Marietta flexed her cramping hand and straightened her spine. Sleep had eluded her these past three hours, so she had put her time to good use. Now, of course, with sunlight streaming in and a stack of pages before her, her eyes felt gritty and heavy.
But at least she had something to show for her exhaustion. Stretching her arms above her head, she took account of the pages she had transcribed. The list of names—again—the other pages she had already sent to Granddad. And then what seemed the most critical of the rest from the drawer. Two copies of each. One for the Culpers.
And one for Slade Osborne. She shuffled his into a stack and stared at them with pursed lips. Getting them into his hands would be a simple matter of slipping them into a theological text in the library.
She could leave said book out for him, or direct him to it on the shelf casually enough. Either way, he would know they came from her. Which would prove she had spent time in the drawer, and he would assume it hours. Would assume she had copied directly from the page. Which she could certainly do more easily than he could, it being her house, but…
Tired, she slumped against her chair and squeezed her eyes shut. He was already suspicious of her. He may be concerned for her safety, he may be grateful for the aid she had given, but he couldn’t make it any clearer that he didn’t trust her. Would he even accept these copies as accurate or think she fed him false information?
Well. She could do nothing about his perceptions. All she could do was put the documentation into his hands.
At the jiggle of her doorknob, she folded the stacks of paper and set her Bible on top of them. Cora couldn’t read to know what they were, but still. She would secure them in her desk as soon as possible.
“Mornin’, Miss Mari. You’re up early.”
She turned on her chair with a smile she hoped covered the shadows under her eyes. “One of those nights.”
The woman grunted a laugh and rubbed at her back. “I know all about them.” She looked over. Frowned. “Lawsy, ma’am, you look fit to fall over. Hop back into bed. I’ll bring you up a tray.”
So much for covering the shadows. She stood. “Nonsense. I only need a stiff cup of coffee. I can’t leave Barbara to fend off Mother Hughes’s veiled insults alone.”
Cora folded her arms and held her ground—something she wouldn’t have done a fortnight ago. “Miss Barbara can take care of herself.”
“I know. But that doesn’t mean she should have to.”
Apparently that point won her a bit of favor. Her maid loosed a hum and strode into her boudoir. “Lavender or gray?”
“Whichever you think.”
That brought Cora to an abrupt halt. “You ain’t never left it to me, even mornings you were tired as this after a night o’ dancin’.”
Nights of dancing—how far away those seemed. “There are many things I’ve never done that I should have. Nearly as many as the things I shouldn’t have that I did anyway. And I’m sorry for them all.” She wrapped her arms around her middle and resisted the urge to sink down into the feather mattress of her bed. “I am trying, Cora. Trying to change.”
Cora merely disappeared into the room full of gowns and hoops and petticoats, reemerging a moment later with a day dress of lavender. She glanced at Marietta only once while she laid it all out. “Elsie told me ‘good morning’ today using the signs. And she’s been using ‘Mama.’ When we realized, I thought I’d never hear her say ‘Mama.’ Feels like she has now.”
Marietta smiled and shrugged out of her dressing gown and then into her corset. “I’m so glad, Cora. She’s a darling child.” She hooked the corset before slipping the cover into place.
Hand outstretched to help her step into the circle in the middle of the skirts, resignation settled on Cora’s face before she moved to the rear to hoist up the fabric. “Walker said he told you. About who…”
A knot formed in her throat. Somehow she hadn’t thought Cora would ever speak to her about it. Marietta needed a moment, a nod, to be able to speak. “He did. And I am so, so very sorry.”
“Ain’t your doin’. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this house, it’s that sin has consequences. Just a funny thing that sometimes them consequences be borne by someone other than the sinner.”
Sin has consequences. She splayed a hand over her abdomen under the guise of smoothing the layers. Was it wrong of her to pray, pray with every fiber of her being, that her particular sin would not result in the same consequences Cora had suffered?
Fear gnawed. She had done wrong. Had betrayed her morals, her late husband, the God she had too long ignored by indulging in a moment of weakness that night. She had sold herself short, seizing one stolen moment rather than waiting for forever. And she would pay for it.
Perhaps the Lord had forgiven, washed her scarlet sins white. But her own words, an echo of so many she had heard from behind the pulpit over the years, clanged in her head.