Circle of Spies (30 page)

They emerged onto the street. The air had cooled more during his brief stint inside, reminding Slade that February still had some teeth left. “It's only a play. With, from the sounds of it, her entire family.”

“It is
only
what you make it,” Booth said with a smirk in his tone. “If I were you, I would see that it was worth the punishment Hughes is sure to dole out. Enjoy the flirtation she's so good at. Maybe steal a kiss when you see her home. For that matter, steal an extra one for me.”

His throat went dry at the mere suggestion. “I would rather live.”

Booth laughed again. “Might be a fair trade.”

Slade didn't mean to scowl. He just couldn't stop himself. “Aren't you engaged?”

“Hush, man. That is not yet known. And my lady is unsurpassed, to be sure. But Marietta Hughes…” He made an appreciative noise.

Was that what Slade had sounded like to Hughes's ears that first day in the carriage? It was a wonder the man hadn't socked him. “She's his.” A fact of which he had reminded himself approximately two thousand times in the last two days—every time his lips wanted to remember the feel of hers. No, he wouldn't be stealing any more kisses, tonight or ever.

Booth loosed an overdramatic harrumph. “Have it your way, though I still say you ought to live a little before he calls you out. Not that
I
will say anything to him, mind you. In my opinion, it's high time someone pulled one over on him, but all of Washington will see you, so he
will
hear.”

Slade shoved his hands into his pockets. Yet another bad idea, this.
“He won't call me out.” He hoped. “And least not until after this business is concluded.”

“Hmm. Maybe. At any rate, you ought to enjoy the play tonight. Laura Keene plays the dowager to perfection…”

All too soon they arrived at Ford's Theater, and Booth left him to go in the front entrance while he took himself around the back to collect his mail. Slade stood on the walk outside for a long minute, watching the well-dressed couples sweep through the doors before him. Women in expensive gowns, men in extravagant coats and hats, more than one gold watch glinting in the lamplight.

All this, while not so far away men were freezing in the trenches.

He nearly turned on his heel and left. But before he could move, familiar laughter tickled his ears, and his head swiveled to his right. There, coming en masse down the street, was his party. Both the elder Lanes, Marietta's mother, Marietta herself laughing with Barbara Arnaud, and two couples besides that he didn't recognize.

No, wait, he knew one of the men—the third man he had caught at the rail yard that night with Lane and Walker.

Before he could even think to evade them, Lane raised an enthusiastic hand in greeting. “Oz, hallo! What perfect timing.”

Yeah. Perfect. He mustered the biggest smile he could, not that that was saying much, and tried not to look too closely at the redhead ensconced between her mother and Barbara. “Good evening, Mr. Lane.”

“Indeed it is.” Lane led the way into the theater, his good humor not faltering. “Have you met Mari's brothers yet? Ize is the elder, Hez the taller—Isaac and Hezekiah, that is.”

“No, I—”

“Boys.” Lane waved them over as they handed off their outer garments to an attendant. Slade begrudgingly relinquished his hat and coat as well.

He meant to look only at them. But it was hardly his fault Marietta chose that moment to sweep her cape from her shoulders, was it? Nor his fault that the gleaming light from the chandeliers reflected just so off the shoulders bared by her gown, which fit her far too well. And shining in the light, the gray—silk, was it?—turned to silver against her ivory skin.

Her brothers stepped into his line of vision, both giving him a look that convinced him he should have fled when he had the chance.

Their grandfather didn't seem to notice—or perhaps it was that he didn't care. He slapped a friendly hand to Slade's shoulder and grinned. “Boys, this is my and Mari's friend, Slade Osborne. Oz, Julie's boys. Isaac Arnaud, who now runs my shipping ventures, and Hezekiah Arnaud, academic and chemist.”

He still wasn't sure when he had become the friend of Thaddeus Lane. And he seriously doubted Marietta would term him such. But he refreshed his tight smile and held out a hand.

The Arnaud brothers seemed bent on breaking rather than shaking it, but he did his best not to grimace. Especially when the Lanes moved off to greet someone else and Marietta swept up halfway through Hez's death grip of a squeeze.

Her cat eyes flashed green sparks. But that didn't quite cover the shadows of pain lurking underneath them.

“Hezekiah!” She all but hissed the name, and moved her hands in some quick series of motions that left Slade scowling every bit as much as the crushing grip.

His confusion only increased when Hez released his hand and made a few motions back to her. Then Isaac jumped into the fray. Slade backed away, glancing down when he felt someone at his side. Barbara, her gaze on the siblings too. Though she smiled.

He glanced from them to her. “Are they…arguing?”

A soothing chuckle came from her throat. “I don't understand much of it, but I caught Mari's initial command to stop.”

His scowl deepened still more. “Is it a language?”

“Indeed. Sign language. Was that ‘doll'?” Barbara tilted her head to the side. She too wore a more formal gown, though still in unrelieved black. “How very odd. But I'm sure it was. That was one of the first signs she taught Elsie.”

“Elsie?”

“Walker and Cora's little girl. She is deaf. Mari has been teaching them signs so they can communicate.”

“She…” Marietta Hughes taking the time to teach a new language to her servants? Was that the meeting he'd overheard her and Walker
Payne making when he first arrived? Slade's gaze fell on her again. Maybe a little differently than it ever had before. Maybe. “Interesting.”

“Oh, it is. You ought to sit in on a lesson sometime, Mr. Osborne. Mari is a wonder. Never faltering or forgetting a single sign, and always so patient.” A tinkle of laughter. “I'm afraid Elsie is picking it up much faster than the rest of us.”

A few other gazes swung their way, a fact which apparently didn't escape Marietta. Socially conscious, that was more in keeping with his picture of her. Her face neutral, she made a few more signs, small and discreet. Though whatever they meant, they didn't seem to please her brothers, who looked about to make the argument vocal.

She spun, her gaze locking on Slade, and strode across the steps between them. Fury blazed in her eyes, not unlike the way it had in the cellar the other day as she claimed she wasn't Hughes's. Right before she stretched up and kissed him.

This time she halted at his side and lifted one flame of a brow. “We had better head to our seats, Slade.”

She'd used his given name—in public, in front of the brothers who looked as though they would as soon tear him limb from limb as take in the play. Slade did the only thing he could think to do.

He offered her his arm.

Nineteen

M
arietta had all she could do to keep her pleasant smile pinned to her face and her hand relaxed against Slade's arm. Anger wanted to push through her fingers, and the pain from a headache contorted her face into a wince as they started up the stairs.

Slade's fingers brushed over hers. She glanced up into his face and saw concern knitting his brows.

“Are you feeling all right?”

The question made her breath catch in her throat. Mama had seen the pain—Mama always did—but no one else had. “Just a little headache.”

His frown didn't ease. “Do you want to leave?”

The hopefulness in his tone teased out a smile, but she shook her head—a mistake, that—and then nodded to a passing congressman. “What I want is to enjoy the play my grandparents have been eager to watch, let all of society see that I am through with mourning Lucien and
not
on the arm of Dev, and give my overbearing brothers a few swift kicks to the posterior.”

That last part she barely even muttered, but Slade's chuckle said he heard her. “My fault. I think I looked at you wrong.”

Why should that make heat sweep over her? She already knew he
thought her attractive. And she had commissioned this dress months ago to elicit reactions when she reentered society, having it modeled on a green gown that had left the Hugheses breathless. Though at the time she certainly hadn't imagined wearing this one first to a play in Washington on the arm of a detective rather than Dev.

Perhaps she ought to have left it in the closet with the ill-fated green one she never intended to don again.

“They deserve no excuses to be made for them.” She tossed a narrow-eyed glance over her shoulder at her brothers, both of whom still scowled her way, despite their wives' obvious attempts to distract them with conversation. “Those two have always been this way. Virtually ignoring me day in and day out, as if I am nothing but a pretty doll upon a shelf, until I dare to assert some individuality in public, and then they suddenly remember they are older brothers charged with protecting me.”

Stephen was the only one of the three who had ever bothered to talk to her. To try to understand why she behaved as she did.

Isaac and Hez just patted her head day to day and then blustered and fumed when she didn't act as they thought she should. Granted, she wouldn't be in this mess if she had met their standards all her life. But tonight she had done nothing wrong. She was, in fact, distancing herself publicly from Dev, which ought to please them.

Slade hummed. “I can understand their protectiveness.”

“It isn't protectiveness; it's control. And I am sick to death of all these men in my life thinking they know so much better than I what I need or want.” Again, she spoke quietly, fastening a belying smile to her lips for all the passing families she hadn't seen much in the past year.

“Then it's an honor to aid you in convincing them. Although,” he added, a smile coloring his voice, “Booth thinks it will be my last living act. When Hughes finds out…”

“Oh.” Oh, mercy. She hadn't even paused to consider…The headache pounded, streaked behind her eyes, and lodged in her heart. When would the selfishness recede? What she was doing to Slade with this show hadn't even entered her mind.

She tried to pull her hand away from his arm, but he chuckled and
covered her fingers with his again to hold it there. “It's a little late for that, Yetta.”

He was right. Too many people had seen them. She had sealed his fate already. Dev would find out that she had made her reentrance into society on the arm of Slade Osborne, and he would be furious.

The pain settled behind her eyes, and another twisted her abdomen. “I'm sorry.” Paltry words, but so very true. For so very much.

“Don't be. Didn't you hear your grandfather? We're…friends.”

Friends. She motioned toward the row Granddad Thad had rented for the night and tried, in vain, to keep her gaze from Slade's face. He was looking down at her, no evidence of the wolf in his eyes. Still, the kindness that seemed at once out of place and natural in his gaze didn't make that word make any more sense in relation to this man. She wasn't sure she could be a friend to Slade Osborne. He was too…and she wasn't enough…and what with those kisses the other day…

Lord, help me, please
. Even now, with watchful eyes on her from every direction as she indicated the seats that were theirs, she had to fight off the urge to lean in to his side. Fight off the longing to feel his arms around her. Fight off the thought that maybe he could make everything right.

He couldn't. She knew that.

Marietta moved into the row first, unwilling to deal with a brother manipulating his way to the other side of her. Barbara or Granddad would help insulate Slade from them, but they wouldn't think she needed the favor.

Usually she wouldn't. Frustrating as they were, she knew how to handle Isaac and Hez. But just now the twisting pain in her abdomen knifed its way to her back, and she sank with gratitude into her chair, willing the ache to ebb and yet knowing she deserved every pulse of it. She had, in fact, been praying so diligently for this discomfort that she could hardly complain about its intensity. She ought to embrace it. Praise the Lord for it.

He had spared her. She was not with child.

Relief ought to dominate every other feeling today. And it did…for a while. Then shame had billowed over her like the sea. Perhaps the rest of the world wouldn't know, now, what she had done. But privacy made it no lesser a sin. Forgiveness did not make it disappear. God's
eyes saw no more stain, but there would still be consequences. There were
always
consequences.

And if He had spared her this in His mercy, what did that mean about what else would be coming her way? Was her future so bleak that the Lord wouldn't want to subject an innocent child to it?