Devereaux spread out the pages on his brother’s desk, side by side until they covered the entire expanse upside down. The muscle in his jaw ticked, he clenched his teeth so tightly.
The telegram weighed heavy in his pocket. Defeat was certain. President Davis had authorized their worst-case-scenario plan.
And Devereaux had been charged with two vital tasks: rallying the men for the second rising sometime in the murky future, and burying a portion of the South’s hope. Gold. Rations. Weapons. Gunpowder. Medical supplies.
First, the physical. He braced himself on the edge of the desk and scowled at the papers. Though the fronts were covered in type, the backs hid the real information: a faint outline on each that would look like nothing but a mistaken mark of a pencil if taken individually. But together, they showed Maryland. The Southern state held by force in the Union, where those loyal to their roots couldn’t breathe a word of it lest they be seized. Maryland, with its thriving city of Baltimore and its western territories still largely wild.
Maryland—his domain. His to use as a hiding place for the stockpiled goods. All these years they had known it was a possibility, and so they had been readying the codes to guide future Knights to the caches. To hide them, he would utilize architecture by engraving symbols into stone and referencing landmarks. Structures unlikely to change in the next few years.
He glanced briefly into the empty space where Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, and the so-dubbed West Virginia lay. If necessary, he could venture into those areas. He might need to do so to plant the symbols. But for the treasure itself…
His eyes fell again on that narrow strip of western Maryland. The mountains would provide the perfect hiding places. There were still enough uncivilized places that they could get in and out without drawing attention, places where only the rails went. Whole valleys still untouched, protected by the natural barriers of the Appalachians.
A better hiding place he could not have designed.
Best of all, he knew the area well. Railroad business took him frequently to Cumberland, a town that had sprung up primarily to accommodate the passage west.
Noise from the hall caught his attention. Jess, if the tone of grumbling could be trusted, and her heavy tread. His gaze went to the clock, now free of dust. Much as he appreciated that Marietta accepted his presence enough to want the space clean for him, he still despised the thought of others, especially the slaves, treading so close to plans so vital. Lucien had trusted them, at least enough to carry the Knights’ secrets on under their noses.
The fool.
Devereaux shuffled his papers together and toed shut the drawer from which they had come. He was not usually away from the rail offices so early in the day, and he had no desire to fend off questions from the stupid, over-inquisitive slave of his mother’s. He crept to the paneling beside the curio cabinet, reached to the hidden latch behind the massive piece of furniture, and pressed. The click signaled the release of the lock, allowing him to open the panel like a door.
An icy draft radiated up the hidden stairwell. He grabbed a lantern from the cabinet, struck a match to light it, and stepped into the cold.
Fifteen steep steps later, golden light touched all corners of a small room. It didn’t hold much at first glance. An old table, a single chair, a few crates. Nothing upon the dirt walls shored up with wooden beams, nothing to attract attention.
Which was the point. If anyone ever stumbled upon this chamber, with any luck they would think it naught but an abandoned cellar connected to the oldest part of the house. Hence why first Lucien and now Devereaux used it to store the most vital and sensitive of the Copperhead documents.
He spread his papers out again on the table and set the lamp near them, pausing afterward to grab the wool coat shoved into one of the boxes. Warm enough then, he fished out a more complete map to put alongside the sketch and turned back to his perusal.
Caves—he needed caves. They were in short supply on the eastern side of the state, but in Allegany and Washington counties it was a different story. Years ago, he and Lucien and Father had explored the areas around which their rails were being run, and they had wandered through the countryside.
More than wandered, a few times. His gaze fell on the detailed map, the mountains between Hagerstown and Cumberland. That was where they had been when he and Lucien had ventured far into a cave and then stumbled across a vast cavern buried deep in the hills. He had been but a boy, no more than ten or eleven, but such a cavern could not be forgotten.
A cavern big enough to hold all the gold he had stockpiled. All the gunpowder barrels. Weapons, even cannons. It was big enough to hide anything that would fit through its mouth. And yet no one knew about it—the locals claimed they had no caves.
Pulling out paper and pencil from the box, he sat on the uncomfortable chair and got down to business. First a list of all the items he would be responsible for storing, most of which had not been sent to him yet. But as they arrived he would load them into his private train cars, ready for a trip into the mountains…
First, though, he must take a trip himself, and better sooner than later. A week from now, perhaps, after a few important meetings. A fortnight at the outside.
And while he collected the goods, Booth and Surratt and Osborne and whoever else they brought in could be taking care of the King Abe nonsense. He would do well to separate himself from that, if President Davis expected him to remain in good standing with both North and South to effect the next uprising.
He pulled out his pocket watch. Another hour until those gentlemen were scheduled to join him in the more accessible part of the basement lair. That would give him plenty of time to complete his lists and update the membership based on the latest casualty reports.
A creak from above jarred him half an hour later, and Devereaux straightened on his chair. Perhaps Marietta had returned from wherever she had gone—likely her grandmother’s house, given that it was Tuesday. The thought was incentive enough to put his work and coat away and climb the steep stairs again. If he could steal a few minutes alone with her, perhaps he could charm her into his arms.
Distance didn’t suit him at all. Not when she was forever a few feet away, looking so dashed alluring. The mere sight of her heated his blood. And if he thought of her kisses…
Devereaux replaced the lantern, eased around the desk and to the door that opened into the garden. Warm sunshine touched his face when he stepped outside, a welcome reprieve from the icy cellar. He headed for the carriage house to see if she had returned.
He was nearly to it when movement caught his eyes. A swishing skirt, to be sure, but not the one he wanted.
Had she continued on her path, or retreated into the shadows as she usually did when he passed by, Devereaux would have said nothing. Cora might have been an entertaining diversion for a night, but a taste was all he had needed to assure himself she didn’t satisfy him for long.
But the way she halted, her eyes wide with terror. The way she reached behind her…
He too came to a lazy stop a good stone’s throw away and arched his brows.
She swallowed and backed up half a step, her hand still behind her. “You need somethin’, Mr. Dev?”
“Well, now.” For the pure pleasure of watching her quake, he swept his gaze down her. She was breeding again, apparently—and apparently had been for a while, though he hadn’t looked at her long enough to notice. “Kind as it is of you to offer, I prefer my women with a waist.”
The way her face twisted nearly made him laugh. Though his attention was snagged by a little blond head that peeked from behind her skirt. Her brat. Lucien’s, from the looks of her, though his brother had always sworn he needed no concubine after marrying Marietta.
His gaze went back to Cora’s petrified face. “What are you doing out here this time of day? Don’t you have cleaning to do?”
“Yes, sir. I just…Miss Mari said…yes, sir.”
Miss Mari said what? He nearly asked, but what did it matter? “Speaking of Miss Mari—is she back yet?”
“No, sir. Not yet.”
No point in continuing to the carriage house, then. He dismissed the slave with a flick of the wrist and headed instead to the side of the house they so rarely used, especially in the past fifteen months. Much of it was taken up by the ballroom—a chamber that had been draped all this time in the silence of mourning. The rest were guest rooms also not needed recently.
The hedges had been let to grow around this side of the house, which allowed the Knights to slip in as they pleased without being seen. Once in the darkened room locked from the rest of the house, he followed the usual path. Through the concealed door, down the stairs, and along the long tunnel.
No light burned in the meeting room. He must still be a few minutes ahead of the others. No matter. He lit a lamp, laid the fire, and prepared the coffee.
They had plans to make.
“No. That is unacceptable. It must be before the inauguration.”
Slade leaned back against the wall beside the fireplace, his arms folded as he watched Booth pace the room. He knew well his line was a thin one to walk. He had to appear every bit as frustrated as they, encourage them, and yet speak reason. “We can try. But you wanted the truth.”
Surratt tapped his pen against the table, his gaze flickering from the pacing Booth to the brooding Hughes. “Osborne is no doubt right, Booth. It is when they will expect us to move. Lincoln will be too closely guarded.”
“I was the first to insist that Osborne find us a way, but in reality this second inauguration changes nothing.” Hughes pushed himself up and dumped the dregs of his coffee into the fire. “We may simply not be able to act beforehand.”
“Still, we must try. Think of all the soldiers we could get released with him as ransom.”
Slade swallowed. No doubt they were right about that. But they might be surprised by Lincoln himself if they succeeded in capturing him. The president underwent trial each and every day of his life, and he stood tall under it. And not just because of his height.
Their three gazes fell on him, as if awaiting a response. What did they want? His opinion on how many soldiers they could get in exchange for Lincoln? He had no way of knowing, so he had no reason to opine. He unfolded his arms and meandered to a map tacked to the wall. “Escape route?”
“Ah.” Booth leapt to his side, eyes alight. “I have been working on one for months. Assuming we take him in Washington, we will make first for the Mudd plantation twenty-five miles out. Mudd is a doctor, so if we need any medical aid, he will no doubt give it.”
Slade glanced at Hughes and tried to recall if he had seen the name on the list of KGC members. He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be sure. He needed a copy of that list. “Is he one of us?”
Hughes shook his head. “He is a slave owner, though, who has been hit hard by the prospect of losing his labor force. Booth feels certain he can be swayed.”
His noncommittal grunt was drowned out by the rattling of a carriage directly over them. Though not so much as a pebble tumbled down, it still made his shoulders tense.
Surratt inclined his head toward Hughes. “It sounds as though the missus is home.”
“Time to adjourn.” Their host went about extinguishing the fire. “Osborne, try to sound out your friends for a weak spot in their protection before the inauguration. But if there simply is none, look for one afterward.”
Booth took his hat from the table and tapped it into place, taking a moment to smooth his pomaded curls around it afterward. “I will keep you updated as to where I am staying. Or you can always reach Surratt at his mother’s boarding house.”
Hughes shooed them toward the exit. “You fellows and those you trust must see to this. I will be out of town on other Confederacy business soon.”
They all fell into a line to leave, Surratt saying something that sounded like agreement but which was interrupted by Booth’s mumble about the imbecility of the Confederacy. Hughes ignored them both and waved them all into the dark stairwell, shutting the door to the meeting room behind him.
No doubt their host was eager to greet his would-be missus.
Slade let the past hour spin through his mind as they took the shadowed journey up the stairs and into the never-used ballroom with its outside entrance. They apparently already had a location in mind for where they would hold Lincoln if they managed to kidnap him, but they hadn’t named it. Just kept referring to it as “the hideout.” Still too soon, he supposed, to have their complete trust.
The men filed into the ballroom one by one. Hughes closed the paneled door behind them and then peeked out the one into the hedge. He waved Booth and Surratt out. No one said a word as they slipped into the evergreen shroud and from there into the open. Booth and Surratt vanished down the alley. A few moments later, Hughes led Slade to the front door.
No one opened it for them, which was no doubt why the man’s face contorted into a hard scowl. He pushed the heavy wood open himself, but then he stopped so abruptly that Slade nearly ran into his back.
No surprise, given the picture within. All of the servants dashed about, Walker and Norris and old Pat carrying trunks, the women bandboxes and wrapped packages. Headed, not for the main stairs, but the ones leading to the side of the house from which Slade and Hughes had just come.
Mrs. Hughes stood at the base of the steps, pale and seeming in shock, while her redheaded minx of a daughter-in-law laughed with a woman Slade had never seen before. Though there was something vaguely familiar about her… He frowned at the frayed black dress the guest wore, the threadbare shawl.
Not Marietta Hughes’s usual company. Which stirred up all sorts of questions.
“Mari?” Hughes moved another step into the chaos, sidestepping a box full of…photographs? When the women looked his way, he went still again, and stiff as ice. Slade slid off to his side and closed the door behind him. Hughes smiled, but it looked about as friendly as a rattlesnake’s tail. “Miss Gregory, isn’t it?”
“It used to be.” Marietta’s grin, if Slade weren’t mistaken, contained a hint of smugness. Which was odd, given her reaction to the photograph he now remembered to be where he’d first seen the woman. “Though for some years now it has apparently been Barbara Arnaud. Gentlemen, allow me to introduce my sister-in-law, Stephen’s widow. Barbara, you no doubt remember Devereaux Hughes, and this is his guest, Slade Osborne.”
“Ma’am.” Slade stepped up when Hughes remained still, took her hand, kissed it. And knew with one glance into Barbara Arnaud’s serene face that he would like this woman. That peace in her eyes called his mother to mind. And it didn’t hurt any that Hughes was obviously less than thrilled with her presence.
“How good to meet you, Mr. Osborne.” Her voice was soft, both in volume and texture. She turned from him to Hughes. “So good to see you again, Mr. Hughes.”
Hughes took her hand, but too slowly. Bowed over it, but didn’t kiss her knuckles.
Slade shot a glance to Marietta, who smirked back at him.
She stepped nearer, and light from the window angled over her. It lit the flame of her hair and set to glowing the pearls around her neck.
Familiar pearls. Three of them on a thin strand of gold. Slade frowned. The very same three pearls he had seen that bizarre night on the wife of the tall old man. He hadn’t had time to slip away and discover who they were. All he had managed to verify was that a ship still bobbed in the harbor with Masquerade painted on her hull.
“From the looks of it,” Hughes said to Mrs. Arnaud, “you will be visiting for a while.”
“Indefinitely.” Marietta looped her arm through her guest’s and pulled her a step away from Hughes. “I’m afraid that since she and Stephen married in secret, she has been living all this time in a part of town of which my brother would disapprove. We are going to remedy that and welcome her to the family properly.”
Though Hughes’s smile stretched, it looked no more welcoming. “How good of you.” His gaze tracked the servants disappearing up the side staircase. “Where have you put her?”
“The suite of rooms on the third floor, above the ballroom. They will be most to her liking and provide her the privacy to which she is accustomed.” Marietta, unlike her suitor, beamed with pleasure at the prospect.
Odd indeed. Slade had seen her flock of friends several times now, and they were all the same. Women of means, of important families. Women who arranged their faces in masks and whose eyes always snapped with calculation. Like Marietta’s so often did.
This one was different. The kind of different that made him wonder not just about Barbara Arnaud, but about Marietta. Because had anyone asked, he would have said she never would have invited someone like this sister-in-law of hers into her house. Not for an hour, much less indefinitely. And she sure wouldn’t have looked so pleased about it.
Curious indeed.
Hughes found it more distasteful than intriguing, given that glint in his eye. Perhaps he didn’t like the idea of someone living right above the entrance to his castle. “How lovely. Why don’t you let Mother show her to her rooms, darling? It has been too long since she had the pleasure of welcoming a guest properly.”
Because he kept his gaze on the women, Slade saw the shift. Calculation reentered Marietta’s eyes, and questions sprang to life in Mrs. Arnaud’s at that darling. Questions colored with shadows. Sorrow, perhaps. Suspicion. Maybe a splash of disappointment.
Mrs. Arnaud, it would appear, was no fonder of Devereaux Hughes than he was of her.
Well. This ought to make things interesting in the Hughes house.
Mrs. Hughes took her cue to come down the last step, her sugary smile pasted into place. Marietta slowly released her friend’s arm. “Of course. Barbara dear, I’ll be right up to help you settle in.”
The guest’s smile wavered around the edges. “All right.” Obviously too polite to argue, Mrs. Arnaud turned to Hughes’s mother.
The son took Marietta by the arm. “A word, darling.”
Slade’s fingers curled into his palm. Not at the endearment, which he had grown used to hearing—mostly—but at the tone. And the grip. It mollified him only slightly when Marietta’s chin came up. When her lips turned in a flinty smile.
She glanced at Slade over her shoulder as Hughes pulled her toward the parlor. “I put a new book out for you, Mr. Osborne.”
“Thanks.” But he made no move toward the library. Not with Hughes’s face blurring in his mind with his own brother-in-law’s. Marietta and his sister didn’t seem like the same type of woman. He wanted to think this one before him now wouldn’t suffer a man striking her.
But then, he hadn’t thought Jane would either.
Neither noticed him trailing behind them, pausing outside the parlor door.
Marietta pulled her arm free of Hughes’s grip the moment they were inside. “Is something the matter, Dev?”
Planting his hands on his hips, he glared at her. “What is going on with you, Marietta? You despise her, you always have. Yet now you invite her to share your home?”
Her chin went up another notch, her eyes glinting more. She shifted away from the door. If he didn’t know better, Slade would have thought for sure she was drawing Hughes’s attention toward the opposite direction, away from him. Nonsense, of course.
“Stephen loved her enough to marry her. Enough to marry her in secret, which would have been a hard decision for him. If he loved her so much, then obviously I misjudged her.”
“Mari, you know your brother…”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. Cat eyes, no question. “I know my brother what?”
Hughes’s hands came up in surrender. Apparently Stephen Arnaud was sacred ground that even he respected. “Nothing. But you are not one to change your mind once you have made it. I don’t understand—”
“I don’t expect you to understand. I just expect you to be civil.”
Hughes folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t like her. And I don’t want her in my house.”
Those cat eyes threw sparks. Slade half expected her to hiss and bare her claws. “She isn’t in your house, Devereaux. She’s in mine.”
He took a step closer to her. Did it look as menacing from her angle as it did from the hall? Perhaps not, given that she didn’t so much as flinch.
“There is very little difference, darling. And there will be none in a few short months when you are my wife.”
She sashayed a step nearer to him too, charm coming off her in waves as her eyes went from slitted to hooded and her lips quirked. Her fingers walked up his chest. “And until then, darling…she stays.”
His growl didn’t scare her off. She didn’t pull away when he slid an arm around her waist. “It is a foolish move, one you will soon regret. And Mother didn’t like her when your brother introduced them.”
Her head tilted, scarlet curls cascading. “Nor did she like me. But she gets on well enough pretending. I’m sure she can do the same with Barbara.”
Slade pressed his lips together against a laugh and slid to his left to remain out of sight when Hughes jerked away a step. “Whatever are you talking about, Mari?”
She sent her eyes heavenward. “Do you think me such a fool I cannot tell when another woman dislikes me?”
“Hmm.” Apparently seeing no reason to continue the charade, he slid close again. “Yet you have never been less than kind to her.”
“She is my mother-in-law.” Her voice changed as she said that. Went from insistent, even seductive to…warm. Sincere. As if that bond were enough for her, enough to create what affection had not.
A testament, in Slade’s mind, to the family from which she came, to have given her such respect for the institution.
As Hughes pulled her to him, she wrapped her arms around him. And then settled her gaze on Slade with such calm that he retreated a step. She had obviously been aware of his presence the whole time. And now she looked at him, not with censure for eavesdropping, but with warning. The kind that seemed sympathetic rather than threatening.
A flick of her fingers, a darting of her eyes toward the library, and over Hughes’s shoulder she mouthed the word Go.
Good advice. Hughes didn’t seem likely to strike her at this point, but he would have no compunction about leveling a fist at Slade’s nose if he caught him there. A fate she wished him spared? Or did she just not want him watching anymore?
Either way, the twist of his gut as he watched Hughes hold her tight convinced him to obey. He turned and crept to the library. Then hissed out a breath at his own stupidity. What was he doing? His gut had no business twisting, not over them. Over her. She was nothing to him. Nothing but Hughes’s puppet, his future bride.
So what if she had helped him once or twice? Probably just to keep her darling Dev happy like a good little woman. Keep him from finding out something that would upset him and thereby spoil their evening.
He rubbed a hand over his face and realized he still wore his bowler. Sweeping it off, he slung it toward his usual chair and paced to the table beside it. He had no business liking her, not when he disliked Hughes so much, and they were so obviously similar. In love. Marietta Arnaud Hughes might recognize that her beau was a monster, but it never stopped her from falling happily into his arms.
He scooped up the book sitting out on the table. So he found her beautiful. He was a healthy man. That ranked as “obviously.” Maybe her peculiar wit made him smile. Also no great surprise. That didn’t mean he had to let a simple attraction have any effect on him. He would do what he could to make sure Hughes didn’t hurt her, but when his business here was done, she would have to answer to her own allegiances.
And they were poor ones, so she had better steel herself for the consequences.
His gaze fell to the book in his hands. And his lips pulled up. The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Nice. As if she knew well he was judging her and was trying to tell him anyone could change.
More likely, just a book she had spotted that fit with the others she had seen him reading.
Seeing a slip of paper sticking out, he opened it to the marked page. A passage was underlined in faint pencil. By Marietta or her brother? He scanned it and sighed. Augustine’s conversion. He shifted the book, moving the spine enough that the slip of paper tilted to the other side, revealing three words written upon it, in a script undeniably feminine. Under the cushion.
First his eyes went back to the page. A note on the text?
No. He looked instead at the chair in which he always sat. The very one he had been in the other day when she burst in upon him and hadn’t even seen him through her tears.
Surely not. Surely this was just some note randomly placed here years before. A reminder of…to…what? No answers sprang to mind. But it couldn’t be for him.
Still, what was he to do but lower the book and reach for the cushion?
When he spotted the key to the desk drawer, he forgot to breathe. A measure of peace settled upon him as he picked it up and put the cushion back. But why would she give it to him?
“Have you read that one yet, Mr. Osborne?”
He spun at her voice. “Too long ago to remember much.”
“Then a revisit should suit you.” She moved toward him in that way she had—smooth, graceful, but not like some of the other women he’d seen, who could balance books upon their head. Her grace was more…liquid. Feline, to match her eyes. She halted a foot shy of her skirt brushing him. “You could have kept it.”
Then she could have told him so at the time. He shrugged, tilted his head, and focused his gaze on those pearls. “Nice necklace. New?”
“Old. Very old.” Her eyes lit with a mischievous smile as she touched the gems. “My grandmother just gave it to me. It has been in our family since the days of the Revolution.”
“Your grandmother.” Gwyneth Lane then, as her other grandmother lived somewhere in New England. Which meant that “Mister” was Thaddeus Lane. He should have known. Merchant, soldier, father-in-law of Commodore Jack Arnaud, and, from what he had gathered when researching Marietta’s family, loved by most everyone he knew—and he knew everyone.
Somehow, having the name didn’t answer any of his questions.
“Keep it.” She nodded toward the hand that still held the key.
Because she looked ready to pivot and leave, he moved. And wished he hadn’t when his fingers enclosed her wrist and awareness hit like lightning. The way she paused, he wondered at first if she felt it too.
But no, it no doubt just reminded her of the way Hughes had grabbed her minutes earlier. She looked from his hand to his eyes, her gaze going hard.
Still, he didn’t let go. Not yet. “Marietta.” He tried to keep his tone even. He failed. It came out quiet and strained. “Be careful. This is no game.”
“One might turn that warning right around on you.” Her voice matched his. Then her eyes thawed, and the mischief returned to them. “You ought to pay my grandparents another visit, Slade. Grandmama has begun a very nice painting of you.”
“Of me?” His hand fell away from her wrist. In part because she obviously knew about his midnight visit there if she saw such a thing. In part because of the painting itself. “She barely saw me.”
Her lips turned up to match her eyes. “A glimpse is all she ever requires.” She took a step toward the door. “Do put that item somewhere safe, won’t you?”
He slid it into his pocket, the safest place he had at the moment. “Aren’t you curious?”
She paused again and lifted her brows.
He had to appreciate a woman who could speak without words. “About what’s in there.”
Tilting her head, she smiled again. “You’re assuming I didn’t look.”
True. But surely if she had, she wouldn’t sit idly back. Would she? “Did you?”
“Briefly.” She turned to the door again.
“Briefly.” What did that mean? What had she seen? Enough to know that she made her bed in a den of Copperheads, or just enough to know she didn’t want to look any further?
Halfway to the door, she glanced at him over her shoulder. Her smile still lingered, but the mischief had abandoned it. “That’s all I require, Slade. Just a glimpse.”