Circle of Spies (48 page)

When he pulled away, the frantic gleam in her eye said otherwise. She gripped his arms and shook her head. “Don't. Don't go.”

“I have to.” He kissed her once more, just once more, softly if lingering. “So do you. Promise me, kitten. You'll pack now and get out of Baltimore before he comes home. Go to your family. Make them help you get away.”

Her rapid blinking didn't disguise the mist in her eyes. “Slade.”

“
Promise
me.”

Pressing her lips together, she nodded. Her breath came in short, quavering gasps. “I promise.”

They would deliver her out of Hughes's reach. He had to believe that. Still, he couldn't convince his arms to release her so she could obey. He rested his forehead on hers. “Yetta…I love you. I didn't mean to. I just couldn't help it.”

Her laugh came quick but faded quicker. She pressed a hand to his cheek. “I know the feeling. I didn't mean to love you either. But I do, so much.”

Why couldn't that mean forever instead of farewell? “If I live through this, I'll find you. I wish I could promise more than that.”

At least he could be sure she would never forget him. Not her.

Her fingers traced over his face. “Don't talk like that. Tomorrow all this will be behind us and…” A shiver coursed through her. “And then you'll need to know I made a mistake. With Dev, before you arrived.”

For half a second, it pierced. He had hoped, wanted, prayed he'd been wrong in his first assumptions…but he knew well she wasn't the same person she'd been before he arrived. Knew because his own past always cast a shadow. If anyone knew the value of the Lord's forgiveness, it was him. He locked his gaze with hers. “It doesn't matter.”

She looked away, her cat eyes clouded. “I daresay you'll look at it differently when you don't have all these other worries.”

“No, I won't. I've made my share of mistakes on that front too.”

She didn't meet his gaze again. “It is different for a man. We both know it.”

“Not in the eyes of God, and not in the eyes of love.” He pressed his lips to hers—one more time, that was all—and then pulled away. “I promise you. All that matters to me is that you love me. Now go. Pack.”

“Mari!” Barbara's voice filtered their way from a distance.

Slade pulled away and pulled her out of the alcove. “You'd better take Barbara with you.”

Her fingers went tight around his. “Promise me you won't try to stop them all alone.
Promise
me.”

The hesitation lasted only a second. He couldn't, could he? He would fail at it all if he tried. He needed friends, needed family. Needed a plan, and he needed one fast.

He felt a warmth against his chest, odd and yet…right. Right where the book of prayers rested. “I'll go to your granddad.” If anyone knew who he could trust, it was surely Thaddeus Lane.

“Mari!”

She glanced toward the hall and Barbara's nearing voice, her face filled with worry. “Go. I will follow as soon as I can get us packed.”

He stole one more kiss—the last one—and sped for the door.

Marietta stepped into the hall after Slade and jumped as the door closed behind him. It sounded too final. Too hopeless, that slam of wood on wood.

“Mari!” Barbara ran down the hall, her skirts billowing behind her and her cheeks flushed. “The babe is coming at last. I need your help.”

Marietta felt the blood leave her face, rush to her middle, and twist into nausea. Little experience as she had with it, she knew childbirth was a bloody business. But this was Cora—she must do what she could.

How, though? She had promised to leave within minutes. To take Barbara with her…impossible if Cora's babe were coming now.

Oh Lord, why all at once? Please, show me what to do.

“Marietta Hughes.” Her mother-in-law stalked her way, fury snapping. “Dallying with a hired man? I thought you better bred than that.”

Her throat tightened. Mother Hughes must have glimpsed that last kiss.

But Marietta had only to appease her for a few minutes before making her escape. “It isn't what you think.” It was so, so much more than any dalliance. “He was merely saying goodbye.”

“Where could he possibly be going that he—” Mother Hughes cut herself off, the accusation fading. She knew. She had to know. Why else would her expression veer toward indulgent? Smoothing down her skirt, she cleared her throat. “I will overlook it this time. But if I see any more such behavior, you can be sure I will report it to my son.”

“Do what you must.” Marietta raised her chin and stormed past her toward Barbara. “Is your satchel in your room?”

Glancing once toward Mother Hughes, Barbara nodded and hurried beside her toward the stairs. “I know you will not want to be present during the birth itself, but if you could lend a hand with Elsie until Walker returns with his mother…”

She dared no response while they climbed the staircase. Only once they were in the sanctuary of Barbara's suite of rooms, the door latched behind her, did she even take a deep breath.

Her friend turned to regard her with somber eyes. “Is something wrong? Slade has so rarely left us lately, and I would not have thought him careless enough to kiss you before an open door.”

That deep breath shook on its way out. “Can Cora be moved?”

Barbara went still. “I wouldn't recommend it, but I suppose if it were enough of an emergency—”

“We need to leave here before Dev comes. Now. We haven't any time to lose.”

Most people would have asked questions. Barbara just measured her quietly for a moment before the familiar shine of peace settled in her eyes. She nodded. “It will take me a few minutes to gather all we'll need.”

God had been smiling on her the day He compelled her to this woman's door. “Thank you. I will meet you at the carriage house.”

Footsteps sounded, loud and heavy and fast—a man's, and he was in a hurry.
Please Lord, let it be Walker, home and coming to hurry Barbara along
.

But she knew the sound of Walker's utilitarian work boots, and these struck her as far more like the softer-soled congress boots a gentleman would wear. Slade, perhaps, returned for some reason?

The pounding at the door behind her head suggested otherwise. She reached for the key in the lock but too late. It turned under her hand and the door was pushed open with enough force to knock her backward.

Dev took only one step in. He curled his hand around her arm, his smile far too normal for all she knew must be going through his head. His gaze took in Barbara and the medical satchel in her hands, and then it settled on Marietta's face. “Mother said you came up here. I need to speak with you, darling.”

She prayed her smile looked every bit as easy, despite the thundering
of her pulse. “Of course, Dev. I'll be just a moment. I'll find you in my drawing room.” A few minutes, that was all she needed to escape.

“No. It's urgent.” A muscle ticked in his jaw as he glanced at Barbara again. “Is it not her day to be at the hospital?”

Barbara shifted her satchel from one hand to the other. “I was needed here. Cora—”

“Too bad.” His lips twitched, as if ready to snarl, and he spun Marietta into the hall. When he twisted the key in the lock and slammed shut the door, Barbara trapped inside, Marietta couldn't contain the squeak of outrage.

“What are you doing? You cannot lock my guest in—”

“I can.” He jerked her down the hall, slipping the key into his pocket. “Had she been where she was supposed to be, it would not have been necessary.”

Was there a second key in the room? Or the window—she could open a window and hail Walker whenever he came home. That might not be soon enough to save Marietta, but it would guarantee Barbara would be all right and there to help Cora. “I fail to see why it is necessary now. Whatever is so urgent that—”

“For once in your life, Mari, do what you're told.”

He increased their pace, and she could scarcely find air enough to breathe. Why had she let Mother Hughes retie her corset this morning in Cora's stead? The woman seemed bent on tight-lacing.

Dev tugged her around the corner and to the stairs leading to the third floor, where only the family bed chambers were. She dug in her heels. “Where are we going?”

She got the feeling his pause would cost her. That shadow in his eyes looked alive and ready to devour her. “Immediately? To your room so you can pack a few things. We are taking a little trip.”

The maps flashed. The rails leading to Harper's Ferry and then westward to Cumberland. The caves, that dot marked as an inn. So far away. So many places for him to hide, both the stockpile and himself. And her?

Marietta shook her head. “I cannot travel with you, you know that. We are not yet wed—”

“A predicament I tried to remedy last week, if you recall.” He pulled her closer, his hand a steel band on her arm, his eyes flashing danger.
“Let me make this very clear, darling. Choose me. Choose me above whatever else might tie you here—your family, your friends, your dashed new faith—or those things will pay. I will sever every bond holding you back until you are solely, wholly mine. Do you understand?”

Her throat closed off, and her fingers tangled in the muted gray silk of her dress. His eyes churned with a shadowy passion—one she knew too well. One she had been seeing since the nineteenth of December 1860. How had she ever been so foolish as to call it love? Love could have no part in such darkness.

But then, perhaps one couldn't see that truth until one abided in the Light.

She had no choice but to nod and let him pull her up the steps. A plan was called for, but she needed time to devise how to get away without him hurting the people she loved.

Their images flashed before her. Each and every person she held dear. Only this time her imagination got involved and transposed that awful poster overtop them. Mama, Daddy, Granddad, and Grandmama with bloody slashes across their faces. Cora, Walker, Elsie, and Barbara. Her brothers, their wives and children. Slade.

When Dev forced her into the corridor of family bedrooms, his mother stepped into the hall. For a second, one shining second, she hoped some help would come from the woman.

“Are we traveling by coach or train, Devereaux? I need to know what to pack.”

Obviously a vain hope.

Dev growled. “What do you think, Mother? Do we own a coach company or a railroad?”

A shiver stole through her. Never, in all the years she'd known him, had he spoken so harshly to his mother.

Mother Hughes seemed just as taken aback. “Devereaux Hughes, there is no call for such impertinence.”

“Oh, but there is. You have three minutes, or I leave without you. And you, darling.” He gave her a shake and shoved her toward her door. “Three minutes, or you go with nothing.”

He released her arm once she was inside. Perhaps he would stride away to attend something else, and she could—but no. He withdrew
the pistol on his hip and used it to direct her toward her boudoir. “I believe your trunks and bags are in there?”

When he touched the barrel to her back to keep her moving, she didn't dare wonder how he knew where she kept her bags. “You can remove the gun, darling. And you could have mentioned your mother was coming as chaperone. That would have resolved my objection.”

If only her objection were so simple.

As soon as they stepped into the small chamber, he pulled a valise from the shelf and tossed it to the floor. “When you are falling asleep by my side tonight, we can laugh about it. For now, indulge me.”

By his side? She turned to face him, gun or no gun. “Pardon?”

He chuckled into her outrage. “Two minutes, darling. Don't bother with dresses—we will purchase you new ones when we get there.”

With trembling hands she pulled items at random off shelves and from drawers and stuffed them into the valise. Her hairbrush had no sooner joined the chaos within the case than he slammed it closed, latched it, and nudged her from the room with the pistol again. “Time is up.”