“Here.” Surratt held out a mug.
He had no idea what was in it, but it steamed, so he took it. “Thanks.” He sipped—coffee—and noted the men milling about.
That dread in his stomach churned. Too many were familiar. Cabinet members. Congressmen. Judges. Actors and editors and…
“Osborne, isn’t it?” Surratt drank from his own mug, his gaze darting about the room before landing on Slade again. “We were all surprised to hear Hughes was bringing someone in. He hasn’t nominated anyone since the start of the war. Something about too much rabble who are not dedicated to the Cause.”
Slade merely took another drink.
Surratt—a shrewd-looking fellow, with a beard only upon his chin that gave him a rather pointed face—shifted from one foot to the other. “He must know you very well.”
Another man sidled toward them with a grin. He looked familiar…an actor, wasn’t he? Name started with a B. Or was it a P?
“Ah, Booth.” Surratt greeted him with a smile just warm enough to speak of friendship and just small enough to speak of one too familiar to need formality. “Come to meet our newest brother?”
Booth, right. John something-or-another Booth. He held out a hand, spurring Slade to switch his mug to his left hand and hold out his right.
The actor pumped it. “Is it true? You were a member of Pinkerton’s security for King Abraham?”
Surratt froze with his mug halfway to his lips.
Slade reclaimed his fingers. They wouldn’t say such things if they actually knew the man. If they saw his daily struggles, the way he sorrowed at the divide in the nation he loved.
But they saw only their own side. A side he must convince them was now his. “I was.”
“Then you know his routine. You know the weak spots in his security. You know—”
“I know what they were three months ago, before I left.” Slade took another drink and another glance around the room. According to the information Pinkerton had put together, most of the men were already suspected Southern sympathizers. But a few had fooled them.
Surratt and Booth exchanged a glance, dark hope in both sets of eyes. “Well,” Surratt said, “I suppose it’s no wonder, then, that Hughes recommended you. What convinced you to join us?”
He knew what he had to say. Still, the words tasted like bile.
Ross’s words. Ross’s sympathies. Ross’s betrayal.
“When one is that close to the tyrant for that long, it’s hard to ignore his failings.” Sorry, Mr. President.
Surratt smiled. “Well, we welcome you eagerly to the ranks. Are you staying here in Baltimore or going back to Washington? My mother runs a boardinghouse there if you are in need of new rooms.”
He certainly hadn’t gone back to his old ones, not since that night. “Hughes invited me to be his guest for a while.”
Another look between the two. Serious and sober, but then Booth grinned. “Lucky you. You will get to spend time in the company of his lady, then. Have you seen her?”
Surratt sent his gaze to the ceiling. “Forgive him. He has a weakness for anything in a skirt.”
“And you a prejudice against them.”
“Because,” Surratt said in an even tone, “they are faithless, fickle, and false.”
Booth shook his head, exaggerated disappointment upon his countenance. “You are too determined to remain unattached, John. How you can be unmoved when a pretty girl bats her lashes at you I will never understand.”
“You would do well to try, as often as they have led you into trouble. And as for Hughes’s molly…” he turned back to Slade and used his mug to point at him. “Steer clear. He has killed men before over her.”
Booth grunted. “Too true.”
Slade gazed first at one John and then at the other. “How long have they had an understanding?”
Surratt snorted. “Since the day Lucien died, he has made it quite clear she was his. Makes one wonder if she had been all along, and the poor sap of a brother just didn’t know it.”
Lucien Hughes, from what Slade had gleaned, had been no sap. “I’ve heard about the late Mr. Hughes.”
“He was a strong leader, a good captain. We were all sorry when he fell to the streets.” Booth edged a bit closer. “But Devereaux has a sharper approach that we need now. We have had too many failures.”
“Just don’t anger him,” Surratt said. “A quicker man to issue a challenge I have never met, nor a better shot.”
Slade took another sip of coffee. “Why does anyone accept his challenges then? Or choose pistols?”