Both Mother and Marietta looked at him, both opened their mouths, both paused.
Now their guest looked up, his eyes keen despite his apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I meant the elder Mrs. Hughes.”
“It does get a bit confusing, doesn’t it?” Mother simpered and smoothed down her skirt too, though her gown hung on her after all the weight she had lost in recent months. “Perhaps you ought to call my dear daughter by her given name, like the rest of us, Mr. Osborne.”
Marietta pressed her lips tight. And because she obviously wanted to withhold her permission, Devereaux could smile and grant it. “You might as well. Though the answer to your question would be the same, whichever of them you asked.”
“That’s right.” Mother went back to her embroidery. She was working on a Union sash, though he knew it galled her. “My family is from French Louisiana, just outside New Orleans. My brother now owns the plantation on which I was raised. The Fortiers are known far and wide for the best sugar in the South.”
“And Marietta has French on both sides of her family.” Devereaux took a draw from his cigar and picked up the paper he had yet to read today. “Right, darling?”
She had a book by her side, though she hadn’t opened the cover. At his prod, she sent him a look that said she was perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation without his guidance. He grinned back.
Though she refrained from rolling her eyes, he had a feeling it took effort. Effort which she channeled into the smile she sent Mr. Osborne. “That’s right.” She drew the book into her lap. “My father’s father was French aristocracy. He fled to America with his parents in the face of the French Revolution. And my grandmother on my mother’s side is half-French as well, with a similar story. Except that Great-Grandmama Julienne ended up in England with my Great-Grandpapa Isaac.”
Osborne glanced between the two ladies. “I imagine that shared heritage bound the two of you together.”
The ladies were quick to agree, but Devereaux narrowed his eyes. Osborne obviously knew their loyalties were different, but something about the slant of his brows made Devereaux think he suspected more of Mother’s sentiments than he should have.
A detective ought to have keen powers of observation, he supposed. But still. He had no business using them to find the cracks in the foundation of the Hughes house.
Perhaps Mother felt it too. She shifted, refreshed her smile, and directed it to Marietta. “Entertain us, Mari. Recite something.” To Osborne she added, “Our Mari has an amazing ability to recall the written word.”
“Does she?” Osborne sat up a bit straighter. “Fascinating. Do you take requests, Mrs.—I mean, Marietta?”
Devereaux shifted. He didn’t much like hearing her name trip off his tongue after all, though it was a little late to rescind the invitation.
Running the tip of her finger along the edge of her book, she smiled. “That is one way to play the game, Mr. Osborne. But it is more fun if you recite a snippet of something, and I try to finish it and give you the reference.”
Always entertaining, assuming she was in company that enjoyed the same things she did. Though boredom snuck in fast if a bunch of pretentious gentlemen were present who insisted on tossing out Greek or Latin references, or the religious texts she so despised. The moment they ventured into those, she would demure and claim ignorance.
“All right.” Osborne sat straighter still, his nearly black eyes going narrow in thought. He glanced to Devereaux. “Why don’t you start us off, Hughes, while I think?”
“Very well.” He thought for a moment as he took another puff of his cigar. “Ah. ‘There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England.’ ”
How he loved the way the smile curled just the corners of her mouth. Every time he saw it, he wanted to kiss those corners until the smile bloomed full. “Really, Dev, that is hardly even sporting. You might as well have begun with ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ The next line is ‘There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France,’ and the book is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Mother Hughes, do show your son how to make this game challenging.”
Mother laughed, though no doubt later she would huff about Marietta’s audacity in insulting him before a guest. “All right. Hmm. Oh. ‘There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.’ ”
Marietta made a show of considering, though she wouldn’t have had to. Mother only ever quoted from three different books, and even Devereaux knew which one that line opened. She had used it in this game half a dozen times before.
She tapped her chin and tilted her head. “I do believe…no…is it—oh! Of course, your favorite, Mother Hughes. Jane Eyre. ‘We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning.’ ”