His loss.
“Thank you for agreeing to protect her, Mr. Osborne.” Mrs. Hughes brushed a flaxen lock away from her face. “I don’t know what we would do if we lost her. Devereaux loves her so.”
Did she have any idea how much? Did she know her eldest—and now only—son had killed for her? That he had loved her long before he should have?
Slade forced what he could manage of a smile and told himself not to judge. Was he, after all, any better? He had known very well she and Hughes had an understanding when he came on the scene, but it hadn’t stopped him from feeling that intrigue. From kissing her once and wanting to more.
But he never would have touched her had she been married. He was still none too sure Hughes could claim the same…though now the uncertainty clawed. Now he didn’t want to believe that Marietta would engage in something so base as an affair with one brother while married to the other.
Commotion downstairs made him shift, which in turn made Marietta’s breath catch and her head lift again. He didn’t know whether to focus on the plethora of voices drawing nearer or the pained, muted whimper that slipped from the woman beside him.
The woman won out. He turned to see her better as she lifted a hand to touch her cheek, her eyes clouded.
If it weren’t for the audience and the couch’s curved back between them, he would have wrapped his arms around her. Probably a good thing circumstances didn’t permit that. “Are you all right?”
A veil came down over the pain in her eyes, and a smile appeared on her lips. The same imitation of one he’d seen from her when he first arrived, which he now knew was but a dim reflection. “A minor irritation, nothing more.”
Mrs. Hughes leapt up to fuss again, fluttering her hands uselessly about Marietta’s face. “The bruising is beginning to show, and it will take weeks to fade. I’m afraid you shall have to postpone your plans to attend a ball with Devereaux, dear. And your new gown just arrived! Such a shame.”
“Yes. A shame.” She darted a glance at Slade, so quick he would have missed it had he not been watching her steadily.
Steadily enough to know there was no regret within her over that.
Well, he wouldn’t torture himself by sticking around to be interrogated by the brothers whose voices he now recognized on the stairs. He sent Marietta a small grin as he stood and moved to the edge of the room. With any luck, the Arnauds wouldn’t even notice him.
Mrs. Arnaud led the way into the room, a surge of blue satin aimed straight for her daughter. Slade caught the concern on her face, one echoed stormily upon her sons’.
They wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. He edged out the door before either Hezekiah or Isaac could spot him, pivoting into the hall—and nearly smacking into the lanky figure of Thaddeus Lane.
The old man greeted him with a smile and jerked his head toward the stairs. He followed him down, along the hall, and all the way to the side door. Only when they were out in the halfhearted March sunshine did Slade speak. “Did Hughes find you?”
“Briefly.” Lane made a face and directed his stride toward the carriage house. “I gave him just enough information to keep him busy. Is Mari still determined to protect the man?”
What could he do but huff? “Yeah.”
Her grandfather chuckled. “When that girl decides to change, she doesn’t do it by half measures.” He charged into the dim interior of the stable. “We had better hurry. Julie and the boys will fuss a good while, but they will eventually notice I’m gone.”
Slade didn’t have to ask to realize the man intended the same thing he did, to accompany Walker on his errand. And when Walker glanced up from the wagon he was loading, his expression looked about how Slade’s felt. They were all of the same mind, and no one wasted time with words. Lane and Slade lent a hand with the last two boxes, and then they loaded themselves in.
The reins fit Walker’s hands like a natural extension, and the two horses responded as one to the single click of his tongue. “I had a feeling I would have some company,” he said as he directed them toward the alley. “Fool woman.”
Lane chuckled. “I admire her for wanting to help.”
“But?” Walker sent him a sideways glance.
The old man shrugged. “But I don’t know the man. And I don’t feel very gracious to anyone who would hurt my granddaughter.”
Slade snorted. He wasn’t feeling particularly gracious either. But as he settled in among the boxes in the back, he didn’t want to err on the side of Hughes. He let his gaze settle on the house as they rumbled away from it. Marietta was safe there, at least when surrounded by family.