“I love you.” Vulnerability sparked in his eyes, but his arms were still like iron around her waist. “I have loved you since I first set eyes on you.”
The sob came out of nowhere, erupting in a gasp. She covered her mouth, squeezed shut her eyes, and jerked away. Dizziness washed over her when she tried to breathe. Cora had laced her corset too tight when she retied it—that was why the air wouldn’t come. Her corset. Just her corset.
Not her conscience. Heaven knew that voice had been muted most of her life, drowned out by the steady march of meaningless facts through her memory.
“Darling.” His fingers closed around her shoulders, so warm against the January chill. “Why does that make you cry? You have known so long how I felt.”
Too long. She had known and had held it to her heart, a secret blacker than the gown she had just ordered Cora to pack away. “Tell me I made him happy. Tell me he never knew.”
“Mari.” He turned her to face him again and tipped her chin up with a gentle touch. What was it about that narrow nose, that tapered chin, those two slashes of dark brows, that made her melt? He thumbed away a tear. “I have pushed you from mourning too fast. Yet I feel as though I have waited forever to claim you.”
Her gaze dropped, all the way to the yards of lavender fabric that declared her ready to ease back into society. Why did the declaration make her want to run and hide, when these fifteen months she had struggled so against the confines of black? “I should have better mourned him.”
She should have better loved him.
Dev’s hand rested on her cheek. “Finish your mourning and take what distance you need, darling. When these final three months are finished, you will be mine.”
She didn’t know whether to tip her mouth up to invite a forbidden kiss or to pull away. Whether to breathe in his bergamot scent with a smile or let a storm of tears overtake her.
A loud rap on the door saved her the decision and made them both jump. Pulling all those frustrating emotions back in, she waved away the servant who appeared from the kitchen corridor and opened the door herself.
Her smile went from halfhearted to full bloom when she craned her neck up, and up still more to take in her dawn visitor. “Granddad. What are you doing here so early?”
“Your father just made port, and I went to tell him about Fort Fisher’s fall yesterday—”
“Fort Fisher? In North Carolina?” Hope surged up, though Marietta settled a hand on her chest to contain it. It would be a mighty blow to the Confederacy, but that did not mean the war was over.
“Hadn’t you heard? Then I’m glad I thought to pay a call on my favorite girl while I was out.” Thaddeus Lane grinned, tapped a finger to her nose as he had since she was a tot, and strode inside. A blast of icy air came with him, against which she shut the door. When she turned again, his smile had faded to a glower aimed at Dev.
“Mr. Hughes. What are you doing here so early?”
Dev was never one to be flustered, though his smile looked strained. “Mother took a bad turn last night. We feared the worst. She pulled through, praise the Lord, but I couldn’t leave until I was sure of it.”
Both men sent her a glance. Dev’s, full of shared worry and relief and that black secret. Granddad Thad’s, full of censure. Marietta opened the door again. One of them at a time was plenty. “Shall I see you at dinner, Dev?”
“Dismissed.” He chuckled but obeyed the dictate and made for escape. “You shall. And do send a note to tell me what the doctor says, even if it is good news.”
“I will.” Her lips pulled of their own will into a soft smile for him. Though after she shut the door, all softness evaporated under the scathing regard drilling into her back. She turned around and looked at her grandfather with arched brows. “Must you treat him that way?”
Granddad’s scowl only deepened. “I am your grandfather, young lady. I will treat a man any way I please when I find him in your home at seven in the morning. Now get your cape. You are taking a walk with me.”
“I am not. It is freezing out there.” But even as she said the words, she reached for the heavy woolen cape on the rack. Granddad never issued orders. Not unless it was of the most vital importance. “You cannot condemn a man for being concerned for his mother.”
“If he were so concerned, he would move her into his house.”
Marietta fastened the toggle and wrenched open the door again. “Must we have this conversation for the ninety-second time?”
“Ninety-two, is it?” Amusement crept its way into his voice. “Is that an approximation or an exact count?”
She glared at him over her shoulder.
He pulled the door shut, and for a long moment held her gaze with glinting amber eyes. “How is it you can know the exact number of times I have said a certain thing, yet cannot see the wisdom in obeying? Go home to your parents, Mari. Or take the money your husband left you and set up house somewhere else. Go to Alain in Connecticut—”