From the doorway comes a heavy sigh. “I told you that patience is required for things like this.”
“I’m running out of patience, Gideon. So is most everyone else. We’re starving. The Negroes are ill-treated, and there are undead within the boundaries. I know that pretty little lass of yours has been working on the men, but even a face as pretty as hers isn’t going to end all this suffering.”
“I know this, Maeve. What can I do about it? What is there to do? What can be done that we haven’t tried before?”
“The preacher is an unassailable mountain,” I mutter. “He relies on the sheriff to enforce his will. We need to get someone on our side in with him; someone who can control him. Someone who can help put the sheriff in a compromising position, one that he doesn’t anticipate, so we can use that opportunity to take him down.”
The Duchess pauses in her ministrations. “We’ve tried that before. He beat the poor girl something fierce, nearly killed her,” she says, low enough that the tinkerer doesn’t hear.
“Not sex—love,” I say, panting as the Duchess goes back to cleaning my wounds. “The sheriff is not a man laid low by something as banal as carnal pleasures. But the sheriff is a man who knew love once, who fell for a good woman. That hole in his heart is the doorway to our freedom.”
“So what exactly are you saying?” Mr. Gideon removes his glasses and wipes them clean.
“You heard the sheriff out there with that nonsense about the Israelites. He really did come here for a better life, just like everyone else who got on a train by choice. The promise of something more. And what did he get in return? To watch the woman he loved get eaten. If we want to take down the sheriff, we need to dangle bait that he cannot resist. A woman who can give what he once had with his wife and who can help him elevate his social status. A girl of good breeding—that’s what the sheriff will fall for. He’s a man that pretends to greatness and at the same time aches for love. He would crumple under the attention of a true lady. And once he does, we get rid of him.”
“You talking about murder?” the Duchess asks.
“It ain’t murder if a man gets turned.”
She snorts, dropping the rag into the bowl of water with a wet plop. “And I suppose you plan on dangling your companion on that hook.”
“I saw how he was looking at her. He’s already half in love,” I say.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Mr. Gideon says. I look up just long enough to take in his expression, his eyes sparking with intelligence, his lips pursed in thought. My heart flops like a trout on a riverbank.
Here’s a thing about me: I have always been a complete and utter muttonhead for a clever boy, even when I’m half delirious with pain.
“Yes,” I say, closing my eyes and sucking in a sharp breath as the Duchess uses a light touch to spread the salve over my back. “Just imagine if the sheriff knew all about Miss Deveraux’s tragic past.”
“What tragic past?” Mr. Gideon asks.
I swallow drily, and Nessie appears just then. She hands me the glass of water and I drink it down before I tell my tale. I’m counting on knowing Katherine. If I’m right, she hasn’t told anyone about where she came from, but rather distracted them with small talk. It’s been her modus operandi since I met her, and old habits die hard.
“Did you know she is actually one of the Chesters, of Chester County, Virginia? She ended up in Baltimore nearly destitute because her stepmother is a dastardly woman.” The lie darn near spins itself. “Her father passed quite unexpectedly, and Miss Deveraux’s stepmother sent her up north to live with cousins. Only, her cousins were quite savagely attacked and murdered by the undead. Family by the name of Edgar. The mayor of Baltimore took pity on her and invited her to stay in his own house until she could contact her relatives. But, well, Old Blunderbuss took a shine to her, and the missus wasn’t about to have that. So here she is, the proverbial Moses in the basket.” The burning in my back settles into a steady throb, the salve the tinkerer brought actually helping.
A strange look has come over Gideon’s face and his lips twitch as though he’s fighting back a smile. “That is quite a tale, Miss McKeene,” he says.
“Weren’t no tale. It’s the God’s honest truth. Miss Deveraux is as tragic as poor Ophelia.”
“Ophelia?” he asks.
“Yes, from Hamlet. Ain’t you never read Shakespeare?”
“Oh, I have. I’m just surprised you have.”
“You shouldn’t jump to conclusions about people, Mr. Gideon. I contain multitudes.”
Nessie slips out of the room as quietly as she appeared, and from the look on her face I know that the story of Katherine Deveraux will be on every drover’s lips by nightfall.
The Duchess stands and shoos Gideon away. “You need to get going, so I can help Miss McKeene get presentable.”
There’s a discreet cough from next to the door. “Of course, of course. Well, thank you for the information, Miss McKeene. I’m willing to bet that the sheriff would be horrified to discover how shoddily the world has treated a lady of Miss Deveraux’s caliber. He’ll want to see to her comfort personally, I’d wager.”
Gideon’s uneven gait echoes down the hall, and after the door closes the Duchess stands over me. “Remind me never to play poker with you.”
I allow myself a small smile before standing. The Duchess helps me to pull on a clean shirt. I ain’t sure that I can trust her, but there
