Mother clapped. “Your turn, Mr. Osborne.”
Osborne snapped his book shut. “ ‘But then, though we all hope to go to heaven when we die, yet, if we may judge by people’s lives, and our Lord says, “that by their fruits we may know them…’ ” ”
Marietta didn’t so much as blink. “ ‘I am afraid it will be found, that thousands, and ten thousands, who hope to go to this blessed place after death, are not now in the way to it while they live.’ Whitfield, ‘Marks of a True Conversion.’ ”
Devereaux ground out his cigar in the bronze ashtray beside him.
Osborne lifted a brow. “ ‘Down she came and found a boat/Beneath a willow left afloat—’ ”
“ ‘And round about the prow she wrote/The Lady of Shalott.’ Which is your answer, sir. Tennyson.”
Devereaux frowned. Marietta didn’t like poetry.
Their guest leaned forward, challenge making his eyes hard as onyx. “ ‘The analytical power should not be confounded with ample ingenuity…’ ”
“ ‘…for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis.’ ” She lifted her chin and stared Osborne down. “Edgar Allan Poe. ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ ”
Enough. Devereaux laughed and clapped along with his mother, ready to end whatever that had been. “When have you read Poe, darling? I cannot imagine it would suit your sensibilities.”
It took a long moment for her to look away from Osborne. And when she did, ice filled her eyes. Cold and hard and unyielding. Even when she smiled, it glinted like frost. “A lady must have her secrets, Dev.”
So long as they were a stash of sweets or a tawdry novel. The Poe he certainly didn’t care about. But that glint…that wouldn’t do.
“Oh, my.” Mother fussed with the lace of her shawl and pushed herself up. “I do believe I had better retire. Mari, dear, will you ring for Norris and Jess?”
Though her features thawed, it was a bit too late for Dev’s peace of mind. “Of course.”
Osborne stood, his movements languid but shoulders tense. “I think I will adjourn to the library if you will excuse me. That exhausted my literary acumen.”
Devereaux waited for Osborne to leave. For the slaves to get his mother from the room. For Marietta to meet the gaze he kept on her face for a solid two minutes during the exodus. And he was only marginally mollified when rather than just look to him, she joined him on the settee.
He let her settle at his side, let her send him her usual smile. Then he took her hand and held it fast. “You need to be more careful with him, darling.”
At least it was genuine bafflement in her pale green eyes. “Whatever do you mean, Dev? I never even speak to him but when you bring him here.”
True as that may be, it didn’t negate his concerns. He glanced to where Osborne had been sitting. “Explain that little exchange to me.”
Her cheeks flushed, her gaze fell to their hands, her fingers tightened around his. “I am sorry. I know such competitiveness isn’t becoming, and usually I curb it in company, but having grown up with three brothers…he looked just like Isaac, tossing out those obscure references.”
Devereaux studied her face, glanced at the flutter of the pulse in her neck, and noted the pressure she put upon his fingers. Nothing gave him any clue that she spoke amiss. That it was any more or any less than that. Still. “Just promise you will tread with care in his company. I cannot forget the look in his eye when he first spotted you.”
She was too savvy a flirt not to recognize jealousy. Too skilled a beauty not to know what it did to him when she looked at him like that, from under her lashes. When she traced a finger along the ridge of his knuckles, he wanted to lean over and kiss her, promises be hanged. “You needn’t worry, darling. He doesn’t even like me.”
“I find that infinitely hard to believe.”
Yet her smile was genuine, with just a touch of conspiracy. “Because you like me so well. But trust me, I know how to read men. He may like my face well enough, but that is where it ends.”
Was it? He knew how to read men too, and he was none too sure. But then, his expertise was not in that particular measure of them. “And what are your thoughts on him? I have yet to hear them.”
She shrugged, her shoulder gleaming alabaster in the light from the grate. Yes, he was glad to see her out of the suffocating styles of mourning. “I confess I fail to see why you are keeping him so close. Perhaps he is an able guard or detective or whatever he is, but he is hardly your usual choice of houseguest.”
How true. And how glad he was to hear her say it. “He hadn’t any other place to stay in Baltimore. It seemed logical.”