Circle of Spies (34 page)

His arms were iron bands around her, but she could escape them if she must. The ones around her spirit, though…how was she to break free of those?

His hand moved down her back again and settled at her waist. “Commission yourself a new gown, darling. Something breathtaking and exquisite. We'll find the most well-attended gathering, and you'll wear it there with me. We'll set the wagging tongues aright.”

A new gown. A ball. A life that held no shine anymore. But if he would leave it at that, then she would agree to the wasted expense. She pulled away, knowing her smile was tight. “All right.”

“Mari.” The hand on her neck held her in place and forced her to look up at him. “No doubt you know this, but…if we need to wed sooner. If you are…”

Heat rushed her cheeks, and she made no effort to tamp it down. Some things ought to be blushed over. She shook her head.

When she saw the disappointment shadow his eyes, the sting of heat shifted. She gave him a push, not as forcefully as she would have liked to. “You can't be sorry about that. I would have been ruined.”

“Nonsense. There would have been talk for a few days, that is all.” Though he retreated a step and let his hands fall, his brow remained in its condescending arch. “You know as well as I that at least half your friends have engaged in affairs. It is hardly a novelty.”

Perhaps that was true, but it hardly made it right. “I had never thought to be one of them.”

Given the irritation flickering again in his eyes, she expected another retort. Instead, he backed away a step and brought his expression under control. “Your conscience will be assuaged as soon as we are married. In the meantime, pay a visit to your seamstress.”

“Certainly.” Because the smile felt so false, she curled her fingers tight to her palm. They came to a rest against her skirt, where the silver links were hidden.

“I had best get caught up on correspondence.” He measured her a moment, smiled, and then turned to the door.

Somehow she wasn't surprised when he stopped in the threshold, when his gaze went sharp again. “Where were you when I got home? Certainly not on a promenade without a wrap.”

Again her hands went to her empty elbows. She must make it a point to keep better track of her shawls. “Making sure Cora is resting. If she doesn't, she can barely move by the end of the day.”

He was still for a moment, but his nod looked satisfied. “Very well. But I would prefer you not spend too much time out there. I have never much cared for that half-breed groom.”

A defense sprang to her tongue, but she bit it back. She had never
had a nice thing to say about Walker in Dev's presence before. She had best not start now.

Dev's gaze went smug. “And I trust you've seen the brat and realize it is Lucien's, from the look of her.”

Lucien's? Devereaux knew exactly what he had done to Cora, yet he would try to cast the blame on his brother? Her jaw went tight, but she held the threads of anger tight. “I've seen her.”

“And still concern yourself with the mother. You make a fine mistress, darling.” With a confident grin in place, he exited the room.

Marietta leaned back into the table, slid her hand into her pocket, and let the warm silver links wrap round her fingers.

Twenty-One

W
alker nestled closer to Cora, trying to hold tight to his dream of sunshine and orioles. But an incessant tapping pulled him toward wakefulness.

“You gonna see who's at the door, honey?”

“Hmm?” Walker blinked his eyes open to darkness and groaned. “No. Let 'em come back in the morning.”

“Walk.”

“I know, I know.” He pushed himself up, careful to avoid putting any pressure on the growing mound of babe his hand had been resting upon, pausing only long enough to press a kiss to Cora's sleep-warm cheek. Clumsy fingers fumbling with clothes already set out, he hissed at the unceasing knocking.

Probably Hez. The man was a night owl. Walker didn't know how Paulina tolerated him. Or maybe Mr. Lane, who, the whole family knew, would chase a whim any time of day or night. Or…he wrenched open the door and frowned. “Osborne?”

He'd scarcely seen the detective in the last two weeks since Hughes returned from his trip. Seemed he always had Osborne off on some errand or another, or else he was in the big house where Walker wasn't welcome. He leaned into the doorframe. “This had better be good.”

Osborne glanced at the darkened interior of Walker's home. “I need your help.”

He grabbed his coat, stepped out, and closed the door behind him. “It can't wait until daylight?”

“Come morning, Hughes will have me busy again.” He turned and headed down the stairs, motioning for Walker to follow.

He did, but with a laborious sigh. When they gained the stables, though, the sweet smell of hay wrapped around him and eased his grumpiness. “All right. What is it?”

Osborne stepped close, no doubt so he could pitch his voice low. “The Knights are planning to kidnap Lincoln today.”

Well, that woke him up in a hurry. Walker muttered a “Thunder and turf!” and rubbed a hand over his face. “I thought when the inauguration passed without incident…”

“No opportunity opened up beforehand, but today the president is conducting a review of the troops, and he'll be unprotected.”

Of all the stupid… “Unprotected? Don't your friends in Washington know he ain't never safe?”

Osborne breathed a nearly silent laugh. “With all the turmoil of the war, I think Pinkerton has spread them thin. They're even using off-duty police officers as guards.”

And the Knights were getting desperate, Walker knew. “What do you need me to do?”

“Get a note to my friend. He's the only one who still…who I trust to listen to a warning.” In the darkness of the stables, Walker could barely make out Osborne reaching into his pocket and pulling out a thin square that rustled like paper. “I can't risk a telegram, not with the wires originating at Hughes's rail station.”

“Encode it.” The answer—an obvious one to him, given the Culpers' history with codes—tripped off his tongue before he could think to stop it. Though he wished, when Osborne froze, he could take it back. He shouldn't be allowed to speak before he had a stiff cup of coffee in the morning.

“We haven't established a cipher.” At least he didn't sound suspicious, just frustrated. “Should have, but…”

Walker reached out and took the paper. “Is this the message?”

“His address. Will you be able to read it?”

A perfectly valid question for someone to ask a Negro man, even a free one. But Walker couldn't help but snort a laugh. “You
do
realize I was Stephen Arnaud's best friend, right? Owner of all those books you've been reading?”

“Good. I can't risk paying Herschel a visit today, not when I have to meet the others. If you could find him, though, and tell him to change Lincoln's route at the last minute. That's all it will take to foil them.”

“I can handle that.” Going to Washington hadn't been in his plans for the day, but no doubt Marietta would agree that this was more important than the trip to the hospital the womenfolk had planned. “Gotta ask, though…you really trust me with this?”

Osborne shoved his hands into his pockets. “I'm short on allies, and I can't ask Marietta to help here.”

Walker tucked the folded paper into his pocket to examine when he had light. Then he paused. “You trust her these days?”

A beat of silence was the only response he could discern in the low light. “Don't you?”

“Yeah. But we've known each other all our lives.” He knew the old Yetta, not just the socialite. The woman so long slumbering under the mask of hurt—and the determination not to feel the hurt.

How much of her did Osborne know? He shouldn't trust the mask…and if she'd lowered it, then they had some talking to do, him and her.

Osborne hummed, low and quick. “One minute I think I have her figured, and then the next…”

“It ain't too hard.” He buttoned up his coat and fished thick gloves from his pockets. “The way she seems to be…well, that's my fault.”

He could all but hear her screaming at him in his head, telling him he had no business letting Slade in on the secret no one else knew, aside from themselves and Cora. And maybe he didn't. Maybe it was just the lack of sleep forcing the words past his lips.

But he couldn't shake the feeling that this man would respect her the more if he knew all she'd been willing to give up, once, to follow her heart.

“Your fault.” The measured, flat tone of caution possessed Osborne's voice. “How so?”

“I hurt her.” Walker tugged his gloves on, welcoming the insulation
from the cold March air. “We'd been planning to run off together. Go north and get married.”

Though shadows cloaked Osborne's face, they sure didn't do anything to mute the surprised inhale.

Walker smiled into the darkness. “I know. Wouldn't think it of her, would you? Fine, rich white girl like her willing to give up everything for a quadroon whose life goal was to work with horses.”

“No. I wouldn't have.” Osborne's voice was quiet as a thought.

“No one did. Look, I've been judged all my life for my mixed blood and the fact I ain't got a father. Most folks don't know my mama was attacked, and if they did, they wouldn't care.” But it was something he'd never been able to get past. Something he sure couldn't let Cora and her unrequested babe go through alone when he found her sobbing in a horse's stall. “Yetta never judged. Never looked at me like I was less.”

The breath whispered back out. “What happened, then?”

“I told Stephen. He talked me out of it.” Though his companion wouldn't be able to see, he shook his head. “Looking back, I know it was the right decision. But I didn't handle it right. I was going to take off and not tell her, and when she caught me leaving—well, we both said things we shouldn't have. I broke her heart, Oz, plain and simple.”

“You're the one she was trying to hurt by marrying a slave owner.”

Sounded right, but not coming from him. “She told you that?”

“Yeah.” He turned but didn't walk back through the door. “Why are you working here if it ended so badly?”

“Stephen. He made me promise when he signed up that I would watch out for her. He never trusted the Hugheses. He made
her
promise to provide me a job.”

“Right.” He laughed again, nearly silently. “Marietta and her unexpected good deeds. And here I was surprised she wanted to volunteer at the hospital today with Barbara.”

Walker's quiet laugh joined Osborne's. “Me too. Yetta and the sight of blood don't mix, though I doubt she admitted that to Barbara.”

Osborne didn't reply to that, but when he went to the door, he paused again, a silhouette against the scrap of moonlight seeping through the clouds. “I could use your prayers today.”

Walker aimed his feet toward the tack room, because he certainly wasn't about to take one of Hughes's trains to Washington. “You have them.”

A moment later the doorway was empty. Walker shook his head and fetched a saddle. It only took him a few minutes to rouse a horse, get her ready, and slip back upstairs to kiss Elsie's slumbering cheek and whisper to Cora that he would be gone a few hours.

Rather than head straight out of Baltimore Walker headed for the familiar house he always associated with grandfathers—his own and the Arnauds'. Grandpa Henry and Gram Em would be warm in their bed above the Lane carriage house, but somehow he wasn't surprised to see a light burning in the drawing room window of the main house. And he wouldn't have come if he hadn't mostly expected just that.

Thad Lane met him at the kitchen door with a cup of coffee. “I've been up praying. Where are you headed, Walk?”

“Washington, for Osborne. He says the KGC is planning to kidnap Lincoln today if they can.” He took a sip of the steaming coffee and breathed a happy inhale. “He wants me to let one of his friends know.”