Circle of Spies (24 page)

“Darling.” He kissed her cheek as he had his mother's and rested his hand upon her shoulder. Not so much as looking at Barbara, he leaned into the table. “I wanted to stop by before I head to the station. I need to travel to Cumberland. I'll depart on Monday and will be gone a week.”

Marietta lowered the fork she had picked up but had yet to use. “A week.”

His strong brows arched. “Is there something wrong, darling?”

She shouldn't say anything. Better to be gracious and forgiving and praise the Lord for seven days away from him. And yet she felt her eyebrows move to mirror his. “We were to go to the Ellicotts' that Friday.”

He looked genuinely distressed. For a single moment, that is, before determination flashed through his eyes and then softened into regret. “I am sorry, Mari. It slipped my mind. You know I haven't the head for
dates you do. Your heart was not set on that particular invitation though, was it? I have a whole slew of others we can attend when I get back.”

“Of course. It hardly matters.” Except that Lucien had done the exact same thing twenty-seven times. It wasn't the disappointed hopes that bothered her, or the need to write an apology after she'd already written an acceptance. It was the fact that neither of them ever saw fit to explain the situation before announcing it. For being “the most important thing” to them, she got surprisingly little consideration.

Not so surprising, considering they lied through their teeth as adeptly as their mother.

“I'll make it up to you. I promise.” Too much heat saturated his words, especially for being spoken in company. He squeezed her shoulder, chuckled—no doubt at the blush she was too tired to restrain—and turned his head back toward his mother. “I dislike the idea of leaving the two of you alone for so long with no able-bodied man about, though. Discontent is too high in the city.”

Three
of them. Marietta reached for the butter, largely to shake off his hand. “Walker is here and able-bodied.”

“And distracted with his breeding wife. And heaven knows Pat and Norris are too old to scare away any miscreant. Not sufficient. I have asked Mr. Osborne to stay behind and keep an eye on things in my absence.”

She could only imagine the anticipation that would have surged through Slade upon that request. An entire week to snoop without the fear of Dev coming upon him. If he were the praying man his taste in reading indicated, this was an answer to it.

And why couldn't she put it to use too?

Mother Hughes was making the expected reply, thanking her son for his thoughtful provision. Barbara, on the other hand, focused her curious gaze on Marietta. Seeing what? One never could tell with her.

Dev didn't stay long. No doubt he was eager to get to the rail offices and schedule his trip. Marietta took a bite of the toast she didn't feel like eating and let her gaze go unfocused.

What was he about in western Maryland? Railroad business? Possibly. Yet with the Confederacy's surrender being touted as a surety, she doubted he would leave his precious KGC unless the trip had something to do with their plans.

Images flashed, but they were too quick. Too random. A few lines on the back of a page from the study…she shook them away. Perhaps she
should
take a nap sometime today to clarify her mind.

“The sun is shining again.” Barbara's soft voice broke through the clouds of her mind. “Perhaps we could take a walk.”

“That sounds lovely for the two of you.” Mother Hughes took a delicate sip of her tea. “Bulah and Nadine are coming by to visit this morning, and we old ladies would no doubt bore you young things to tears.”

Barbara's smile didn't falter. “Nonsense. But we are happy to grant you time with your friends.”

“And so very happy you are well enough to receive them, Mother Hughes.” Marietta's smile was no doubt wearier than her friend's, but she could manage no more. She ate enough to sustain her until midday, hurriedly delivered the packet for Granddad to Walker, and tucked the second into a volume of Thomas Aquinas. For now, it would stay on the shelf, where no curious eyes would notice the pages making it bulge. She would direct Slade to it later.

Soon enough, she had pulled her cape on and smiled to see Barbara in the new one she had purchased for her. To be sure, the young woman had refused to abandon her full mourning. But at least she had submitted to sturdy, serviceable fabrics in place of the ones worn to threads.

Marietta liked to think that Stephen smiled down on her. For perhaps the first time.

Barbara linked their arms together as they stepped out into the cool morning. Bright as the sun was, the air was frosty and carried the scents of coal and wood smoke. “You cannot fathom how much this means to me, Mari. Strolling with you as friends. I thought it would never be.”

Marietta told herself the stinging in her eyes was naught but the wind. “And I have walked along like this with so many acquaintances, yet none true friends. I have never…I have not been a very nice person. All the women I know are as happy to gossip about me behind my back as they are to welcome me into their parlors.”

Barbara chuckled, soft and sympathetic. “From what Stephen told me, you had beaux lining up down the street. That would have left little for the other young ladies.”

“Hmm.” All those beaux, and she had picked Lucien Hughes. How different it all would have been had she chosen more wisely.

“May I ask you a personal question, Mari? I don't want to pry, but…”

Marietta eased out a smile. “You are my sister. Pry all you please.”

Those doe eyes brightened but then went sober. “It is about Mr. Hughes. Devereaux, that is. You two obviously have an understanding.”

Obvious indeed, given the way he had been acting. Ignoring Barbara's presence altogether, staking his claim before Slade. Yet in the face of her sister-in-law's unrelieved black, she had little choice but to avert her face.

“I cannot blame him for wanting to move quickly.” Barbara patted her arm, drawing her gaze again. “But you seem less than enthusiastic. You are attentive in his company, to be sure, but when he is gone…I believe I detect a reticence.”

She focused her gaze straight ahead, along the empty street. “When I agreed to this understanding, there was much I didn't know.” Feeling the warmth of acceptance, she looked to her friend again. “I have recently found out that he is not a good man, yet I fear there is no escape from him.”

Barbara made no quick assurances. She merely tilted her face toward the sun and drew in a long breath. “My instinct is to say there is always an escape. And yet I know how long it can take and what tragedy can strike in the meantime.” She caught Marietta's gaze again, her face serious and lined with concern. “I will be praying for a way that will allow you to extricate yourself without danger.”

“I don't think I need to fear him. He is not—” Images cut her off. Cora's face, and little Elsie's. Her throat went dry.

Barbara opened her mouth but then shut it again, turmoil evident in her eyes.

Marietta's frown deepened. “What is it?”

Looking as though she held her breath, Barbara searched her face. “A man came into the hospital last fall. Shot. A soldier, but he had not been in a battle. He'd been in a duel.”

The implications were as glaring as the low-hanging winter sun. “It couldn't have been Dev. Had he shot a man, he would have had to flee the law.”

“The man wouldn't name him to the law. He said it would do no good, as his opponent had the law in his pocket.”

Once again she had to look away as the confounded list of names filled her vision. Judges. Police officers. Lawyers. “I see.”

“I'm not sure you do. Mari, he said Mr. Hughes called him out merely for mentioning your beauty and implying he would call on you when your mourning was complete. But that Mr. Hughes so misconstrued it, and in front of all their friends, that he had no choice but to accept the challenge.”

Perhaps walking had been a bad idea, given how weak her knees felt. Surely, surely Dev was not so jealous as all that. Why would he be, when he had been the only man in her life since Lucien died? Until that fateful sixteenth day of January, she had never wavered in her determination to marry him as soon as propriety allowed.

But then, her very affection for him was proof of her fickle heart, was it not?

The cold air hurt, she pulled it in so fast. “What happened to him? The other man?”

Barbara merely pressed her lips together.

Marietta let the silence hold as they navigated around the city block. Down the busier thoroughfare of Monument Square, they spoke of Stephen and of the joy Barbara had from finally being able to answer to her married name. Then they turned again, back onto the street that led home. Where the rows of townhouses typical in Baltimore gave way to free-standing edifices like hers.

Barbara focused upon the graystone building nearest the Hughes estate. “Are your neighbors in residence? I have not seen anyone there.”

“No. I am afraid the Pinkneys shut up their house at the start of the war.”

A frown knit her brow. “I wonder…perhaps there is someone prowling about in their absence. I heard voices outside last night. They sounded as though they were in the alley between your houses.”

Marietta's pulse kicked up. “Walker, perhaps? Hez occasionally comes by of an evening.”

“At one in the morning?” Barbara shook her head, though given their shenanigans with Marietta's granddad, her dismissal was likely mistaken. “I know their voices. It wasn't them.”

“Likely prowlers, as you said, then. I'll be sure and mention it to Walker.” Prowlers of the Copperhead variety, no doubt. Her eyes
focused on the side of her house nearest the Pinkneys', on the high hedge meant to lend privacy…and perhaps succeeding too well. Was that where the main entrance to the castle was?

She would have to look, though not with Barbara. Her new friend ought not to be drawn into this mess. Marietta would figure it out herself, or perhaps with Walker's help. She would check the perimeter of the house. The cellars. Perhaps even search Lucien's study again for some clue she had missed before.

It was there, obviously, some entrance other than the tunnel they had found, which had likely been built as a secondary escape route from the main lair. She would find it.

Slade Osborne might already be initiated, but there was no reason to entrust it all to him, was there?

Fifteen

S
lade eased the study door shut behind him and exhaled slowly. He had begun to think Hughes would never leave this morning, satchel in hand for his trip and trunk strapped to his carriage roof. But the man had finally gone after one more sober warning to keep an eye on Marietta and Mrs. Hughes.

As if Slade intended to let a band of marauders gallop through and steal them away.

Then he had left the detective free to go about his business, praise be to the sovereign and Almighty God. A more perfect answer to prayer he could never have envisioned.

Later today he had to head to Washington, but for now he was determined to find a few answers. And as he'd already discovered there were none to be found at Hughes's house, he had sauntered across the street and snuck in.

The pages that had been in the book of Aquinas were in his inner pocket, as taunting as they were alluring. Marietta's script matched the slip of paper from the Augustine. But though his pulse had kicked up to near euphoria when he clapped his gaze upon that list of names, he had forced it back to rational.

For all he knew, she had deliberately miscopied the information.
How did she even get it to copy if she'd given him the key? That didn't make sense, unless she also had the
other
key, the one Hughes kept on him. Which would mean Hughes had been the one to open the drawer for her and instructed her to feed him false information.

But
that
would mean Hughes was on to him. Possibly, but he didn't think so.

Which left him with one itchy conundrum when it came to Marietta Arnaud Hughes.

He turned to survey the now-clean study, sunlight shafting through the open drapes and pouring its precious illumination onto each surface. He headed straight for the drawer, withdrew the key from its place with the folded papers in his pocket, and crouched to open it.

Making himself comfortable on the floor, he pulled out a handful of leaves from the front of the drawer. And frowned. The list was gone. Hughes could have moved it to another place in the drawer, he supposed, but it was nowhere in this first stack. Or maybe Marietta had taken it.

No, she wouldn't be so stupid. Unless she were trying to set him up to be caught…

Another page caught his eye. One of the ones from the selection she had given him, he was fairly sure. He pulled out his copies and flattened the sheet in question beside the original.

Identical. Other than the handwriting,
exactly
identical. Wherever Hughes had put a note in the margin, the same one appeared in the same place in Marietta's. Each random scratch of ink from a slipping pen, each space, each crowded squeeze of a forgotten word had been duplicated.