Circle of Spies (27 page)

“What?” She heard nothing. No footsteps, no carriages…

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Not what I wanted that to be, Lord.”

“Pardon?” The cold compounded, and she wrapped her arms around herself again. Still, it seeped all the way to her core.

Slade rubbed a hand over his face and leveled a gaze on her that was…warm. Open. With no hint of the wolf. “My conscience. I'm sorry. I had no right to kiss you, not when you're promised to Hughes.”

Now her blood ran as cold as the air. “I'm not going to marry him.”

“He doesn't seem to know that.” A small glint reentered his eyes.

Her chin lifted a notch. She couldn't stop it. “Do you think it a wise time to send him into a rage?”

Now the flashes she saw race across his face were more of fear. And somehow she suspected they weren't for himself. “No. You can't do that. He would…”

He would what? She didn't want to think he would hurt her, but Cora's scream echoed in her ears. She could almost hear the fire of his dueling pistol, the gasps of a dying man who had done nothing worthy of a fight.

If he could be so violent because of her, what would he do to her if she broke things off? Or what if the duel had been more because of the castle under the house?
Her
house. And if she refused to marry him, what would he do for that? She shivered.

Slade ran a hand down her upper arm and cupped her elbow. “Do you realize what will happen to him if he succeeds in his plans, Marietta? He could hang.”

The shiver turned to convulsion. She couldn't love the man he was, the one who had lied to her about the things he valued most highly. But she didn't want to see him executed. “Do your job then, Slade. Stop him.”

“I will. But he'll still be arrested and spend the rest of his life in prison.”

She would never have to see him again. He could never reach her, but she wouldn't have his death on her hands. She nodded.

“You're sure you're all right with that? To the point you'd be willing to testify in court?”

Testify? She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, but she forced them open wide. Forced her breathing to steady when it wanted to ball in a scream or a sob. “Is that what this was about?”

Had that always been what it was about? Had she ever been more than a means? A means to her father for Lucien, a means to the house for Devereaux, a means to a witness for Slade.

“This?” He looked baffled for about half a second, and then realization dawned. He squeezed her elbow. “No,
this
was about your being too blasted alluring. The question is because I've been watching the
two of you together for almost a month now. You look to be very much his girl.”

She didn't pause to examine why the observation made her blood boil. It was enough that it fired through her. Surging up on her toes, she pressed a hand to the back of his head, pulled it down, and caught his mouth in a kiss as searing as the anger in her veins. And then, just as his arms started to come around her, she pulled away. Not to tease, but because the fire turned from anger to shame, and a small voice inside chided her.

No doubt the same voice that had just chided him. She couldn't quite catch her breath when she turned away. “I'm not his girl.” Unwilling to look to see if he believed her, she spun for the stairs and charged up them.

The door refused to budge when she pushed, and the circle of light dogged her heels. Giving in now to the urge to close her eyes, she leaned her head against the unyielding wood.

She heard the lantern come to a rest on the step. His hand settled on her back. “I'm sorry. Again.” Oh, he had such a voice. So rich. Just the right timbre. It was a shame he so often chose silence. Although he could have chosen it again now, and she wouldn't have minded. “I've made a mess of things where they should have stayed neat and put us both in danger. Worse, I didn't show you the respect you deserve.”

As if she deserved any respect. What was wrong with her, that she must always have a man's affections? Her stupid, foolish heart was as fickle as the weather over the bay. From Walker to Lucien to Devereaux, and now would she focus her vain hopes on Slade Osborne?

Willing the idiotic fluttering of her heart to still, she pasted on indifference and made a show of examining the door. “There's no need to dwell on it. We shan't make the same mistake again.”

He ran his hand down the opposite side of the door and found the latch within five seconds. Though he paused with his hand upon it. “Thanks for listening. About Ross.”

They must have been identical twins for Ross to have tried to take his place as he had. Two of them with the same dark, brooding good looks, the same strong jaw. Had they both had the wolf's eyes? Not that the predator shone through Slade's in his softer moments. Only when he was at work, playing the part his brother had written for him.
The part, perhaps, he had played of his own volition before he went home changed?

She had a feeling the turn of her lips was too small to be called a smile. “Thank you for trusting me enough to share.”

With a scant nod of acknowledgment, he pulled on the latch and pushed open the door.

Because she wanted to linger, she swept through the opening without hesitation. And because it hurt so much, she paused in the study, turned, and lifted to her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. Friendly, that's all. A show of appreciation for honesty in a world that seemed to have none.

Yet when she rushed into the hall, her heart twisted, keen and painful. She wanted her mother. Someone to embrace her with no expectations, someone to love her in the truest sense. She would grab her cloak and…no, Mama was spending the day with Paulina and baby Ezra. Marietta would be welcome there, but it wouldn't be the same.

For a moment she stood in the hall with no direction. Then her eyes caught on the side staircase, and her feet aimed that direction. A minute later she knocked on the door to Barbara's sitting room, and her friend opened it with a welcoming smile.

Marietta hastened in. Barbara was about as close to Mama as she could get just now.

“Mari. Are you all right? You look upset.”

A quick denial was on her tongue, but she swallowed it and stopped in front of the window. The world outside looked so drab and dreary. “I don't know.”

Barbara joined her at the window and took her hands. “You're like ice! Were you outside?”

“No.” She gripped Barbara's fingers and closed her eyes, calling up an image of the street with green buds on the trees and flowers blooming. She thought of summer with its waves of humid heat.

But these past years, it had been only oppression. No picnics in the parks or walks along the harbor, nothing but dread of the next casualty report. Everyone knew someone who had fallen. Sometimes it felt as though there had been no life before the war, that there would be none after it.

The image of warmth vanished like smoke in the wind. There
wouldn't be much by way of life after this. Not for her. Her association with Lucien and Devereaux Hughes would ostracize her from the society that mattered. And if she were with child, there would be no sanctuary from wagging tongues.

“Mari?”

She blinked away the haze and focused on Barbara's guileless face. “Slade kissed me.”

Barbara's brown eyes went wide with…mirth? “Well, now. I suppose that could render any woman dazed.”

Marietta searched her face for censure but found none. Only that soft amusement. “Shouldn't you be shocked? We have only known each other a month.”

With a light laugh, Barbara chafed some warmth into Marietta's hands. “I had only known Stephen a week when he first kissed me.”

Her brother? Staunch, staid, upright Stephen—kissing a girl he scarcely knew? “Surely you jest.”

The dreamy look in Barbara's eyes proved the truth. “I had never thought to gain the attention of a man like him. Aside from my humble means, I have no great beauty, I know—but our love came so quickly. We both knew by then that God had meant us for each other.”

At the time Marietta would have scoffed. Now, satisfaction glowed beyond the regret. Perhaps he died too early, but he had lived. “You sell yourself short, Barbara. It is easy to see what Stephen loved, and I am so very glad you found it together. But it is hardly the case here.”

Barbara's gaze sharpened. “Did you kiss him back?”

“Well, I am not made of stone.” Heat crept up her neck.

Her friend laughed. “Why, then, are you so quick to dismiss all possibility? He is a man with depth of character and conviction; I saw that quickly. And the way he watches you…”

Marietta knew well enough how he watched her. With as much suspicion as attraction. And knowing her loyalties now wouldn't change the reality of her bonds to Dev. Slade would destroy him, and he wouldn't be interested in picking up her pieces when he was through.

More, she shouldn't want him to. Her gaze latched on the window-sill. “I think I ought to remain free of romantic attachments.”

Barbara squeezed her fingers before releasing them. “Because you feel you should, or because you have given up hope of finding real love?”

“Because I…” The feelings came again, swamping her, twisting her, making her doubt. “Because I cannot be trusted with these decisions. I am too fickle.”

“Oh, Mari.” Barbara took her arm and led her away from the panes of glass radiating cold, over to the settee by the snapping fire. They both sat. “Perhaps your emotions have been shifting because they hadn't been aligned with the Lord's will. Seek Him, and you will be able to trust where He leads you, whether that means remaining alone or loving again.”

The words sounded so simple, so wise. Yet never in her life had she given her future over to another, even One she knew to be so much bigger than she. But loving
again
…that implied she ever had, which she was none too sure of. Well no, that was unfair—she had loved Walker, as best as she knew how at the time. But when he hurt her…it had been so much easier to focus on more superficial things with Lucien and Dev. The breathless excitement, the glow of attraction, the sparkle of wealth.

The pride of knowing she could snag any man she wanted.

What a fool she was. Perhaps she had snagged them, snagged them both—but now she was caught in her own hooks with little hope of breaking the surface.

Seventeen

D
evereaux swung down from the rented horse and tied it to the hitching post, his gaze sweeping over the large white house. The wooden sign planted just ahead said
Appalachian Inn
. Though on the direct road from Hagerstown to Cumberland, the coming of the rails had no doubt hit it hard since there was no stop here, twenty miles outside Cumberland and across the river from the rail line that went through West Virginia.

Perhaps that explained its dire need of a new coat of whitewash and neglected look. He had a very different image of it from his first visit here, with Father and Lucien, when he was a lad of eleven.

Ah, well. Times changed, fortunes rose and fell, and those who did not adapt were trampled.

A bell jangled when he opened the door, the brisk February wind gusting its way in with him. Devereaux cast his gaze around the entryway as vague recollections stirred. They had passed an entire month here in '42, but most of his memories were linked to what he had done out of doors. All looked well-enough appointed, though, if worn to comfortable.

From deeper within the house came a call of, “Just a moment!” and then the soft tread of a female. He prepared a smile and tried to discern
if the woman who emerged from the hall was the same Mrs. Jackson he had met before. Hard to say. Twenty-three years earlier, the proprietress had been a new bride. The woman before him now wore the black of mourning, had streaks of silver in her hair, and bore lines on her pleasant face.

Her smile was tired but welcoming. “Good morning. May I help you, sir?”

“Certainly. I'm Devereaux Hughes. I'd like to book a room for a few nights. Are you Mrs. Jackson?”

She headed around a high desk to where a book lay opened upon it. If she recognized his name, she gave no indication. “I am. Have you stayed with us before?”

“Many years ago when I was a boy. I have fond recollections of exploring the area with my brother. I believe your husband took us fishing one day.” He set his bag down by his feet.

Her smile turned wistful. “That sounds like Peter. He always took time for the guests.” She trailed a finger with a torn nail down a page in the book. “I will put you in the East Room, shall I? Our best.”

“Perfect.”

“I'll have my niece ready it for you, and my nephew see to your horse. Please make yourself comfortable in the parlor for a few minutes.” She motioned him to the right and then disappeared back the hall once more.

Devereaux meandered into the parlor, his gaze flitting from faded painting to faded rug to faded sofa. Against such a backdrop, the newish-looking photograph displayed upon the mantel stood out. He moved toward it, frowning at the two men pictured in Confederate uniforms.