Slade slid further into the room, out of the way of Hughes. Mrs. Hughes murmured something about returning directly and rushed after her son, but Slade paid no attention to the swish of her skirts as she passed. He kept his gaze on Marietta.
The trauma of the day cloaked her, sloping her shoulders, darkening her eyes. He caught her gaze, held it, and waited. The thoughts swirled over her countenance, coming to a rest not on fear or exhaustion, but on regret. She twisted a handkerchief around her fingers and sighed. “I’m sorry, Slade. You don’t have to guard me. He’s overreacting. But you can use the time to do whatever you must.”
He took a few steps until he stood right in front of her. Close enough to see the S.O. on the handkerchief in her hands. Close enough to see the angry red of the scrapes on her cheek. Close enough to see all that churned through her thoughts. “You knew him.”
He expected her to look away, perhaps to narrow her eyes in denial. Instead, a spark of amusement flashed in them, and a fraction of a sad smile touched her lips. “Must you be so good at your job, Detective?”
His smile was no bigger, but not so sorrowful. “Why are you protecting him?”
Her breath easing out, she sank onto her seat again. Slade crouched down to avoid towering over her. Her gaze went contemplative. “He did work here some years ago—painting. He had eight children and a sickly wife, and now he is missing a foot. I can only imagine the hardships his family faces.”
Two months ago he wouldn’t have believed her capable of being so moved by compassion. But then, he had read her wrong in a lot of ways. He settled his hand on top of hers, joined over his handkerchief. “You can’t excuse what he did to you.”
“Desperation will drive people to lengths they never expected.” She looked down and swallowed. “I asked Cora and Walker to put together some necessities and food. I added a bit of cash to see them through.”
She intended to feed the family of the man who had attacked her? No, he never would have expected that, even now. Slade pushed to his feet. Moving to the other side of the S-shaped sofa, he sat, leaning back so he could still see her face. “I’ll go with Walker when he takes it.” Heaven knew the man probably lived in a lousy part of town, one Walker oughtn’t to have to venture into alone.
Besides. He’d like to see the man’s face when they handed him a gift from his victim. Judge for himself if Marietta was making a wise move or inviting extortion.
Her eyes went wide. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.”
“And you don’t have to guard me.”
“I want to.”
She stared at him, her feline eyes still wide and suspiciously damp. Her “Why?” came out as no more than a wisp.
The wisp echoed through him far longer than it should have.
He pulled in a breath and savored it for a moment. Then let himself reach out and brush away the scarlet curl touching her cheek. “Because you matter.”
The sentiment ought not to take her by surprise. Her family would move heaven and earth for her. Hughes would kill for her. Yet disbelief glimmered in her eyes. “Why?”
“Don’t.” He draped his arm over the curved back between them and found her hands. Took one, lifted it, and held it to his lips. He could handle most things he came across in this life. He could face the gray that had taken over the world. But it shouldn’t steal her vibrancy. She’d still been bright after death and loss, after learning the truth of the Hugheses. This couldn’t break her—not a simple mugging, so despicably common in Baltimore. He wouldn’t let it. “Don’t question that.”
She blinked and presented him with her profile. Her fingers slipped from his and tangled again with the square of cotton. “Would you read to me, Slade?”
Another breath filled his lungs and eased back out. “Sure.” Given that no book rested nearby to indicate she’d been reading it, he reached into his pocket for the prayer book.
He opened to the ribbon that marked where he’d left off that morning. “ ‘Eternal Father, it is amazing love, that Thou hast sent Thy Son to suffer in my stead, that Thou hast added the Spirit to teach, comfort, guide, that Thou hast allowed the ministry of angels to wall me round…’ ”
The words of the prayer twined through him, shoring up the places inside that always threatened to topple. The writer obviously knew God with intimacy…yet just as obviously felt like a miserable, hateful worm. Deserving of rejection, but so very aware of the ever-forgiving love of the Father. Slade prayed Marietta would feel the same assurance. That though she was as sinful and proud and unworthy as the rest of humanity, she was also as loved.
By the end of the page, Mrs. Hughes had come back into the room and settled into a chair. Slade glanced her way once or twice. Looking, he admitted, for the lie in her countenance. It had always been there before, no matter how sweet or caring her words to her daughter-in-law.
Not so today. Today, the pain she’d voiced to her son on the stairs seemed genuine and consuming. Today she seemed finally to look on Marietta as a daughter instead of an interloper. What a shame it had taken violence to achieve that. And what a shame it came so late, when their world was about to crumble.
Maybe that was part of God’s plan too. His way of knitting them together when they were sure to need the support soon.
A thought that shouldn’t pierce so deep, that Slade would only get to be the destroyer here, not the comforter.
He had turned the page twice more when he felt the weight of Marietta’s head on his shoulder and became aware of the deep, even cadence of her breathing. Because he had to fight the urge to press his lips to the top of her head, he looked again to Mrs. Hughes, sure she wouldn’t approve of the posture. With his luck, she would even guess at his restrained intent.
Her frown shone soft, concerned. “The poor dear. It must have frightened her so, to find herself in the same position that proved to be Lucien’s last.”
Slade nodded, because it surely had. But his mind went back to the stairs again, when Hughes had heard the words from his mother. Just like Lucien. Something had flickered across his face, something of a different shade than fear.
Slade’s chest went tight as his gaze tracked back to the red curls spilling over his shoulder. He knew exactly what Hughes had been feeling—a soul-wrenching rejection of the thought of losing her. The same had rendered Slade immobile at the foot of the steps throughout the Hugheses’ conversation, too distressed to move. First at the scare, then at the wonder of feeling it so acutely.
Hughes wouldn’t wonder at it. No more than he would linger to give comfort when he could instead rush out to find vengeance.
His loss.
“Thank you for agreeing to protect her, Mr. Osborne.” Mrs. Hughes brushed a flaxen lock away from her face. “I don’t know what we would do if we lost her. Devereaux loves her so.”
Did she have any idea how much? Did she know her eldest—and now only—son had killed for her? That he had loved her long before he should have?
Slade forced what he could manage of a smile and told himself not to judge. Was he, after all, any better? He had known very well she and Hughes had an understanding when he came on the scene, but it hadn’t stopped him from feeling that intrigue. From kissing her once and wanting to more.
But he never would have touched her had she been married. He was still none too sure Hughes could claim the same…though now the uncertainty clawed. Now he didn’t want to believe that Marietta would engage in something so base as an affair with one brother while married to the other.
Commotion downstairs made him shift, which in turn made Marietta’s breath catch and her head lift again. He didn’t know whether to focus on the plethora of voices drawing nearer or the pained, muted whimper that slipped from the woman beside him.
The woman won out. He turned to see her better as she lifted a hand to touch her cheek, her eyes clouded.
If it weren’t for the audience and the couch’s curved back between them, he would have wrapped his arms around her. Probably a good thing circumstances didn’t permit that. “Are you all right?”
A veil came down over the pain in her eyes, and a smile appeared on her lips. The same imitation of one he’d seen from her when he first arrived, which he now knew was but a dim reflection. “A minor irritation, nothing more.”
Mrs. Hughes leapt up to fuss again, fluttering her hands uselessly about Marietta’s face. “The bruising is beginning to show, and it will take weeks to fade. I’m afraid you shall have to postpone your plans to attend a ball with Devereaux, dear. And your new gown just arrived! Such a shame.”
“Yes. A shame.” She darted a glance at Slade, so quick he would have missed it had he not been watching her steadily.
Steadily enough to know there was no regret within her over that.
Well, he wouldn’t torture himself by sticking around to be interrogated by the brothers whose voices he now recognized on the stairs. He sent Marietta a small grin as he stood and moved to the edge of the room. With any luck, the Arnauds wouldn’t even notice him.
Mrs. Arnaud led the way into the room, a surge of blue satin aimed straight for her daughter. Slade caught the concern on her face, one echoed stormily upon her sons’.
They wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. He edged out the door before either Hezekiah or Isaac could spot him, pivoting into the hall—and nearly smacking into the lanky figure of Thaddeus Lane.
The old man greeted him with a smile and jerked his head toward the stairs. He followed him down, along the hall, and all the way to the side door. Only when they were out in the halfhearted March sunshine did Slade speak. “Did Hughes find you?”
“Briefly.” Lane made a face and directed his stride toward the carriage house. “I gave him just enough information to keep him busy. Is Mari still determined to protect the man?”
What could he do but huff? “Yeah.”
Her grandfather chuckled. “When that girl decides to change, she doesn’t do it by half measures.” He charged into the dim interior of the stable. “We had better hurry. Julie and the boys will fuss a good while, but they will eventually notice I’m gone.”
Slade didn’t have to ask to realize the man intended the same thing he did, to accompany Walker on his errand. And when Walker glanced up from the wagon he was loading, his expression looked about how Slade’s felt. They were all of the same mind, and no one wasted time with words. Lane and Slade lent a hand with the last two boxes, and then they loaded themselves in.
The reins fit Walker’s hands like a natural extension, and the two horses responded as one to the single click of his tongue. “I had a feeling I would have some company,” he said as he directed them toward the alley. “Fool woman.”
Lane chuckled. “I admire her for wanting to help.”
“But?” Walker sent him a sideways glance.
The old man shrugged. “But I don’t know the man. And I don’t feel very gracious to anyone who would hurt my granddaughter.”
Slade snorted. He wasn’t feeling particularly gracious either. But as he settled in among the boxes in the back, he didn’t want to err on the side of Hughes. He let his gaze settle on the house as they rumbled away from it. Marietta was safe there, at least when surrounded by family.
Soon the buildings towering around him weren’t so hopeful, nor so unravaged by the war. Soot marred them, paint peeled and chipped, mortar crumbled. The pedestrians wore threadbare garments, and some of the children were barefoot despite the fact that winter hadn’t completely let go of its hold yet.
Questions churned in Slade’s mind. “Say, Lane. Did they ever catch Lucien’s murderer?”
The old man turned on the bench. “No. You don’t think the same…?” He glanced ahead of them.
“No reason to think so. Just curious. How long did Devereaux search?”
Lane pursed his lips and looked to Walker. “Longer than the police cared to keep looking into another random mugging-gone-awry. A month, maybe.”
Walker turned his head enough to catch Slade’s gaze, to share his thoughts. “He loves Yetta a whole lot more than he loved his brother, though. He’s gonna be a dog with a bone over this.”
“He won’t have anything to go on unless Mari or I give him a description.” Amusement, of all things, lit the old man’s yellow-brown eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he hired you to find him, Oz.”
“Nah. He’ll want to do that himself.” Half his mouth tugged upward. “He hired me to protect her in the meantime.”
“Convenient. And stupid.” Lane chuckled as he shook his head. “He honestly doesn’t see it? He, who is usually so jealous of anyone who looks twice at her?”
Wariness whipped through him, made him struggle to find a more comfortable position against the rough-hewn wood. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Lane rolled his eyes. “Thunder and turf, man, what good does it do to lie to yourself about it? When I met my Gwyn, I knew within three weeks she would be my wife.”
Wife? When did they start talking about wives? He turned his gaze on Walker. Surely he, who had already given him a talking-to on the subject of Marietta, would pipe up and help him wiggle out of this conversation.
Walker remained mute.
Lane didn’t. “Don’t look to him for help. He’d only known Cora a week or two before they married. Sometimes you just know.”
Yeah, well. “I don’t.” He didn’t know much of anything, not when it came to Marietta.
“No?” Lane leaned over the bench’s back, eyes narrowed. “How did you feel when you learned she was attacked?”
That stab of powerlessness came back too fast, too strong. No matter what he did to try to stop a few evil men, more always came, eager to destroy what mattered most.
She could have been killed. He could have lost her, and he wouldn’t even have the right to grieve. He wouldn’t have anything but another hollow place to carry inside him.
“That’s what I thought.” Lane turned back around, but Slade had no trouble imagining the smug smile he would be wearing.
Walker sent a glower Slade’s way. “You’d better be careful. Real careful. If Hughes realizes his error in assigning you to her, he’ll make up for it with a bullet.”
This is why he preferred the company of men like Herschel, who knew the value of holding their tongues. “I’ll keep her safe. That’s all.”
“I know you will, otherwise I’d try to convince her again to go home to her mother.” Lane turned just enough to reveal the edges of that smile. “That will go a long way with her brothers, you know. Protecting her and eventually getting Dev away from her. And Jack will approve of you, I have no doubt. That will matter to Mari.”
Jack…as in, her father? Approve of him? Slade shook his head, but it did nothing to ward off the strange itch in his chest. “You’re crazy, old man.”
“You’re the one who just said you were in love with my granddaughter. I’m merely providing you some hope as to how well you’ll fit into the family.”
The wagon bed might as well have dropped out from under him. “I did not.”
“Not with words. But then…” Lane turned more toward him, revealing his full, frustrating grin. “Since when do you need them?”
Slade folded his arms and focused his eyes on the faded buildings rolling by. There was nothing to do but ignore him.