Circle of Spies (19 page)

A refusal was on the tip of her tongue. From the looks of the threadbare rug and the peeling walls, this woman had nothing to spare. But she couldn't be rude. Not now. “I would like that. Thank you. But perhaps not yet.”

“You've come with a purpose.” She motioned Marietta to follow her into a sitting room no bigger than a speck and indicated the couch,
which looked slightly less worn than the chair. “I was so sorry to hear about your husband. I sent a card, but…”

“I received it. Thank you.” She should have replied. She had to all the other notes of condolence, even those from near strangers, but that one she had tossed directly into the wastebasket. Sitting gingerly upon the couch, she focused her gaze upon her hostess's dress, absent so much as a white collar. “I had not heard of your loss. It must have been recent. Your uncle?” A safe guess, as her uncle was her only living relative.

Barbara's smile went weak. “Several years ago. But the mourning is for my husband. He fell at Gettysburg.”

“So did—” But of course she'd know that, if she knew when Lucien had died.

Barbara sat in an uncomfortable-looking chair and studied the hands she folded in her lap.

The photograph. Walker's words. The fact that he knew where she lived. Marietta sucked in a quick breath. “He married you.”

For a moment the woman made no response. No doubt she feared that if she dared to, Marietta would go from polite to spiteful in the blink of an eye. But there was not so much as a thread of dishonesty in Barbara—with a wary glance, she nodded.

Marietta's lungs refused to work. “When? He was at college, and then the war—he never said a word.”

Tears gleamed in the eyes Barbara turned toward the wall. Her hands twisted, fretted with the frayed ends of her shawl. “Forgive us, Mari. I asked him not to tell anyone. I knew what you thought of me and could hardly blame you for it, so we wed in secret. Before he signed up.”

He wed in secret. Her brother, her dearest friend, and he…she had forced him to lie about something this important. “Did you tell my parents? Grandparents?”

Her voice must have conveyed more amazement than censure, for Barbara met her gaze again. She shook her head. “We told no one. Walker found out after Stephen died, somehow. He and his dear Cora have been a tremendous blessing, always making sure I have enough. But no one else.”

For a long moment, Marietta could only stare. This woman was her sister, every bit as much as Hez's and Isaac's wives, yet she lived in squalor and had to take handouts from servants. “But
why
? My parents would have welcomed you with open arms if Stephen loved you enough to marry you. Surely you know that.”

Barbara smoothed the shawl's tassel. “They were always very kind to me.”

“But I wasn't.” It burned, seared, one more transgression on the ever-growing stack. “You didn't tell them because I didn't approve.”

“Your reasons were valid, Mari. And your opinion meant so much to Stephen.” How was it, when she glanced up, that her eyes held only sorrow and goodwill and not so much as a stitch of blame? “I always wanted us to be friends, but I knew we couldn't be, so long as I was poor and your brother rich. Even though we both loved him so.”

He hadn't been rich, not compared to families like the Hugheses. Just compared to folks like the Gregorys. But yes, the difference had been marked enough that she had pointed it out. Repeatedly.

Marietta didn't know what to do with her hands, folded under her cape. She didn't know what to do with this woman, who said such things so calmly. “You're still in full mourning. It has been almost two years.”

The word
beatific
sprang to mind at the smile that emerged on Barbara's lips. “Can one ever stop mourning Stephen?”

“No. Never. He was the best of men.” And Marietta had taken all his books, the things he treasured most. What had he left for his wife? “Did he not set up a living for you?”

“He sent me his pay from the army while he was alive, but I would not let him do more. I did not want—”

“Me to find out and judge you.” Which, yes, she would have done even a month ago had she discovered that Barbara had wed him in secret and now lived on Arnaud money. And she would have been utterly wrong. “But Barbara, this is ridiculous. My family will provide for you. You are one of us.”

For a moment, Barbara's luminous eyes went wide as a doe's, her lips parted. Then she shook her head vehemently enough to send a strand of honey-brown hair fluttering against her cheek. “I cannot accept
such generosity, Mari. Family I would gladly take, but I have no right to your parents' money. The baby died before she drew breath, and I—”

“There was a baby?” A little girl, half her brother? Her eyes slid shut. What if it were these wretched living conditions that made it turn out so terribly? Another loss, her fault. “I am so sorry. So very sorry for every mean thought, for every word I spoke against you. For everything.”

A rustle of stiff fabric, the sinking of the cushion, and Barbara's cool, delicate fingers brushed over hers. “Loss is as much a part of life as joy, Marietta. And without it, the other would not be so sweet.”

Was it? Then why, having lost so much, did she feel so lifeless?

Barbara touched her cheek, a silent command to open her eyes. Though Marietta felt like a penitent at the feet of a priest, she obeyed.

The woman let her hand fall back to the cushion between them. “You have changed. He would be so glad to see that light in your eyes.”

“Light?” Surely she was mistaken. All Marietta felt inside was the certainty that she could never undo all the wrongs she had committed.

“You finally believe.” Barbara wove their fingers together and squeezed. “He prayed every day you would, and asked me to pray every day as well. I have been faithful in that.”

They had prayed for her. As cruel as she had been, as stubborn and petty, and they had prayed. She shook her head. “I know all the words. But…forgiveness may wash me clean, but it cannot change what I have been. It does not negate the consequences of my actions.”

“No, it doesn't. But it gives you the strength to face them.” It was so easy to understand, now, why Stephen had fallen in love with this girl who volunteered beside him at the hospital. How had Marietta never seen the heart that all but radiated from her? It was nearly like having her brother with her again.

She squeezed the slender fingers back. “You need to come with me to see my mother. Please.”

“Sweet Mari.”
Sweet?
An appellation no one had ever applied to her, even when she was a child. But Barbara looked utterly sincere. “It has been too long. I cannot intrude upon your family now—”

“Would you deny me a friend, a sister, when I need one most?” She gripped her other hand too, certain this was one time she must achieve her goal. If she left her brother's widow in this house, this
rough neighborhood, without a family, she might as well be turning her back on Stephen himself.

But Barbara's eyes went soft with refusal. “You have never needed anyone, Marietta. It was one of the things I always admired about you, how you knew exactly who you were.”

“You thought that?” She sat back with a shake of her head. “Why?”

Barbara pulled a hand away and gestured, as if to say,
Look at you
. The fine silk, the fine house, the fine life she had purchased through wile and simmering smiles.

Look, indeed, where it had gotten her.

“I would trade it all. Every last stitch and gem for just one more chance to see Stephen and apologize.”

Her hostess went still. She sat there and studied Marietta's eyes, the fingers of one hand still caught within hers. Marietta held steady and prayed she saw whatever she needed to see. That the Lord would grant her this chance to make just one thing right.

At length, Barbara's shoulders relaxed. “I would be honored to be your sister and friend.”

“Then come.” She admired her determination? Then she would taste it in full. Marietta surged to her feet and pulled Barbara with her, out of the minuscule room and back toward the rickety door. “Grab your wrap. Mama will be at Grandmama's this morning, as it is Tuesday, so we can catch them both together.”

“Oh, I…”

“Ah, I see your bonnet.” She snatched it from the half-broken rack by the door and turned to put it on the woman for her. “The sun is doing a fair imitation of spring today, so I brought an open carriage. This should suffice nicely.” She swung the thin cape from the same wobbly rack and whipped it around Barbara's shoulders. “There. Pretty as a picture.”

True, even if the words were meant more to overwhelm than bolster. Barbara might not have the kind of cultivated beauty Marietta had so carefully created, but she had never wondered why the girl had caught Stephen's eye. Something about her open face and that wide, honest smile…

She opened the door and pulled her sister-in-law, agape, into the sunshine.

Walker had been lounging in his seat, no doubt enjoying the touch of early spring upon his face, but turned and greeted their appearance with a grin. “Miss Barbara. Do I get the joy of driving you somewhere today?”

“We're going to Grandmama's.” Marietta pulled her to the carriage as Walker jumped down. She delivered Barbara's hand into his, but when she just stood there looking dazed, he lifted her in. Marietta met his smile when he turned back to help her. “Thank you, Walk.”

He chuckled. “That's my Yetta. 'Bout time she showed back up.”

Barbara turned back toward escape. “I really don't think—”

“One thing that still holds true about me, my dear Barbara.” Marietta used Walker's hand to vault up and settled on her seat with a
whoosh
of skirts and petticoats, leaving her guest little choice but to follow suit. She grinned. “I never lose an argument.”

Marietta loosed what might have been her first sigh of pure contentment as she watched Mama and Barbara cry and embrace, amidst laughter and reminiscing. There had been, in Marietta's mind, no question how her brother's widow would be received. If the Lanes and Arnauds did one thing well, without fail, it was loving.

And, apparently, clandestinely working to keep the country united. Though that one seemed to be giving them a few headaches just now.

Needing a respite from the emotions saturating the parlor, Marietta wandered out into the familiar hall of the Lane home, past all the paintings her grandmother had hung upon the walls. Generations of family, places they had visited aboard the
Masquerade
, the wilds they had seen through fifty years of marriage.

Fifty years. She paused just inside the drawing room and stared at what she knew was the first painting Grandmama had done for Granddad Thad, before they married. Granddad's ship, with him at the helm.

Her fingers stroked over the lavender of her day dress. Perhaps she would soon be out of mourning, but no fifty years of marriage waited
in her future. No husband who would know her every thought just by looking into her eyes. Who would love her, despite her every failing.

No one who would ever love her above all else save the Lord.

A familiar arm slid around her waist, and Grandmama Gwyn leaned into her. “You did a wonderful thing, my precious girl, bringing her here.”

“I was due for a wonderful thing, I suppose.” She turned to smile at her grandmother, but it froze on her lips when she caught sight of the canvas half-covered in paint. He had no shoulder yet, no waist, the fireplace behind him was but a sketch. But the face was all but finished, and far too startling in this room. “Grandmama, when did you see Slade Osborne?”

“Oh.” Undisturbed by her alarm, her grandmother turned toward the painting and tilted her head to one side. “Your grandfather brought him home one night, briefly. Must be nearly two weeks ago now. He apparently caught Thad and Hez and Walker trying to…interrupt one of Dev's shipments.”

Marietta could only stare. At the painting, and at the woman who delivered that news so calmly. Calmly! As if it were all old hat to her.