The Damnation Affair Read Online Free

much better days. The cushions were hard as rocks, and someone held a cup against her lips. It was sweet water, and she drank without qualm or complaint.
    Her vision cleared. A scrubbed-clean little parlour met her, lace under-curtains and brocaded green over-curtains, a small table with curved legs, and threadbare carpet worked with faded pink cabbage roses. The sunlight was tamed as it fell past the lace, and Gabriel the sheriff proceeded to try to drown her with the remainder of the water from a battered tin cup.
    Cat spluttered in a most unladylike manner, and an exotic face topped with shining blue-black hair rose over the sheriff’s shoulder. Sloe-eyed and exquisite, the Chinoise girl was in a faded homespun frock that did nothing for her, and the high rounded proudness of her belly suddenly made all the talk of widowhood and respectability much more comprehensible. Mrs. Granger hovered near a doorway cut in the white-plastered wall, her long jaw set with a mixture of what looked to be resignation and apprehension. Feathers stuck to the big woman’s bonnet and her quaintly cut brown stuff dress; a completely inappropriate desire to laugh rose in Cat’s throat and was ruthlessly quelled.
    “Oh, my.” She tried not to sound as horrified as she felt. “I am ever so sorry.”
    The sheriff’s face had turned interestingly pale, but he snatched the tin cup away and didn’t offer an explanation for tossing its contents over the lower half of her face. The Chinoise girl moved in with something like a handkerchief, dabbing at said face, and that was how Cat Barrowe began her stay in Damnation.
    *  *  *
     
    The regular card game upstairs at the Lucky Star was usually blessedly monosyllabic, except when there was news of a surpassingly interesting nature.
    It was just Gabe’s luck that the schoolteacher’s arrival was extra-wondrous. It had replaced Jed Hatbush’s fence as the preferred topic of gossip, at least.
    Stooped Dr. Howard, in his dusty black, dealt with flicks of his long knobbed fingers. “Little Tommy Hammis, the snot, charmed the chickens into the boardinghouse. And set that damn dog loose.”
    Paul Turnbull, silent owner of the Star, smoothed his oily moustache with one finger. He was a heavy man, stolid in his chair, but quick enough in a saloon fight. And he dealt with Tilson, who ran the girls and handled the day-to-day operations of the Star, well enough. At least, he kept Tils mostly in line, and that was a blessing. “Wish I’d seen Letitia Granger’s face at that.”
    It was a sight , Gabe silently agreed, scooping up his cards. Not a bad hand. The whiskey burned the back of his throat, and he tried to forget the dazed loar the dazok in Miss Barrowe’s eyes. Big dark eyes, and surprisingly soft once you got past that prim proper barrier of hers. She probably thought they were a bunch of heathens out here, and she wasn’t far wrong.
    Russell Overton, the town’s official chartermage, scooped up his cards with a grimace. Dapper in his favorite dark waistcoat, dark-curled and coffee-skinned, when he was sitting down you didn’t notice he was bandy-legged and had a stiff way about him. You could, however, always tell he was aching for a fight, like most short men. “That woman could sour milk. So, what’s she like, Gabe?”
    “Granger? Still sour.” He picked up his own cards, his charing-charm cool against his throat. The schoolmarm’s was a confection of lacy silver and crystal; his own was a small brass disc with the orphanage’s charter-symbol stamped on the back. There couldn’t be a better illustration of just how much she didn’t belong here.
    Stop thinking about it. It won’t do any good.
    Dark eyes. Brown curls. Not like blonde, blue-eyed Emily.
    Stop it.
    “Not Granger, you buffoon.” Russ chomped the end of his cigar as if it had personally offended him. Smoke hazed between the lamps. “The schoolmarm. From Boston, yes?”
    “Far as I know.” Gabe’s mouth was dry.