Circle of Spies

by Roseanna M. White

  But at least she had something to show for her exhaustion. Stretching her arms above her head, she took account of the pages she had transcribed. The list of names—again—the other pages she had already sent to Granddad. And then what seemed the most critical of the rest from the drawer. Two copies of each. One for the Culpers.

  And one for Slade Osborne. She shuffled his into a stack and stared at them with pursed lips. Getting them into his hands would be a simple matter of slipping them into a theological text in the library.

  She could leave said book out for him, or direct him to it on the shelf casually enough. Either way, he would know they came from her. Which would prove she had spent time in the drawer, and he would assume it hours. Would assume she had copied directly from the page. Which she could certainly do more easily than he could, it being her house, but…

  Tired, she slumped against her chair and squeezed her eyes shut. He was already suspicious of her. He may be concerned for her safety, he may be grateful for the aid she had given, but he couldn’t make it any clearer that he didn’t trust her. Would he even accept these copies as accurate or think she fed him false information?

  Well. She could do nothing about his perceptions. All she could do was put the documentation into his hands.

  At the jiggle of her doorknob, she folded the stacks of paper and set her Bible on top of them. Cora couldn’t read to know what they were, but still. She would secure them in her desk as soon as possible.

  “Mornin’, Miss Mari. You’re up early.”

  She turned on her chair with a smile she hoped covered the shadows under her eyes. “One of those nights.”

  The woman grunted a laugh and rubbed at her back. “I know all about them.” She looked over. Frowned. “Lawsy, ma’am, you look fit to fall over. Hop back into bed. I’ll bring you up a tray.”

  So much for covering the shadows. She stood. “Nonsense. I only need a stiff cup of coffee. I can’t leave Barbara to fend off Mother Hughes’s veiled insults alone.”

  Cora folded her arms and held her ground—something she wouldn’t have done a fortnight ago. “Miss Barbara can take care of herself.”

  “I know. But that doesn’t mean she should have to.”

  Apparently that point won her a bit of favor. Her maid loosed a hum and strode into her boudoir. “Lavender or gray?”

  “Whichever you think.”

  That brought Cora to an abrupt halt. “You ain’t never left it to me, even mornings you were tired as this after a night o’ dancin’.”

  Nights of dancing—how far away those seemed. “There are many things I’ve never done that I should have. Nearly as many as the things I shouldn’t have that I did anyway. And I’m sorry for them all.” She wrapped her arms around her middle and resisted the urge to sink down into the feather mattress of her bed. “I am trying, Cora. Trying to change.”

  Cora merely disappeared into the room full of gowns and hoops and petticoats, reemerging a moment later with a day dress of lavender. She glanced at Marietta only once while she laid it all out. “Elsie told me ‘good morning’ today using the signs. And she’s been using ‘Mama.’ When we realized, I thought I’d never hear her say ‘Mama.’ Feels like she has now.”

  Marietta smiled and shrugged out of her dressing gown and then into her corset. “I’m so glad, Cora. She’s a darling child.” She hooked the corset before slipping the cover into place.

  Hand outstretched to help her step into the circle in the middle of the skirts, resignation settled on Cora’s face before she moved to the rear to hoist up the fabric. “Walker said he told you. About who…”

  A knot formed in her throat. Somehow she hadn’t thought Cora would ever speak to her about it. Marietta needed a moment, a nod, to be able to speak. “He did. And I am so, so very sorry.”

  “Ain’t your doin’. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this house, it’s that sin has consequences. Just a funny thing that sometimes them consequences be borne by someone other than the sinner.”

  Sin has consequences. She splayed a hand over her abdomen under the guise of smoothing the layers. Was it wrong of her to pray, pray with every fiber of her being, that her particular sin would not result in the same consequences Cora had suffered?

  Fear gnawed. She had done wrong. Had betrayed her morals, her late husband, the God she had too long ignored by indulging in a moment of weakness that night. She had sold herself short, seizing one stolen moment rather than waiting for forever. And she would pay for it.

  Perhaps the Lord had forgiven, washed her scarlet sins white. But her own words, an echo of so many she had heard from behind the pulpit over the years, clanged in her head.

  Forgiveness does not negate consequences.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Please, Lord. Please have mercy on me. If I am with child, I see no escape from him. I will have to marry him. I would have no other option, not unless I wanted to resign my offspring to life as an outcast.

  Compared to the other women in her family, she had never felt particularly maternal. She had experienced only occasional pangs at having never conceived, not the agony Hez’s wife, Paulina, had gone through before little Ezra came along. But the thought of finally having a babe and ruining his life before he was even born…nausea roiled.

  “If you are too tired for the lesson this afternoon, Miss Mari—”

  “We’ll be there.” If she were tired enough to require a midday rest, she could take it before or after the signing lessons. And heaven knew Barbara never seemed to tire, though she insisted on continuing her volunteering at the hospital three days a week and came with Marietta to the carriage house when she was at home.

  Her maid said no more as she buttoned the back of the dress and then coiled Marietta’s hair at the base of her neck and secured it with a lacy snood. Though she felt as though she should follow up this thawing between them, Marietta couldn’t think what to do other than smile and thank her. She added a silent prayer for Cora and her babe, for Elsie and Walker, but she wasn’t Barbara. She didn’t yet feel comfortable talking about faith at every turn.

  Once she was alone again, she fastened Grandmama’s necklace around her neck and scooted her Bible off the stacks of papers. Taking them in hand, she headed down to the second floor. A minute later she stashed them with the invisible ink in her drawing room.

  Her hand hovered over the drawer. Or rather, over that white square of fabric she had looped around the vials. The S.O. initials peeked up from the handkerchief’s corner. She should have it washed. Return it. Something. Something other than leaving it there, encircling her secrets.

  She closed the drawer, turned the lock, and hurried into the breakfast room. Barbara and Mother Hughes were both inside already, and both greeted her with a smile. Funny, though, how the sincerity in her sister-in-law’s made the pretense in her mother-in-law’s all the more apparent.

  “Good morning.” Marietta filled a plate, poured herself a cup of coffee sans sugar or cream, and took her usual seat.

  Mother Hughes touched her napkin to the corner of her mouth. “How good of you to decide to join us, Mari dear.”

  “You look tired.” Barbara, seated at her side, touched her wrist. Her warm eyes glowed with concern. “Are you well?”

  “Fine, thank you.” She took a sip of the strong brew and felt marginally better. “I awoke a little after four and couldn’t get back to sleep. My mind would not stop spinning.”

  Barbara’s laugh sounded like sunshine. “How well I understand.”

  Marietta smiled and took another drink. And wished, prayed, that the spinning of her mind were like everyone else’s. The pictures sometimes raced by so fast she couldn’t grasp hold of one, none of the details that vied for attention had any rhyme or reason. Most of the time she could pull forward what information she needed, but sometimes it was more cacophony than symphony. More thunder than lightning. More a dizzying circle than a line she could follow.

  Mother Hughes merely sniffed and t
ook a bite of egg. Her appetite had improved, for which Marietta was thankful, and her cheeks had color again.

  Though she could do without the return of the disapproving glint to her eyes.

  A glint that shifted into pure adoration when heavy, quick footfalls sounded and Dev strode into the room as if he owned it.

  Marietta put down her cup. If he had his way, he would own it soon enough, and her with it. How could a thought that made her blood race in expectation a month earlier now make her want to race from the room?

  “Devereaux darling.” His mother held out a hand and tilted up her face to receive his kiss upon her cheek.

  “Good morning, Mother.” He smiled, no doubt cataloging her continued improvement just as Marietta had. Then he turned to her.

  It wasn’t right, the way it all got tangled up inside her. New truths and old, repulsion and attraction, the memory of love and the need to escape him before he devoured her whole. Too tired to wade through the mess, she merely dug up a halfhearted smile and muttered, “Dev.”

  “Darling.” He kissed her cheek as he had his mother’s and rested his hand upon her shoulder. Not so much as looking at Barbara, he leaned into the table. “I wanted to stop by before I head to the station. I need to travel to Cumberland. I’ll depart on Monday and will be gone a week.”

  Marietta lowered the fork she had picked up but had yet to use. “A week.”

  His strong brows arched. “Is there something wrong, darling?”

  She shouldn’t say anything. Better to be gracious and forgiving and praise the Lord for seven days away from him. And yet she felt her eyebrows move to mirror his. “We were to go to the Ellicotts’ that Friday.”

  He looked genuinely distressed. For a single moment, that is, before determination flashed through his eyes and then softened into regret. “I am sorry, Mari. It slipped my mind. You know I haven’t the head for dates you do. Your heart was not set on that particular invitation though, was it? I have a whole slew of others we can attend when I get back.”

  “Of course. It hardly matters.” Except that Lucien had done the exact same thing twenty-seven times. It wasn’t the disappointed hopes that bothered her, or the need to write an apology after she’d already written an acceptance. It was the fact that neither of them ever saw fit to explain the situation before announcing it. For being “the most important thing” to them, she got surprisingly little consideration.

  Not so surprising, considering they lied through their teeth as adeptly as their mother.

  “I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” Too much heat saturated his words, especially for being spoken in company. He squeezed her shoulder, chuckled—no doubt at the blush she was too tired to restrain—and turned his head back toward his mother. “I dislike the idea of leaving the two of you alone for so long with no able-bodied man about, though. Discontent is too high in the city.”

  Three of them. Marietta reached for the butter, largely to shake off his hand. “Walker is here and able-bodied.”

  “And distracted with his breeding wife. And heaven knows Pat and Norris are too old to scare away any miscreant. Not sufficient. I have asked Mr. Osborne to stay behind and keep an eye on things in my absence.”

  She could only imagine the anticipation that would have surged through Slade upon that request. An entire week to snoop without the fear of Dev coming upon him. If he were the praying man his taste in reading indicated, this was an answer to it.

  And why couldn’t she put it to use too?

  Mother Hughes was making the expected reply, thanking her son for his thoughtful provision. Barbara, on the other hand, focused her curious gaze on Marietta. Seeing what? One never could tell with her.

  Dev didn’t stay long. No doubt he was eager to get to the rail offices and schedule his trip. Marietta took a bite of the toast she didn’t feel like eating and let her gaze go unfocused.

  What was he about in western Maryland? Railroad business? Possibly. Yet with the Confederacy’s surrender being touted as a surety, she doubted he would leave his precious KGC unless the trip had something to do with their plans.

  Images flashed, but they were too quick. Too random. A few lines on the back of a page from the study…she shook them away. Perhaps she should take a nap sometime today to clarify her mind.

  “The sun is shining again.” Barbara’s soft voice broke through the clouds of her mind. “Perhaps we could take a walk.”

  “That sounds lovely for the two of you.” Mother Hughes took a delicate sip of her tea. “Bulah and Nadine are coming by to visit this morning, and we old ladies would no doubt bore you young things to tears.”

  Barbara’s smile didn’t falter. “Nonsense. But we are happy to grant you time with your friends.”

  “And so very happy you are well enough to receive them, Mother Hughes.” Marietta’s smile was no doubt wearier than her friend’s, but she could manage no more. She ate enough to sustain her until midday, hurriedly delivered the packet for Granddad to Walker, and tucked the second into a volume of Thomas Aquinas. For now, it would stay on the shelf, where no curious eyes would notice the pages making it bulge. She would direct Slade to it later.

  Soon enough, she had pulled her cape on and smiled to see Barbara in the new one she had purchased for her. To be sure, the young woman had refused to abandon her full mourning. But at least she had submitted to sturdy, serviceable fabrics in place of the ones worn to threads.

  Marietta liked to think that Stephen smiled down on her. For perhaps the first time.

  Barbara linked their arms together as they stepped out into the cool morning. Bright as the sun was, the air was frosty and carried the scents of coal and wood smoke. “You cannot fathom how much this means to me, Mari. Strolling with you as friends. I thought it would never be.”

  Marietta told herself the stinging in her eyes was naught but the wind. “And I have walked along like this with so many acquaintances, yet none true friends. I have never…I have not been a very nice person. All the women I know are as happy to gossip about me behind my back as they are to welcome me into their parlors.”

  Barbara chuckled, soft and sympathetic. “From what Stephen told me, you had beaux lining up down the street. That would have left little for the other young ladies.”

  “Hmm.” All those beaux, and she had picked Lucien Hughes. How different it all would have been had she chosen more wisely.

  “May I ask you a personal question, Mari? I don’t want to pry, but…”

  Marietta eased out a smile. “You are my sister. Pry all you please.”

  Those doe eyes brightened but then went sober. “It is about Mr. Hughes. Devereaux, that is. You two obviously have an understanding.”

  Obvious indeed, given the way he had been acting. Ignoring Barbara’s presence altogether, staking his claim before Slade. Yet in the face of her sister-in-law’s unrelieved black, she had little choice but to avert her face.

  “I cannot blame him for wanting to move quickly.” Barbara patted her arm, drawing her gaze again. “But you seem less than enthusiastic. You are attentive in his company, to be sure, but when he is gone…I believe I detect a reticence.”

  She focused her gaze straight ahead, along the empty street. “When I agreed to this understanding, there was much I didn’t know.” Feeling the warmth of acceptance, she looked to her friend again. “I have recently found out that he is not a good man, yet I fear there is no escape from him.”

  Barbara made no quick assurances. She merely tilted her face toward the sun and drew in a long breath. “My instinct is to say there is always an escape. And yet I know how long it can take and what tragedy can strike in the meantime.” She caught Marietta’s gaze again, her face serious and lined with concern. “I will be praying for a way that will allow you to extricate yourself without danger.”

  “I don’t think I need to fear him. He is not—” Images cut her off. Cora’s face, and little Elsie’s. Her throat went dry.

  Barbara opened her mouth b
ut then shut it again, turmoil evident in her eyes.

  Marietta’s frown deepened. “What is it?”

  Looking as though she held her breath, Barbara searched her face. “A man came into the hospital last fall. Shot. A soldier, but he had not been in a battle. He’d been in a duel.”

  The implications were as glaring as the low-hanging winter sun. “It couldn’t have been Dev. Had he shot a man, he would have had to flee the law.”

  “The man wouldn’t name him to the law. He said it would do no good, as his opponent had the law in his pocket.”

  Once again she had to look away as the confounded list of names filled her vision. Judges. Police officers. Lawyers. “I see.”

  “I’m not sure you do. Mari, he said Mr. Hughes called him out merely for mentioning your beauty and implying he would call on you when your mourning was complete. But that Mr. Hughes so misconstrued it, and in front of all their friends, that he had no choice but to accept the challenge.”

  Perhaps walking had been a bad idea, given how weak her knees felt. Surely, surely Dev was not so jealous as all that. Why would he be, when he had been the only man in her life since Lucien died? Until that fateful sixteenth day of January, she had never wavered in her determination to marry him as soon as propriety allowed.

  But then, her very affection for him was proof of her fickle heart, was it not?

  The cold air hurt, she pulled it in so fast. “What happened to him? The other man?”

  Barbara merely pressed her lips together.

  Marietta let the silence hold as they navigated around the city block. Down the busier thoroughfare of Monument Square, they spoke of Stephen and of the joy Barbara had from finally being able to answer to her married name. Then they turned again, back onto the street that led home. Where the rows of townhouses typical in Baltimore gave way to free-standing edifices like hers.

  Barbara focused upon the graystone building nearest the Hughes estate. “Are your neighbors in residence? I have not seen anyone there.”

  “No. I am afraid the Pinkneys shut up their house at the start of the war.”