The flutter turned to a stroke, soft and tentative as if she were mist, and then settled, light as a snowflake.
She had fallen too far. Her world had turned dark, all because of her poor choices. With no one to blame but herself for the pieces that lay about her. Destroyed. And yet He promised to pay the price for her.
She couldn’t forget her sins. But He could forgive them. He could wash them white as snow.
When the torrent slowed, when the shudders eased, she opened her eyes again. Her ribs hurt from where her corset pressed in, her neck from the strange angle, her knuckles from pushing so hard against the floor. And her eyes ached as they traveled down wool-clad legs and fastened upon the scuffed black shoes stretched out against the wall.
A hand was still resting—or perhaps hovering—on her head. And she was too drained to even be mortified. Gathering together what tatters of strength remained, she pushed herself up.
How very strange. Never in all her lifetime would she have thought that when she prayed for the Lord’s touch, He would choose to use Slade Osborne’s hand.
He shifted as she sat up but only to accommodate her, not to move altogether. He didn’t look at her in question or as though she were made of glass and might break with one wrong move. No, he just pulled out a crisp white handkerchief and, black eyes steady on hers, dabbed at the tear tracks on her cheeks.
For the first time since she watched Walker disappear into the night, she didn’t know how to respond to a man. So she sat still, refusing to look away, and let him soothe. Her eyes felt swollen, but they were clear enough that she had to wonder where the wolf had gone from his. He looked, as he moved to her other cheek, like a…friend.
The thud of footsteps sounded in the hall. “Mari? Are you in here?”
Dev. Panic replaced the hard-won peace, and she shrank back against the wall, pulling her skirts in with her.
Slade’s eyes went sharp again. He pressed the handkerchief into her hands, sprang to his feet, and strode to the door. He must have stepped into the hall because his voice sounded distant. “I saw her go upstairs.”
She leaned her head against the wall and prayed blessings, heaping blessings, upon Slade Osborne’s head.
“I must not have heard her slip up. Well, we had better head back to the station. Are you ready?”
“Sure. Go on out. I’ll just grab my book.”
Though it took effort, she eased silently to her feet, holding her breath until she heard Dev’s familiar tread move away and then the door open and shut.
Slade strode back into the library and headed straight for her, pausing when he was a foot away.
She would have attempted a smile, but her lips wouldn’t cooperate. All she could manage was to hold out his handkerchief.
He took, not the square of white cotton, but her fingers. Her breath caught in her throat. He had ignored even that common greeting since their first introduction. Curling her fingers around the fabric, he lifted her hand to his mouth.
The touch of his lips was as featherlight as that of his hand had been upon her hair. Certainly no more than polite if one went by pressure, duration, or any other measurable quality.
But Slade Osborne was not polite. He was not measurable. And his obsidian eyes seemed to have no bottom as he held her gaze through the two-second exchange.
Then the wolf sprang again, and he turned and left, grabbing the book from the arm of his usual chair on his way out.
Marietta stared at the crumpled white cloth clutched in her hands and decided she would never again trust her judgment when it came to a man. Thus far, she had been wrong about each and every one of them.
Eleven
Devereaux tapped his pen on the blotter as he read the telegram, drawing in a breath that felt hot and smoky. The words didn’t change.
The end was upon them.
For a long moment he stared at the words as their meaning festered. President Davis’s peace talks with Lincoln and Seward had failed. They would not relent, and the South had no more resources. The Canadian government had signed a bill to prevent raids across the border, and no help was to come from any other side.
He shoved a hand through his hair. When Fort Fisher fell on the fifteenth, he should have known the South wouldn’t, couldn’t recover, but he had been more concerned that day with his own house. With Mother, and with seizing the chance to make Marietta his when she came to his room to tell him the fever had broken.
He should have been out that very night, communicating with the other captains, and with Richmond. He ought to have set in motion that very hour plans to save all they fought for.
Balling up the telegram, he shoved to his feet and tossed it in the wastebasket. Lincoln would pay for what he had done to their country. If he hadn’t stepped foot in office, this war never would have started. They could have found a peaceable solution. They would have convinced the Yankee-livered politicians to grant the Southern states their rights, the rights the Constitution had granted them.
But no. King Abraham had taken over, had seized power never meant to rest in the hands of the president, and had sent them all to their deaths. And for what? To end a way of life centuries old, one with its roots in the rich soil of the South, one that had seen the entire nation to prosperity.
Devereaux braced his arm against the window frame and looked out at the crowds bustling about his depot. Most of them no doubt felt exactly as he did, but few would dare to say so at this point. Not with Maryland in the grip of martial law. Women couldn’t even mourn for their fallen Confederate relatives without the authorities seizing them and carting them over the river into Virginia.
And the tyrant dared to call it a fight for unification. Dictatorship, that’s what it was.
He pushed away and snatched up his greatcoat, charging out into the frigid, damp air. His last communication with Davis had laid it all out very clearly. Peace, the president claimed, must be bought at any cost, before the last resistance the South could offer was broken.
Peace, it seemed, was not of interest to Lincoln. And so, the plan would proceed. Lincoln would pay. They would topple him from his throne, and when he found himself in a small, dark room in one of the towns his precious Sherman had burned to the ground, with a gag in his mouth and a hundred hate-filled eyes staring him down from behind armored helmets, then they would see how tall he stood.
“Osborne!”
Osborne straightened from where he had been crouched, examining something beside a stevedore. As usual, the man couldn’t be put upon to say anything, he just arched a brow and stepped toward him.
Which suited Devereaux fine. He didn’t need a man of words; he needed a man of action. One who knew what in blazes he was doing. One who would spend a cold night in the pitch-dark to scare away a few anonymous vagrants.
Devereaux didn’t pause, just strode past him, motioning him to fall in alongside. “I’m calling in the brothers. It may take a few days for them to assemble, but in the meantime we need to make plans. Contact your old friends on the security detail. Try to get a feel for how this next inauguration will be run. If we can seize him beforehand, we must.”
The crunch of their boots on the gravel disappeared under the whistle of an incoming train. Osborne made no reply until they had climbed up into the carriage.
Then the man sat back with pursed lips and hard eyes. “It won’t be easy. They know that is the most likely time for you to target him, so there will be guards everywhere and spies out.”
Devereaux felt himself glower. “I don’t need to hear why it will not work, Osborne. I need to be given a way to ensure that it will.”
Osborne folded his arms. “Ready to trust me, then?”
“I haven’t the leisure not to.” When he realized the carriage had yet to move, he pounded upon the roof. “Able! Go.”
His driver bounded onto the box with enough energy to shake the whole carriage—energy he should have spent keeping an eye out for their approach and already being in hi
s position. Blasted, lazy slaves who thought the promise of freedom meant they could stop working.
Feeling his companion’s gaze steady upon him, he nearly growled. “What?”
Osborne tapped one finger against his opposite arm. “You realize that if you pull this off, you’ll be an outlaw, you and every man who takes part.”
That was assuming his part was known, something he would work at all costs to avoid. “I know the risks.”
A snort spilled from Osborne’s lips. “Do your women?”
Devereaux bit back the words that wanted to snap out and borrowed his new friend’s usual silence for a few beats. Paired with his own glare, it must have done the job.
The man shrugged. “Just observing. It’s what I do. Your mother’s health is still fragile. And Marietta…well, are you planning on taking her with you?”
He sure as thunder wasn’t leaving her behind. “Don’t worry yourself about my personal business. Just talk to your friends. And be ready to make plans.”
Osborne held his hands up in surrender.
Good. About time something worked in his favor.
Slade left the parlor without so much as a glance over his shoulder, but he kept his ears strained. Marietta’s laughter covered Hughes’s response to Slade’s declaration that he would, yet again, be in the library. The servants were helping Mrs. Hughes back up the stairs.
And if it worked this time as it had before when this situation presented itself, it meant he had at least half an hour to do some snooping.
Because the old butler and his wife and Mrs. Hughes were still on the stairs, he went into the room he said he’d be in. He pulled out a book at random, opened it, and set it on his chair. The household had come to anticipate him enough that the fire had already been stirred, a lamp already lit.
When he peeked out the partially opened door, he saw no movement. Perfect. Easing through it, he darted across the hall toward the one room he’d yet to search. He’d managed to peek into it once, but someone had come before he could do more. A study, it had looked like, which meant Lucien’s.
His blood rushed with promise.
He pressed tight to the door to blend in as he tried the handle. Unlocked, praise be to the Lord.
From the parlor door came a swish of pale color and Marietta’s, “I’ll get it for you, darling.”
Blast. Quick as he could without making a noise, he jumped into the study and closed the door, praying she hadn’t seen him.
In case she checked the room, he sprinted around the desk and crouched behind it. That darling rang in his ears like a taunt. On Saturday pure fear had flashed through her eyes when she heard Hughes, and now, on Monday, she called him darling?
Maybe she had just been afraid of him seeing her with puffy eyes, her scarlet hair out of place.
She moved too quietly on her slippered feet for him to know where she had gone, so he stayed still and let his eyes adjust to the unlit room. No fire had been laid today, and he could see his breath in the moonlight that speared its way through the drawn curtains.
A soft click, and then a shaft of golden light from the hallway.
He pressed his lips together against a telltale plume of white air and willed his heart to slow. It was dark. He was hidden behind the desk. The massive, solid mahogany desk that looked exactly like the one in Hughes’s study. His eyes fell to the drawer in the same location, which had a matching keyhole.
Marietta’s hum filled the room. A hymn—“Rock of Ages.”
Slade eased closer to the wood, kept his head bowed.
And so he saw the lavender silk swish into view even as the humming went from song to simple hmm. Letting out the breath, he looked up and saw her leaning against the side of the desk, fiddling with the chain of her necklace while she gave him a charming smirk. “Looking for something, Mr. Osborne?”
Even knowing full well he would never pull it off, he went for casual and smirked back. “Yeah. Dropped my cuff link.”
“Ah. Of course. And no doubt kicked it in here under the door, around the desk, and…into the drawer, perhaps?” She twisted the chain around her finger, the round top of a pendant peeking up from her modest neckline.
Maybe she mocked him, but she sounded so dashed pleasant…and she hadn’t yet called for Hughes. “You know, I was just thinking it must have bounced in there.”
“Wily things, those cuff links.” She made a show of peeking over the side of the desk. “Unfortunately, I believe my dear late husband kept that particular drawer locked. And equally unfortunately, my charming brother-in-law is now in possession of all Lucien’s keys.”
And of his wife—how would ol’ Lu have felt about that? “Is he now? Well. By pure coincidence…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pick. “I never need a key.”
Though her brows went up in obvious surprise, she didn’t miss a beat. She clucked her tongue and twisted the chain again around her finger. “I invite you to notice, my friend, that everything in here is showing its neglect, other than the top of the desk. Even the lock has a film on it, and if you go scratching at it with that…tool, you could very well leave a mark. And Devereaux does detest seeing marks upon his things.”
He sighed and paused with his pick an inch from the lock. When he angled another glance up, he found her leaning closer, finger extended. And from its tip dangled the necklace she must have pulled over her head when he looked down.
The necklace with a key at its apex. He looked from that metallic answer to prayer back into her cat eyes. It didn’t feel like a trap. Didn’t smell like one. No tingles of warning shot up his spine. And yet it couldn’t be as simple as that. “Why?”
She turned her finger, let the gold slither down. He caught it by instinct but kept his gaze locked on hers. And so he saw the bravado fade and watched her go from charming socialite to the vulnerable woman from the floor two days earlier. “I didn’t know who they were when I joined this family. Now I do.”
He closed his fist around the key, held it until he felt its indentation in his palm, and then flipped it into the lock and turned. “And you love him anyway.”
Did something flicker in her eyes, or was it a trick of the moonlight? She stood and picked up the pipe lying cold and dormant in the middle of the desk. Apparently where her darling had left it. “He’ll know if you move anything.”
“Can’t be avoided.” He pulled it open and hissed out a breath at the reams of paper within.
Marietta tapped the pipe against her palm. “Don’t take anything. And relock it when you’re through.”
Because it was wise advice, he nodded. Even as he wished he could put a few sheets into his pocket. Like this one with a full list of area Knights.
The light turned to shadow, and he looked up to see her in the doorway, one hand upon the post. “Slade…thank you.” She glanced at the library.
Forcing his fingers to resist the instinct to curl around the paper, he nodded again.
She tapped the doorframe once and then disappeared into the hall. He heard her voice, laughing its way back to Hughes. “I declare, Dev, I about got lost in the mountain of dust in there. I’m telling Jess to clean it tomorrow, and I’ll not hear a word of argument.”
She’d left the door open, which meant some light for him, if a greater risk of being seen. He settled on the floor, held that first sheet in front of him. And glanced into the hall instead of at the paper.
Was that all this had been? A thanks for being nice the other day?
Favor for a favor. Tip for tap.
He had no better explanation. Even if she disapproved of what her husband and brother-in-law did, she’d made no move to separate herself. From all he’d seen, Marietta Arnaud Hughes answered first and last to her own desires. And for whatever reason, those desires now focused on Devereaux Hughes.
Maybe that wasn’t a generous view of her, but it explained everything. All but his own slip Saturday, when he’d seen a hurting girl and forgotten to be the Slade that Ross
had made him. When he’d just wanted to help and couldn’t resist that tug inside that said Go. Be My hands.
He gave himself a moment to shut his eyes and refocus. He could be that softer Slade when this was all over, when his brother’s betrayal had been redeemed. For now, he had work to do. And it didn’t involve wondering about what had sent Marietta into the library sobbing.
Twelve
Marietta looked from Walker’s back to the dismal clapboard house in front of which he had stopped. She twisted her necklace around her finger once and then tucked it beneath her collar lest playing with it turn into a habit. It wouldn’t do to pull out the key when Dev was around.
She had thought Slade would keep it and was happy to let him—she needed it no longer. But last night he had taken her hand upon leaving as he had in the library. And pressed the key back into her fingers instead of the handkerchief with S.O. embroidered in the corner.
Tapping her foot against the floor of her barouche, she willed the vision before her to change. Maybe Walker had the wrong address. Or maybe she’d misread that look in his eyes when she’d cornered him in the stable that morning and demanded to know how her brother could have struggled in certain unmentionable ways with Barbara Gregory when their relationship had not lasted a fortnight.
Walker turned on his seat to send her a look. “End of the line.”
Had it been old Pat driving her as usual, she would have told him she’d changed her mind. But she had asked Walker to come. “I don’t think I want to.”
“Then it must be the right thing to do. Out. Now.” He jumped down and held up a hand to assist her.
“Tyrant.”
“Princess.”
She put her hand in his and climbed down. Then took a moment to straighten her skirts. “I’m glad we’re back to being friends, Walker. It makes me feel…level again.”
“Me too. Now level something else that’s been sorely out of plane for years.” He nodded toward the house.
A shack, really, no doubt held up more by the buildings that shared its walls than its own integrity. Not that its neighbors looked any sturdier.
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