Walker tossed fresh hay into the stall and smiled at the nicker of the horse. “You’re welcome, Bay. Now, you need anything else before I go get my Elsie?”
The mare whinnied and bumped his arm with her nose, eliciting a chuckle. He obliged her with a rub. If only the other females in his life were so easy to please. He checked her feed and water, glanced down the line of other horses, and then stepped away.
And frowned. The mound of hay in the last stall wasn’t as he had left it yesterday morning after showing Mr. Lane and Marietta the tunnel. He had arranged it very deliberately so he would know if it were disturbed.
It was disturbed.
“Blast it, Yetta.” He planted his hands on his hips and scowled. She must have come out here after she dismissed Cora. Hadn’t he found it strange that his wife had come so early to their apartment?
He should have known she would come back alone. That she would ignore the risk and focus only on what she wanted, what she needed. In this case, proof. Shaken as she had been when they explained the situation, he had seen in her eyes that she wanted desperately to believe they were wrong.
Well, if she had timed it right, she would have heard an earful. Maybe that was what she needed to rouse her from her stupor, proof that her precious Dev wasn’t the kind of Knight she wanted him to be. Proof that she had let a brood of snakes, of Copperheads no less, into her family.
But dash it, she shouldn’t have had to witness that alone.
He hadn’t seen Marietta yet today, which was the usual way of things. She had called for a carriage, but Pat had taken it to the front of the house. If Walker could find a subtle way to accomplish it, he would ask Cora how she seemed. Surely she would notice if something were amiss. Though what would he do about it? Stephen may have made him swear to stick close and keep an eye out for her, but there was precious little he could do when it came down to it.
Shaking his head, he put the pitchfork away and slapped the dust from his trousers as he closed the stable door behind him. The sun shone today, but it was winter weak. The air had a bite to it as he circled the building to his rickety stairs, making him glad to step into the warm main room of their small quarters. His mother bustled from fireplace to table, humming a hymn.
“Morning, Mama.”
The older woman glanced up when he came in and gave him her usual smile, big and beaming. “Hey there, Walk.” She nodded toward the corner, where Elsie sat with the little rag doll Cora had stitched so carefully for her for Christmas. His little girl made the toy dance, rag feet jumping and leaping upon Elsie’s chubby toddler legs.
He had to wonder what music it was dancing to.
The little one didn’t look up, so he moved into her line of vision a little more, waving his hand. That got her attention, and Elsie surged up with the light of pure love upon her beautiful little face.
“There’s my girl.” He crouched down and held out his arms for her to run into, and then he gathered her close when she did. She wouldn’t hear him, he knew that. But still he had to talk to her. Maybe she would feel the rumble in his chest as she snuggled in. Maybe that would tell her she was loved. He pressed a kiss to her curls and stood with her on his hip. “Ready for lunch, precious?”
She looked up at him, her hazel eyes content and bright but questioning. He patted her tummy. “Hungry?”
Her grin always made his heart light. She patted her belly too and nodded.
Walker turned to his mother. “Has Cora been in yet?”
“Not yet, no. But I have a few errands to run while you’re here, so I’ll see you in about an hour.”
Errands. Knowing his mother, they would be the dangerous kind that involved sneaking runaway slaves northward. Work she would never give up, no matter all it had cost her. Yet work she put aside to help out with Elsie.
He picked up his mother’s cloak and handed it to her with a smile. “Thanks, Mama.”
She waved away his gratitude as she always did, and let herself out.
Cora’s stew sure smelled good, and Walker’s stomach rumbled its agreement as he put Elsie in her favorite spot, atop the table. She kicked her legs and giggled—a sound he wished he could bottle and pull out whenever he needed a smile throughout the day.
He could go ahead and serve them, he knew, but he would rather give Cora a few minutes to join them. He had some time to spare before he had to start his afternoon chores. He picked up the only book Elsie ever showed any interest in, the nonsense verse with illustrations. He held it where she could see it, and she clapped her agreement and reached for him.
Smiling, Walker scooped her up again and settled in his chair by the stove with her on his lap. He opened the book to a random page. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…”
He finished reading it, though Elsie made no shift when he stopped. Her finger was tracing the drawing of the man-egg, touching his boots, his hands, the ink bricks. What did she wonder?
For the millionth time since they realized their angel couldn’t hear them, he wished for some way to know. They had their method of communicating, to be sure. And at two, she was still so young that even if she could hear and talk, they would probably scarcely understand her. But what about the future?
The door opened, and Cora came in with the wind. Her rosebud mouth smiled. “You could have started.”
“This was better.”
Her smile stayed put until she unfastened the cast-off cloak Marietta had given her last year. But when she reached to hang it up, she winced and put a hand to her back.
Walker stood, Elsie and all, and moved to her. “That pain again?”
She rubbed at it and nodded. “I reckon I oughta be used to it by now, but—”
“Go lie down for a minute and stretch it out.” He handed the reaching tot to her mama and put a hand on Cora’s rounded abdomen. His babe within kicked. Smiling, he leaned down to greet his wife properly.
She kissed him back, but her look afterward was rebuking. “You know I don’t have time to rest, Walk.”
“Yetta won’t care if you’re ten minutes late sweeping the hall.” Only when her gaze went hard and cold did he realize his slip. Usually he called her Miss Mari like the rest of the servants, but sometimes he just forgot. She had been Yetta all his life until he came here.
A reminder Cora never much appreciated. “Yetta ain’t the one I worry ’bout.”
He said nothing. He just leaned against the solid table while she, with Elsie on her hip, pulled out three bowls and spoons. The way he saw it, old Mrs. Hughes oughtn’t to evoke much fear. The house was Marietta’s, even if the servants still belonged to the older woman.
But then, Tandy and Norris, Norris’s uncle Pat, Jess, and her late husband had come with her from Louisiana. Cora had been born here to Jess, a slave too. And so Elsie was, legally, because her mama was. No matter that Walker was free.
No matter that the South’s slaves were free. The Emancipation Proclamation hadn’t covered them here in Maryland, hadn’t freed them. Far as he could tell, the politicians hadn’t wanted to shake things up with the border states. If Maryland seceded, Washington would be completely surrounded by the Confederacy. The politicians had tried to strike a balance.
And in doing so, had left his wife’s family in chains.
Elsie tugged on a tight spiral of Cora’s hair. Cora chuckled as she pulled the lid off the stew pot, sending aromatic steam wafting upward.
“Cora.” He kept his gaze on their little one, watching her eyes and wondering. Just wondering. “Have you thought more about it? Teaching her signs?”
She sighed and put the girl upon the table so she could reach for the bowls. “What good would it do, Walker?”
“What good? We could talk to her. Know what she’s thinking. She could talk to us and know what we’re thinking.”
“We do well enough with our own gestures. And it ain’t like no one else will be able to talk to her, even if we teach her these signs.”
“Sure they will, some of them. I asked Mr. Lane about it. He said there’s a school in Connecticut—”
“You wanna send her away?” Cora spun around, nearly sloshing the bowl of stew she held. “Send away our baby? As if they’d even let a slave girl in?”
“No, that’s not…I don’t want to send her anywhere.” He pulled out his chair and sat, sucking in a deep breath. “I just meant to tell you that they have developed a universal system of signs there. They call it American Sign Language. They’re trying to get all the deaf folks in the country to use it so they can all talk to each other. It’s pretty close, I understand, to what Mr. Lane learned from his mother. They’ve got a book. We could get it, learn it. Teach it to her.”
“A book.” Her tone said it all.
Walker sighed. “With drawings, I bet, of the motions.”
She slid his bowl onto the table and urged Elsie into her chair. “A book.”
He picked up his spoon. “We could do it.”
“Walker.” With a shake of her head, she turned back to the pot and ladled up a small portion. “Blow on this for her.”
He took it, blew and stirred.
Cora rubbed at the pain in her back, the same spot that always hurt her after a morning of cleaning. The one that often got so bad by night that she hobbled up the stairs to their rooms, whimpering in pain.
“I just don’t see the point. I know you wanna talk to her, but we can do that on our own, with our own ways. Don’t need no book to show us how. Not with me who can’t read and you who say yourself you don’t learn well from paper and ink. You need visuals. Ain’t that what you said?”
It was, and he did. But wasn’t it worth trying? “Mr. Lane would help.”
“Mr. Lane’s got his own life, his own family. How much time could he give us? An hour here and there? Wouldn’t do no good, honey.”
He had the Culper business too, and the weight of the fractured nation upon his shoulders. But Walker couldn’t mention that to Cora, and wouldn’t anyway, as it hardly helped his point. “He taught it to his kids. Miss Julie taught it to us. I don’t remember much, but…”
But Marietta would. She’d remember every gesture, every meaning. Every single lesson. She’d be able to glance at one of those books once, and it would be in her head forever.
Cora turned back to him slowly, obviously knowing the direction of his thoughts. She plunked her bowl onto the table and eased into her chair, eyes glinting. “Don’t even suggest it.”
“She could help.”
“I ain’t asking that woman for nothing—nothing. You understand? Maybe you could, you who don’t have to serve her each day, empty her slops, obey her every command, but I’m tellin’ you I won’t. And you better not neither.” She picked up her spoon and stabbed her stew with it.
Walker tested Elsie’s and, finding it cool enough, slid it over to her with a smile. “But if she could help Elsie—”
“It wouldn’t help. And I won’t go beggin’.”
“It wouldn’t be begging. It would be…” He let his voice fade as pain burst through her eyes again, screwed up her face, and made her back arch. Maybe he should let it drop. The last thing Cora needed was more distress. That couldn’t be good for her or the baby. “You all right, honey?”
“Mm-hmm.” She stretched, and the discomfort eased from her face. She took another bite. “I doubt she’d help anyway, even if you did ask. That woman never does nothing unless it’s for herself.”
At that, Walker grunted and chewed one of the few pieces of meat in his bowl. She hadn’t always been that way. When they were children, Marietta had been as bright and cheerful as Elsie. Always laughing and shrieking at the four boys—him and her brothers, Stephen and Hez and Isaac—when they played pranks on her.
Surely that Yetta was still inside somewhere. And maybe, if he prayed hard for her, this shake to her foundation would set her loose.
Cora rubbed her abdomen. “Did Mr. Lane say anything more about the amendment nonsense when he was here yesterday?”
“The House is still debating or whatever they do. But they’ll pass it. If it passed in the Senate, it’ll surely pass in the House. You’ll be free soon.”
She kept on rubbing and gazed at Elsie, who happily spooned up a potato chunk. “What if it ain’t soon enough? I don’t want this new baby to be born a slave, Walk.”
He didn’t either, but what could they do? “He won’t be. And even if he is, it won’t be but for a few months. They’re going to grow up in a whole new world. A world with no more slavery, where they can be anything they want.”
Hopeful idealism. He knew it even as he said it. He had been born free, after all, and that didn’t open any doors for him. There might be white men aplenty who had a moral objection to owning another man, but there were few indeed who thought blacks equal to them. The Lanes and Arnauds were the only ones he’d ever met he could say that about.
Obviously it hadn’t been true of his father, whoever he was. His mother never spoke of the attack, but he had gleaned enough over the years to know she had roused the suspicion of a runaway’s master and he’d found her one night. Punished her. Left her with a son on the way and no man to be a father.
“Maybe we should just leave. Surely with the amendment coming, they wouldn’t hunt us down if we ran.”
She had made the suggestion once before, when it was Elsie growing inside her. He reached across the table and took her hand. “We’re not running, Cora. You’re not going to be a fugitive.”
Though she turned her hand so she could squeeze his fingers, sorrow blanketed her face. “We both know that ain’t why you refuse to go.”
Little fingers landed on his other hand, and he grinned at Elsie, who was trying to reach for her mother too.
Cora slid the bowl out of the little one’s way and clasped her fingers, but her smile was still sad. “He’s long gone, Walker. I know you miss him. I know he was your best friend, but he ain’t here no more to hold you to your promise.”
“That was the point of it, honey. He knew he might never come home to watch over her again.” He held her hand another moment and then tightened his grip on it. “And I never would have met you if I hadn’t come here like Stephen asked.”
She released their hands and went back to her stew. “I gotta get away from this family before it gets worse. My mama will understand. She won’t leave, but she won’t mind my goin’.”
“It won’t get worse.”
“It will. When Miss Mari marries Mr. Dev, it will.”
“She’s not gonna marry him.” Funny how he said it with such certainty, when two days before he would have said the opposite and felt just as sure. But he’d seen the look in her eyes when she caught sight of that poster. The horror, the realization.
And this being Marietta, it wasn’t something she could forget. Not to say she hadn’t done a fine job of ignoring things in the past, but this was different.
Cora, however, had no reason to believe him. She shot him a look of utter incredulity and set about finishing her meal.
He let her. And he sent up a silent prayer that Marietta would make her way back to the stables soon to demand answers of him. Because he had a few questions to put to her too.
How long could one stay numb? Marietta moved the teacup from saucer to mouth and back down again and felt as though she were merely watching a play. Nothing that day had penetrated the fog inside her. From the time she’d pulled herself from the floor at dawn, a cloud had descended over her vision. Of all the memories branded into her, yesterday’s would remain the most vivid.
She had betrayed Lucien.
Dev was a monster.
Her grandfather was a spy.
And she had been charged with protecting a wolf. Though she was none too sure he wouldn’t turn around and snap at her if she tried.
Mama chatted on about the aid meeting yesterday, about the next one planned, about how sorry Daddy had been to miss her visit. Words, nothing but words.
“Marietta, sweetheart, are you feeling ill? You seem so distracted.”
“I’m sorry, Mama. I suppose I’m still a bit tired.” She dredged up a smile. “How long is Daddy here, do you know?”
“Just until tomorrow. More tea?”
She shook her head and cast her gaze out the window. If her father weren’t due back any minute, she would make her excuses and go home. Curl up on her bed and try to forget. If only she could pull a blanket over her mind. Obscure the past for just a moment.
“It’s good to see you out of second mourning already.” Her mother sipped and then lowered her cup. A dance of graceful movements. Yet her delicate brows were drawn. “Though I do hope you’ll not rush into another marriage. I know you are…fond…of Dev, but—”
“You needn’t worry about that. I think I…” Her mother’s gaze pierced. Too intent, too interested. Marietta set her saucer upon the table and toyed with the edge of the linen napkin. “I should have listened to you. I never should have had anything to do with Lucien.”
Mama chuckled and selected a piece of cake. As if all was right with the world. As if they hadn’t had fifty-seven different arguments about Lucien Hughes before she married him. “You were in love. Reason had no effect on you.”
“No, I wasn’t.” She had wanted to believe she was…but then, why hadn’t she ever been able to say the words to him? Part of her had known all along she wasn’t. “Was it just his money? His looks? Why was I so convinced I had to marry him?”
Her mother scooted her chair closer to Marietta’s, concern etching lines into her face. “Has something happened?”
She shrugged. “I never really mourned him, and now…now, when I decided to try, I wonder why I made the decisions I did. Decisions that sealed my future. And now with Dev…”
“You’ve no obligation to marry him, much as he may wish it.” Her mother’s fingers, familiar and warm, brushed away a curl from Marietta’s temple. “Do you want to come home? We can have your room ready in minutes. I would love it if you would. We could keep each other company. Worry for your father and uncles together.”
For the first time, that oft-repeated suggestion sounded tempting. If she didn’t have to face Dev every day, perhaps her heart would stop twisting. Perhaps the disgust and the echo of desire would stop waging war. She could break free. Start again as someone else, anyone else.
Except she couldn’t. She had promised Granddad she would help. And she owed it to him, to Stephen’s memory, to her whole family. Who knew what damage had been done through her, the Hugheses using her connections against the Union? All because of her choices.
Now, it seemed, she would pay for them. “Perhaps I will soon.” How long could Mr. Osborne possibly continue his charade? He would find whatever he needed, and he would make his escape. Then she could leave too.
As if distance would change anything. Dev still expected to marry her. And with the house and its secrets at stake, no doubt he wouldn’t accept no for an answer. Especially given the fact that months ago she had agreed to his whispered proposal. Perhaps she had drawn away a degree yesterday morning, before she discovered the truth. But it wouldn’t have been enough to mean a break. Not if Granddad hadn’t put the chisel into that crack and slammed it wider.
“I do hope so. I know you are loath to leave Lucille alone, but Dev can care for her, and she has her servants. She would be fine.”
Did Mother Hughes have any idea in what her sons were involved? Marietta smoothed the napkin flat again and let the images run through her mind. None gave her decisive answers. She had always defended her mother-in-law’s loyalties, but really, why would the woman be loyal to anything but the society she had been born and raised a part of? All the rest of the Fortiers were fighting for the Confederacy.
“Mari!”
Her father’s voice brought her head up and a smile to her lips. She stood and rushed to meet him. “Daddy! I’ve missed you.”
His arms closed around her as he chuckled. “And I you. How has my little girl been?”
“Well enough.” She pulled back to take his measure. He was thinner than when last she saw him, with new lines around his mouth. But still he was the same Jack Arnaud she had always equated with solidity. “When will this war be over so you can come home?”
Weariness saturated his exhale. “Soon, I think. I hope. Though we were only putting in for supplies and repairs, and then back out we must go to our place in the blockade. Sorry I missed you yesterday.”
“I would have stayed longer, but we had that aid meeting—”
“I understand.” He clasped her shoulders before planting a resounding kiss on her forehead. “But you will join us for dinner this evening, won’t you?”
“Of course.” It would give her an excuse to miss sharing a meal with Dev and Mr. Osborne.
“Good.” He looked past her, to Mama, and his smile shifted as it always did when he saw his wife.
As she had thought Lucien’s did for her. Thought Dev’s did too. But it wasn’t quite the same, was it? Daddy’s had something more…and something less. Crucial somethings.
“I need to go see your father for a few minutes, Lenna. Would you care for a walk?” Daddy was the only one to ever call her that. Most everyone else called her Julie, except for Grandmama, who called her Julienne. But when Marietta heard her talking to herself, Daddy’s nickname was the name she chose. Come now, Lenna, she would say. Where did you put it?
Evidence of the kind of love they shared. That even in that, they identified.
Mama smiled but made no move to rise. “I shall stay inside where it’s warm, but perhaps Marietta would enjoy the exercise.”
“I would indeed.” More, she hoped she might get her grandfather alone for a few minutes, so she could ask him if he knew how long Slade Osborne would be invading her world.
“Well, so long as I have at least one beautiful girl to accompany me.” He winked and went over to his wife, no doubt to exchange a kiss or quiet word. Marietta smiled as she stepped out in search of her cape and bonnet.
A few minutes later, she and her father were out in the crisp air, her hand secure in the crook of his elbow. Neither spoke until they reached the corner, at which point he looked down at her with somber eyes.
“Your granddad said he paid you a visit yesterday. A rather startling one.”
She sucked in a breath. “He told you?”
“I should think so. I am as much involved in the family trade as he is himself, and as my father.”
Granddad had said as much yesterday morning, but those words had been lost amidst the others. Now they reemerged. Her father, her uncles, who were spread all about the country now, Hez, and even Grandpapa Alain. “It is so difficult to believe we even have such a thing as the Culpers.”
He hummed and led her around the corner, heading for the house Thaddeus Lane had called home for more than fifty years. “I’m sorry we had to involve you. We wanted to avoid it if we could. But given the Hugheses’s affiliations…”
Her hand tightened around his arm. “Did you know, Daddy? Before I married him?”
He patted her fingers. “Thad found it out the day of your wedding. A bit late to step in. Especially,” he added, grinning down at her, “given your stubborn refusal to listen to any of our concerns.”
“I’m so sorry. For so much.” So much he didn’t even know about.
“As are we. We have been trying these four years to put a stop to the war, and to the so-called ‘fifth column,’ without your needing to know. But the times are dire, Mari.”
“I know.” They had been dire for years. And while much of the reality of war had become routine, some parts never did.
Like the casualty report that said Stephen Arnaud.
“Still, we’ll not ask much of you. Just distract Dev when you can. That ought to suffice. Let this young man poke about wherever he might need to. If you call to mind something that might be useful for him, perhaps leave it where he can find it.”
An exasperated breath eked past her lips. “But he is not one of…of us.” Us. “How is it you trust him to handle this?”
“We will make sure he does what he ought with the information. But we must be certain to otherwise stay out of sight. The last thing the Culpers need is the attention of either the KGC or Pinkerton’s detectives. We operate successfully because we operate anonymously. Even the president does not know we exist. None has since Washington himself.”
A chill swept up her spine. From the wind or the talk? “What if I hear something or find something? Do I tell Granddad? Mr. Osborne?”
He glanced around the street. Few pedestrians were out, though carriages rumbled by now and then. “Your granddad can advise you on whatever you find. If it is something he feels Osborne should know about, he will direct you on how to get it into his hands. And while we are there today, we will…” He paused, drew in a deep breath, and pulled her closer. “There is a code and vials of invisible ink. If ever you need to get a written message to him, you must use those.”
Codes, invisible ink, spies, secret societies. They belonged in the pages of a Gothic novel, not in her life. “Did Stephen know?”
He made no hesitation as he shook his head. “Nor did Walker until Stephen sent him to your house. Knowing what we did by that time, we thought it wise to educate him. Mari.” He paused, thereby making her pause with him, and looked down into her eyes. “You mustn’t seek anything out. You mustn’t put yourself in undue danger. We’ve already lost Stephen.”
“I will be safe.” Even if Dev somehow found out, he wouldn’t harm her. She didn’t think so, anyway. He wasn’t a violent man.
But he would be hurt when she broke things off, not to mention if he found out she was aiding someone against him. Would he feel the same heartbreak that held her immobile on the floor last night? The same suffocating weight of the one you thought you loved proving to be someone else entirely?
Part of her hoped he would. He deserved to hurt, deserved to learn what it felt like to be lied to. Deserved to be told he was the most important thing and then find it wasn’t so.
That is the beauty of grace. Stephen’s words, spoken so many long years ago, echoed. He’d been reclining on their parents’ couch, his Bible on his lap. Gray trousers, crisp white shirt, his frock coat long abandoned. She could still see the wave of his dark hair, just like Daddy’s, the gleam of his warm brown eyes, and ink stains on his left middle finger. We all deserve punishment, but He gives us instead forgiveness. Redemption.
She hadn’t wanted redemption. She knew too well what it meant. If the Lord redeemed her, He would pay for her, buy her, and she would be His. A slave to Him, bound to do His will above her own. And she had liked her own far better.
Today redemption sounded very different. Today she didn’t much like where her will had taken her. Today she had slaves under her roof when she’d been taught all her life slavery was a vile practice.
Who was she? Yetta, the girl without a lifetime of memories to plague her? Mari, the young lady who could charm any man she set her sights on? Marietta, the rich widow who had too many ghosts rattling around in her head?
I don’t want to be any of those anymore, Lord. Maybe…maybe it’s time to see who You would make me. Redeem me, Father. Purchase me from this life of which I’ve made such a mess. Make me someone new.
“I’ve lost you.” Daddy’s smile had a sad note as he led her onward. “To the past?”
“Is there anything but the past?” She matched her step to his so she could lean over and, just for a moment, touch her head to his shoulder.
“There is. There is a whole future ahead of us. One that can be as bright as we’re willing to make it.”
Or as dark as they let it be.