For a moment, she feared Dev would lunge past her, take his chances against a bullet, and plunge the knife into Walker’s chest. The way he narrowed his eyes…but then he shifted his gaze to her, and the calculation changed.
His smile was more threat than reassurance, but he lowered the knife. “Not with Mari here. Though if you have the intelligence of a stray dog, you’ll know this isn’t over.”
And no doubt he would have more than a knife next time. She could barely force a swallow down her tight throat. “Dev, please.”
He slid the blade back into the sheath on his belt. “Come here, Mari.”
Walker’s breath hissed out behind her. “Don’t, Yetta. Don’t go anywhere near him.”
The fresh flash of lightning in Dev’s eyes spurred her forward before he could draw his weapon again. When he moved his gaze from Walker to her, she expected violence or some show of force.
Instead, he slipped a soft hand behind her head and pressed his lips to hers in a caress of a kiss. Somehow, the contrast made it more terrifying. “Have it your way, Mari,” he murmured as he pulled away. “No wedding until your father comes home. Just remember that those were your terms, not mine.”
He spun on his heel and headed for the back entrance. No doubt he would go in to see his mother perfectly confident he would have his way at some point.
Marietta wanted nothing more than to let her knees buckle and to sink down into the damp earth. Forcing herself to turn to Walker instead, she slipped a hand into her pocket and twirled the silver fob around her fingers, praying it would anchor her.
Walker was just repositioning his coat over the pistol. Even in the deepening shadows she could see that every line of his face had gone tight. The next tolling of the bells across the square seemed the knell of death rather than victory.
“You have to get out of here, Yetta. Now. You and Barbara. Go to your mother or grandparents. Better still, go to Connecticut.”
She squeezed the chain into her palm. Wise advice at this point. If Walker hadn’t come out…and to think she had claimed Dev wasn’t violent. That he wouldn’t hurt her.
But he was. He would. And far more certainly, he would kill Walker without a second thought. She loosed the fob. “I will if you do. You can’t stay here.”
Frustration huffed from his lips. “Miss Lucy won’t let Cora and Elsie go until she has to. You know that.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to insist that he go, then, until this had blown over, but why even give voice to such inanity? Cora would have her babe any day, and Walker would never leave his wife and children in the path of a raging Devereaux.
“Then I guess we’ll have to keep each other safe until this is all over.”
“Are you mad?” He stepped close, pitching his voice low. “Do you realize what he would have done to you?”
Oh, to deny it…but she had seen his eyes, determined and deadly. “I know. But I already let him ruin me by my own choice, so—”
“Don’t. You know better. You deserve better than that, princess, no matter what your mistakes were before.”
Maybe. But one could also argue that she deserved whatever she got at his hands. She sighed and looked up.
A light appeared in Barbara’s window, two feminine silhouettes blurred behind the filmy curtains, one with a rounded belly. Cora and Barbara, and with Mother Hughes already retired too. She didn’t dare go back in. Not until Dev left. So she slid over to the cool stone bench and sat. “Elsie?”
“Asleep. I left a window open so I can hear her if she wakes.” He sat beside her. Bracing his elbows on his legs, he was silent for a moment. Then he looked over at her with those silver-blue eyes. “You really never told Lucien you loved him?”
Marietta picked at a stray thread in her skirt. A few months ago, she would have denied it, knowing how it would appear to Walker. But that was before he became her friend all over again. “I didn’t want to lie about that.”
Walker kept his gaze on the silhouettes. A half smile touched his mouth as he watched Cora move in and out of view. “I didn’t think I’d ever love anyone else. When Stephen wrote and told me you were marrying Lucien Hughes, I might have charged in to stop it if I weren’t so spittin’ mad at your choice.”
Her chuckle felt like honey, soothing and sweet. “I meant for you to be. Not that I thought to see you again. I certainly didn’t expect Stephen to force you to work here…or for you to marry Cora so soon.”
“I couldn’t let her suffer like my mama did.”
“I know. You did right. And look what God has given you.” She could smile, seeing the adoration in his eyes. “A woman you love. A beautiful family.”
“And I tell her so every day.” He looked to Marietta, the pearly light of the rising moon catching in his eyes. “What about you? You gonna tell Oz how you feel?”