A low whistle made her jump and then made her pulse gallop as a figure stepped into the doorway. A smile teased her lips as his gaze swept up and down her.
If only he didn’t still have to lean against the doorframe for support. The fool man—he should have given himself another week to rest, at least. One fortnight was not enough to recover from a gunshot wound to the chest, no matter how stubborn the man. No matter how big the miracle that he survived it at all. “Slade, you said you would wait in the coach.”
“And you said you would be right back down.” Shadows still ringed his eyes, and he had lost too much weight, but his smile had never been brighter. “I was beginning to think you ran away.”
She lifted her chin and sailed toward him with a regal sniff. “Why would I do that?”
He chuckled and held out a hand. “You tell me.” She slipped hers into it and eased up against him, not daring to put any weight against his chest.
Her fear nearly sent her running back up the steps. “What if your parents hate me?”
His hand on her waist held her steady. And his eyes sparkled with a decidedly wolfish mirth. “They might.”
“Slade!”
“Well, you’re not what they would expect of the girl I finally bring home. You’re a rich Southerner.” He kissed her, slow and promising. “But it won’t take them long to see why I love you.”
“Humph.” They would see soon enough, she supposed. A few hours by rail, and they would be, oddly, back in the place the Culpers had begun—New York City. “Just promise me you will take it easy while we are there. You have been pushing yourself too hard.”
“There’s been a lot to do.” His eyes flickered. His smile dimmed.
She kissed him again and then pulled him out the door. He had insisted on attending the funeral service one short week after the assassination. He had sat in a row with his friends, finally believed only when his warnings proved true.
An irony she suspected they all recognized. One that made all their feet shuffle extra slow as they said farewell to their commander in chief.
“Miss Mari, you forgot your shawl again.” Cora’s voice preceded her down the stairs, tiny little Freeman strapped to her with a long piece of cloth.
Marietta paused with a smile. When her friend came near with the shawl extended, she took it with a nod of thanks and brushed her fingertips over the infant’s smooth head. “He’s going to be so big when I get home. A whole month. It seems he’s doubled in just these two weeks.”
Cora’s grin was bright as the sun. “He sure will be. And with a little luck, the house will sell fast and we can cut our ties. We lookin’ forward to Connecticut.”
She was praying for the same, but not quite so joyfully. There had been some sorrow in shutting up the Hugheses’ home. So many memories lived there, not just of Lucien and Dev, but of these past months with Slade and Barbara, Cora and Walker. The months when the world had shifted.
But it was silly to keep the big old place open when they would be happier at her parents’. And Mother Hughes had refused to stay in Baltimore after they buried Dev beside Lucien and their father. Her place, she had said, was Louisiana.
Cora’s smile faded too. “Walker still gets so quiet sometimes. Sayin’ how if he just had two more minutes, if they hadn’t sent him round back…” Her brows drew in, her hand stroked over her sleeping baby. “So much has changed. So much hasn’t.”
“I know.” She sighed and, when Mama waved frantically from the coach, stepped away. “Keep reminding him of their victories of the night. On the other lives they saved.” Just as she must rest in the peace that Granddad had taken care of sealing the cave, had charged the family of innkeepers to watch over it. Marietta had been uncertain about trusting them so much, at first, when she realized they were Confederate, but they wanted peace as much as the Culpers. They would do anything they could to keep a new break at bay, and the only other man who knew the location of the cave and its guns and gold had been silenced before Dev came after her.
Perhaps the treasure would be found someday. But not in their generation.
“Yetta.” Slade made a show of pulling out his watch and staring pointedly at the face.
Which reminded her. Slipping a hand into her pocket, she shook her head as she took a step toward him. “A watch without a fob. What will your father say, Slade?”
He winced and closed the lid. “I meant to buy a new one before we left, but…”
“Well. Lucky for you, I happen to have one just lying around.” She pulled out the silver links, dangled them in front of his nose.
He looked from the fob, obviously worn, to her and lifted a brow.
She smiled. “It was Stephen’s. He would have wanted you to have it. He would have been proud to call you a brother.”