Circle of Spies (17 page)

“It's not that easy.” Saying it pierced through all those optimistic dreams about going home and breaking things off with Dev. Yet it brought relief too. Because for the first time, she was being honest with herself about how completely she had messed up. “Dev isn't going to let me go.”

“He can't stop you.”

“Can't he?” Tears gathered, but she must hold them off. Just a few more minutes. “We'd been planning to marry as soon as it was acceptable.”

“Yetta.” He shifted and reached for her hand. As it had when he'd taken it that morning two weeks ago, it gave comfort, even if it shouldn't. “I know this is a bad thing to say given the conversation just past, but promises can be broken. Sometimes they have to be.”

And comfort could evaporate like a drop of water on a summer-hot cobblestone in the face of one's own shame. She tugged her fingers free and looked down to the hay-strewn floor. “I gave him more than a promise.”

Even the horses went silent. She didn't want to glance up again, didn't want to see the revulsion on his face. But the quiet was too heavy.

Though they looked nothing alike, he reminded her of Stephen in that moment. The way his expression combined sorrow with pain for her. “Tell me you don't mean what I think you do.”

The tears pressed harder. “I'm not proud of myself. I never thought I would…but I was weak. Weak and lonely. I thought I was in love, and I had no idea he was…the monster he is.”

“Don't cry, Yetta.” He said it now the way he'd done dozens of times as they grew up. Desperately, with an edge of panic. And it did no more to urge the tears away now than it ever had. “We all have those
struggles, even Stephen with Barbara. It's natural. And sometimes we make mistakes. But you can get away. You have to. You can't stay with him.”

“He might as well own me, don't you see that?” She slid past him, knowing he wouldn't thank her for it if she let the tears come. But she couldn't hold them back any longer. “He won't let me go.”

“It's not his choice. You're not his. You're God's.”

By the time he spoke the last word, she had gained the door, her feet flying toward the back of the house. The world had gone blurry through the lens of her tears, but she didn't need to see. She knew every rock, every root, every bump in the ground. Knew it was three stairs to the kitchen door, and then a quick dart around the thick slab of a table.

“Miss Mari, what in the world? You a'ight?”

Knew Tandy wouldn't follow her if she just moved fast enough.

“You need Mr. Dev, honey? He's up with his mama.”

No!
She might have screamed it if a sob hadn't choked her. Scurrying down the back hall, she pressed a hand to her mouth. She couldn't go upstairs to the sanctuary of her chamber if he were up there.

You're God's
.

The words pounded with each footfall as she ran into the main hall, battered her mind as she pushed into the library. Stephen, at least, could be found there. His books on the shelves, his wisdom hovering around them.

You're God's.
God's. Yes. He had bought her. Redeemed her. Purchased her from the man to whom her sins had bound her.

Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold… But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot
.

Without blemish—not her. She was tarnished. Ruined.

Her face in her hands, she bypassed the chairs, the couch. She didn't want to be comforted by soft cushions and velvet. She wanted to disappear. And so she headed for the far corner and the little alcove that was a mere quirk of the architecture and arrangement of shelves. One little rectangle tucked away, just big enough for her to curl up in on the floor.

Why could God not undo the past? If she could go back, if she could resist him one more day, then she never would have made such a stupid mistake. It had seemed bad enough that morning, when she realized how she had betrayed her husband's memory.

How much worse an hour later down in that tunnel.

And now, knowing what he had done to Cora…

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

The wave hit so hard it forced her down still more, until she felt the cold floor against her cheek and could hear her strangled cry reverberate in the planking. She splayed her fingers over the honey-colored wood, wishing she could press hard enough to go through it. To sink down until she disappeared altogether, vanished from her wreck of a life.

…glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's
.

She pressed her lips together, tried to hold back the sob, to keep it from drawing anyone in. But a whimper slipped through.
How can You love me, God? When I have not glorified You in my body, when I have ignored You in my spirit?
Much as she squeezed her eyes shut, she couldn't erase the images flashing forever before her eyes. All her sins, all her failings, all the times she cared only for herself.

God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

A shudder coursed through her. Why did the words come so quickly, so easily? Yet never in her life had she felt them the way Stephen said he could. Never had it been solid, like a touch upon her heart, like an embrace from her parents. Never had it warmed her when the winter winds closed in.

If You are there, Lord God, then please be
real
to me. Please come. Please show me You are real.

A flutter against her hair made her breath catch and then quaver its way out. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and listened to her brother's voice in her head, saw his earnest face.
You can never be more stubborn than He is loving. You can never be so far from Him that He cannot touch you.

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

D
evereaux 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.”