Circle of Spies (35 page)

Mr. Lane nodded and took a sip of his own coffee. “Better not linger too long here, then.”

Walker shifted from foot to foot. “I just wanted to make sure…do you want me to leave it to Pinkerton's men? Or I could stick around the city for the day.”

“No.” As usual, Mr. Lane's answer was quick as confidence but soft as wonderment. “This is their job, and they're doing it. Ours is to help where we can quietly. If we get too involved, they'll start asking questions we don't want to answer.”

A sigh worked its way up and out. “But we could do more, Mr. Lane.”

“We always could do more. That doesn't mean we always should.” His smile made wrinkles fan out. “Much as we all like to be the hero, this one isn't for us.”

“But—”

“The Culpers saved a president once. We have prevented the Knights from their tasks many times over the last few years. But this…” He took a sip of his coffee, his gaze somewhere past Walker's shoulder. “This one is for Oz to handle.”

Walker savored the warmth from the mug, though he was none too sure about the advice. “You've taken to him awful fast.”

Mr. Lane chuckled. “Maybe. But I have a feeling he will be around for a while, so why withhold my approval?”

Maybe he wasn't fully awake yet. “How long you think this job will keep him here? I figured a few months at the most.”

“I'm not talking about the job.” Mr. Lane met his gaze and grinned. “You haven't noticed the way they look at each other? Oz and Mari?”

Walker nearly choked on the sip of coffee he'd just taken. “I noticed how he looks at her. How has she been looking at him?”

Now his host's gaze went soft, yet it focused on him like artillery. “The same way she used to look at you.”

He had known? Walker pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course he had known. Thaddeus Lane knew everything that went on in his family. “I guess we oughta pray this isn't as big a mistake as that was, then.”

He wasn't about to make a judgment as quickly as Mr. Lane did.

“You have a nice cold ride to fill with prayers.” The old man gripped Walker's shoulder. “Take the coffee.”

“Thanks.” He slipped back outside and onto his horse, willing the sun to come up and warm him. Pointing the mare's nose in the right direction, he set his thoughts toward prayer.

As dawn touched its rose-gold fingers to the horizon, he wished Stephen were here to talk to. If ever he needed his friend's placid eyes and ready laugh, it was…always. Now, yes, but every other now between Gettysburg and today too. Some folks you just never stopped missing. Never stopped needing. Marietta was lucky to be able to call up his face, his words whenever she pleased. Walker's memories were fuzzy around the edges, but still sharp enough to slice.

When the first buildings of Washington appeared in the distance, he took the slip of paper from his pocket and read the direction in the soft morning light. Then he just stared at the hand—quick and efficient, but with the flourish of an educated man. Walker could write
like that too, having taken his lessons beside the Arnaud boys, but he never chose to. It didn't make sense for him. He'd learned early on that a man with any black in him had better not put on airs, not in the South. That would get him nowhere but on the kitchen table, his anxious mother patching up his wounds.

Osborne didn't put on airs either. Maybe his clothes were nice, but he only had a couple sets of them. Maybe he dined in the big house, but from what Cora said, he was careful to keep his distance from the masters. He was a hired man. One who lived on his wits, not on his daddy's bank account.

Walker could respect that. It didn't mean the man was right for Marietta, but…it wasn't a mark against him, his common-stock origins. More one in his favor, to Walker's way of thinking. She needed someone who could see beneath the pretty. He wasn't sure Osborne could, but Mr. Lane was usually right about these things.

The streets of Washington soon surrounded him, and he put aside all thoughts but finding the right building. He eventually did, an aging boardinghouse near the Capitol, and by then enough people were out and about that his knock on the back door was quickly answered by a woman who looked as old as the building.

She motioned him into the warm kitchen. “Morning. What brings you here?”

Walker swept his hat off his head with a smile. “I'm looking for Fred Herschel, ma'am.”

“He just came down for breakfast. I'll fetch him.”

No offer of coffee or food, but that was all right. Walker was grateful for the warmth from the stove and eager to be back on his way. So he was glad when a man sauntered into the kitchen, still wiping his mouth with a napkin. His stopped when he spotted Walker. “What can I do for you?”

He didn't see anyone else lingering about, but wisdom dictated a quiet tone and vague words. “Your friend Oz sent me. Said to tell you to change the route today, and at the last minute. There's trouble afoot.”

Herschel measured him for a long moment, though a brief smile at last touched the corner of his mouth. “I suppose I shouldn't worry too much about your being on the other side.”

The very thought drew a breath of laughter from Walker's lips.
Even if his mind were twisted enough to want to join the Knights of the Golden Circle, they wouldn't ever take anyone whose blood was part Negro. “No, sir.”

“Tell him to consider it done.” Without another word, the man pivoted and sauntered back out.

Walker had gotten up at four, in the black of a frigid night, for a thirty-second exchange?

It was easy to see where Herschel and Osborne would get along.

Twenty-Two

I
'm so glad you could join me today, Mari.”

Marietta summoned a smile that she hoped convinced Barbara she was glad too, though she had a difficult time forcing her gaze from the window of the carriage. “As am I.” Mostly. Though her stomach threatened to heave at the mere mention of a hospital. Heaven help them all if they asked her to change a bandage.

But being always in the company of a woman so very good and selfless made her determined to try something other than rolling bandages and stitching sashes. Something to quiet this twisting in her chest she didn't understand.

“Are you all right? You look…perplexed.”

“Do I?” Try as she might to laugh that away, it was no doubt true. Part of her was eager to arrive at the hospital at which Stephen had once volunteered, which she had not seen since it was a family home. Part of her recoiled at the imagined sights and smells.

And part of her was none too sure her confusion had a whit to do with that. Sighing, she gave up on the familiar streets leading to the edges of Baltimore and focused on her friend. “I feel strange, Barbara.” She splayed a gloved hand over her chest. “An urgency, almost, though I cannot understand why.”

“Hmm.” Barbara's gaze went unfocused for a moment, and then her usual serene smile touched her lips. “It sounds as though the Spirit may be asking you to pray.”

With a long blink and a tongue that seemed unable to wrap itself around words, Marietta shook her head, slowly. Not in rejection but in shock. “But why would the Lord ask
me
to pray?”

Her friend chuckled and reached across the space between them to grasp her hand. “It is all part of your burgeoning relationship with Him.”

Was it? She held fast to Barbara's fingers. “I have spent hours lately studying the Scriptures, sermons, dwelling on what Stephen once told me, and still I…” Unable to meet her friend's guileless eyes, she resorted to the window again. “During the day, I feel as though I am finally beginning to understand. Then when Dev shows up for dinner, it is as though chains are cuffed to my wrists and ankles. How does one escape one's past, Barbara? How?”

“Mari.” Her tone, gently insistent, bade Marietta look at her again. When she did, she had a feeling Barbara saw everything with her solemn, accepting gaze. All her guilt, all her sin, all her fear. “You have prayed for forgiveness from your sins. Have you prayed for freedom from their bonds?”

“Freedom?” It wasn't a word one could toss around lightly these days. “How am I to pray for freedom when I have slaves under my roof? Would that not make me the biggest hypocrite in the state?”

Barbara chuckled and squeezed her hand. “Not by far. As wretched as I believe physical slavery is, men and women of greater faith than mine are on the opposite side of this war.” She drew in a deep breath, her expression as conflicted as Marietta had ever seen it. “Stephen and I spent much time trying to reconcile the differing views with a similar faith. And then at last we realized we didn't have to, because God so very rarely tells us what society should do—rather, He tells us how
we
, as believers, should behave in whatever society to which we belong.”

Their eyes met again, and again Barbara's smile shone forth. “Never once in the Bible does God speak either for or against physical slavery. But spiritual slavery—that is a topic He addresses time and again. Over and over Paul pleads with the early church to embrace the freedom of
the soul that Christ offers. You must do that, Mari. You must cling, not just to cleansing, but to freedom.”

Stephen had said something similar once.
Not just salvation, but redemption
. Redemption again—God had not just taken her sins from her, He had purchased her. And she could not be both God's and Dev's, not when their wills were in opposition.

The carriage rocked to a halt, and she looked out again to see the once-familiar mansion previously called Maryland Square. Her breath stuck in her chest. This was where she had met Lucien, at a ball in the spring of 1860, before the Steuarts' property had been seized because of their Confederate sympathies. Now, rather than rolling acres of gardens, long barrack-like buildings flanked it, row upon row of yellow walls and black roofs. A wooden sign read
Jarvis US General Hospital.

There would be no music spilling from the windows, no gaiety within the halls. Marietta pulled her cloak tight and reclaimed her hand from Barbara's so she could grip her reticule. So much had changed in their world in the last five years. It was only fitting that this, too, should be so different.

“Do you still get ill at the sight of blood?”

Marietta's head snapped back toward her companion, and she found her grinning. “Stephen mentioned that?”

“It came up when we first met. That is why I never asked you to join me.”

She drew in a bracing breath when Pat opened the door and offered her a hand down. “I don't know if it will or not. I have avoided it so long. I suppose we shall see.”

Barbara followed her out and patted her arm. “You can begin by helping the men with their correspondence.”

“Perfect.” Dictation was something she could do all but in her sleep. She would give half her attention to the men laid out upon the rows of cots…and the other half could focus on praying for Slade.

Slade didn't have to feign an anxiousness to match his companion's. As he stroked the nose of his horse, he looked from the street to Booth. The afternoon had ticked away, an hour gone and then two. With each passing minute, the spring wound tighter.

Seven of them had ridden out that afternoon from the boarding house John Surratt's mother owned. They had taken up their positions along Lincoln's route with each detail planned, every contingency explored.

All except this one—that the president didn't come this way at all.
Lord, let that be what happened. Let Hersh have changed the route
.

But he couldn't know, not for sure. He and Booth were stationed at the last point, with the carriage meant to convey Lincoln to Richmond as fast as the horses could fly. They had seen no one all afternoon.

“He must have been delayed setting out for the review, that's all.” Booth still held his riding crop, his horse's flank quivering every time he slapped it to his palm.

He'd made the same observation at least fifteen times in the past two hours. Slade had long ago given up responding to it. Instead, he gave his horse one last pat on the nose and turned to the table they had claimed when they first arrived at the tavern on the outskirts of Washington.