Her fingers already resting in his, she paused. “Has something happened?”
“Yeah.” Once she was on her feet again, he led her from the room and across the hall to Hughes’s study. They might as well start where she left off. “Booth says we should be ready to move within the next couple of days.”
Her hand went tight around his. “The plan is still to kidnap the president?”
“In theory.” He closed the study door behind them, knowing his worry shone in his eyes. “They are so desperate, though, with the news of defeat upon them. I’ve always feared they may decide on a simpler approach.”
“You don’t mean…” Her skirts swished to a halt as he fiddled with the hidden latch. “No one has ever assassinated a president. Surely they won’t either.”
If only he could be sure. But the suspicion had redoubled since he received that note from Booth yesterday. It hadn’t just said to be ready for the agreed-upon plan. It had said to be ready for whatever was required. “Pray you’re right about that, Yetta. Pray it with every beat of your heart.”
The panel popped forward, and he slid it open while Marietta lit the lantern. She handed it to him with solemn eyes. “I will pray. I will ask Barbara and my family to pray without giving them specifics. And I will do anything I can to help you.”
“I know.” For the first time that day, a zephyr of peace touched his spirit. The last time he stood with her on these stairs, he wasn’t convinced she was on his side. Now it was one of the few things he trusted. He led the way down into the cellar. “There are some things here you didn’t see last time. After that, we’ll head to the castle entrance.”
“All right.” Her voice strove for confident, but he caught the undertone of nerves.
In silence he set the lamp upon the table and unpacked the crates, laying out papers and books she’d yet to see. Whenever she nodded at one batch, he replaced it with another. Occasionally she would correct him on his ordering as he put it back, but otherwise she didn’t speak either.
Within five minutes, they headed back up the stairs, and he couldn’t help but note the crease between her brows. Once all was back to rights in the study and they were in the hall, he sighed. “Are you sure—”
“What a long way you’ve come, Slade, to be wasting words on ridiculous questions to which you already know the answers.” When she glared like that, her confidence outshone her anxiety. She looked once more like the dangerous, catty woman who had so confused him three months ago, and less like the genuine, selfless lady he’d spent so many hours with lately.
Somehow, realizing both were within her made him feel better. He led the way to the side stairs.
Marietta’s steps slowed behind him. “Where are we going?”
“Ballroom.”
“What? I thought the entrance was outside the house.” And the outrage in her voice at realizing it wasn’t, that the Knights had therefore been coming inside her home, made him grin.
He led her past the steps to Barbara’s room and down the hall toward the ballroom. The members all used the exterior entrance to the room, through the door partially concealed by the overgrown hedge. Hughes left a key for that door and kept this interior one locked.
Slade knew where he kept this key too, and he used it to let the mistress of the house into the room she probably hadn’t seen in nearly two years.
Her breath caught when she glided past him, her gaze latching on the mirrors and windows draped in black. “They never took down the mourning.”
“Hughes apparently forbade the servants from entering since the day of Lucien’s funeral. When you gave him the keys to the study and, by extension, the castle.”
She fingered one of the swags of black crepe. “I told them to close it up. I didn’t realize…” Huffing, she planted her hands on her hips and turned to a piano in the corner, its coat of dust thick and white. “He could have at least let them drape the furniture first.”
A snort of laughter escaped. He couldn’t help it. The things women worried about sometimes.
She spun back to him and smiled. And then went serious again far too fast. “Lead the way, Detective.”
“Right.” He crossed to the far wall, found the piece in the ornate molding that opened the door not so dissimilar from the one in the study, and swung it wide. Here, a recess in the wall of the staircase held a lantern and a box of matches.
They went down the stairs and then along the corridor to the series of rooms. He took her first to the farthest one, the initiation chamber. So far as he had been able to discern, nothing there would be any help. But he intended to be thorough, so she would have no reason to demand that he bring her down here again.