She couldn’t forget her sins. But He could forgive them. He could wash them white as snow.
When the torrent slowed, when the shudders eased, she opened her eyes again. Her ribs hurt from where her corset pressed in, her neck from the strange angle, her knuckles from pushing so hard against the floor. And her eyes ached as they traveled down wool-clad legs and fastened upon the scuffed black shoes stretched out against the wall.
A hand was still resting—or perhaps hovering—on her head. And she was too drained to even be mortified. Gathering together what tatters of strength remained, she pushed herself up.
How very strange. Never in all her lifetime would she have thought that when she prayed for the Lord’s touch, He would choose to use Slade Osborne’s hand.
He shifted as she sat up but only to accommodate her, not to move altogether. He didn’t look at her in question or as though she were made of glass and might break with one wrong move. No, he just pulled out a crisp white handkerchief and, black eyes steady on hers, dabbed at the tear tracks on her cheeks.
For the first time since she watched Walker disappear into the night, she didn’t know how to respond to a man. So she sat still, refusing to look away, and let him soothe. Her eyes felt swollen, but they were clear enough that she had to wonder where the wolf had gone from his. He looked, as he moved to her other cheek, like a…friend.
The thud of footsteps sounded in the hall. “Mari? Are you in here?”
Dev. Panic replaced the hard-won peace, and she shrank back against the wall, pulling her skirts in with her.
Slade’s eyes went sharp again. He pressed the handkerchief into her hands, sprang to his feet, and strode to the door. He must have stepped into the hall because his voice sounded distant. “I saw her go upstairs.”
She leaned her head against the wall and prayed blessings, heaping blessings, upon Slade Osborne’s head.
“I must not have heard her slip up. Well, we had better head back to the station. Are you ready?”
“Sure. Go on out. I’ll just grab my book.”
Though it took effort, she eased silently to her feet, holding her breath until she heard Dev’s familiar tread move away and then the door open and shut.
Slade strode back into the library and headed straight for her, pausing when he was a foot away.
She would have attempted a smile, but her lips wouldn’t cooperate. All she could manage was to hold out his handkerchief.
He took, not the square of white cotton, but her fingers. Her breath caught in her throat. He had ignored even that common greeting since their first introduction. Curling her fingers around the fabric, he lifted her hand to his mouth.
The touch of his lips was as featherlight as that of his hand had been upon her hair. Certainly no more than polite if one went by pressure, duration, or any other measurable quality.
But Slade Osborne was not polite. He was not measurable. And his obsidian eyes seemed to have no bottom as he held her gaze through the two-second exchange.
Then the wolf sprang again, and he turned and left, grabbing the book from the arm of his usual chair on his way out.
Marietta stared at the crumpled white cloth clutched in her hands and decided she would never again trust her judgment when it came to a man. Thus far, she had been wrong about each and every one of them.
Eleven
Devereaux tapped his pen on the blotter as he read the telegram, drawing in a breath that felt hot and smoky. The words didn’t change.
The end was upon them.
For a long moment he stared at the words as their meaning festered. President Davis’s peace talks with Lincoln and Seward had failed. They would not relent, and the South had no more resources. The Canadian government had signed a bill to prevent raids across the border, and no help was to come from any other side.
He shoved a hand through his hair. When Fort Fisher fell on the fifteenth, he should have known the South wouldn’t, couldn’t recover, but he had been more concerned that day with his own house. With Mother, and with seizing the chance to make Marietta his when she came to his room to tell him the fever had broken.
He should have been out that very night, communicating with the other captains, and with Richmond. He ought to have set in motion that very hour plans to save all they fought for.
Balling up the telegram, he shoved to his feet and tossed it in the wastebasket. Lincoln would pay for what he had done to their country. If he hadn’t stepped foot in office, this war never would have started. They could have found a peaceable solution. They would have convinced the Yankee-livered politicians to grant the Southern states their rights, the rights the Constitution had granted them.