He found his mother-in-law still unconscious on the kitchen table. A blanket covered her where her skirt had been cut away, and bloodied bandages were in the corner.
At the moment Barbara was bent over the stove, and he spotted Mama in the bedroom wiping a cloth over Cora’s forehead. He headed for his wife and took the side opposite his mother. “How are you doing, honey?”
Her eyes were clouded with pain, but she managed a smile. “Miss Barbara says everything’s real good. I’m just prayin’ for Mama.” She reached for his hand and gripped it hard. “You gonna help Mr. Slade catch him? You gotta help, honey. You gotta see he pays for what he did.”
He covered her fingers with his. “Mr. Lane and Ize are going to help Oz. They asked me…” How much should he tell them? There were worries enough saturating this room. And yet if she were still laboring, if Jess were still struggling when it was time for him to head to Washington, he couldn’t very well leave without a word. He sucked in a quick breath. “There’s some men planning on killing the president tonight, honey. Oz was trying to stop them too, but he can’t do it all. He asked me if I’d help.”
“Then what are you doing here?” She propped herself up on her free elbow. Sweat beaded on her forehead. “You gotta save him. You go right now, Walker Payne.”
That was his Cora. He leaned over and kissed her head. “Nothing I can do yet, honey. Won’t have to leave until dark. So you just have this baby before then so I can leave without that worry, all right?”
Even as he finished speaking, her face contorted again. And his mother, again, shooed him back outside.
Thirty-Two
Devereaux had been glad, at first, for the silence from the females. He had been too busy checking the windows, his lists of supplies, and the timetables, to have any desire to deal with their histrionics.
But an hour had passed with nothing but the clickety-clack of the wheels over the iron ribbons, and now their continued petulance grated. His mother’s glare drilled him, and Marietta hadn’t said a word since he tossed her into his private car. She had remained on the seat he had put her in, not so much as shifting from her landing position. Her gaze had remained fixed on the floor.
She was here. She had not made a fuss, had not cried “Murder!” and brought the police down upon him, but only because she took his threats seriously. She did not want to be at his side.
His veins sizzled with that certainty.
“I will never forgive you,” his mother burst out. “I have had Jess since we were girls. She has served me faithfully and loyally all these years, and you shoot her as if she is nothing more than a lame dog?”
“Would you rather I had shot you for insisting on bringing her?” At her wide-mouthed gasp, he rolled his eyes. Were it not for the women, he would slip out again, over the connector, and into the first of the freight cars. “It is your own fault for disobeying. I will get you another maid, so do stop pouting like a child.”
“You cannot just replace a lifelong servant, Devereaux.”
He tapped his pen against the page, his gaze on Marietta again. He would get a rise out of her one way or another. “I suggest you make better use of your time than fuming at me, Mother. Perhaps you and Mari should plan the wedding. It will have to be small, of course, but you have always liked the house in Cumberland. I imagine you can make it lovely.”
Marietta blinked, shifted, and turned on him eyes so cold his blood had to boil to compensate. “You can force me before a minister with a gun to my head,” she said, her voice even and passionless, “but you will have to convince him I am mute. I will not say vows to you.”
He felt every thud of his heart, every scorching pulse through his body. It resonated, echoed, overcame. “Have it your way, Mari. If you will not be my wife, you can be my mistress. But one way or another, you will be mine.”
She sat straighter and fisted her hands. “How can you be such a fool, Devereaux? Do you really think you will get your way through violence and threat? You can ravage me and abuse me, you can take whatever you will from this body, but I will never be yours.”
He leapt to his feet, fire slicking through him far faster than the train through the countryside. “You will be mine,” he said, voice icy and dead in contrast to the raging life within, “or you will be nothing.”
Marietta rose too. So small across from him, but her spine stayed straight as the rails, her every curve perfection, the snapping in her eyes at least alive again, as he most loved seeing them. How could she deny what they had both known for years? She was meant to be his. Created solely to please him. No words could change that she belonged to him, nothing she could do would erase the brand he had put upon her.