The Damnation Affair

when a shadow fell across the back step.

The Chinoise girl whirled, inhaling sharply. Her little hand flashed out, grabbed a knife that looked more fit for repelling pirate boarders than cooking, and hissed something in her native tongue. Cat let out a pale shriek and started, almost dropping her cup, and Jack Gabriel peered over the half-door, reaching up to his hatbrim. His hazel eyes were bright and wide, and he ducked a glowing ball of heat drawn from the stove.

“For God’s sake, Li Ang, put that away. Figgered I’d—well, hello, ma’am. Pleased to see you looking better.”

Heat raced furiously up Cat’s cheeks. “Sir! I am not even dressed! Were you never taught to knock before entering a house?”

“I did. Don’t reckon you heard me.” He took this in, and actually, of all things, smiled. “That thing you’re wearing could qualify as a winding-sheet, miss. Avert,” he muttered, right away, flicking his hat to brush away bad mancy or ill-luck. “Beg pardon, ma’am. I’ll wait in the parlour.”

Cat, her heart pounding, swallowed a most unladylike urge to shrill like a harridan. Her mother would know exactly what to say to this man to cut him to size. “Very well,” she managed stiffly. “Perhaps you would care for a cup of tea, while I arrange myself.”

He shrugged, leaning lazily on the half-door. Li Ang had gone back to washing, and Cat suddenly noticed the girl’s ankles were swollen. Definitely a chair, and some provision must be made for the baby as well.

“I prefer coffee, but thank you kindly. I’ll wait.”

“I was unaware I had an engagement today,” she floundered.

“Thought you might like to see the schoolhouse. But I can understand if you’d rather rest, ma’am. Yesterday was prob’ly enough to turn a lady’s nerves to ribbons.”

What a gruesome image. Thank you, sir. “I am made of sterner stuff than most, sir.” Why was she possessed of the sudden feeling that she was coming off very badly in this conversation? “Good morning.”

“Morning.” He didn’t say another word as she retreated, crimson-cheeked and acutely aware she was practically barefoot. Her bare ankles were brazenly revealed. And she was in a nightgown, of all things, in the kitchen with a servant.

And the day had been going so well.

* * *

Li Ang offered him two biscuits and some leftover bacon on a plate; he took it, so as to be mannerly. Besides, his breakfast had been bolted before dawn, and now he couldn’t even remember what he’d shoveled in before heading out to ride the charter-circuit with a sore-headed Russell Overton. “How you feelin’?”

She shrugged. She understood far more Englene than she could speak. Not much escaped those dark eyes of hers, either. She returned to her work, moving slowly, and Jack sighed, leaning against the door while he reflectively chewed on the bacon. He gave it a few minutes’ worth of silence, to let her get comfortable.

And also to let himself think about the schoolmarm. Bare-ankled and lost in a nightgown that looked big enough to swallow two or three of her, with her dark hair anyhow and falling out of its braid. He hadn’t seen a woman like that in a few years.

Not that it would help him to think about it. He’d spent years not thinking about women at all, and more years trying to forget one particular woman.

It never got easier.

“Any trouble?” he finally persisted, after giving her a decent time to compose her nerves.

Li Ang looked into the washsink like it held gold dust, shook her head. The long braid of glossy black hair bumped her back. She rinsed a plate, then half-turned, pointed at the hallway, and nodded once, decidedly. “Good,” she said, in a high, thin, piping child’s voice. She thought for a moment, finding the word in her mental storehouse. “Good charm.” Another nod. “Good sense.”

Well, that was as close to an unqualified vote of confidence he’d ever heard Li Ang utter. He felt the need to qualify it himself, so she wouldn’t think he was…what was he? “Bit prim, that miss.” Kind enough, though, and didn’t lose her head in Hammis’s parlour. “You! Take him outside.” Least she’s practical.

Made of sterner stuff, eh? Well, we’ll see. Been too quiet around here. May be another attack soon. “Keep the doors bolted,” he finally added, taking a bite of biscuit. She made them doughy, did Li Ang. For all that, they were food, and he didn’t want her to feel poorly. He’d refused to eat her cooking once, and her face had crinkled like she might cry. He still felt a mite guilty over that. “Darkmoon comin’ up.”

Li Ang shrugged and brought him a tin cup of water, which he swilled gratefully. He wished for some coffee, but Miss Barrowe hadn’t precisely offered, and Li Ang was probably mad at him for scaring the bejesus out of her. That knife had come within a hair of being flung, and he had a healthy respect for her aim. “Hate to scare her away,” he added, mostly because he suspected the Chinoise girl liked having him make some noise so she could be sure he wasn’t sneaking. “Hard enough gettin’ a schoolmarm out here, and the young’uns is right savages.”

Li Ang made some remark in her native tongue. She could have been calling him a dogfaced monkeylicker, for all he knew; all Chinois sounded the same to him. But at least she said it nicely enough.

“I don’t worry so much about little Hammis or some of the othern. It’s the older ones.” He popped the last bit of biscuit in his mouth. “Like Tommy Kendall, for example. Or that Browis boy. Like to send her home in a sobbing heap. Maybe I should have a quiet word, you think?”

Li Ang shrugged and made another short comment. Jack sighed, scratching at his forehead. “Well, they’re likely to take that nose in the air as a challenge. Quiet word might sort it out, or might make ’em nastier. Goddamn, Li Ang, why do I always end up talking around you?”

“Lo-nu-lee,” she half-sang as she charmed the water in the washsink afresh, sparks of mancy crackling. “Jack is lonely.”

Well, shit. I knew that. His mouth pulled sourly against itself, and he balanced the plate and cup on the door. I should just shut up while I can.

It took the schoolmarm a damnably long time to get ready, and his mood didn’t grow any brighter. At least he refrained from opening his fool mouth anymore, and Li Ang collected his plate with a dark look and shuffled away.

By the time he heard a light step in the hall, he was half-ready to tell the Boston miss something had come up and he wasn’t available to squire her around all damn day. His mouth was dry and he’d already wiped his hands on his pants, cursing himself as the bacon grease made itself felt.

She looked cool and imperturbable in some sort of flowered dress, a pale ruffled parasol at her side and her hat perched smartly on brown curls. As if she was about to go stepping out on a Boston street instead of sitting in a dusty wagon with him, going to look at a one-room schoolhouse that was probably as fine as a chicken coop to her delicate sensibilities.

“Good morning, Mr. Gabriel.” She was even wearing gloves, for God’s sake. She offered her hand as if she’d never met him before. “I must apologize for my previous disarray. Shall we?”

His brain froze like a hunted rabbit and his mouth decided to mumble. “No trouble.” Under the gloves her fingers were slim and fragile.

She don’t belong here. He swallowed, dryly, and her dark eyes mocked him for being dirty and shapeless. Jack Gabriel reclaimed his hand, jammed his hat back on his head, and mumbled something else.

It didn’t figure to be a pleasant afternoon.

Chapter 4

Miss Bowdler’s Book of Charms For Frontier Living had been quite adequate so far, but Miss Bowdler’s Book For Schoolteachers had not prepared her for a ramshackle barn of a building still smelling of raw wood probably hauled from the distant, frowning mountains with a tiny outhouse tucked behind it like a secret. It had a bell, certainly, and a very new slate board. Fine gritty sand drifting over the