Circle of Spies (50 page)

He stepped to Mr. Lane's side, studying the man's profile rather than the road. “You don't think he can handle Hughes?”

His companion turned, sorrow in his eyes. “He'll do all he can. But you can bet Hughes will have help. And he has already proven he isn't opposed to using violence to achieve his ends.”

Those concerns made sense, so he nodded. But it was more than that. “And it's Yetta.”

Mr. Lane sighed. “Yes. It's Mari. She has always been so special to me. The thought of her in that devil's clutches…” He scrubbed a hand over his face, skewing his hat. “I have had loved ones in danger before and felt the hand of the Lord telling me to be still, to trust Him to care for them. Today I feel only an urgency to get myself on the next train to the mountains.”

“Then go.”

“But with all that will be happening in Washington—”

“We've hours enough to see to that. Their one agent is a ferry operator out of Port Tobacco, which means Grandpa Henry will know him. I'll try to find Pinkerton or Oz's friend and convince them this is serious. Hez and I will handle the rest.” Even as he said it, his heart tugged him back toward the carriage house, where Cora's groans kept coming through the windows. Jess's bleeding had stopped, but she hadn't woken up yet.

They would pray. And then pray some more.

Mr. Lane slapped a hand to his leg. “I have to go. I will take Ize with me and send Hez and Henry here. Gwyn and Julie I'll set to praying.”

“When the rest of the servants get back from church, I'll get them praying too.”

Decision made, Mr. Lane took off for his horse.

After checking on Elsie again, Walker jogged up the stairs to home. He knew Barbara and his mother would only let him in for a few minutes, but he had to know how Jess and Cora were doing.

He found his mother-in-law still unconscious on the kitchen table. A blanket covered her where her skirt had been cut away, and bloodied bandages were in the corner.

At the moment Barbara was bent over the stove, and he spotted Mama in the bedroom wiping a cloth over Cora's forehead. He headed for his wife and took the side opposite his mother. “How are you doing, honey?”

Her eyes were clouded with pain, but she managed a smile. “Miss Barbara says everything's real good. I'm just prayin' for Mama.” She reached for his hand and gripped it hard. “You gonna help Mr. Slade catch him? You gotta help, honey. You gotta see he pays for what he did.”

He covered her fingers with his. “Mr. Lane and Ize are going to help Oz. They asked me…” How much should he tell them? There were worries enough saturating this room. And yet if she were still laboring, if Jess were still struggling when it was time for him to head to Washington, he couldn't very well leave without a word. He sucked in a quick breath. “There's some men planning on killing the president tonight, honey. Oz was trying to stop them too, but he can't do it all. He asked me if I'd help.”

“Then what are you doing here?” She propped herself up on her free elbow. Sweat beaded on her forehead. “You gotta save him. You go right now, Walker Payne.”

That was his Cora. He leaned over and kissed her head. “Nothing I can do yet, honey. Won't have to leave until dark. So you just have this baby before then so I can leave without that worry, all right?”

Even as he finished speaking, her face contorted again. And his mother, again, shooed him back outside.

Thirty-Two

D
evereaux had been glad, at first, for the silence from the females. He had been too busy checking the windows, his lists of supplies, and the timetables, to have any desire to deal with their histrionics.

But an hour had passed with nothing but the
clickety-clack
of the wheels over the iron ribbons, and now their continued petulance grated. His mother's glare drilled him, and Marietta hadn't said a word since he tossed her into his private car. She had remained on the seat he had put her in, not so much as shifting from her landing position. Her gaze had remained fixed on the floor.

She was here. She had not made a fuss, had not cried “Murder!” and brought the police down upon him, but only because she took his threats seriously. She did not want to be at his side.

His veins sizzled with that certainty.

“I will never forgive you,” his mother burst out. “I have had Jess since we were girls. She has served me faithfully and loyally all these years, and you shoot her as if she is nothing more than a lame dog?”

“Would you rather I had shot you for insisting on bringing her?” At her wide-mouthed gasp, he rolled his eyes. Were it not for the women, he would slip out again, over the connector, and into the first of the freight cars. “It is your own fault for disobeying. I will get you another maid, so do stop pouting like a child.”

“You cannot just replace a lifelong servant, Devereaux.”

He tapped his pen against the page, his gaze on Marietta again. He would get a rise out of her one way or another. “I suggest you make better use of your time than fuming at me, Mother. Perhaps you and Mari should plan the wedding. It will have to be small, of course, but you have always liked the house in Cumberland. I imagine you can make it lovely.”

Marietta blinked, shifted, and turned on him eyes so cold his blood had to boil to compensate. “You can force me before a minister with a gun to my head,” she said, her voice even and passionless, “but you will have to convince him I am mute. I will not say vows to you.”

He felt every thud of his heart, every scorching pulse through his body. It resonated, echoed, overcame. “Have it your way, Mari. If you will not be my wife, you can be my mistress. But one way or another, you will be mine.”

She sat straighter and fisted her hands. “How can you be such a fool, Devereaux? Do you really think you will get your way through violence and threat? You can ravage me and abuse me, you can take whatever you will from this body, but I will
never
be yours.”

He leapt to his feet, fire slicking through him far faster than the train through the countryside. “You will be mine,” he said, voice icy and dead in contrast to the raging life within, “or you will be nothing.”

Marietta rose too. So small across from him, but her spine stayed straight as the rails, her every curve perfection, the snapping in her eyes at least alive again, as he most loved seeing them. How could she deny what they had both known for years? She was meant to be his. Created solely to please him. No words could change that she belonged to him, nothing she could do would erase the brand he had put upon her.

“Then kill me.” Her voice, low and sultry, seethed fury.

The coursing fire exploded. He grabbed the table and sent it flying toward the opposite wall. “By thunder, Marietta, don't think I won't! I killed my brother for you. I won't hesitate to kill again if you are idiot enough to rebel when you should rightfully be mine!”

The dual gasps, his mother's piercing keen, pushed him forward. He was upon Marietta in two steps, grasping her shoulders and pulling her flush against him.

Now her eyes weren't so cold. Now she couldn't doubt of what he was capable. Better the horror on her face than the ice. “You did
what
?”

“It's your own fault. Had you simply consented to an affair—but you refused me, every time you refused me, saying you could be with no one but your husband.” The fire shook him, shook her by extension. “What else was I to do? Wait for him to grow old and die, to claim you only when you were too faded to be of use to me? I have waited years,
years
for you!”

She tried to break free, the idiot woman. As if she could ever escape the power of their love, as if denying it would change how it had consumed them both. “Get off me.” Her voice shook with the same resonance, proving, even in her anger, that they were built for one another. “Get away from me! How could you? How could you kill your own brother?”

She pushed at his chest, shoved at his arms. Made him smile. That was the Mari he loved, full of passion and vim. “It was the simplest thing in the world, darling. Lure him away, lie in wait, plunge the knife into his stomach, and watch him die. I should have done it sooner. Then you would already be my wife.”

She managed to pull one of her arms free. Her eyes narrowed to yellow-green slits, she bared her teeth and pulled the arm back.

His smile faded when her fist slammed into his nose.

He was going to kill her. Marietta saw it flash in his eyes when she struck him. She saw the gleam of murder, pulsing moments before, snap from recollection to promise. And still she couldn't regret embracing the whisper of those long-ago lessons from Isaac.

He had killed him. He had been the one to stab Lucien in that dark alleyway, not some random thief. The knowledge made every muscle quiver and contract.

One of Dev's hands still gripped her upper arm with enough force to bruise her; with the other he dabbed at his nose, cursing when he
saw the blood upon it. Fingers digging in still more, he jerked her forward, toward the back end of the car.

Mother Hughes's cry went from animal whimper to sobbing, but he didn't so much as glance at her.

“How could you do this, Dev?” She tried to plant her feet, but he was so much stronger. Every time she dug in, he simply jerked her onward. “You destroyed your family. You have undone us all. He loved you, he—”

“He was a braggart and a tyrant, always flaunting his advantages.” With one vicious yank, he opened the rear door.

Her stomach flew to her throat at the ground whizzing by outside. Would he toss her over? The ground was still all but flat around them; the fall might not kill her. But a river snaked just ahead. Would he wait until they were on the bridge?

She knew how to swim, but she would first have to escape her heavy clothing, and that might be impossible.

Despite her challenge to him a few minutes earlier, she had no desire to die. When he tried to pull her out the door, she braced her feet and free hand on the posts. “Let me go, you monster!”

Another nasty curse tripped off his tongue. He took a step onto the rickety, rocking metal grate between the two cars and slid open the door on the second one. Then, as if all her resistance were no more effective than a kitten's, he picked her up and tossed her into the dark tomb of the freight car.

She landed hard on her hip, her ribs striking a crate that robbed her of breath.

Dev filled the whole opening, a black silhouette. “Maybe a few hours in here will calm you.”

“Calm me?” Wincing at the strain against what would surely be another set of bruises, she pushed back to her feet. “You killed my husband, and you expect a few hours in the dark will
calm me
?”

She flew his way, screaming when the door slammed shut before she could reach him. Unable to pound at him, she pounded at the door instead, tears mixing with the rage. “He was your brother! He loved you!”

Pain sent her to her knees. Not from the bruises, but from within. She might not have been the one to wield the dagger, but she had
encouraged Dev, had made it so clear that the only thing between them was Lucien. Her hand had not held the knife, but his blood still stained her. “Oh God, forgive me.”

“Don't you dare take the blame for anything he did.”

The unexpectedness of the voice made her jump, but its blessed familiarity brought her back to her feet. Her gaze probed the unrelieved darkness. “Slade?”

She heard the sound of a quiet snap, saw the small whoosh of a match igniting, and then a golden glow illuminated the contours of his face, the neatly trimmed goatee, the black eyes she so loved. She had to climb over crates and boxes, but she reached him just after he touched the flame to the wick of a lamp. His arms closed around her as hers did him.

And with that security, the storm within broke loose, and she clung to him to remain upright. “He killed him, Slade. He killed Lucien. It was Dev, not a mugger.
Dev
stabbed him, and he said it was for me—to be with me.” A shudder came over her, so strong she gasped with it. “It is my fault. If I hadn't flirted with him, hadn't thought such wicked things—”