Circle of Spies (21 page)

He was nearly to it when movement caught his eyes. A swishing skirt, to be sure, but not the one he wanted.

Had she continued on her path, or retreated into the shadows as she usually did when he passed by, Devereaux would have said nothing. Cora might have been an entertaining diversion for a night, but a taste was all he had needed to assure himself she didn't satisfy him for long.

But the way she halted, her eyes wide with terror. The way she reached behind her…

He too came to a lazy stop a good stone's throw away and arched his brows.

She swallowed and backed up half a step, her hand still behind her. “You need somethin', Mr. Dev?”

“Well, now.” For the pure pleasure of watching her quake, he swept his gaze down her. She was breeding again, apparently—and apparently had been for a while, though he hadn't looked at her long enough to notice. “Kind as it is of you to offer, I prefer my women with a waist.”

The way her face twisted nearly made him laugh. Though his attention was snagged by a little blond head that peeked from behind her skirt. Her brat. Lucien's, from the looks of her, though his brother had always sworn he needed no concubine after marrying Marietta.

His gaze went back to Cora's petrified face. “What are you doing out here this time of day? Don't you have cleaning to do?”

“Yes, sir. I just…Miss Mari said…yes, sir.”

Miss Mari said
what
? He nearly asked, but what did it matter? “Speaking of Miss Mari—is she back yet?”

“No, sir. Not yet.”

No point in continuing to the carriage house, then. He dismissed the slave with a flick of the wrist and headed instead to the side of the house they so rarely used, especially in the past fifteen months. Much of it was taken up by the ballroom—a chamber that had been draped all this time in the silence of mourning. The rest were guest rooms also not needed recently.

The hedges had been let to grow around this side of the house, which allowed the Knights to slip in as they pleased without being seen. Once in the darkened room locked from the rest of the house, he followed the usual path. Through the concealed door, down the stairs, and along the long tunnel.

No light burned in the meeting room. He must still be a few minutes ahead of the others. No matter. He lit a lamp, laid the fire, and prepared the coffee.

They had plans to make.

“No. That is unacceptable. It must be before the inauguration.”

Slade leaned back against the wall beside the fireplace, his arms folded as he watched Booth pace the room. He knew well his line was a thin one to walk. He had to appear every bit as frustrated as they, encourage them, and yet speak reason. “We can try. But you wanted the truth.”

Surratt tapped his pen against the table, his gaze flickering from the pacing Booth to the brooding Hughes. “Osborne is no doubt right, Booth. It is when they will expect us to move. Lincoln will be too closely guarded.”

“I was the first to insist that Osborne find us a way, but in reality this
second inauguration changes nothing.” Hughes pushed himself up and dumped the dregs of his coffee into the fire. “We may simply not be able to act beforehand.”

“Still, we must try. Think of all the soldiers we could get released with him as ransom.”

Slade swallowed. No doubt they were right about that. But they might be surprised by Lincoln himself if they succeeded in capturing him. The president underwent trial each and every day of his life, and he stood tall under it. And not just because of his height.

Their three gazes fell on him, as if awaiting a response. What did they want? His opinion on how many soldiers they could get in exchange for Lincoln? He had no way of knowing, so he had no reason to opine. He unfolded his arms and meandered to a map tacked to the wall. “Escape route?”

“Ah.” Booth leapt to his side, eyes alight. “I have been working on one for months. Assuming we take him in Washington, we will make first for the Mudd plantation twenty-five miles out. Mudd is a doctor, so if we need any medical aid, he will no doubt give it.”

Slade glanced at Hughes and tried to recall if he had seen the name on the list of KGC members. He didn't think so, but he couldn't be sure. He needed a copy of that list. “Is he one of us?”

Hughes shook his head. “He is a slave owner, though, who has been hit hard by the prospect of losing his labor force. Booth feels certain he can be swayed.”

His noncommittal grunt was drowned out by the rattling of a carriage directly over them. Though not so much as a pebble tumbled down, it still made his shoulders tense.

Surratt inclined his head toward Hughes. “It sounds as though the missus is home.”

“Time to adjourn.” Their host went about extinguishing the fire. “Osborne, try to sound out your friends for a weak spot in their protection before the inauguration. But if there simply is none, look for one afterward.”

Booth took his hat from the table and tapped it into place, taking a moment to smooth his pomaded curls around it afterward. “I will keep you updated as to where I am staying. Or you can always reach Surratt at his mother's boarding house.”

Hughes shooed them toward the exit. “You fellows and those you trust must see to this. I will be out of town on other Confederacy business soon.”

They all fell into a line to leave, Surratt saying something that sounded like agreement but which was interrupted by Booth's mumble about the imbecility of the Confederacy. Hughes ignored them both and waved them all into the dark stairwell, shutting the door to the meeting room behind him.

No doubt their host was eager to greet his would-be missus.

Slade let the past hour spin through his mind as they took the shadowed journey up the stairs and into the never-used ballroom with its outside entrance. They apparently already had a location in mind for where they would hold Lincoln if they managed to kidnap him, but they hadn't named it. Just kept referring to it as “the hideout.” Still too soon, he supposed, to have their complete trust.

The men filed into the ballroom one by one. Hughes closed the paneled door behind them and then peeked out the one into the hedge. He waved Booth and Surratt out. No one said a word as they slipped into the evergreen shroud and from there into the open. Booth and Surratt vanished down the alley. A few moments later, Hughes led Slade to the front door.

No one opened it for them, which was no doubt why the man's face contorted into a hard scowl. He pushed the heavy wood open himself, but then he stopped so abruptly that Slade nearly ran into his back.

No surprise, given the picture within. All of the servants dashed about, Walker and Norris and old Pat carrying trunks, the women bandboxes and wrapped packages. Headed, not for the main stairs, but the ones leading to the side of the house from which Slade and Hughes had just come.

Mrs. Hughes stood at the base of the steps, pale and seeming in shock, while her redheaded minx of a daughter-in-law laughed with a woman Slade had never seen before. Though there was something vaguely familiar about her… He frowned at the frayed black dress the guest wore, the threadbare shawl.

Not Marietta Hughes's usual company. Which stirred up all sorts of questions.

“Mari?” Hughes moved another step into the chaos, sidestepping a
box full of…photographs? When the women looked his way, he went still again, and stiff as ice. Slade slid off to his side and closed the door behind him. Hughes smiled, but it looked about as friendly as a rattlesnake's tail. “Miss Gregory, isn't it?”

“It used to be.” Marietta's grin, if Slade weren't mistaken, contained a hint of smugness. Which was odd, given her reaction to the photograph he now remembered to be where he'd first seen the woman. “Though for some years now it has apparently been Barbara Arnaud. Gentlemen, allow me to introduce my sister-in-law, Stephen's widow. Barbara, you no doubt remember Devereaux Hughes, and this is his guest, Slade Osborne.”

“Ma'am.” Slade stepped up when Hughes remained still, took her hand, kissed it. And knew with one glance into Barbara Arnaud's serene face that he would like this woman. That peace in her eyes called his mother to mind. And it didn't hurt any that Hughes was obviously less than thrilled with her presence.

“How good to meet you, Mr. Osborne.” Her voice was soft, both in volume and texture. She turned from him to Hughes. “So good to see you again, Mr. Hughes.”

Hughes took her hand, but too slowly. Bowed over it, but didn't kiss her knuckles.

Slade shot a glance to Marietta, who smirked back at him.

She stepped nearer, and light from the window angled over her. It lit the flame of her hair and set to glowing the pearls around her neck.

Familiar pearls. Three of them on a thin strand of gold. Slade frowned. The very same three pearls he had seen that bizarre night on the wife of the tall old man. He hadn't had time to slip away and discover who they were. All he had managed to verify was that a ship still bobbed in the harbor with
Masquerade
painted on her hull.

“From the looks of it,” Hughes said to Mrs. Arnaud, “you will be visiting for a while.”

“Indefinitely.” Marietta looped her arm through her guest's and pulled her a step away from Hughes. “I'm afraid that since she and Stephen married in secret, she has been living all this time in a part of town of which my brother would disapprove. We are going to remedy that and welcome her to the family properly.”

Though Hughes's smile stretched, it looked no more welcoming. “How good of you.” His gaze tracked the servants disappearing up the side staircase. “Where have you put her?”

“The suite of rooms on the third floor, above the ballroom. They will be most to her liking and provide her the privacy to which she is accustomed.” Marietta, unlike her suitor, beamed with pleasure at the prospect.

Odd indeed. Slade had seen her flock of friends several times now, and they were all the same. Women of means, of important families. Women who arranged their faces in masks and whose eyes always snapped with calculation. Like Marietta's so often did.

This one was different. The kind of different that made him wonder not just about Barbara Arnaud, but about Marietta. Because had anyone asked, he would have said she never would have invited someone like this sister-in-law of hers into her house. Not for an hour, much less indefinitely. And she sure wouldn't have looked so pleased about it.

Curious indeed.

Hughes found it more distasteful than intriguing, given that glint in his eye. Perhaps he didn't like the idea of someone living right above the entrance to his castle. “How lovely. Why don't you let Mother show her to her rooms, darling? It has been too long since she had the pleasure of welcoming a guest properly.”

Because he kept his gaze on the women, Slade saw the shift. Calculation reentered Marietta's eyes, and questions sprang to life in Mrs. Arnaud's at that
darling
. Questions colored with shadows. Sorrow, perhaps. Suspicion. Maybe a splash of disappointment.

Mrs. Arnaud, it would appear, was no fonder of Devereaux Hughes than he was of her.

Well. This ought to make things interesting in the Hughes house.

Mrs. Hughes took her cue to come down the last step, her sugary smile pasted into place. Marietta slowly released her friend's arm. “Of course. Barbara dear, I'll be right up to help you settle in.”

The guest's smile wavered around the edges. “All right.” Obviously too polite to argue, Mrs. Arnaud turned to Hughes's mother.

The son took Marietta by the arm. “A word, darling.”

Slade's fingers curled into his palm. Not at the endearment, which
he had grown used to hearing—mostly—but at the tone. And the grip. It mollified him only slightly when Marietta's chin came up. When her lips turned in a flinty smile.

She glanced at Slade over her shoulder as Hughes pulled her toward the parlor. “I put a new book out for you, Mr. Osborne.”

“Thanks.” But he made no move toward the library. Not with Hughes's face blurring in his mind with his own brother-in-law's. Marietta and his sister didn't seem like the same type of woman. He wanted to think this one before him now wouldn't suffer a man striking her.