Dev looked at it over her shoulder. “Isn’t that Miss Gregory?”
“Yes.” She nearly ripped the likeness in two. Might have, had she not been so closely watched. Glancing up at the question on Mr. Osborne’s face, she said, “Just someone my brother briefly courted.”
Someone. The one someone, other than Lucien, on whom they had ever disagreed. She had won that battle, had convinced him that Barbara Gregory was after nothing but his name and means.
Though if she had won, why did he have a photograph of a girl too poor to have afforded one on her own?
She was too tired for that question. And really, what did it matter? Stephen was gone.
Handing the paper back to Mr. Osborne, she let her gaze drop to the book. “Do you read Danish, sir?”
“Maybe.”
Her gaze flew to his face, where a grin hid in the corner of his mouth.
He shrugged and closed the cover over the photograph. “Maybe not. Do you?”
“No. But I could if I wanted.” Stupid, stupid thing to say. It may have earned a quick, gruff laugh from Slade Osborne, but that in turn earned her a scowl from Dev.
Marietta backed away and folded her arms over her middle. The Lord’s strength was having plenty of opportunity to be perfected in her tonight.
Nine
Slade needed some favor. Since their evening at the family home on Monday, Hughes had barely spoken to him. The silent treatment from one’s enemy. One would think it wouldn’t be a bad thing, but three days later…he released a puff of frosty breath and dug his hands into his pockets.
The rail yard yawned quiet around him, black as tar. Vandals had struck the other night, covering the tracks with sand and cutting telegraph wires. Hughes had put up a big fuss about it publicly and had seen to repairs within hours the next day. But his private scowls had been testier than Slade had expected. The rails were targeted often, so what had been different the other night?
Slade hunched against the wind and stared down the track heading to Washington City. Because he was forced to hang around the place anyway, Hughes had put him to work on trying to determine who was responsible. Slade figured neither of them really expected answers, but it was something to do. So he had done it.
Maybe a little better than his “boss” had anticipated.
He’d determined pretty easily what had been different about the particular shipment that had been thrown off schedule because of the vandalism, and the message waiting in the queue at the telegraph office. And in the determining had realized it was no wonder Hughes had seemed genuinely upset. The telegraph cutting had interrupted a series of messages between John Surratt and John Booth, and it was a safe assumption that the interruption had caused some trouble for the KGC.
And the next shipment supposed to head out at first light on the rails had been Union rations gone rancid. Thanks to the holdup, someone had come along to inspect it again and had noticed.
At a faint scuffling sound, Slade slid in behind a stack of crates. The perpetrators had no doubt been overeager Southern sympathizers who didn’t realize they were interfering with Hughes’s plan. In which case, Slade had no problem whatsoever finding their names and hauling them before his host. It would earn him some respect from the man who seemed to like him less and less, and it wouldn’t hurt his own cause any.
They hadn’t struck again in the last few nights, whoever they were, but another of Hughes’s disguised shipments was going out tomorrow, so this was a good night to play the shadow. If they didn’t come, he could claim to have scared them off. If they did, he would catch them in the act.
The scuffling grew louder, though still faint by normal standards.
Slade’s spine coiled and his muscles bunched. His fingers tightened around the pistol at his hip.
Three men slunk into view, barely discernible in the unrelenting black of night. The one in the lead had to be every bit as tall as Lincoln, if not a fraction taller. The other two were of more average builds, but something about the middle one caught his eye. Something familiar. Something…
He muttered a curse and stepped out, drawing his gun from his holster, though he kept it pointed at the ground. As much favor as this particular capture would win him, he couldn’t do it. Not when it would mean losing a potential ally. “Walker Payne, you mind telling me what you’re doing slinking around here in the dead of night?”
The trio came to an abrupt halt, silence echoing for long seconds as Walker no doubt tried to place him. At length, the man hissed out a breath. “Osborne? What are you doing here?”
“My job, as far as Hughes is concerned. Was it you the other night?”