Circle of Spies (8 page)

Surratt and Booth exchanged a glance, dark hope in both sets of eyes. “Well,” Surratt said, “I suppose it's no wonder, then, that Hughes recommended you. What convinced you to join us?”

He knew what he had to say. Still, the words tasted like bile.

Ross's words. Ross's sympathies. Ross's betrayal.

“When one is that close to the tyrant for that long, it's hard to ignore his failings.”
Sorry, Mr. President.

Surratt smiled. “Well, we welcome you eagerly to the ranks. Are you staying here in Baltimore or going back to Washington? My mother runs a boardinghouse there if you are in need of new rooms.”

He certainly hadn't gone back to his old ones, not since that night. “Hughes invited me to be his guest for a while.”

Another look between the two. Serious and sober, but then Booth
grinned. “Lucky you. You will get to spend time in the company of his lady, then. Have you seen her?”

Surratt sent his gaze to the ceiling. “Forgive him. He has a weakness for anything in a skirt.”

“And you a prejudice against them.”

“Because,” Surratt said in an even tone, “they are faithless, fickle, and false.”

Booth shook his head, exaggerated disappointment upon his countenance. “You are too determined to remain unattached, John. How you can be unmoved when a pretty girl bats her lashes at you I will never understand.”

“You would do well to try, as often as they have led you into trouble. And as for Hughes's molly…” he turned back to Slade and used his mug to point at him. “Steer clear. He has killed men before over her.”

Booth grunted. “Too true.”

Slade gazed first at one John and then at the other. “How long have they had an understanding?”

Surratt snorted. “Since the day Lucien died, he has made it quite clear she was his. Makes one wonder if she had been all along, and the poor sap of a brother just didn't know it.”

Lucien Hughes, from what Slade had gleaned, had been no sap. “I've heard about the late Mr. Hughes.”

“He was a strong leader, a good captain. We were all sorry when he fell to the streets.” Booth edged a bit closer. “But Devereaux has a sharper approach that we need now. We have had too many failures.”

“Just don't anger him,” Surratt said. “A quicker man to issue a challenge I have never met, nor a better shot.”

Slade took another sip of coffee. “Why does anyone accept his challenges then? Or choose pistols?”

“He knows how to put a man's pride against the wall.” Surratt leaned against the planking behind him. “And he's as proficient with a blade as a gun. At this point, everyone knows it and does their best to remain on his good side. Which means, to circle back to the point, avoid anything more than polite flirtation with the widowed-and-soon-to-be-anew Mrs. Hughes.”

Advice Slade certainly didn't require. Marietta Hughes may be
beautiful and charming—and perhaps mysterious—but Hughes had no more than to crook a finger to bring her flying to him.

Did she know what he was? Part of him wanted to think not, given the Unionist family from which she hailed, the brother she had lost at Gettysburg. But how could she not, if she were as close to him as she seemed?

And how dangerous did that make her, if she did? The daughter of a commodore in league with the captain of a KGC castle. One alluring enough that she could no doubt smile at many a man and get whatever information from him Hughes wanted.

A cunning enemy indeed. He took another drink of his coffee and held his tongue. But the rust-red gash across the printed face of Lincoln said plenty.

These were men out for blood. And very little stood between them and it.

Marietta eased the door closed, silent but for the faintest of clicks. Behind her, the soft glow of the banked fire lit her chamber, its warmth scarcely making a dent in the January chill.

But that was nothing. Nothing compared to the chill in her core.

Her hand still touching the place where door and jamb met, she rested her forehead against the solid wood. Tears burned.

She shouldn't have gone. Shouldn't have crept from her room after she dismissed Cora for the night, shouldn't have snuck out the back door and over to the carriage house. She shouldn't have returned to that tunnel of nightmares and shattered dreams.

Shouldn't have pressed her ear to the wall nor followed the sounds farther down than they had gone earlier.

She shouldn't have listened. Because now the words would never leave her. They would forever echo in her mind, another memory to chain her down. To rattle around and rise to the fore when she least wanted it.

…preeminent before all…before the affection of wife, mother, or child.

Her tears felt scalding upon her cheek.
Before all
. Her hand slid down, and she let it dangle there between her and the door, with nothing but frigid air to hold it. No warm fingers around it, no lips upon its knuckles. No love.

If Dev could issue that oath, he had sworn it himself. As had Lucien. The two men who had claimed to cherish her above all. Both had turned around and sworn to put these
brothers
above her. Was she anything to them? Was it love they felt or, as Stephen had insisted when she announced her engagement, something baser?

Maybe it was. Maybe that was all any man could ever feel for her. Maybe she was nothing but a fool to ever think she could find something real, some genuine affection to carry her through life.

A fool. A wicked, selfish fool who had done nothing but chase her own desires, and who had nothing to show for it but a stone heart crushed to pieces.

She ought to have learned her lesson the first time, when she stood in the summer-warm stable and saw her dreams stomped to dust. She ought to have turned around right then and sworn off men.

Or the second time, when that bolt of attraction to Dev proved false her feelings for Lucien. She should have canceled the wedding and…and joined a nunnery. Or at the very least, taken the train to Connecticut and let Grandpapa Alain hold her tight to his chest and whisper French assurances into her ear.

And now here she was again. Her memory etched with the proof that nothing was what she thought it.

She turned, put her back to the door, and slid down. Maybe if she were lucky, her bones would turn into nothing but a mound of dust on the floor, to be swept away.

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones…

The floor was like ice against her legs. Perhaps that was what Hades really was, ice rather than fire. For she had tasted fire, had let it consume her—and this was worse. This was the punishment. Not an inferno of feeling, but a total lack of it.

And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

The time had come to learn. That was what Stephen had said to
her when he confessed he had enlisted. “You can list every mistake you ever made, Mari, but at some point you have to learn from them. You have to recognize them for what they are. You have to take consequences into account.”

Her own voice echoed back through her head, tinged with anger—anger at him for saying the words, and more, for leaving her alone to hear them again and again. “You can't understand, Stephen. You speak of consequences as if the future matters, but if you had these bells of memory forever clanging in your head, you would understand why I only want
now
.”

“If you gave more thought to the future, maybe the past wouldn't hurt so much.” Oh, how those words echoed. He had spoken them with such disappointment. As if he had known she would never listen. As if he mourned for her long before she had mourned for him.

And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live?

A shiver coursed through her and stole any energy she had left. Her eyes focused on the red-orange glow of coals, she drew in a quavering breath. The tears had already given up. She was empty inside. Dry. Dust. Bone.

Her eyes slid shut. “ ‘And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.' ”

Five

W
alker tossed fresh hay into the stall and smiled at the nicker of the horse. “You're welcome, Bay. Now, you need anything else before I go get my Elsie?”

The mare whinnied and bumped his arm with her nose, eliciting a chuckle. He obliged her with a rub. If only the other females in his life were so easy to please. He checked her feed and water, glanced down the line of other horses, and then stepped away.

And frowned. The mound of hay in the last stall wasn't as he had left it yesterday morning after showing Mr. Lane and Marietta the tunnel. He had arranged it very deliberately so he would know if it were disturbed.

It was disturbed.

“Blast it, Yetta.” He planted his hands on his hips and scowled. She must have come out here after she dismissed Cora. Hadn't he found it strange that his wife had come so early to their apartment?

He should have known she would come back alone. That she would ignore the risk and focus only on what
she
wanted, what
she
needed. In this case, proof. Shaken as she had been when they explained the situation, he had seen in her eyes that she wanted desperately to believe they were wrong.

Well, if she had timed it right, she would have heard an earful. Maybe that was what she needed to rouse her from her stupor, proof that her precious Dev wasn't the kind of Knight she wanted him to be. Proof that she had let a brood of snakes, of Copperheads no less, into her family.

But dash it, she shouldn't have had to witness that alone.

He hadn't seen Marietta yet today, which was the usual way of things. She had called for a carriage, but Pat had taken it to the front of the house. If Walker could find a subtle way to accomplish it, he would ask Cora how she seemed. Surely she would notice if something were amiss. Though what would he do about it? Stephen may have made him swear to stick close and keep an eye out for her, but there was precious little he could do when it came down to it.

Shaking his head, he put the pitchfork away and slapped the dust from his trousers as he closed the stable door behind him. The sun shone today, but it was winter weak. The air had a bite to it as he circled the building to his rickety stairs, making him glad to step into the warm main room of their small quarters. His mother bustled from fireplace to table, humming a hymn.

“Morning, Mama.”

The older woman glanced up when he came in and gave him her usual smile, big and beaming. “Hey there, Walk.” She nodded toward the corner, where Elsie sat with the little rag doll Cora had stitched so carefully for her for Christmas. His little girl made the toy dance, rag feet jumping and leaping upon Elsie's chubby toddler legs.

He had to wonder what music it was dancing to.

The little one didn't look up, so he moved into her line of vision a little more, waving his hand. That got her attention, and Elsie surged up with the light of pure love upon her beautiful little face.

“There's my girl.” He crouched down and held out his arms for her to run into, and then he gathered her close when she did. She wouldn't hear him, he knew that. But still he had to talk to her. Maybe she would feel the rumble in his chest as she snuggled in. Maybe that would tell her she was loved. He pressed a kiss to her curls and stood with her on his hip. “Ready for lunch, precious?”

She looked up at him, her hazel eyes content and bright but questioning. He patted her tummy. “Hungry?”

Her grin always made his heart light. She patted her belly too and nodded.

Walker turned to his mother. “Has Cora been in yet?”

“Not yet, no. But I have a few errands to run while you're here, so I'll see you in about an hour.”

Errands. Knowing his mother, they would be the dangerous kind that involved sneaking runaway slaves northward. Work she would never give up, no matter all it had cost her. Yet work she put aside to help out with Elsie.