of course. It’s just --” She gestured toward a chair. “May I sit?”

  He shrugged. “Believe it or not, that is what the chairs are for.”

  She primly poised herself at the end of one of the plusher seats. “In your case, Senator Paulson, you have a direct line of unbroken descent from President John Adams, as clearly witnessed by public records. Your mother's family has a long and meritorious history of public service.”

  “My father's family, on the other hand, had a long history of driving trucks. Semis. Eighteen wheelers. Driven by sweaty, hairy men who can barely spell. My mother, the Adams, was a schoolteacher. I went to UMass as an undergrad. T.J. attended Oxford before he transferred to Harvard, for christsakes. And he has a very respectable record of public service too. Plus his family has a direct line from President Jefferson’s son just like I have one from John Adams' son. What's the difference?”

  She looked around Jack's office, as if uncomfortable in the company of her own thoughts. “Yes, but ... his ancestor was a son ... born out of .... wedlock."

  Struck silent for only a moment, he shook his head hard and moved forward in his chair. "Ms. Franklin, it seems you haven’t heard the bad news. I regret to inform you that Queen Victoria is dead. Born out of wedlock? And pardon me for further pointing out the facts of life to you, but when Ben Franklin called his son, the Royal Governor, a little bastard, he wasn't just speaking pejoratively."

  She pulled a sour face. "Senator Paulson, please understand. It's merely harder to make a case to the board -- "

  “T.J.'s ancestry is backed up by abundant genealogical records and Jefferson’s own letters to Paris. He accepted absolute paternity of T.J.'s ancestor."

  “Let this be very clear, my reservations about his candidacy are not based upon legitimacy. I am satisfied that he is an actual direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson’s. It’s just that I must think of the reputation of the Founders Committee. And my own reputation in making this recommendation. If it was merely one thing ... "

  Jack pressed a hand against something hot and bristling behind his eyes. “Ms. Franklin, I have known T.J. Delaney … pardon me, Tom Jefferson … since Harvard law. T.J. is very much in line with your organization’s aims and beliefs. One hell of a lot more than I am. I didn't even want to write the stupid introductory letter for him until he badgered me incessantly for it.”

  “Again, his philosophical fitness isn’t our issue,” she said.

  “Then what could possibly be the problem? That he’s English? He became a citizen at sixteen. Beneath the posh accent, he’s a freaking Yankee Doodle Dandy. He has a floor-to-ceiling wall poster of Independence Hall in his office. I have long suspected he’s had an inappropriate relationship with it.” Jack drank more water before screwing the lid back on the bottle and tossing it in the desk drawer with a week’s worth of unfinished water bottles. “So why don’t we discuss the real problem you have with him?”

  “All right, if we are to be honest," she said, nodding. "I am troubled by his more … militant social positions."

  “You mean the militant social position that he occasionally has sex with other men?”

  Jack smirked to himself as a moment of prissy discomfiture rippled through her sniffy countenance.

  Ms. Franklin lowered her voice. “Of course not! I am not a homophobe. But members of the Foundation have raised concerns about this … latest legislation of his.”

  “Then members of the Foundation had better wake up and smell the 21st century. Thomas Jefferson Delaney, by whatever name, is a brilliant attorney and splendid senator. He and I may have had our personal differences in the past, but I assure you that he’s a great asset to your organization, not a liability.”

  Ms. Franklin exhaled. “Senator Paulson, can you honestly say you support this domestic partnership legislation?”

  "Of course not."

  "Then you see our problem --”

  "Oh, I’ve always seen your problem. My problem is his bill doesn't go nearly far enough. While you were reading through the public record, you might have leafed through my own legislative history prior to this little suck-up session we’re having. As the name should make clear, I co-sponsored the Moyers-Paulson bill. T.J.'s dom partner bill is a thin, wimpy, politically truckling shadow of that one."

  “But Senator, you’re thought of as a moderate,” she said.

  “Yes, and I think it’s very immoderate to say nothing of inherently un-American to give special rights to my own people while denying them to others. We're a nation of laws, Ms. Franklin, not religion. In a Republic, the government only exists to protect the minority from the simple minded beliefs of the mob."

  Her mouth twisted with a touch of bitterness. "Let's hear you say that in the Senate."

  "Who are you talking to? I already have. Twice, in fact." Jack groaned, pulled open his top desk drawer and dragged out his checkbook. He snatched up a pen. "All right, let's get down to the nitty-gritty. How much?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "How much? To buy T.J.'s way into the Promised Land. You must need something. A new plasma TV for the imperial tea room, a nice expensive rug woven by impoverished, half-blind Chinese artisans. Something. Give me a number."

  "Senator Paulson, really! Our organization has a long history of high selectivity of membership. We admit only true and honorable descendants of our American founding fathers. Membership cannot be purchased at any price," she said. "However, should you want to make a donation, which is not a surety, I promise you, we could use a plasma TV for our social office."

  "Fine, this should cover it nicely," he said, scrawling out a check, tearing it free and handing it over. "Consider this a donation. It's a write-off for me and it'll secure some ... oh, let's call it benign myopia in assessing T.J.'s application. Frankly, I'd just as soon you turned him down. I wouldn't belong to your group myself if you guys hadn’t gone to my wife to have her talk me into it.”

  “I didn’t realize you had a negative feeling toward the Founders Committee,” she said.

  “I don’t have a problem with the Committee itself,” Jack said. “I have a problem with the prissy, right-wing fascists who often populate it. Present company acc
epted, of course. But T.J. wants in really badly, for some inane reason. On the other hand, if you don't accept T.J., you can consider this my official resignation. Since I am one of the few Ancestral Founders Committee members still in any kind of elected office, you may want to think carefully over your decisions."

  “Don't be silly, of course there's no real problem,” she said, standing while she laughed with the sound of a bag of nervous cats. She stowed the check in her handbag. “I merely wanted to make my concerns known. I will inform Mr. Jefferson of his acceptance later today.” She moved a little to the door, as if reluctant to part company with the chill in the air between them. “I hope you’ll give my very best to Mrs. Paulson.”

  Jack picked up the first pile of the usual morning chaos from his desk. “As much as I'd love to, I can't. You need to catch up with your tea-pouring social chinwag, Ms. Franklin. My wife died well over a year ago.”