Remembering all the times they had threatened to cart her off to Connecticut to Grandpapa Alain and Grandmère Adèle, Marietta grinned. “An understatement. And you, Mr. Osborne with a penchant for Methodist sermons? Were you the perfect child?”
He walked over to a chair and eased into it, but the action did nothing to banish the thunderheads in his eyes. “I left the perfection to my brother.”
“Hmm.” Such an easy excuse to make for oneself, that one’s parents already had children who fulfilled all their expectations, so that left one free for…anything. She tilted her head to the side. “Let me guess. You left home too young and proceeded to make a career of carousing, engaging in all that sport we ladies of breeding cannot mention. At which you must have enjoyed enough success to continue for a fair number of years, but eventually you realized it was not as fulfilling as you’d hoped, so you settled—somewhat—to a real career. With Allan Pinkerton, it would seem.”
Had his gaze been a knife, it would have sliced her to ribbons. “Mr. Hughes told you about me?”
She would have snorted had it not been so unseemly. Instead, she turned it into an echo of a laugh. “No. But I know your type.”
A single flame of anger flickered through his glare before he banked it. Ah, her guest did not like to be labeled. Poor thing. Perhaps, then, he should not apply them so freely to her.
The acidic thought ate away at her as she finished that roll, put the bandage back into the basket, and pulled out the next strip.
Her chest went tight and heavy. This was why she had silenced her conscience long ago. It was dashed uncomfortable. And yet the thought of shushing it again made the tightness worse, made panic steal into her lungs and wring the air from them.
Made her acutely aware that if she really were on the tightrope Granddad had said, and if she had only herself to rely on, her wits would not keep her alive. The danger he described was not a backbiting social circle or a catty rival. This was not dangling one suitor before another’s nose.
This was a matter of treason.
She let her eyes fall shut for a moment. Just one. One moment to wonder why, of all her siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles, this task had fallen to her. She was no spy. She was no Culper, whatever a Culper really was. She was no Patriot. A Union sympathizer, yes, but believing in it enough to make it her cause?
She’d never had a cause. Not beyond her own.
Her eyes opened again. Again she saw the agent seated across from her. She nodded toward the book he still clutched against the arm of the chair. “Would you read to me, Mr. Osborne?”
His facial muscles didn’t so much as twitch, but incredulity came off him in waves. “From this?”
Her attempt at a smile felt sorrowful. “My perfect brother was in divinity school before the war. That was his book. So yes, please.”
He opened the cover, probably perusing the table of contents, but then went still before shooting her a probing look. “Which brother?”
He knew she had several, which proved he had done his research. Her throat ached. “The youngest of them, though they are all elder. Stephen.”
The mantel clock ticked. Tocked. Ticked again. “The one who fell at Gettysburg? I remember hearing that Commodore Arnaud lost a son in the battle.”
All she could manage was a nod. In some ways, the older loss was fresher than Lucien’s. Maybe because she had loved Stephen longer. Maybe because he had understood her better.
Mr. Osborne flipped the pages, landing close to where he had been before. “ ‘ “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.” Philippians 3:12.’ ” He paused, cleared his throat. “ ‘There is scarce any expression in Holy Writ which has given more offence than this. The word perfect is what many cannot bear. The very sound of it is an abomination to them. And whosoever preaches perfection (as the phrase is,) that is, asserts that it is attainable in this life, runs great hazard of being accounted by them worse than a heathen man or a publican.’ ”
Funny how it could make her smile. How often had she tossed that word in scorn at Stephen? Resented him for his seeming perfection? Yet he had only to say the first words of this sermon, and the rest would come rushing back.
Her guest kept reading, his voice deeper than Stephen’s had been but using the same intonations. The same reflection. She could almost, almost believe that her brother would have sounded this way had he made it through the war, back to school, and stood someday in a pulpit. She could almost—almost—imagine Mr. Osborne in the same position. Though he would have to put some emotion upon his face to be believed as a clergyman.
“ ‘Even Christians, therefore, are not so perfect as to be free either from ignorance or erring—’ ”
“Error.” The correction slipped out, as if he were Stephen reciting, as if she had been charged with making sure he got each syllable correct. Fool. When she glanced up from her growing stack of bandages, it was into his frigid stare.