Circle of Spies (The Culper Ring #3)
Roseanna M. White
One
Baltimore, Maryland
January 16, 1865
Marietta Hughes was the worst widow in the history of mourning. She smoothed a hand down the lavender fabric of her dress and felt the twist in her stomach that shouldn’t have been so long absent. The punch to her heart that hadn’t made itself known since the first month after Lucien died.
Squeezing her eyes closed, her fingers found the smooth mahogany of the grand staircase railing. Mother Hughes, still weak, her voice feathery, had looked so hopeful when she’d asked Marietta to don the muted colors of half mourning. How could she have refused her? True, it had only been a year and three months since Lucien’s death. She had only been three months in second mourning—black relieved only by a white collar—rather than six. But there were so many others with fresh losses to grieve. Her widow’s black had made a mockery of them.
Her widow’s black had made a mockery of her.
She descended a few steps, but her eyes burned. Her husband was no doubt in heaven begging the Almighty to send a divine bolt to strike her. And not because of the color of her dress.
“I’m sorry, Lucien.” The words came out a breath, but still they seemed to taunt her. She should have said those words long before he fell prey to the violent streets of Baltimore. Said them for every thought gone astray, for every too-long look, for every wish she never should have made.
A low whistle made her jump and brought her gaze to her front door, to Lucien’s brother. And her stomach twisted again at the object of those stray thoughts. The apple to her Eve.
Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.
Marietta’s feet pulled her down the stairs, toward where Devereaux Hughes stood with one hand upon the latch. His gaze swept over her, making her cheeks flush even as those words from the Holy Book pounded.
Wicked. Wicked. Wicked.
Sometimes she wished she had never read the Scriptures, so that they couldn’t haunt her.
Sometimes she wished she could be, as her parents had advised time and again, good.
She swallowed back the regret and guilt—a skill she had mastered nearly six years earlier—and smiled. “Heading home, Dev?”
He leaned into the door, folding his arms so that the fabric of his well-tailored greatcoat strained against his muscles. Glory, but he was a fine-looking man with that charming smirk of his. “I have missed seeing you in color, Mari. Black never suited you.”
A fact that shouldn’t have bothered her as it did. How vain was she, that she had dwelt on such a truth this past year instead of on the loss that necessitated it?
She smoothed out the wrinkle her fingers had made in the skirt and gave in to the tug that always pulled her closer to Dev, close enough for him to slide an arm around her waist. Given the quiet morning halls, the servants all tending to breakfast or Mother Hughes, she made no objection. Though her heart thudded its accusation.
Wicked.
Her throat tightened. She had never betrayed her husband, not in deed. And who would hold her thoughts against her? Other, of course, than God. And Lucien. She forced a swallow. “Your mother asked me to move into half mourning. I was so glad to see her up and able to speak this morning that I hadn’t the heart to argue.”
Dev’s jaw ticked. “I just saw her. She looks better, but if the doctor is not as hopeful as I expect when he stops in later—”
“I know.” Her gaze landed on his cravat. “Dev…”
“Ah, how well I know that look.” He bent his head, and when his lips touched her neck, her eyes slid shut. “Hope and regret mixed into perfect beauty. Do you recall when I first saw that expression upon your lovely face?”
As if she could ever forget. “The nineteenth of December, eighteen sixty.”
His chuckle sent a pulse of shivers down her spine. “How quick you are with the date.”
And usually she would have forced a hesitation. But she needn’t with that particular recollection. “It was the day before my wedding.”
“The day I met my brother’s bride.” His chuckle went bitter. “Had I obeyed my father and returned to Baltimore a year earlier, it would have been I you met at that ball. I who would have claimed you. I who—”
“Don’t.” She pulled away, though his arms granted her only another inch of space. She’d had similar thoughts—much to her shame. “Please, Dev.”
Too late. His eyes, blue as July’s sky, had already blended in her mind with Lucien’s deep green. The parade through her memory had already begun. Each time she had let her thoughts go where they ought not. When she had held Dev’s gaze a second too long. Had smiled too warmly.
She was despicable.