The bottom drawer on the left-hand side of the desk. That was where she had seen them both slipping things when she came to the door. Sometimes they would leave their work out—railroad papers. What, then, did they put away?
The drawer would be locked. She had asked Lucien about that once, early in their marriage, and he had smiled, pulled her onto his knee, and said their company had enemies who weren’t above bribing servants, which was why he kept his important documents locked away.
But it wasn’t company files in that drawer. So then. The key.
She sat in his chair, reaching as she had seen him reach under the desktop. His arm had moved like so…but his was longer. His hands larger, so if she stretched hers out…
Cool metal brushed her fingertips. Clever—a little shelf had been built for it, a thin veneer of wood that the tip of the key hung over. She slid it out and turned it over in her palm as she retracted her arm.
Dusty. Dev must use the other key that Lucien had kept on his ring, the one she had handed over the day of the funeral, knowing most of the keys opened doors at the rail office.
Perfect. She could keep this one to herself. She unlocked the drawer and then took off her necklace, sliding the key down the gold chain until it settled against the cameo.
The clock in the corner hadn’t been wound, so she glanced at the sun outside the window. Still several hours until Dev’s carriage should rumble back over the cobblestones, but she wasn’t about to be caught by surprise like the wolf. She opened the drawer and studied its contents.
Files hung, unlabeled. Ever-organized Lucien would have had everything in a very particular order. And more-organized Devereaux would know exactly what that order was.
He could discover she was in this room, and she could talk her way out of it without any trouble. But if he found her in a locked drawer where he kept sensitive information…that could get dangerous. She would keep things in their proper places, down to that single sheet raised a sixteenth of an inch higher than the others, and the file in the back that looked as though it had been rifled through.
She pulled out the first file, flipped it open, and drew in a deep breath.
She needn’t read anything now. Instead she opted for speed, flipping page after page, glancing at each only a second.
A second was all she needed. Each paper’s image seared itself into her mind’s eye.
One file finished, she moved to the next. Then the next and the next, until she had looked at every sheet within the drawer and had replaced them all. She compared the image before her to the one within her mind of how it had been forty minutes prior. Adjusted the height of this, the angle of that. Then she closed the drawer again and relocked it.
Now what? She could keep poking through the room, but her twitching nerves dissuaded her. She would retire to her own desk, where she usually spent her mornings seeing to correspondence, and examine all she had just found at her leisure.
On her way out, she grabbed a few books from the shelf. She would move them into the main library and claim, if Dev asked, that she had gone in for that express purpose.
Her second-floor drawing room faced east, where morning sunlight filtered through the lightweight curtains and gilded the chamber in gold. She had redone the appointments in pale greens and blues when she moved into the house after her wedding, and now its familiarity wrapped around her. She settled at the delicately carved desk and opened the first letter awaiting her.
But she didn’t read the missive from her aunt. She read instead the first sheet she had looked at in Lucien’s study.
Names. Members of their castle? Assuredly. Lucien’s took the first position, with Captain written beside it—and then crossed out.
The page was filled, front and back, Lucien’s hand mixed with Dev’s. Some of the names she recognized, some were unfamiliar. Some surprising, some not.
And several more crossed out. A few with a note—fell at Shiloh, fell at Carthage, fell at Gettysburg. Many had stars beside them and notes as to which regiments they belonged to.
Northern ones, most of them. Sorrow pinged. This was why the president had made mention of the group being another arm of the military, because they had invaded his own forces and were undermining his troops.
She focused her mental eye upon one of the names. He had died at Gettysburg. And was a member of the V Corp.
Stephen’s corp.
Her brother had likely been fighting side by side with a traitor. Someone who had joined the Union army with the sole purpose of betraying it.
Marietta drew out a fresh sheet of paper, her personal stationery, and her pen and ink. Dear Granddad…
The note was benign, inviting him and Grandmama Gwyn to dine with her on Tuesday. But then she stood and went to the door. After glancing down the hall, she eased it shut and flipped the key in the lock.