Not since Lucien’s death had so many people crowded into Marietta’s house. She had attended aid meetings aplenty the past seventeen months, with just as many fluttering females, but never had she wanted to snarl at them as she did today.
So she brightened her smile and made it a point not to touch the scrape on her cheek. It itched, but if she touched it, the bruise would throb. And everyone would look at her. Her mother and Barbara and Mother Hughes with concern—even that irritated her today—and her neighbors and so-called friends with an interest bordering on delight. In their eyes, it was merely exciting that she had been mugged. They reveled in the injuries and cajoled her to tell the story.
She nearly wept with relief when the gaggle made their exit.
Mother Hughes arranged a bonnet over her flaxen curls and sent Marietta a look at once so very welcome and so very stifling. Finally, the woman’s eyes held no veiled animosity, but in the past forty-three hours, she had scarcely let Marietta out of her sight. “Are you certain you do not mind me visiting with Bulah this afternoon, dear? I hate to leave you alone.”
Please, please leave me alone. She felt ungracious even thinking the thoughts, but they wouldn’t go away. All she could do was sweeten her smile and pray her heart would match it. “I am hardly alone.” She motioned to her mother and Barbara. And beyond them, to the corner in which Slade had taken up residence. She had fully expected him to disappear when the hordes of women arrived, but instead he had become a shadow.
Smart of him, which she realized when an acquaintance who had seen them at the theater looked his way with arched brows, obviously recognizing him. And just as obviously recognizing the stance he now took. Guard, employee. Servant.
The women paid him no more heed, other than an occasional stolen glance. Those, no doubt, were merely because he looked as alluring as ever, scowling at his current book in that way he always did.
Not that Marietta stole any glances.
“If you’re certain.” Mother Hughes gave her a careful embrace, as if she feared hurting her. “Can I fetch you anything on my way home?”
Some of the resentment faded. “Thank you, but I have all I need. Enjoy your afternoon, Mother Hughes.”
Barbara came to her side the moment Mother Hughes left it. “What shall we do this afternoon, Mari? I can set up a game, or read to you, or—”
“Nonsense.” Mama, bless her, put her hands to Barbara’s elbows and pointed her toward the door. “It is your afternoon at the hospital, and I am accompanying you.”
Barbara’s horrified expression would have been amusing had it not been so sincere. “But Mari—”
“Needs some quiet.” Mama shot her a knowing grin. “She likes coddling for exactly a day after injury or illness, after which she may just bite the hand trying to spoil her. Right, dearest?”
Why had the Lord blessed her with such a family? A father who adored her and a mother who understood her so well, though they were nothing alike. She leaned over to kiss her matron’s cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”
“I only wish I could take it from you entirely.” Mama’s arms came around her and held her tight for just long enough. Then she pulled away with a smile and cast a glance over her shoulder. “I daresay I shan’t convince Mr. Osborne to leave, though.”
“Not a chance,” he said without even looking up.
Though Marietta chuckled, the realization that his presence didn’t bother her in the least, that she wanted him to stay when she wanted no one else to, made the good humor fade quickly. “I hardly notice him.”
Her mother gave her a look that said she didn’t believe her for a moment, but she merely wove her arm through Barbara’s and headed for the door. “I will see you both at dinner tomorrow.”
When they disappeared into the hallway, she breathed in blessed silence with gratitude. It wouldn’t last long—she was due at the carriage house within the half hour for Elsie’s sign lesson—but she would savor it while it lasted.
Which was all of five seconds before she heard familiar footsteps in the hall and Dev’s rumble of greeting. “Mrs. Arnaud, good day.”
Mama made a polite reply. And since he, as usual, spared no greeting for the other Mrs. Arnaud, his tread soon sounded again.
The irritation, soothed by Mama’s understanding, flared up again as he strode into the room. And blazed into outright anger when he caught Slade’s gaze and jerked his head toward the door.
Slade, happy to play the lackey, got up without a word. She knew by now he wouldn’t go far, but that wasn’t the point.
“Close the door behind you.”
His gait hitched, but he obeyed. Marietta sank back to her seat rather than holding out a hand to greet Dev.
He would notice the slight. The edges of his smile strained as he sat beside her. “How was your aid meeting, darling?”
“Inconsequential. You needn’t check on me, Dev.”
His blue eyes snapped, but he banked the flame. “I want to.” He took her hand in his and held it tight despite her keeping it limp. “And I wanted to see if you had remembered anything more about the scoundrel who did this to you. I have questioned all the usual petty thieves, but I do not think any of them our culprit.”
For a moment she studied his face. Was it love that made him pursue this so relentlessly when she had given him so little to go on? Or did he merely hate the thought of another daring to mark what he considered his? Finding no answer in his gaze, she shook her head. “I told you all I could.” She certainly wouldn’t mention that Slade and Walker and Granddad had delivered the goods she sent, and that Granddad had offered the man employment at his warehouse in addition. Doyle, they assured her, would haunt the streets no more. And his nine children, now motherless, would have food on their table.
“I know. But something more could have come to mind.” With his free hand, he touched her cheek under the mottled bruise, his frown fierce. “I will find him if I have to question every low-life ruffian in Baltimore. I promise you that.”
She turned her face away. “What does it matter? He stole nothing, the scrapes and bruises will fade—”
“He hurt you, and he will pay for it.” He said it with such superiority, as if he weren’t every bit as guilty of hurting her, and so much more deeply. “He put marks on your skin and shadows in your eyes. He interfered with our plans—and Mother said your new gown is perfect.”
Marietta hadn’t even looked at it. “A few weeks’ delay, that is all.”
Simple words, but something must have come through in her tone. Dev dropped her hand and put a few inches between them on the divan. “What is the matter with you lately, Mari?”
She lifted her chin and met his accusing glare. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Like blazes you don’t. You haven’t been acting yourself, not since you brought that woman into the house.”
“ ‘That woman’?” She pushed to her feet, knowing her cheeks had flushed scarlet. “That woman is my sister and friend.”
He followed her up, where of course he towered over her. “You have changed.”
“That has nothing to do with Barbara.”
“Ha!” He pivoted away but then spun back on her, a finger leveled at her chest. “Perhaps she isn’t the cause, but she is certainly proof of it. My Mari would never, never have taken her in. Certainly wouldn’t sit around for hours listening to her pious prattle without filling my ears with complaints about it later. What has happened to you?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Perhaps Barbara was indeed evidence of her change, but the start…the start had come well before. A bit, even, before she learned the full truth. “You know well what happened, Dev. One sin too many finally opened my eyes to them all.”
He expelled an angry hiss of breath. A moment later his hands closed around her shoulders, forcing her eyes open again. “That’s what all this has been about? Your guilt?”
Wrenching free of his hands did nothing to erase the feel of them. “Don’t mock me. Perhaps you can do whatever you please without feeling the pangs of your conscience, but I cannot.”
His snort might as well have been a slap. “Since when?”
She turned away, unable to face the truth of his accusation. “Not long enough. I admit that. But I have changed, and I will be a better person now.”
“Better? You call this better?” With a few strides, he stood before her again, fire dancing in his eyes. “Arguing with your intended at every turn, going behind my back to invite guests to stay here of whom you know I would disapprove, disregarding our plans for your debut, stupidly going about the city on your own—this strikes you as an improvement?”
Marietta folded her arms across her chest. “Funny that you name the things I would always have done. I have never suffered a man to dictate my life.” Even when listening to her father or brothers would have been wise.
He spat out a curse, gripped her elbow, and yanked her closer. “You have never acted this way with me before, never. We have always understood each other, and now you tell me you want to change? That, what, you do not like the Mari you have always been, knowing well how I love her?”
Her stomach knotted and rose to block her throat. Doyle’s image swam before her mind’s eye. The hate-filled eyes, the unkempt beard. She could feel again the pressure cutting off her air, taste again the sting of blood.
Dev gave her arm a punctuating shake that bit like brick. “And what if I don’t like this new Marietta? Hmm? What if all you’ve done with your infernal turn to piety is lose what set you apart?”
When he let go of her elbow, she staggered back, hating how her knees shook. “Then I guess you can be grateful nothing is official between us. If you no longer like me, then go find some other, more docile female. One not so afflicted by this ‘infernal piety.’ ”
“Mari.” His tone was heavy as lead with warning, but she couldn’t look in his eyes. Not now.
She waved him away with an arm no steadier than her knees. “If you don’t like me, then get out of my house.”
Now the warning rang of steel. She moved to the door, more a stumble than a stride. “Ah, right. Your house. If that is what you want, I will sign over the deed and show myself out this very day.” She wrenched the door open.
“Enough.” Somehow he ended up in front of her in the hallway, halting her with hands, gentle now, on her shoulders. “Darling. I’m so sorry. I should have realized how upset you still are by the attack.”
“That has nothing—”
“Of course it has. But once we find him, you will feel better, knowing he can hurt you no longer.” He leaned over and pressed his lips to her forehead. “We must stop taking our frustrations out on each other. That is no way to begin a life together.” He moved his lips to her cheek, feathered a kiss there, and then settled them at her ear. “You know I love you. More than life itself, more than all the world. You can do nothing to change that. Be whoever you must be. You will still be mine, and I will still adore you.”
Words that would have sounded so sweet were they not the very threat she most feared. She didn’t attempt a smile. He would see right through it anyway.
Dev managed one. It was warm, apologetic…and yet harder than flint. He straightened his arms, urging her back a step.
A second set of hands cupped her elbows, their touch sending a shiver up her spine. Dev looked over her head. “See that she rests.”
Rest. That was all anyone had let her do since Tuesday. If Slade thought for a moment she would go mildly up to her room…
His thumbs, hidden in the volume of her sleeves, made small circles against her arms that calmed her more than they should have. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Dev brushed away a curl from her cheek and then turned to stride away, confident his dictates would be obeyed.
Slade didn’t move but for that slow circling of his thumbs. By the time the door closed on Dev, she was all too aware of how close they stood. And unable to remember why she shouldn’t lean back against him.
His breath caught as she gave in, and his hands slid forward along her arms in welcome. She felt his indrawn breath release, sensed it as his head lowered down beside hers. His nose tickled her ear. “That would have been a far too easy end to things with him. And yet for a moment, I hoped…”
An echo of laughter slipped out, and with it came reason. She stepped away. And wished she hadn’t. “I was too irritated to hope.”
He wore a lopsided smile when she turned to him. “You should have slugged him. I would have paid good money to see that.”
“Slugged?”
“Yeah, you know…” He mimed delivering a blow to a chin.
Marietta blinked, grateful to have a lighthearted distraction. “ ‘Slug’ is a synonym for an uppercut?”
“Just a punch in general.” But his eyebrows came into their habitual V. “You know what an uppercut is?”
“Isaac enjoys boxing.”
He breathed a laugh. “Thanks for the warning. Did he teach you?”
“Enough that I could have slugged Dev, had I thought it wise.” Which she couldn’t imagine doing. Not when she had done such a poor job defending herself two days ago. What good did recall do if one couldn’t think when to apply it?
“Hmm.” Slade’s eyes sparkled as he swept his gaze down her.
“What?”
“Just imagining you in a boxing ring. Maybe with a pair of those newfangled gloves. Wearing breeches and—”
“And?” She laughed, though her face heated. If most boxers were like Isaac, there was no “and.” “That is enough imagination from you, I think.”
His grin eclipsed the irritation that had snapped at her heels all day. He held out a hand and motioned with his head for the door. “Sign lesson?”
“Sign lesson.” Though she shouldn’t, she slid her hand into his.
He kissed her knuckles, setting her nerves aflame, and then tucked her fingers into the crook of his elbow to lead her out the side door. March was mild as a lamb today, the sun warm and bright as they stepped out. Maybe she could convince him to take her for a promenade later.
Slade halted them in the first patch of sunlight. “Just so you know…I like this new Marietta.”
She tilted her face up to the sunshine so she could blame the suffusing warmth on it. “You didn’t know the old one.”
“I saw enough of her.” His fingers trailed over hers on his arm. “I liked her too. She was intriguing, and that kind of confidence…well. But adding the depth of faith, the light of compassion—that sets you apart more, not less.”
For a second the words kissed her spirit as the sun did her face, but then the clouds rolled in again. The only thing that ever set her apart was her uselessness. Her family had always said she was capable of anything, that with her mind she could do great things.
But what things could a woman do? Any options open to her required either the support of a husband or would mean the scorn of society.
No. God should have given her memory to Stephen or Hez or Isaac instead. They could have used it to make a difference. She had never found any purpose in it beyond entertaining her friends. She had never found any purpose at all.
Lowering her face again, she set her gaze on Slade. She had one now, at least. A purpose handed to her from the great-grandmother she’d never met, through the hand of the grandfather she trusted with every ounce of her being. They had given her a reason for the gift, a way to use it…but she had done nothing but play scribe.
She could do more, though. She could. Her fingers tightened on Slade’s arm. “Slade…will you show me the entrance to the castle?”
Like lightning, the gleam in his eyes turned to caution. “Pardon?”
Perhaps she should have done her musing out loud so he could see how she arrived at that request. Moistening her lips, she drew in a quick breath. “I want to help. I want to do more than distract Dev so you can sneak about.”
She half expected him to retreat, for the wolf to snarl to life. Instead, he sighed. “I appreciate that, but there’s no help to be had from the castle. Trust me. I’ve examined every inch of it.”
“But—”
“Yetta.” He shook his head, squinting into the sunshine. “You don’t want to go down there. There’s nothing that would help, just…images you don’t need to see. Trust me.”
She did…and yet. “It’s my house. I want to know what goes on under it. Were Barbara not so often with me, I would have made more of an effort to find the entrance myself. I know it is somewhere over here.” She motioned to the side of the house along which they stood, where the hedges always remained too high. Concealing. Where Barbara had heard voices several times now.
“No. It’s no place for a lady.” He turned her resolutely toward the carriage house.
She let him tug her only two steps before stopping again. Desperation clawed at her throat. “But I want to do more to help. I have to. Can’t you understand that? That I need to do something that matters with my life?”
“You are.” His tone was so sure, so steady. His gaze warm and certain. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me, all those papers you transcribed. But you know what really matters?”
She tucked in her chin and shook her head.
He motioned toward the city. “You gave a whole family a way to survive.” He pointed at the carriage house. “You’re giving that little girl a chance for a future. There aren’t many who would do that. Especially…” He looked to the window of the little apartment, where Elsie’s blond head bobbed.
Marietta sighed. “She isn’t Lucien’s.”
The conclusion, then, was obvious, and he would have no trouble drawing it. He echoed her sigh. “Does that make it easier?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. He forced her?”
To that, she could only nod and try her best not to hear the scream again.
Slade shook his head. Determination cloaked him. “You are definitely not going into that castle. You’re not going to do anything more to cross him. Do you understand me?”
Another dictate. Yet this one didn’t make the anger flare so hot. “I want to help. I need to help.”
“And I need you to stay safe.” He slid a hand onto her neck, under her hair, and anchored her head. “Please. Please stay out of this.”
“I’m already in—”
“Then get out of it. I can’t have you hurt.” His gaze lingered on the discoloration on her cheek. “Please.”
There was a day not so many months ago when it would have given her a thrill to reduce a man like Slade Osborne to begging. Not so today. Today she could only curl her fingers around his wrist and wish she could hold on forever. “What about you? You’re far more likely to get hurt than I am.”
With a thumb tracing her ear, his eyes went soft. “A necessary risk. It’s my job. Which means I know how to be careful.”
“Really? Coulda fooled me.” Walker’s voice pounded its way in, unexpected enough that she jumped back. And had to wonder when Slade’s other arm had slid around her waist. Walker stood only a few paces away with a ferocious scowl in place as he tugged off his work gloves. “Looks to me like you’re trying to get the both of you killed, standing around like that in plain view of the street.”
“I wouldn’t call it plain view, with the hedge…” When Walker turned fully toward him, Slade cleared his throat, looking, for some bizarre reason, to be fighting a laugh. “Right. You’re right. Stupid of me.”
Shouldn’t he have been making some excuse for having her in his arms at all, rather than where he held her so? Marietta repositioned the shawl still miraculously around her shoulders.
Walker spun on her. “And you, princess.” Now the corners of his mouth were twitching. “Didn’t I teach you how to properly sneak around with a man?”
A blast of heat hit her face, scorched her neck, and tied her tongue. He had never, not once, spoken of those days with anyone else around, yet he would all but shout it now, with Slade standing there grinning?
Grinning! He already knew. Knew and…and…thought it funny.
The blasted heat wouldn’t let up. She shook her head. “We were not…” But they were, when it came down to it. They certainly wouldn’t have behaved so if Dev or Mother Hughes were around. “And we did not…” But of course that was a blatant lie. She had always been sneaking off to the stable to find him.
And they both had the gall to enjoy her discomposure. She had no choice but to straighten her spine, lift her chin, and sweep past them. “Insufferable jackanapes, the both of you.”
Their laughter followed her to the carriage house.