She stepped into his line of vision. He didn’t turn away. “Is it?”
The look she sent him was the very one his mother used when making it clear she wasn’t fooled by whatever story he came up with to try to wriggle his way out of trouble. “What I can’t figure is why Dev is so willing to believe you. What is it you have, Mr. Osborne, that he needs?”
So she knew about the Knights, she had deduced his purpose…he saw no point in hiding what was fairly common knowledge anyway. “I was one of Lincoln’s guards until a few months ago.”
She tilted her head, sending a single flame of a curl to rest on the shoulder of his jacket. A wonder it didn’t burn it. “Why were you reassigned?”
Why indeed. He swallowed and moved back to the crates, the only thing of interest in the room. “Pinkerton had something else for me to do.”
“But you told Dev it was because…what? Your loyalties had shifted?” She appeared at his side, reaching into the topmost crate even as he did. “And he believed you?”
He let her pick up the first stack, watched her flip through it methodically, page after page. Yet she never paused to read a single line. “To his view, I was just coming to my senses.”
Her snort of derision did nothing to slow her hands. Slade reached out and stilled her with fingers on her wrist. “I need to know whose side you’re on.”
Marietta went stiff. Every muscle froze, the one in her jaw tight to show the clenching of her teeth. Then she drew in a slow breath, relaxed, and met his gaze. “Yours.”
His fingers slipped away from her wrist. The one word shouldn’t have struck him like it did.
He cleared his throat and picked up the pile she had already flipped through. “Aren’t you going to read these?”
“I will later.”
She intended to come back down here, alone? His stomach went tight. If Hughes caught her, even her considerable charms would have little effect if he saw her as a threat to his carefully laid plans.
He very nearly touched her hand again but held himself in check. “Please be careful, Marietta. Better still, leave this to me. I can’t have you getting hurt.”
“It’s a little late for that.” She flipped through a few more pages and then paused, frowning. “He has been shifting things around. This is the list of names. Updated, by the looks of it.”
He took the page from her, though his gaze moved to the newspaper folded behind it. “Casualty reports.” Though he scanned the list, the crossed-out names meant nothing to him. No one he had met, no one they had talked about. Nothing nearly as interesting as the cool detachment on her face. “How long have you known? About their part in this.”
If possible, her expression emptied still more. She kept flipping leaves. “Since the day you arrived.” Five simple words, yet her tone was rich with meaning. Accusation aimed at herself, disappointment. A sorrow that must have run deep indeed to elicit that note of betrayal.
One he knew all too well. “You never knew about your husband, then.” He wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or not.
Given her shaky exhale, the correct answer was not. “No. And discovering it now makes me revisit every conversation we ever had, makes me wonder what information I told him from my father that I shouldn’t have. Makes me wonder if he ever would have looked my way if Daddy were a lawyer or an academic. Anything but a naval authority.”
The laugh slipped out before he could stop it. When she turned her sharp, cat eyes on him, he shook his head. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? It wasn’t your father that drew his eye.”
She tilted her head again. Any moment now she’d either purr or hiss. “Was that a compliment?”
“Maybe.”
Now she was the one to laugh, low in her throat and electrifying. Then she shook her head and returned to her task. “My family tried to warn me away from Lucien. They didn’t know about his…allegiance. But they saw in his character what I refused to see. And, of course, his family owned slaves. That alone made them object.”
He studied another page, though he knew he wouldn’t remember much of what he read. He’d have to return alone so he could concentrate. “Are you not the abolitionist the rest of them are?”
Now her wisp of laughter sounded bitter. “I am. But my first cause was always myself. And I so wanted to hurt him.”
“Who? Your father?”
“No.” She straightened her shoulders and looked at him again. “Dev’s even worse than Lucien, isn’t he? Barbara said…she said he killed a man in a duel.”
“Sounds right.” And he didn’t even want to consider the torture Hughes would devise for him if he’d seen that kiss. The thought made something go tight in his chest. Not out of fear, not of Hughes. Something deeper.