Devereaux read the invitation through twice. Nothing out of the ordinary, a small dinner party among old friends. He knew what he found interesting—that it had been addressed to Mrs. Lucien Hughes and Mr. Devereaux Hughes, together.
But he wasn’t entirely certain what had garnered Marietta’s attention. He looked up as he handed it back. “Why would you not accept, darling?”
Marietta stiffened, as she did every time he used an endearment in the presence of anyone but Mother. She darted a glance to the other end of the room, but Osborne still sat with a book of sermons and a scowl, as he had most evenings for the week he had been with them. Why he read the things if they bothered him so, Devereaux couldn’t say.
“It would be my first social appearance.” She smoothed the pearl gray silk of her evening gown, a movement that was graceful, elegant, and shouted her nerves.
“And a fine time to ease back into such things. Do you not agree, Mother?”
His mother had been brought down an hour earlier, and though she had not moved from her chaise, her color was still good. Now she looked up with that sweet-as-molasses smile she always gave Marietta. “The Ellicotts are a fine family. I’m certain whatever invitation you decide to accept as your first appearance will be the perfect choice, Mari dear.”
More like whichever decision she made, Mother would scoff over it the moment Marietta left the room.
But if ever she detected her mother-in-law’s insincerity, Marietta hid the realization so well even Devereaux couldn’t find it. She sent a warm, unclouded smile to the chaise. “I would feel better about accepting any invitation if you were well enough to join me, Mother Hughes. I hate the thought of leaving you on your own for a whole evening.”
“Ah, c’est la vie. You mustn’t put your life on hold for me, dear. I shall be just fine.”
“You have French roots, do you not, Mrs. Hughes?” This came from the corner, though Osborne didn’t glance up from his page. Nor did he bother to keep his posture upright. He slouched in the chair like a university student amongst his peers—or like the common stock he was.
Both Mother and Marietta looked at him, both opened their mouths, both paused.
Now their guest looked up, his eyes keen despite his apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I meant the elder Mrs. Hughes.”
“It does get a bit confusing, doesn’t it?” Mother simpered and smoothed down her skirt too, though her gown hung on her after all the weight she had lost in recent months. “Perhaps you ought to call my dear daughter by her given name, like the rest of us, Mr. Osborne.”
Marietta pressed her lips tight. And because she obviously wanted to withhold her permission, Devereaux could smile and grant it. “You might as well. Though the answer to your question would be the same, whichever of them you asked.”
“That’s right.” Mother went back to her embroidery. She was working on a Union sash, though he knew it galled her. “My family is from French Louisiana, just outside New Orleans. My brother now owns the plantation on which I was raised. The Fortiers are known far and wide for the best sugar in the South.”
“And Marietta has French on both sides of her family.” Devereaux took a draw from his cigar and picked up the paper he had yet to read today. “Right, darling?”
She had a book by her side, though she hadn’t opened the cover. At his prod, she sent him a look that said she was perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation without his guidance. He grinned back.
Though she refrained from rolling her eyes, he had a feeling it took effort. Effort which she channeled into the smile she sent Mr. Osborne. “That’s right.” She drew the book into her lap. “My father’s father was French aristocracy. He fled to America with his parents in the face of the French Revolution. And my grandmother on my mother’s side is half-French as well, with a similar story. Except that Great-Grandmama Julienne ended up in England with my Great-Grandpapa Isaac.”
Osborne glanced between the two ladies. “I imagine that shared heritage bound the two of you together.”
The ladies were quick to agree, but Devereaux narrowed his eyes. Osborne obviously knew their loyalties were different, but something about the slant of his brows made Devereaux think he suspected more of Mother’s sentiments than he should have.
A detective ought to have keen powers of observation, he supposed. But still. He had no business using them to find the cracks in the foundation of the Hughes house.
Perhaps Mother felt it too. She shifted, refreshed her smile, and directed it to Marietta. “Entertain us, Mari. Recite something.” To Osborne she added, “Our Mari has an amazing ability to recall the written word.”
“Does she?” Osborne sat up a bit straighter. “Fascinating. Do you take requests, Mrs.—I mean, Marietta?”
Devereaux shifted. He didn’t much like hearing her name trip off his tongue after all, though it was a little late to rescind the invitation.
Running the tip of her finger along the edge of her book, she smiled. “That is one way to play the game, Mr. Osborne. But it is more fun if you recite a snippet of something, and I try to finish it and give you the reference.”
Always entertaining, assuming she was in company that enjoyed the same things she did. Though boredom snuck in fast if a bunch of pretentious gentlemen were present who insisted on tossing out Greek or Latin references, or the religious texts she so despised. The moment they ventured into those, she would demure and claim ignorance.
“All right.” Osborne sat straighter still, his nearly black eyes going narrow in thought. He glanced to Devereaux. “Why don’t you start us off, Hughes, while I think?”
“Very well.” He thought for a moment as he took another puff of his cigar. “Ah. ‘There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England.’ ”
How he loved the way the smile curled just the corners of her mouth. Every time he saw it, he wanted to kiss those corners until the smile bloomed full. “Really, Dev, that is hardly even sporting. You might as well have begun with ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ The next line is ‘There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France,’ and the book is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Mother Hughes, do show your son how to make this game challenging.”
Mother laughed, though no doubt later she would huff about Marietta’s audacity in insulting him before a guest. “All right. Hmm. Oh. ‘There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.’ ”
Marietta made a show of considering, though she wouldn’t have had to. Mother only ever quoted from three different books, and even Devereaux knew which one that line opened. She had used it in this game half a dozen times before.
She tapped her chin and tilted her head. “I do believe…no…is it—oh! Of course, your favorite, Mother Hughes. Jane Eyre. ‘We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning.’ ”
Mother clapped. “Your turn, Mr. Osborne.”
Osborne snapped his book shut. “ ‘But then, though we all hope to go to heaven when we die, yet, if we may judge by people’s lives, and our Lord says, “that by their fruits we may know them…’ ” ”
Marietta didn’t so much as blink. “ ‘I am afraid it will be found, that thousands, and ten thousands, who hope to go to this blessed place after death, are not now in the way to it while they live.’ Whitfield, ‘Marks of a True Conversion.’ ”
Devereaux ground out his cigar in the bronze ashtray beside him.
Osborne lifted a brow. “ ‘Down she came and found a boat/Beneath a willow left afloat—’ ”
“ ‘And round about the prow she wrote/The Lady of Shalott.’ Which is your answer, sir. Tennyson.”
Devereaux frowned. Marietta didn’t like poetry.
Their guest leaned forward, challenge making his eyes hard as onyx. “ ‘The analytical power should not be confounded with ample ingenuity…’ ”
“ ‘…for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis.’ ” She lifted her chin and stared Osborne down. “Edgar Allan Poe. ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ ”
Enough. Devereaux laughed and clapped along with his mother, ready to end whatever that had been. “When have you read Poe, darling? I cannot imagine it would suit your sensibilities.”
It took a long moment for her to look away from Osborne. And when she did, ice filled her eyes. Cold and hard and unyielding. Even when she smiled, it glinted like frost. “A lady must have her secrets, Dev.”
So long as they were a stash of sweets or a tawdry novel. The Poe he certainly didn’t care about. But that glint…that wouldn’t do.
“Oh, my.” Mother fussed with the lace of her shawl and pushed herself up. “I do believe I had better retire. Mari, dear, will you ring for Norris and Jess?”
Though her features thawed, it was a bit too late for Dev’s peace of mind. “Of course.”
Osborne stood, his movements languid but shoulders tense. “I think I will adjourn to the library if you will excuse me. That exhausted my literary acumen.”
Devereaux waited for Osborne to leave. For the slaves to get his mother from the room. For Marietta to meet the gaze he kept on her face for a solid two minutes during the exodus. And he was only marginally mollified when rather than just look to him, she joined him on the settee.
He let her settle at his side, let her send him her usual smile. Then he took her hand and held it fast. “You need to be more careful with him, darling.”
At least it was genuine bafflement in her pale green eyes. “Whatever do you mean, Dev? I never even speak to him but when you bring him here.”
True as that may be, it didn’t negate his concerns. He glanced to where Osborne had been sitting. “Explain that little exchange to me.”
Her cheeks flushed, her gaze fell to their hands, her fingers tightened around his. “I am sorry. I know such competitiveness isn’t becoming, and usually I curb it in company, but having grown up with three brothers…he looked just like Isaac, tossing out those obscure references.”
Devereaux studied her face, glanced at the flutter of the pulse in her neck, and noted the pressure she put upon his fingers. Nothing gave him any clue that she spoke amiss. That it was any more or any less than that. Still. “Just promise you will tread with care in his company. I cannot forget the look in his eye when he first spotted you.”
She was too savvy a flirt not to recognize jealousy. Too skilled a beauty not to know what it did to him when she looked at him like that, from under her lashes. When she traced a finger along the ridge of his knuckles, he wanted to lean over and kiss her, promises be hanged. “You needn’t worry, darling. He doesn’t even like me.”
“I find that infinitely hard to believe.”
Yet her smile was genuine, with just a touch of conspiracy. “Because you like me so well. But trust me, I know how to read men. He may like my face well enough, but that is where it ends.”
Was it? He knew how to read men too, and he was none too sure. But then, his expertise was not in that particular measure of them. “And what are your thoughts on him? I have yet to hear them.”
She shrugged, her shoulder gleaming alabaster in the light from the grate. Yes, he was glad to see her out of the suffocating styles of mourning. “I confess I fail to see why you are keeping him so close. Perhaps he is an able guard or detective or whatever he is, but he is hardly your usual choice of houseguest.”
How true. And how glad he was to hear her say it. “He hadn’t any other place to stay in Baltimore. It seemed logical.”
She sent him the look that had bound his heart to hers those four years ago. Tease, spice, wit, all joined together inside the most fetching form he had ever beheld. “And you, being ever so generous, took the poor soul in. A veritable hero.”
“And all yours.” He wanted to pull her closer, to hold her tight and remind her of how well suited they were. And he would have, if not for that blasted promise he had made her. “I suppose I should gather my unusual houseguest and leave you in peace.”
But she stayed him with a hand to his chest. “Not quite yet.” Her mischievous smile fading to a more yearning one, she leaned into his side and rested her head on his shoulder. “Give me a few moments first.”
Well. He was really in no hurry to go home.
She’d given him half an hour. So far as Marietta knew, Slade had actually spent it in the library—which would be foolish—but she was at least doing her part. Keeping Dev away while the servants were busy tending Mother Hughes.
A better time to search she couldn’t possibly have handed him. But more than half an hour would be pushing the boundaries. She had done her best to keep Dev relaxed and at ease, reminiscing with him about inconsequential things. Trailing a finger along the V of his waistcoat.
Wondering if the Lord would judge her for using her charms in such a way. Jael had acted similarly in Judges to kill the enemy king, Sisera, though. Perhaps not going so far as to snuggle to his side and thereby hold him immobile, but given the variance in their circumstances it surely wasn’t so different, was it? Jael had taken in the enemy, had given him milk when he asked for water, had invited him to lie down and rest.
And then she had plunged a tent stake through his head.
A shudder worked through her. She had tried to tell her mother the Bible was too gruesome a book for her to read, but Mama had just sent her one of those looks that had kept three boys in line and tapped another page.
Dev trailed a finger down her arm. “Are you chilled, darling? You have misplaced your wrap again.”
She knew that tone, warm and thick as syrup. Knew that in another moment, he would forget his promise and kiss her until she forgot too. Or if not forgot, at least pushed it aside. She had become skilled at the one over the years, since she could never accomplish the other.
And that, now, would not do.
“I suppose I should find it and bid you good night.” She pulled away, making sure her blink was heavy, tired.
She feared he would refuse to relinquish her, but with distance came reason. He let go with a sigh. “I suppose that is a wise idea.”
“Hmm.” She meandered over to the chair she had occupied before, picked up her shawl, and wrapped it around her. The hallways would be cold. “I’ll see you out.”
His arms closed around her from behind, though she hadn’t noticed him rise. “Soon enough you won’t have to. I am counting the days, my darling.”
Lord, give me strength. Praying still felt like moving a rusty gate—but one desperately needing to be opened. Heaven help her, but part of her still yearned for the feel of his arms. Her strength was not sufficient. Could not see her through this.
But His was made perfect through her weakness. If only she could remember to cling to that as easily as she recalled the words themselves.
“I am counting them too.” And there were only eighty-two. Eighty-two days until he would at the least announce his intentions, and at the most insist on a small, private ceremony that would bind them together for all time.
When she stepped toward the door, he followed. She glanced at Lucien’s study as they passed but saw no evidence of anyone having gone inside. Not that she knew what she expected to see.
Mr. Osborne, however, was as she had come to expect him. Perusing her shelves, though she still could not reconcile the figure he presented with the thought that he was an avid reader. He didn’t look the part, didn’t act the part. Even while he did it, he looked as though he would as soon toss the tomes into the fire as turn another page.
He had found Stephen’s books again. His sermons, his Bible, his beloved novels.
His photograph that fluttered to the floor when Mr. Osborne opened the cover of Kierkegaard’s Frygt og Bæven. Fear and Trembling. Stephen had worked for months trying to get enough of a handle on the Danish to read it.
“Sorry.” Mr. Osborne crouched down to retrieve the photograph, though rather than replace it, he studied it. “Pretty girl. A relation of yours, Marietta?”
She nearly shivered again when he said her name. Somehow it didn’t seem to belong on his lips. She moved forward, her hand outstretched. “I didn’t realize there was a photograph in there.”
Why could the man not just glance at her, or anything else, casually? It felt as though he were measuring the whole world, that he took note of everything. Every pulse, every shift, every breath.
He held out the thick paper, and she braved a half-second catch of his gaze before dropping hers to the photo.
Dev looked at it over her shoulder. “Isn’t that Miss Gregory?”
“Yes.” She nearly ripped the likeness in two. Might have, had she not been so closely watched. Glancing up at the question on Mr. Osborne’s face, she said, “Just someone my brother briefly courted.”
Someone. The one someone, other than Lucien, on whom they had ever disagreed. She had won that battle, had convinced him that Barbara Gregory was after nothing but his name and means.
Though if she had won, why did he have a photograph of a girl too poor to have afforded one on her own?
She was too tired for that question. And really, what did it matter? Stephen was gone.
Handing the paper back to Mr. Osborne, she let her gaze drop to the book. “Do you read Danish, sir?”
“Maybe.”
Her gaze flew to his face, where a grin hid in the corner of his mouth.
He shrugged and closed the cover over the photograph. “Maybe not. Do you?”
“No. But I could if I wanted.” Stupid, stupid thing to say. It may have earned a quick, gruff laugh from Slade Osborne, but that in turn earned her a scowl from Dev.
Marietta backed away and folded her arms over her middle. The Lord’s strength was having plenty of opportunity to be perfected in her tonight.