Circle of Spies

by Roseanna M. White

  Were they happy, her childhood friend and this woman who now straightened and rubbed a hand at the small of her back? She had never paused to wonder. Certainly never asked.

  Her heart tightened within her chest. Who in the world had she become these last few years, that she never looked past her own nose?

  Cora emptied her countenance of the pain pinching it and held out a hand. Marietta put hers into it and stepped over her skirts into the center of the hoop. “Is your back paining you, Cora? My sister-in-law complained of terrible back pain when she was expecting.”

  Cora withdrew her fingers so fast, Marietta wobbled. “Nothin’ to worry about, ma’am. Just a twinge is all.”

  Twinge? Images flashed through her mind’s eye. “You are always hobbling by nightfall. Would it help to stretch out midday? Laura said it eased her discomfort.”

  Cora moved behind her and pulled up the mass of skirts, tying the hoop tight around her waist. “Can’t, ma’am. You’s shorthanded, and there be cleanin’ to do.”

  “Your health is more important than the furniture getting dusted every day.” The words felt right on her lips, in her heart. And yet foreign. Which made her stomach churn.

  The first, thin petticoat fell into place, and Cora went to work positioning the bum roll. “Miss Lucy’s mighty particular, ma’am.”

  “I can handle Mother Hughes. Consider this an order, Cora. I want you to rest after your midday meal for an hour.”

  The only indication the girl heard her was a momentary pause. Then she fastened the heavier petticoats over the roll.

  Marietta pressed a hand to her fluttering middle before slipping her arms through her sleeves. Why was it so unsettling to be having an actual conversation with her servant? As a child, those who worked for them had been family. Walker and her brothers had been inseparable, their mothers best friends.

  Yet she didn’t even know if Cora loved Walker. Hadn’t seen their daughter since she was a babe. They kept her in the carriage house all the time, a place Marietta had always avoided. “How is…” the name sprang to mind, yet had she ever even said it? “Elsie?”

  The tug upon her waist felt angry. “Good.” She might as well have screamed, Why are you asking?

  Marietta squeezed her eyes shut. “Have you and Walker made any decisions about what you will do after the amendment passes? I know your mother will stay, but…”

  But she couldn’t, suddenly, imagine Cora remaining here. Not now that she enumerated the many times resentment had sparked in her eyes.

  “Don’t know. But don’t you worry, I’m sure you’ll find other black folks to clean your house and muck out your stalls if we leave.”

  She deserved that. Still, it stung. “Well. If you need references, do let me know.” Paltry, but she could hardly undo four years of ignoring the girl in one conversation.

  Her bodice felt smooth against her chest, telling her the last of the buttons had been fastened. Cora stepped away. “I’ll go tell Tandy to ready your breakfast.”

  “Not yet. I need to do some sorting first. I shall be in Lucien’s study if anyone needs me.”

  Cora froze, discarded dressing gown dangling from her fingers. “His study?”

  Marietta moved to the mirror and the combs and snoods strewn over her vanity top. “Is there a problem?”

  “Mr. Dev said ain’t no one to go in there, even to clean.”

  “He didn’t mean me, I daresay.” Her first instinct had been to slip in unnoticed, but why? She picked up a comb and turned back to the girl. “And what business is it of his if I do?”

  Cora pressed her lips together and straightened the rest of the way. “I sure ain’t gonna tell him.”

  “Well, then.” She rolled her hair back, secured it with the combs and lace, and then headed downstairs.

  Cigar smoke clung to the study. From Lucien, or had Dev been enjoying his brother’s collection of Cubans? A thick layer of dust covered the shelves, motes danced in the air.

  Her eyes slid shut, but she still saw the room. Only now Lucien sat behind the solid mahogany desk, sunlight catching on his burnished blond hair and twining around the tendrils of smoke from his cigar. How many times had she come in here and found him in almost exactly the same position?

  Three hundred twenty-two.

  And each time he had looked up and shot her the grin that had made her determine to marry him. The one that said she was all he wanted, all he needed.

  How she had wanted that to be true, at first. And then feared it when she realized her heart was not so steady. Not so faithful.

  But then, had his been either? He had a mistress, as did Dev—their beloved KGC.

  She opened her eyes again and moved into the chamber, letting her fingers trail through the dust on a shelf. His desk, at least, looked clean. Dev wouldn’t want to soil his clothing.

  The bottom drawer on the left-hand side of the desk. That was where she had seen them both slipping things when she came to the door. Sometimes they would leave their work out—railroad papers. What, then, did they put away?

  The drawer would be locked. She had asked Lucien about that once, early in their marriage, and he had smiled, pulled her onto his knee, and said their company had enemies who weren’t above bribing servants, which was why he kept his important documents locked away.

  But it wasn’t company files in that drawer. So then. The key.

  She sat in his chair, reaching as she had seen him reach under the desktop. His arm had moved like so…but his was longer. His hands larger, so if she stretched hers out…

  Cool metal brushed her fingertips. Clever—a little shelf had been built for it, a thin veneer of wood that the tip of the key hung over. She slid it out and turned it over in her palm as she retracted her arm.

  Dusty. Dev must use the other key that Lucien had kept on his ring, the one she had handed over the day of the funeral, knowing most of the keys opened doors at the rail office.

  Perfect. She could keep this one to herself. She unlocked the drawer and then took off her necklace, sliding the key down the gold chain until it settled against the cameo.

  The clock in the corner hadn’t been wound, so she glanced at the sun outside the window. Still several hours until Dev’s carriage should rumble back over the cobblestones, but she wasn’t about to be caught by surprise like the wolf. She opened the drawer and studied its contents.

  Files hung, unlabeled. Ever-organized Lucien would have had everything in a very particular order. And more-organized Devereaux would know exactly what that order was.

  He could discover she was in this room, and she could talk her way out of it without any trouble. But if he found her in a locked drawer where he kept sensitive information…that could get dangerous. She would keep things in their proper places, down to that single sheet raised a sixteenth of an inch higher than the others, and the file in the back that looked as though it had been rifled through.

  She pulled out the first file, flipped it open, and drew in a deep breath.

  She needn’t read anything now. Instead she opted for speed, flipping page after page, glancing at each only a second.

  A second was all she needed. Each paper’s image seared itself into her mind’s eye.

  One file finished, she moved to the next. Then the next and the next, until she had looked at every sheet within the drawer and had replaced them all. She compared the image before her to the one within her mind of how it had been forty minutes prior. Adjusted the height of this, the angle of that. Then she closed the drawer again and relocked it.

  Now what? She could keep poking through the room, but her twitching nerves dissuaded her. She would retire to her own desk, where she usually spent her mornings seeing to correspondence, and examine all she had just found at her leisure.

  On her way out, she grabbed a few books from the shelf. She would move them into the main library and claim, if Dev asked, that she had gone in for that express purpose.

  Her second-floor drawing room fa
ced east, where morning sunlight filtered through the lightweight curtains and gilded the chamber in gold. She had redone the appointments in pale greens and blues when she moved into the house after her wedding, and now its familiarity wrapped around her. She settled at the delicately carved desk and opened the first letter awaiting her.

  But she didn’t read the missive from her aunt. She read instead the first sheet she had looked at in Lucien’s study.

  Names. Members of their castle? Assuredly. Lucien’s took the first position, with Captain written beside it—and then crossed out.

  The page was filled, front and back, Lucien’s hand mixed with Dev’s. Some of the names she recognized, some were unfamiliar. Some surprising, some not.

  And several more crossed out. A few with a note—fell at Shiloh, fell at Carthage, fell at Gettysburg. Many had stars beside them and notes as to which regiments they belonged to.

  Northern ones, most of them. Sorrow pinged. This was why the president had made mention of the group being another arm of the military, because they had invaded his own forces and were undermining his troops.

  She focused her mental eye upon one of the names. He had died at Gettysburg. And was a member of the V Corp.

  Stephen’s corp.

  Her brother had likely been fighting side by side with a traitor. Someone who had joined the Union army with the sole purpose of betraying it.

  Marietta drew out a fresh sheet of paper, her personal stationery, and her pen and ink. Dear Granddad…

  The note was benign, inviting him and Grandmama Gwyn to dine with her on Tuesday. But then she stood and went to the door. After glancing down the hall, she eased it shut and flipped the key in the lock.

  She had stashed the invisible ink he had given her with the small vials of perfume she kept in her desk. She often dabbed their sweet scents on her correspondence as an added personal touch. If any of the servants happened across the bottles of straw-colored stain, they would think it her lilac water.

  Granddad Thad had shown her how to use it, how to develop it with the counter liquor. He had also pulled out the code book he and her uncles and father and brother used. Flipping through the pages and then putting it away, he had smiled. Because, he’d said, he didn’t have to make another copy and didn’t have to fear it falling into an enemy’s hands.

  Finally, a valid use for her perfect recall.

  She extracted the vial and a new quill pen from the drawer, and then dipped. Between the lines of the note itself she penned her encoded message, careful to keep the invisible ink from passing over the black, lest it run. She kept it concise, merely explaining what she had found and where, and saying she would put the list of names on the back of the paper. After waiting for it to dry into nothingness, she flipped the page over and got down to work.

  Names were difficult to encode, having to do so letter by letter and using a dictionary as key. Granddad had said it was unnecessary in anything she would send him, that the ink itself was insurance enough. So she just wrote. And wrote, until her hand cramped. Each and every name on the list.

  Some he no doubt already knew, but some he might not. She crossed out the ones that had been crossed out, starred the ones that had been starred. Wrote until what she assumed was the entire castle filled her page.

  While it dried, she unlocked her door. Mother Hughes would likely wonder where she had gotten to this morning, and Dev would be back soon.

  She folded the page, put it inside an envelope, and warmed her wax. A glance at her clock told her time was running short. No matter. She would run the message out to Walker in the stable, and then she would go about her day.

  Her first action as a spy. A Culper. Maybe eventually it would stop making her sick to her stomach.

  Seven

  Walker gave Elsie a playful toss into the mound of hay and smiled at her giggles. She was a happy child, but questions kept filling his head. What did she dream about? Were they soundless pictures? Could she tell his voice from her mother’s by touch? What did that little flutter of her fingers mean? Was she trying to tell him something or simply playing with the hay?

  He wanted to talk to his little girl. He wanted to hear her call him Daddy. And if that would never happen, he wanted to see it.

  “Walker?”

  He turned at the voice, once so familiar but now so out of place. Marietta stood in the center aisle, too pristine for her surroundings, and looking about as comfortable as he would feel in her fancy parlor. “Princess. You need something?”

  Irritation flickered through her eyes, and his conscience reared up. They were on the same side now, again. They should be friends. Again. Which meant they should stop trying to goad each other. “I’m sorry.” He shifted so that he filled the stall door. Instinct, that. Cora always tried to shield Elsie from anyone in the big house, so he had followed suit. “Old habits.”

  The irritation gave way to amusement. “I know what you mean.” She waved an envelope. “For Granddad. Usually I would send it round with Pat, but…”

  He stepped forward even as he bit his tongue against the warning that had leapt to the tip of it. “Yetta.”

  That was all he said. Not a word about unnecessary risk or how they had specifically told her never to seek information. But she would remember what censure sounded like in his tone.

  It didn’t get her dander up this time, though. It made her sigh. “I was careful. But I think it could be useful.”

  Walker hummed in his throat and stepped forward. “I’ll take it over when I finish mucking.”

  Something flitted across her face. He would have thought it regret, had that not been an emotion she had sworn off years ago.

  Then her gaze went down, a moment before he felt Elsie’s little hands take hold of his trouser leg. He swallowed, watching her face carefully.

  Recognition weighted her eyes. She swallowed and offered his girl a tight smile. “I haven’t seen her since she was a baby.”

  “You never come out here. Cora doesn’t take her to the house.”

  “I can see why.” Her eyes slid shut. No doubt comparing pictures in her head. Elsie’s flaxen locks, which didn’t bear a resemblance to Cora’s black ones, nor to his middling brown. He had more white in him than black, and Cora had some in her too, but a blond-haired child between them still wasn’t likely.

  She might be able to make excuses for the coloring if Elsie didn’t have the Hughes nose. And chin. And smile.

  For a moment, he thought she would ask. Just come out and demand to know who his daughter’s father was. Then he would have to figure out what to tell her, and how to make it clear that no matter her blood, she was his.

  But her mouth stayed shut tight. Breeding wouldn’t permit such a conversation, and she had that by the bushel.

  He cleared his throat. “I’ve been hoping you’d come out. I have a couple things I want to talk to you about. First is Cora.”

  Her eyes opened again, and her shoulders edged back. “She’s in pain. I told her this morning I want her to rest an hour each afternoon. You may have to help me enforce that.”

  Well now, that was interesting. He slid the letter into his coat pocket and then rested his hand atop Elsie’s head. “I didn’t think you’d notice.”

  “I hadn’t. And I’m sorry for that.” She cleared her throat and studied the beam that traveled from stall to ceiling. “I’m sorry for a lot of things.”

  That last part was so low he scarcely heard it over the nickering of the horses. And so unexpected it took a long moment to sink in. He smoothed down a wild golden curl on Elsie’s head. “I’m sorry for a lot of things too. But it all turned out as it should have.”

  “Did it?”

  Maybe it didn’t seem that way to her. She was learning a lot of ugly about her world right now, after all. But the Lord had led them here. “Other thing’s Elsie.”

  Her gaze went back to his girl. She said nothing.

  Walker lifted the tot into his arms and kissed her cheek. �
�She’s deaf. It took a while to figure it out, but there’s no question.”

  “Will you teach her signs?” She asked it matter-of-factly, as if that were the obvious and immediate answer.

  Something inside unknotted. “I would, but I don’t remember much. Your granddad said he could get me a book on that version they came up with at the school in Connecticut. But…”

  She grinned. It was the first he had seen her grin in so many years, he nearly stumbled backward. “You and a book? Walker Payne, are you trying to pull the wool over my eyes?”

  “I know.” He smiled too. He couldn’t help it. “Makes me wish I hadn’t always asked Stephen to summarize them. I’m afraid I’ll mess it up. And Cora, she can’t…”

  Marietta went still. Just watching them, him and Elsie, watching and waiting. As though she didn’t know exactly what he was getting at. Then she swallowed. “What are you asking?”

  He repositioned Elsie in his arms. “I need your help, Yetta, in making a life for my little girl. Cora didn’t want to ask you, but I don’t know another way. It would take me hours to learn what you could in a second.” He paused, watching her face. Looking for signs of capitulation, of softening, of some warm feeling. All he could see was the same pretty mask she’d been wearing since she caught him saddling up one of her daddy’s horses six years before, ready to take off and never look back. “Please.”

  She stood like a statue so long he feared she’d turned into one. She would refuse. Make her excuses. Claim, reasonably, that with all Mr. Lane had just pushed upon her, she didn’t have the wherewithal to handle anything else. Especially an “else” that wasn’t her problem, wasn’t her responsibility, had nothing to do with her.

  Then she turned her gaze toward Elsie, smiled that sun-bright smile of hers, and made a few quick motions. Pointed at the girl, waved a hand in front of her face. “You’re a beautiful girl, Elsie. We’re going to make this your name.” She curled her fingertips down, thumb in. “This is an E. E for Elsie.” Then she went around her face again, in the sign he now remembered meant beautiful. “Elsie.” She pointed at the girl, repeated the sign, and said her name again.