“Never heard her called Casey before. ’Round here she’s always been just Cassandra.”
Preacher said, “Huh.” He looked at the door again and thought about the young woman on the other side of it. Had she revealed something to him that she hadn’t shared with anyone else here in St. Louis? If that was true, why would she do such a thing?
Preacher didn’t have the answers to those questions. Maybe he would learn them in time, he told himself as he followed Brutus downstairs.
The parlor was empty now except for Beaumont, who stalked back and forth on the rug with a drink in his hand. When Preacher and Brutus walked in, he stopped, threw back the liquor, and then said, “It’s about time, Donnelly.”
Evidently Beaumont considered the debt between them squared now. He and Preacher weren’t friends anymore. Beaumont’s voice held a definite tone of employer talking to employee. He handed the empty glass to Brutus and went on, “Let’s go.”
They stepped out into the parlor, where Brutus handed Beaumont his beaver hat and then draped the cape over his shoulders. Brutus was about to open the front door when Jessie called from the top of the stairs, “Good night, Shad.”
Preacher turned to look up at her. She wore a long, flimsy gown and robe, and with the light from the landing behind her, the lines of her body were clearly revealed. Her hair was loose and appealingly disheveled.
Preacher wasn’t sure if he had ever seen a lovelier woman in his life.
“Good night, my dear,” Beaumont told her.
“Did you have a pleasant time with Cassandra, Mr. Donnelly?” Jessie asked. Beaumont frowned, as if she shouldn’t even be speaking to Preacher.
Snatching his hat off his head, Preacher held it in front of him and said, “Yes, ma’am, I sure did. She’s a right nice girl.”
“I’m glad. You have a pleasant evening, too, what’s left of it.”
“Yes’m.”
Beaumont glared at him for a moment as they left the house. “Don’t get used to Jessie paying so much attention to you,” he said. “She was just being polite.”
“Yes, sir, I never doubted it.”
Inside, though, Preacher was laughing. Beaumont was jealous! Jessie had spoken barely a dozen words to Preacher, and yet Beaumont was jealous of him. That was rich.
And it was one more way to get at Beaumont. Not that he would ever take advantage of a woman just to strike back at an enemy, Preacher told himself. Some things just went too much against the grain, and that was one of them.
But a moment such as the one that had just occurred in the house, a moment that was not of his making . . . well, Preacher didn’t see anything wrong with enjoying that.
Lorenzo had the carriage door open. Preacher figured it was sometime after midnight, but the elderly driver didn’t even seem tired.
“Headin’ home, Mr. Beaumont?” he asked.
“That’s right,” Beaumont said. “Home. And when we get there, Donnelly, Lorenzo can show you your quarters. I’ll expect you in the main house at seven o’clock in the morning.”
“Yes, sir,” Preacher said. Looked like he was bound for the servant quarters. That was all right with him. He had a lot more in common with folks who actually worked for a living than he did with a rich, powerful crook like Beaumont.
Once Beaumont was inside the carriage, Preacher and Lorenzo swung up onto the driver’s box, and Lorenzo got the team moving. After a few moments, in a tone of smug satisfaction, he noted, “I see you ain’t Jim anymore. You just Donnelly now.”
Preacher chuckled. “The boss can call me whatever he wants.”
“You ain’t as special as you thought you was.”
“Trust me, I never thought I was special.”
And yet he was special, Preacher mused, because he was the man who, sooner or later, was going to kill Shad Beaumont.
But not right away. Not over the next week, during which Beaumont kept his promise and saw to it that Preacher got a new outfit. He sent Lorenzo with Preacher to one of the stores in downtown St. Louis that sold men’s clothing, where Lorenzo picked out and paid for a couple of gray tweed suits, half a dozen shirts, two cravats, a pair of high-topped black boots, and a beaver hat. None of the garments were as fine and expensive as what Beaumont wore, of course, but they were probably the fanciest duds Preacher had ever had. He felt a little like a damned fool, too, when he saw himself in the store’s looking glass.
“You know what they say ’bout the silk purse and the sow’s ear,” Lorenzo commented sourly. “You still look like a big ol’ farm boy to me, even if you
“Don’t tell the boss, but that’s the way I feel, too,” Preacher said with a grin. He liked the little carriage driver, despite Lorenzo’s habitually gloomy disposition. He figured working for Shad Beaumont would make anybody feel that way.
Although Jessie hadn’t seemed unhappy, he reminded himself, and neither did the folks who worked at Dupree’s. He supposed that was because Beaumont paid well.
The two of them visited one place or the other every night, and sometimes they made it to both. Preacher didn’t see Casey again, and when he asked Brutus about her, the big man said that she hadn’t been feeling well.
“These whores get like that,” Brutus said. “They’re more fragile than you’d think they’d be.”
