The Damnation Affair

widest smile Cat could ever recall gracing her features. “Morning!” she chirped, and Jack glanced over his shoulder.

Her hand had curled around the jamb. Cat stared at the pair of them, and a yawning emptiness opened behind her breastbone. Robbie’s locket was tucked safely under her nightgown, and her charing-charm was warm.

She turned, and let the kitchen door shut itself.

I have never belonged here. She swallowed, twice, very hard. There was no point in seeking a breakfast. Instead, she should dress herself, pack her trunk, and draw out Robbie’s locket. Her Practicality would spark in the metal, and—

“Catherine?” Did he sound uncertain?

She steeled herself for what she was about to do. Halted, and stared at the front door, barely noticing the parlour opening to her right, full of fussiness and shabby chintz.

I should never have left Boston.

“Did it fail to occur to you that I might appreciate a warning, Mr. Gabriel?” It was her mother’s Dismissing A Servant tone, and it hurt her throat, stung her tongue, and filled her smarting eyes afresh.

The wind filled in the spaces between each word, and rasped against the house’s corners. Dust everywhere, and even if she retreated to the Eastron edge of this blasted continent she did not doubt she would hear the poison wind the rest of her life.

I am a fool. He is, after all, so far beneath me.

He was silent.

So she spoke, each word precisely polished. “A warning that perhaps the servant girl you had procured for me might be at risk of drawing murderers to my home? A warning that perhaps I should be on guard against evil mancy nailed to my porch? Or perhaps a warning that I was at risk of being slaughtered in my own bed by a Chinois criminal?”

“I didn’t think—” Was he breathless? And well he should be.

“Precisely.” I wish I would have dressed for this. “You may leave, Mr. Gabriel. I do not appreciate, nor will I brook, being misled in this manner. I came here in good faith, sir, and have narrowly missed being murdered for it.”

“Catherine—” As if he had been struck in the belly, lost all his air. Just as she had been struck last night.

“You shall not address me, sir. You may leave.” Though she rather doubted he would. The man was nothing if not stubborn, and there might be a scene.

Well, I have done nothing but behave disrespectfully since I came to this awful place; I might as well continue.

Just at that moment, there was a rather brisk knock on the front door. Cat put her head up and strode for it, not caring that she was in her nightdress. She had the bar down in a trice and wrenched the door open; dust swirled as Jack Gabriel gave a sharp warning sound.

But the locket was burning against Cat’s chest, and it was merely Mrs. Grinnwald, the sturdy postmistress. She stamped inside, shaking her head as dust fell from her in rivulets. “Didn’t think you’d come check for it, miss; there’s a letter for you.” Her bloodshot blue eyes greedily drank in the scene—Cat in her undress, the sheriff in his, and the letter in Grinnwald’s horny hand was rudely snatched away. Behind the postmistress’s ample bulk, the porch was a dim cave, dawn’s glow eerie and muffled through the flying dirt in the air.

Cat nodded briskly. “Thank you, Mrs. Grinnwald. I am very sorry to put you to the trouble. How long has this been waiting?”

“Two days, ma’am. Bit of a wind, and—”

“Your devotion to service is no doubt to be commended.” You nasty, gossiping old hag. Cat drew her nightdress about her as if it were a morning-dress. “Thank you very much. Li Ang is preparing breakfast; perhaps you, as Mr. Gabriel, will avail yourself of my hospitality in the face of this regrettable weather.”

And with that, she sallied up the stairs. The silence was almost as satisfying as the odd, queerly breathless tone Mr. Gabriel employed as he told the postmistress to come inside and shut the damn door, if she was going to be nosy.

Chapter 23

“I don’t know,” old Grinnwald huffed. “Some special delivery from Boston. Was paid to take it to her, that’s all I know.”

Wonderful. Although he didn’t mind the old bat seeing Catherine in her nightdress and Jack right behind her. The news would be all over town by afternoon, and he couldn’t say he had any objection.

I have narrowly missed being murdered for it. Well, he deserved that, didn’t he.  Here he was thinking she’d be grateful, and he could have slapped himself silly for it now. It had seemed so simple. Put Li Ang somewhere he could keep an eye on her, and then he had just hoped…or what? What exactly had he been hoping?

He wished the old woman would just go away and leave him the hell alone. Li Ang stared wide-eyed at this interloper in her kitchen, who stood and shoveled away every damn biscuit on the plate, complaining that there was no jam.

“And in this weather, too!” Grinnwald continued, querulous through a mouthful of biscuit dripping with baconfat. “I came all the way from the posthouse to deliver it. Well. La-di-da, the miss dismisses me!”

Jack grunted. What the hell did she want, anyway? He had work to get to. You shall not address me, sir.

Well, if Grinnwald gossiped, Catherine would be linked to him anyway, and he would have time to change her mind. Maybe explain. Women were convoluted creatures, and she’d had a shock last night. What Boston miss would come out in a dust storm to get someone to deal with a dead body in her kitchen? She wasn’t made for this.

She was made for finer things, no doubt, and he…was not.

“She’s a bit too big for herself if you ask me.” Grinnwald nodded. “Carrying on so. Why, I’ve heard those frails at the Star are taking lessons from her, high and mighty as you please. You should look into that, Sheriff. They’s bound to be a law agin’ it.”

“There ain’t.” The words came out sharp and hard. “And that’s my girl you’re talking about, missus.” She could have died last night. “Stuff your hole with more of her biscuits if you like, but keep a civil tongue in your head when you’re talking about Miss Barrowe.”

Grinnwald gaped, biscuit crumbs strewing her dusty bosom, and Jack slid his arms into his coat. Li Ang made a soft smothered noise, almost like a laugh, and the baby replied with a sleepy burble.

And that made him think of Catherine, smiling disbelievingly as she held the little bundle, wan and pretty in lamplight. And her softness last night, trembling against him. I need you. Well, he’d shown up, hadn’t he? And he’d heaved the Chinois, hands and feet pierced with true-iron and the man’s dead mouth full of consecrated salt, over the charter-circuit border himself. Let him rot outside the charter, dammit. He hadn’t had time to dig a grave, and the thought of consecrating more earth made him sick.

Wait just a goddamn minute… But it was gone. Something important, but Grinnwald had shaken her bustled rear, declaring she’d never been so insulted.

“Stay and fill your fat gullet, then,” he told her, jamming his hat on his head. “I’m sure I’ll have some more to say in a bit.”

But he did not exit through the barred back door. No, instead his spurs rang as he climbed the stairs. Her bedroom door was firmly closed, and he would have bet it was locked, too. Which just made it worse.

What kind of man did she think he was? Good enough to deal with a dead body, but not good enough to…

Except she was right. She could have died.