The Damnation Affair

grip and scrabbling on bare wooden flooring. Mrs. Granger was ranting, and Keb and Lizzie Hammis were trying desperately to corral the charmed fowl. Poor round Lizzie, her red face even redder, swatted at a prize hen. “Oh, for Pete’s sake…Keb, grab that one—Tommy, get down here, I am gonna take you behind the woodshed for sure! Oh, miss, sorry, Boxer don’t bite—”

“Honestly, Lizzie Hammis, the one day we ask you to be respectable!” Granger had her skirts clutched back as if one of the chickens might foul or bite her.

Gabe almost wished one would.

Boxer made snuffling, grunting, pleading noises, lunging against the schoolmarm’s grip. Her hat was askew, and she was flushed. The extra color did wonders for her face, and her wide dark eyes flashed almost angrily before her jaw set and she hauled back on the mastiff’s collar again. “Down, boy!” she snapped. “I think if we can get him—oof—outside, we can restore some— ouch—some order here.” She brightened as her gaze lighted on Gabe. “You! Get over here and help me!”

It had all the bite of a command, and he decided it wasn’t a half-bad idea, either. So he was already moving, striding across the raw lumber, the pale-green rugs askew and everything in the parlour rattling dangerously as Mrs. Hammis started searching for a counter-charm to gather up the chickens and get them quiet. The entire boardinghouse shook with stray mancy as the chickens sent up an ungodly noise and Boxer started moaning. Charing-charms glowed—the marm’s bright and clear, Letitia Granger’s a glitter of indignation, Lizzie Hammis’s sparking as she sought for a bit of mancy, and Keb’s barely limned with foxfire since he had no mancy at all. Gabe could feel his own warming dangerously, and didn’t have time for a breath to calm it.

He grabbed the mastiff’s collar, the schoolmarm worked her gloved fingers free, and in short order he had the dog outside on the front walkway. Onlookers crowded, but he made shooing motions and they hung back. “Someone find Tommy Hammis for me,” he remarked, mildly. “The boy’s gonna hafta give his Ma a reckonin’.”

“The new miss, is she mad?” Isobela Bentbroad hopped from foot to foot, looking scrubbed and miserable in her Sunday best. Her lank brown braids flopped.

“Well, if the music didn’t frighten her off, Ma Hammis’s chickens might. Just wait, Izzie. And the rest of you, don’t cross these steps ’til we’ve got things calmed down.”

Boxer set up a wail as Gabe finished clipping his collar to the chain bolted to the porch. Most of the time, the dog kept Pemberton out of trouble. But he had a regrettable yen for chasing chickens. He hadn’t caught one yet, despite fowls’ inherent stupidity, but he was the original Tip Mancinger in the old nursery rhyme—he just kept trying.

“I mean it, now,” the sheriff said. A murmur ran through the crowd.

He squared his shoulders and strode back into the fray.

Granger was still going. “And furthermore, the drapes in here haven’t been beaten since this building went up, they’re stiff with dust! Honestly! Chickens, in the house!”

The schoolmarm stood against the parlour wall, no longer flushed but very pale, staring at the potbellied iron stove. She cast a single imploring glance at Gabe, and he was only faintly relieved to see the chickens had been dealt with.

“This is not respectable!” Granger was getting herself worked up but good. Keb Hammis, his meek face cheese-pale, had his shoulders drawn up like he wished he could vanish, his best suit straining at the seams. Lizzie was probably getting the chickens back into the coop, but she’d be no use here either.

Oh, Hell. Gabe sighed internally. A mastiff was one thing, Letitia Granger another entirely.

“Mrs. Granger, ma’am.” He had his hat in one hand, running the other back through his hair. “Thank you. That’ll be about enough.”

It was probably the wrong thing to say. Letty glared at him, her bosom heaving. The cameo pinned at her throat was a sailor on stormy waters, to be sure. The charing-charm on it flashed blue, then green. She didn’t talk about where her original charing had gone, but Russ Overton had once commented that it was no wonder Granger was so sour; anyone with her hard luck would be.

Gabe let his hands fall. “Keb. That boy of yours around?”

The new schoolmarm piped up. “Is he about ten, very blond, and quite agile?” The clipped, educated precision of the words made the entire parlour look shabby.

Well, we do as best we can, Gabe reminded himself. “That’d be him, yes.”

“I saw him heading down the hall, that way.” She pointed, her reticule swinging. “I believe he has perhaps made his escape. Will you be placing him under arrest?”

For one mad moment he thought she was serious, before the glint in her dark eyes caught up with him.

Jack Gabriel surprised himself by laughing out loud. Keb Hammis outright stared with his mouth open and his colorless eyes wide, and Mrs. Granger was mute with astonishment, thank God.

“He’s a handful and no mistake, ma’am. I don’t pity you having him in school.” It didn’t come out quite the way he wanted it to—he sounded sarcastic instead of amused. “I think we might be able to show you the house now, if you’re so inclined. Garrett’s already taken your trunks.”

Mrs. Granger harrumphed. The house was a sore subject. Or not precisely the house, but the hired help.

The sparkle in Miss Barrowe’s eyes was gone. She reached up, twitching her hat back into place. “Yes, I’d quite like that, thank you.”

And Jack Gabriel, abruptly, felt like a goddamn fool, for no good reason at all.

Chapter 2

The house was small and trim, freshly painted white and green, and at the very edge of the “town” proper, though no doubt inside the charter-boundaries. Cat kept her back straight with an effort of will, and groaned internally at the thought of more welcoming committees. There had been a crowd of people, some of them scuffed and bruised, all coated in dust and a layer of sparkling mancy, standing agoggle outside the boardinghouse. Stray mancy still vibrated in the street, and her charm was warm again. Sweat slicked dust to her face, her dress would perhaps never recover from the double assault of dirt and feathers, and her entire body ached. The sharp bite of hunger under her breastbone threatened to make her well and truly irritable.

If she never again sat in another rocking wooden contraption pulled over ground by terribly apathetic nags, she would be ever so grateful. Mrs. Granger rocked back and forth in the seat behind them, either too mortified to speak or holding her peace for other reasons.

The sheriff pulled the horses to a stop. “It’s small, but it’s safe. The town charter covers a couple miles out past here, so you don’t have to worry about any bad mancy or otherwise. Plus the girl working here, well. She’s a fair girl, in her own way, except she’s Chinee. You don’t mind that, do you?”

Behind her, Mrs. Gratilnger sniffed loudly. It wasn’t quite a harrumph, but it was close.

That’s right; they did mention a girl to charm the laundry and do the cooking. “Mind? Why on earth would I mind?” The meaning behind his words caught up with her. “A Chinoise girl?” Does he think we’ve never seen them in Boston?

“Name’s Li Ang. She’s a widow. Good girl, will cook and keep house. She gets half Sundays off, and she’s a fair seamstress. Knows some English. Glad you don’t mind.” It was by far the longest speech he’d given, and he looked straight ahead at the horses while he did so. “There’s good people here, and our charter’s solid.” Still staring forward, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. “May not be what you’re used to, but—”

“Sir.” She wished she could remember his name. It wasn’t like her to forget such a thing, but a day such as this would strain even a mentath’s wondrously unshakeable faculties. “If I held the comforts of civilization so highly, I would hardly be here. I am quite prepared for whatever this town holds.”

For some reason, that made his mouth twitch. “I hope so, ma’am. Hope we ain’t scared you off yet.”

“It would take far more than this to frighten me, sir. On the contrary, I am roundly entertained. Shall we proceed?”