Circle of Spies (14 page)

“It would be my first social appearance.” She smoothed the pearl gray silk of her evening gown, a movement that was graceful, elegant, and shouted her nerves.

“And a fine time to ease back into such things. Do you not agree, Mother?”

His mother had been brought down an hour earlier, and though she had not moved from her chaise, her color was still good. Now she
looked up with that sweet-as-molasses smile she always gave Marietta. “The Ellicotts are a fine family. I'm certain whatever invitation you decide to accept as your first appearance will be the perfect choice, Mari dear.”

More like whichever decision she made, Mother would scoff over it the moment Marietta left the room.

But if ever she detected her mother-in-law's insincerity, Marietta hid the realization so well even Devereaux couldn't find it. She sent a warm, unclouded smile to the chaise. “I would feel better about accepting any invitation if you were well enough to join me, Mother Hughes. I hate the thought of leaving you on your own for a whole evening.”

“Ah,
c'est la vie
. You mustn't put your life on hold for me, dear. I shall be just fine.”

“You have French roots, do you not, Mrs. Hughes?” This came from the corner, though Osborne didn't glance up from his page. Nor did he bother to keep his posture upright. He slouched in the chair like a university student amongst his peers—or like the common stock he was.

Both Mother and Marietta looked at him, both opened their mouths, both paused.

Now their guest looked up, his eyes keen despite his apologetic smile. “I'm sorry. I meant the elder Mrs. Hughes.”

“It does get a bit confusing, doesn't it?” Mother simpered and smoothed down her skirt too, though her gown hung on her after all the weight she had lost in recent months. “Perhaps you ought to call my dear daughter by her given name, like the rest of us, Mr. Osborne.”

Marietta pressed her lips tight. And because she obviously wanted to withhold her permission, Devereaux could smile and grant it. “You might as well. Though the answer to your question would be the same, whichever of them you asked.”

“That's right.” Mother went back to her embroidery. She was working on a Union sash, though he knew it galled her. “My family is from French Louisiana, just outside New Orleans. My brother now owns the plantation on which I was raised. The Fortiers are known far and wide for the best sugar in the South.”

“And Marietta has French on both sides of her family.” Devereaux took a draw from his cigar and picked up the paper he had yet to read today. “Right, darling?”

She had a book by her side, though she hadn't opened the cover. At his prod, she sent him a look that said she was perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation without his guidance. He grinned back.

Though she refrained from rolling her eyes, he had a feeling it took effort. Effort which she channeled into the smile she sent Mr. Osborne. “That's right.” She drew the book into her lap. “My father's father was French aristocracy. He fled to America with his parents in the face of the French Revolution. And my grandmother on my mother's side is half-French as well, with a similar story. Except that Great-Grandmama Julienne ended up in England with my Great-Grandpapa Isaac.”

Osborne glanced between the two ladies. “I imagine that shared heritage bound the two of you together.”

The ladies were quick to agree, but Devereaux narrowed his eyes. Osborne obviously knew their loyalties were different, but something about the slant of his brows made Devereaux think he suspected more of Mother's sentiments than he should have.

A detective
ought
to have keen powers of observation, he supposed. But still. He had no business using them to find the cracks in the foundation of the Hughes house.

Perhaps Mother felt it too. She shifted, refreshed her smile, and directed it to Marietta. “Entertain us, Mari. Recite something.” To Osborne she added, “Our Mari has an amazing ability to recall the written word.”

“Does she?” Osborne sat up a bit straighter. “Fascinating. Do you take requests, Mrs.—I mean, Marietta?”

Devereaux shifted. He didn't much like hearing her name trip off his tongue after all, though it was a little late to rescind the invitation.

Running the tip of her finger along the edge of her book, she smiled. “That is one way to play the game, Mr. Osborne. But it is more fun if
you
recite a snippet of something, and I try to finish it and give you the reference.”

Always entertaining, assuming she was in company that enjoyed the same things she did. Though boredom snuck in fast if a bunch of pretentious gentlemen were present who insisted on tossing out Greek or Latin references, or the religious texts she so despised. The moment they ventured into those, she would demure and claim ignorance.

“All right.” Osborne sat straighter still, his nearly black eyes going
narrow in thought. He glanced to Devereaux. “Why don't you start us off, Hughes, while I think?”

“Very well.” He thought for a moment as he took another puff of his cigar. “Ah. ‘There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England.' ”

How he loved the way the smile curled just the corners of her mouth. Every time he saw it, he wanted to kiss those corners until the smile bloomed full. “Really, Dev, that is hardly even sporting. You might as well have begun with ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' The next line is ‘There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France,' and the book is
A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens. Mother Hughes, do show your son how to make this game challenging.”

Mother laughed, though no doubt later she would huff about Marietta's audacity in insulting him before a guest. “All right. Hmm. Oh. ‘There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.' ”

Marietta made a show of considering, though she wouldn't have had to. Mother only ever quoted from three different books, and even Devereaux knew which one that line opened. She had used it in this game half a dozen times before.

She tapped her chin and tilted her head. “I do believe…no…is it—oh! Of course, your favorite, Mother Hughes.
Jane Eyre
. ‘We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning.' ”

Mother clapped. “Your turn, Mr. Osborne.”

Osborne snapped his book shut. “ ‘But then, though we all hope to go to heaven when we die, yet, if we may judge by people's lives, and our Lord says, “that by their fruits we may know them…' ” ”

Marietta didn't so much as blink. “ ‘I am afraid it will be found, that thousands, and ten thousands, who hope to go to this blessed place after death, are not now in the way to it while they live.' Whitfield, ‘Marks of a True Conversion.' ”

Devereaux ground out his cigar in the bronze ashtray beside him.

Osborne lifted a brow. “ ‘Down she came and found a boat/Beneath a willow left afloat—' ”

“ ‘And round about the prow she wrote/
The Lady of Shalott.
' Which is your answer, sir. Tennyson.”

Devereaux frowned. Marietta didn't like poetry.

Their guest leaned forward, challenge making his eyes hard as onyx. “ ‘The analytical power should not be confounded with ample ingenuity…' ”

“ ‘…for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis.' ” She lifted her chin and stared Osborne down. “Edgar Allan Poe. ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.' ”

Enough. Devereaux laughed and clapped along with his mother, ready to end whatever
that
had been. “When have you read Poe, darling? I cannot imagine it would suit your sensibilities.”

It took a long moment for her to look away from Osborne. And when she did, ice filled her eyes. Cold and hard and unyielding. Even when she smiled, it glinted like frost. “A lady must have her secrets, Dev.”

So long as they were a stash of sweets or a tawdry novel. The Poe he certainly didn't care about. But that glint…that wouldn't do.

“Oh, my.” Mother fussed with the lace of her shawl and pushed herself up. “I do believe I had better retire. Mari, dear, will you ring for Norris and Jess?”

Though her features thawed, it was a bit too late for Dev's peace of mind. “Of course.”

Osborne stood, his movements languid but shoulders tense. “I think I will adjourn to the library if you will excuse me. That exhausted my literary acumen.”

Devereaux waited for Osborne to leave. For the slaves to get his mother from the room. For Marietta to meet the gaze he kept on her face for a solid two minutes during the exodus. And he was only marginally mollified when rather than just look to him, she joined him on the settee.

He let her settle at his side, let her send him her usual smile. Then he took her hand and held it fast. “You need to be more careful with him, darling.”

At least it was genuine bafflement in her pale green eyes. “Whatever do you mean, Dev? I never even speak to him but when you bring him here.”

True as that may be, it didn't negate his concerns. He glanced to where Osborne had been sitting. “Explain that little exchange to me.”

Her cheeks flushed, her gaze fell to their hands, her fingers tightened around his. “I am sorry. I know such competitiveness isn't becoming, and usually I curb it in company, but having grown up with three brothers…he looked just like Isaac, tossing out those obscure references.”

Devereaux studied her face, glanced at the flutter of the pulse in her neck, and noted the pressure she put upon his fingers. Nothing gave him any clue that she spoke amiss. That it was any more or any less than that. Still. “Just promise you will tread with care in his company. I cannot forget the look in his eye when he first spotted you.”

She was too savvy a flirt not to recognize jealousy. Too skilled a beauty not to know what it did to him when she looked at him like that, from under her lashes. When she traced a finger along the ridge of his knuckles, he wanted to lean over and kiss her, promises be hanged. “You needn't worry, darling. He doesn't even like me.”

“I find that infinitely hard to believe.”

Yet her smile was genuine, with just a touch of conspiracy. “Because you like me so well. But trust me, I know how to read men. He may like my face well enough, but that is where it ends.”

Was it? He knew how to read men too, and he was none too sure. But then, his expertise was not in that particular measure of them. “And what are your thoughts on him? I have yet to hear them.”

She shrugged, her shoulder gleaming alabaster in the light from the grate. Yes, he was glad to see her out of the suffocating styles of mourning. “I confess I fail to see why you are keeping him so close. Perhaps he is an able guard or detective or whatever he is, but he is hardly your usual choice of houseguest.”

How true. And how glad he was to hear her say it. “He hadn't any other place to stay in Baltimore. It seemed logical.”

She sent him the look that had bound his heart to hers those four years ago. Tease, spice, wit, all joined together inside the most fetching form he had ever beheld. “And you, being ever so generous, took the poor soul in. A veritable hero.”

“And all yours.” He wanted to pull her closer, to hold her tight and remind her of how well suited they were. And he would have, if not for that blasted promise he had made her. “I suppose I should gather my unusual houseguest and leave you in peace.”

But she stayed him with a hand to his chest. “Not quite yet.” Her mischievous smile fading to a more yearning one, she leaned into his side and rested her head on his shoulder. “Give me a few moments first.”

Well. He was really in no hurry to go home.

She'd given him half an hour. So far as Marietta knew, Slade had actually spent it in the library—which would be foolish—but she was at least doing her part. Keeping Dev away while the servants were busy tending Mother Hughes.

A better time to search she couldn't possibly have handed him. But more than half an hour would be pushing the boundaries. She had done her best to keep Dev relaxed and at ease, reminiscing with him about inconsequential things. Trailing a finger along the
V
of his waistcoat.