Circle of Spies (22 page)

But then, he hadn't thought Jane would either.

Neither noticed him trailing behind them, pausing outside the parlor door.

Marietta pulled her arm free of Hughes's grip the moment they were inside. “Is something the matter, Dev?”

Planting his hands on his hips, he glared at her. “What is going on with you, Marietta? You despise her, you always have. Yet now you invite her to share your home?”

Her chin went up another notch, her eyes glinting more. She shifted away from the door. If he didn't know better, Slade would have thought for sure she was drawing Hughes's attention toward the opposite direction, away from him. Nonsense, of course.

“Stephen loved her enough to marry her. Enough to marry her in
secret
, which would have been a hard decision for him. If he loved her so much, then obviously I misjudged her.”

“Mari, you know your brother…”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. Cat eyes, no question. “I know my brother
what
?”

Hughes's hands came up in surrender. Apparently Stephen Arnaud was sacred ground that even he respected. “Nothing. But you are not one to change your mind once you have made it. I don't understand—”

“I don't expect you to understand. I just expect you to be civil.”

Hughes folded his arms across his chest. “I don't like her. And I don't want her in my house.”

Those cat eyes threw sparks. Slade half expected her to hiss and bare her claws. “She isn't in
your
house, Devereaux. She's in
mine
.”

He took a step closer to her. Did it look as menacing from her angle as it did from the hall? Perhaps not, given that she didn't so much as flinch.

“There is very little difference, darling. And there will be none in a few short months when you are my wife.”

She sashayed a step nearer to him too, charm coming off her in waves as her eyes went from slitted to hooded and her lips quirked. Her fingers walked up his chest. “And until then, darling…she stays.”

His growl didn't scare her off. She didn't pull away when he slid an arm around her waist. “It is a foolish move, one you will soon regret. And Mother didn't like her when your brother introduced them.”

Her head tilted, scarlet curls cascading. “Nor did she like me. But she gets on well enough pretending. I'm sure she can do the same with Barbara.”

Slade pressed his lips together against a laugh and slid to his left to remain out of sight when Hughes jerked away a step. “Whatever are you talking about, Mari?”

She sent her eyes heavenward. “Do you think me such a fool I cannot tell when another woman dislikes me?”

“Hmm.” Apparently seeing no reason to continue the charade, he slid close again. “Yet you have never been less than kind to her.”

“She is my mother-in-law.” Her voice changed as she said that. Went from insistent, even seductive to…warm. Sincere. As if that bond were enough for her, enough to create what affection had not.

A testament, in Slade's mind, to the family from which she came, to have given her such respect for the institution.

As Hughes pulled her to him, she wrapped her arms around him. And then settled her gaze on Slade with such calm that he retreated a step. She had obviously been aware of his presence the whole time. And now she looked at him, not with censure for eavesdropping, but with warning. The kind that seemed sympathetic rather than threatening.

A flick of her fingers, a darting of her eyes toward the library, and over Hughes's shoulder she mouthed the word
Go
.

Good advice. Hughes didn't seem likely to strike her at this point, but he would have no compunction about leveling a fist at Slade's nose if he caught him there. A fate she wished him spared? Or did she just not want him watching anymore?

Either way, the twist of his gut as he watched Hughes hold her tight convinced him to obey. He turned and crept to the library. Then hissed out a breath at his own stupidity. What was he doing? His gut had no
business twisting, not over them. Over her. She was nothing to him. Nothing but Hughes's puppet, his future bride.

So what if she had helped him once or twice? Probably just to keep her darling Dev happy like a good little woman. Keep him from finding out something that would upset him and thereby spoil their evening.

He rubbed a hand over his face and realized he still wore his bowler. Sweeping it off, he slung it toward his usual chair and paced to the table beside it. He had no business liking her, not when he disliked Hughes so much, and they were so obviously similar. In love. Marietta Arnaud Hughes might recognize that her beau was a monster, but it never stopped her from falling happily into his arms.

He scooped up the book sitting out on the table. So he found her beautiful. He was a healthy man. That ranked as “obviously.” Maybe her peculiar wit made him smile. Also no great surprise. That didn't mean he had to let a simple attraction have any effect on him. He would do what he could to make sure Hughes didn't hurt her, but when his business here was done, she would have to answer to her own allegiances.

And they were poor ones, so she had better steel herself for the consequences.

His gaze fell to the book in his hands. And his lips pulled up.
The Confessions of Saint Augustine
. Nice. As if she knew well he was judging her and was trying to tell him anyone could change.

More likely, just a book she had spotted that fit with the others she had seen him reading.

Seeing a slip of paper sticking out, he opened it to the marked page. A passage was underlined in faint pencil. By Marietta or her brother? He scanned it and sighed. Augustine's conversion. He shifted the book, moving the spine enough that the slip of paper tilted to the other side, revealing three words written upon it, in a script undeniably feminine.
Under the cushion
.

First his eyes went back to the page. A note on the text?

No. He looked instead at the chair in which he always sat. The very one he had been in the other day when she burst in upon him and hadn't even seen him through her tears.

Surely not. Surely this was just some note randomly placed here
years before. A reminder of…to…what? No answers sprang to mind. But it couldn't be for him.

Still, what was he to do but lower the book and reach for the cushion?

When he spotted the key to the desk drawer, he forgot to breathe. A measure of peace settled upon him as he picked it up and put the cushion back. But why would she give it to him?

“Have you read that one yet, Mr. Osborne?”

He spun at her voice. “Too long ago to remember much.”

“Then a revisit should suit you.” She moved toward him in that way she had—smooth, graceful, but not like some of the other women he'd seen, who could balance books upon their head. Her grace was more…liquid. Feline, to match her eyes. She halted a foot shy of her skirt brushing him. “You could have kept it.”

Then she could have told him so at the time. He shrugged, tilted his head, and focused his gaze on those pearls. “Nice necklace. New?”

“Old. Very old.” Her eyes lit with a mischievous smile as she touched the gems. “My grandmother just gave it to me. It has been in our family since the days of the Revolution.”

“Your grandmother.” Gwyneth Lane then, as her other grandmother lived somewhere in New England. Which meant that “Mister” was Thaddeus Lane. He should have known. Merchant, soldier, father-in-law of Commodore Jack Arnaud, and, from what he had gathered when researching Marietta's family, loved by most everyone he knew—and he knew everyone.

Somehow, having the name didn't answer any of his questions.

“Keep it.” She nodded toward the hand that still held the key.

Because she looked ready to pivot and leave, he moved. And wished he hadn't when his fingers enclosed her wrist and awareness hit like lightning. The way she paused, he wondered at first if she felt it too.

But no, it no doubt just reminded her of the way Hughes had grabbed her minutes earlier. She looked from his hand to his eyes, her gaze going hard.

Still, he didn't let go. Not yet. “Marietta.” He tried to keep his tone even. He failed. It came out quiet and strained. “Be careful. This is no game.”

“One might turn that warning right around on you.” Her voice matched his. Then her eyes thawed, and the mischief returned to them. “You ought to pay my grandparents another visit, Slade. Grandmama has begun a very nice painting of you.”

“Of me?” His hand fell away from her wrist. In part because she obviously knew about his midnight visit there if she saw such a thing. In part because of the painting itself. “She barely saw me.”

Her lips turned up to match her eyes. “A glimpse is all she ever requires.” She took a step toward the door. “Do put that item somewhere safe, won't you?”

He slid it into his pocket, the safest place he had at the moment. “Aren't you curious?”

She paused again and lifted her brows.

He had to appreciate a woman who could speak without words. “About what's in there.”

Tilting her head, she smiled again. “You're assuming I didn't look.”

True. But surely if she had, she wouldn't sit idly back. Would she? “Did you?”

“Briefly.” She turned to the door again.

“Briefly.” What did that mean? What had she seen? Enough to know that she made her bed in a den of Copperheads, or just enough to know she didn't want to look any further?

Halfway to the door, she glanced at him over her shoulder. Her smile still lingered, but the mischief had abandoned it. “That's all I require, Slade. Just a glimpse.”

Fourteen

W
alker looked up at the sound of footsteps on the outside stairs. He put a stray ribbon in the book of signs to mark his place, which was still woefully near the beginning. He tried to learn on his own, but it made little sense until someone showed it to him. With Barbara's arrival that afternoon, there had been no time for another lesson, so…

He darted a glance at the little cot where Elsie slept, a chubby arm curled around her rag doll. An image to make him smile. And the smile just kept on going when the door opened and Cora stepped in with a gust of cold air. He pushed himself up to greet her properly.

She returned his smile and his kiss, and nestled into his arms…but tension rode her shoulders and knotted her back, more than it had any other night since Marietta insisted on her resting every day. “Something wrong, honey?”

Cora gave him a squeeze and pressed her face to his chest. “No. Not really.” But she held him tighter still. “I ran into Mr. Dev today is all, and it shook me up some. I had Elsie with me.”

His breath eased out. They both knew it was unavoidable, but they had done all they could to keep their girl away from him. Keep her out here, far from the places he usually went. But Elsie wouldn't long be contained to their rooms as she grew. “Did he touch you? If he touched you, I swear I'll—”

“No. Nothin' like that. Just made a nasty comment and told me to get back to work.” Though her lips said
just
, the eyes she turned up to him were misty. “Walker, I need you to promise me. If she marries him, if he takes over this house, we have to leave. Freed or not, I can't stay here then. Or if his mama dies and I go to him—”

“Shh.” He buried his hand in her hair and held her close, close enough that he could feel his babe's happy kick. “It won't come to that. She won't marry him.” Though it still made him sick to consider what she'd told him three days ago. Marietta was right. He wouldn't let her go, not if he had such a claim on her. “And Miss Lucy is on the mend.”

She gripped his shirt. “Promise me, Walk.”

Looking down into her beautiful eyes, her precious face, he sighed. “I promise you, honey. You'll never be his.” He pressed his lips to her forehead to seal the oath. “Now come rest. I bet you had a busy evening with Miss Barbara.”

“Busy on top of busy. But the good kind.” She pulled away and untied her apron, draping it over her chair while she reached for the cup of water he had waiting for her. “I still can't believe Miss Mari brought her here.”

Walker turned to pull out the bread and meat he'd kept warm by the fire. “I really think you're gonna see a different side of Yetta now.”

Cora sank down onto her chair with a weary exhale. “The side you used to be in love with? Don't know that I want to see that.”

“Stop.” He slid the plate in front of her and took up his position behind, where he could rub her shoulders. “You know I love you more than I ever loved anyone. Except maybe Elsie, but that can hardly be compared.”

She let out a puff of laughter and tilted her head forward. “Miss Mari's taken to thanking me these past couple of days. Every time I help her with something. It's…”

“Encouraging? Refreshing?”

“Discombobulatin'.”