Cora stood up just as fast, wincing. No doubt her servant liked Marietta’s presence in her home about as well as Marietta did. The word strained hardly covered it.
But the lessons couldn’t be done in the big house, where Mother Hughes or Dev himself could come upon them. Nor did weather permit an outdoor meeting this time of year. So here they were. Above the carriage house, in one of two rooms that Marietta had never even glimpsed before today.
Cora and Walker had managed to make the close space a cozy home, but Marietta clearly didn’t belong in it.
She dug up a smile, though, waved to the wee one, and made the sign for her name. “Bye-bye, Elsie.”
Her grin made every nerve inside Marietta go taut. Because she knew it too well, when she scarcely knew the child at all. Elsie waved back, backwards, and then earned a gasp from her mother by making the sign for thank you, even adding the one they had made for Marietta’s name.
“See.” Walker, beaming, tousled his daughter’s hair and pulled his wife in for a sideways hug. “She’ll pick it up fast.”
“She might.” At least Cora smiled as she said it. Marietta knew well that Walker had had a battle on his hands, getting his wife to agree to this at all. Hence why it was the fourth of February, and they were only now having their initial lesson. “Come on, baby. Let’s you and me take our nap.”
That too had been a battle hard won, one fought with Mother Hughes as well as Cora herself. And oh, the glint in Mother Hughes’s eyes. A glint Marietta knew well, though she usually chose to ignore it. The one that said that the woman might have a sugarcoating, but that’s all it was. A coating. Still, she was Lucien and Dev’s mother. She deserved respect. But sometimes Marietta had to put her foot down, as she had done with this.
“I’ll walk you down, Yetta.”
She merely nodded and swung her cape over her shoulders, careful to keep her back to the little family as Walker bade them a temporary farewell. Just as she was careful to keep her gaze locked on the rickety stairs as she descended.
Once their feet were on solid ground, Walker halted her with a hand on her elbow. “Thank you, Yetta. I can’t say it enough. Thank you.”
She opened her mouth, but words wouldn’t come. Or rather, appropriate words wouldn’t. The ones that vied for a place on her tongue were impolite, risky, and…and so very important that they would not remain unsaid another day. She strode away, into the stable where the whinny of horses would give them some semblance of privacy. And then she turned.
He was only a step behind her, the muscle ticking in his strong jaw. The gratitude was gone from his smoke-blue eyes. “Go ahead. Ask.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t, Walk. But I have to know.” She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the images away. Elsie, with her familiar hair, familiar smile, familiar face. And Marietta’s husband, the one who made them familiar. “Is she Lucien’s?”
Walker’s breath eased out as one of his beloved horses craned over the stall door and gave him a welcoming nudge. He stroked the brown nose, but his gaze stayed glued to Marietta’s face. He swallowed. “No.”
“No?” Relief should have welled. She should have been happy to think that her husband had not been unfaithful, had not been dallying with his slaves.
Instead, her knees gave out, and she sank down against the half-door behind her. “Dev.” Of course it was Dev. The memories came in rapid succession now, a quick calculation thrusting her back to the right time. Three years ago. One too-long look, one too-wrong wish. His sizzling gaze, and the anger that pulsed through it when Lucien had happily declared it time to retire and had pulled her from the room.
The scream that had echoed through the halls a half hour later. She had sat up in bed, had been ready to go investigate. But her husband had pulled her back down and held her close, muttering something about a clumsy servant bumping into something.
Cora’s cry. She’d known it even then. But when she did indeed see a bruise on the girl’s arm the next day, she assumed Lucien’s suggestion had been right.
But no. She had been attacked. And it was all Marietta’s fault.
Her breath coming in heaving gasps, she lowered her forehead to her raised knees. “No. No. I’m sorry. I should have…I never even…you came two days later. You married so soon. I never thought to question.”