His jaw worked, but he seemed to finally realize the eyes of every child in the room were upon him. He backed up a single step, his gaze purely venomous, and whirled, banging the door shut.
Cat’s knuckles ached, gripping the wooden yardstick. Her heart pounded. She tilted her chin slightly, an ache beginning between her shoulder blades.
I can handle a whorehouse manager, Mr. Gabriel had said. Surely a Barrowe-Browne could do no less. At least it was not a shambling corpse at the door.
That was an entirely unwelcome thought, and she did her best to put it a ct t between hway. “Second form, take your slates and solve the row of sums under first form’s line. Third form—” All three of you, who can puzzle out a word or two. “Take out your primers and occupy yourselves with page six.”
“Yes ma’am,” no few of them chorused, and Cecily Dalrymple actually sat down without flouncing, for once. Cat suspected she might regret showing leniency, but there was nothing for it.
She passed down the aisle, stepping over the cleansed patch where the corpse had landed—there was no evidence of it on the floorboards, but she still disliked setting her feet in that vicinity—and braced herself for whatever unpleasantness was about to ensue.
“You.” Tilson pointed a stubby finger at her. “What are you playing at? Them whores don’t need to read!”
So that’s it. Her mother’s voice still served her well—the exact tone Frances Barrowe-Browne would use in dealing with an overeager gentleman, or a brute of a salesman who sought to engage her custom. “You will adopt a civilized tone in speaking to me, sir.” Cat drew in a sharp soundless breath. Dust whirled along the dry track serving as a road, and the horse Tilson had arrived on hung its head near the trough, its sides lathered. “And your horse requires some care.”
“Goddamn the horse, and God damn you, too! Civilized tone my ass. What’n hell you think you’re doing, teaching whores to read? I won’t have it!”
She still held the yardstick, and the image of cracking him across the knuckles with it was satisfying in its own way. Cat gazed at him for a few long moments, her face set, one eyebrow arched in imitation of her mother’s fearsome You Are Not In Good Form expression.
When she was certain she had his attention, and further certain that he was beginning to feel faintly ridiculous, she tapped the yardstick against the schoolhouse’s ramshackle porch. The shade here was most welcome, though she quailed a bit inwardly at the thought of the afternoon walk back to her little cottage. “The next moment you use such language, sir, this conversation is over. Now, am I to understand you have an objection to some of my students?”
“Your—” He visibly checked himself. “They ain’t gonna read! You just tell them that!”
“I was engaged to see to the education of those in this town.” Dangerously quiet, and Cat’s back ached. “Those in your employ are not heathen slaves, sir; they are members of this town and, as such, are entitled to my services. Additionally”—she overrode the beginning of his bluster, and it was Miss Ayre’s example she drew upon now—“I am a charter-free Christian woman, sir, and you do not have any leave or right to speak to me in this manner. You may remove yourself from my schoolhouse immediately. If you do not, I shall be forced to seek a remedy against you by applying to the forces of law and justice in this town.”
“What, Gabe? He ain’t mixed up in this. You mark my word, you little bitch—”
“Good day, sir.” She turned on her heel.
Tilson took a step forward, and his broad, callused hand closed around her arm, squeezing brutally. “I am talkin’ to you, you little—”
The yardstick snapped up, its tip crackling and spitting sparks. She meant to merely startle him into dropping her arm, and heard Robbie’s voice inside her head. Don’t let them manhandle you, little sister. That’s what a Practicality’s for.
Instead, it cracked across Mr. Tilson’s face as he sought to shake her, pulling her toward the three rude stairs leading off the porch. The mancy popped, and blood spattered. She recoiled, his hand falling away from her aching arm, and it was as if Robbie were next to her. The image of the locket in the pawnshop window rose, glittering coldly, and she realized that in this town, she could perhaps sally into such a place without worrying overmuch about such a thing as Reputation.
Still, she was alone with this man, with only a group of children inside, and Reputation was thin tissue indeed to shield her from violence.
Perhaps she should have been more…discreet? Passive? What was the proper word?
The saloon owner tripped, tumbled down the steps, and landed sprawled in the dust. Cat found words, harsh and rude as a lady’s must never be. Still, they fell out of her mouth before she could halt them.
“Do not dare to lay hands upon me in such a manner, you foulmouthed brute!” She hit a pitch just under “fishwife’s scream” and for once, did not wish to writhe in embarrassment. The yardstick fizzed with sparks, and she held it in both hands, much in the manner of a sword.
He scrambled to his feet, dust rising in puffs and golden veils. Cat’s heart thundered, her palms sweating, and a curl had fallen in her face. The children had probably heard her. Gossip would run through the town, and—
You’re here to find Robbie. Or find what has happened to him. This brute does not matter one whit.
And yet Miss Tiergale had been very frightened. Almost trembling. If she lived with this man, Cat could see why.
And the knowledge made her sick all the way through. Another session of heaving off the school’s porch could not be borne either, so she merely set her jaw and swallowed the bitterness.
Mr. Tilson pointed one thick, trembling finger. “I’ll get you. So help me, I’ll get you.”
“Your threats are as ugly as your character.” She pointed the yardstick, a single star of light hurtfully bright at its tip. The wood was scorched, and Tilson’s face was bleeding, one eye already puffed shut. The blood was shockingly bright in all the dun and dust. “Do not ever come near me again, sir. Or I shall hand you more of the same.”
He blundered back for his horse, and Cat stood watching as he spurred the beast unmercifully. She tried to tell herself it was because she wished to make certain he would not return and possibly make another scene in front of her students.
In reality, however, it was because she was trembling, and her stomach cramped. She watched the man on the horse recede into the distance toward the smoke-smudge of the bulk of Damnation, and her mouth was full of thick, foul fear.
If I were not such a lady, I would spit. A lady did not smash a man in the face with mancy and a yardstick, however.
I would do it again, she realized. Most assuredly I would.
I would even enjoy it.
Chapter 11
As soon as he stepped into the Lucky Star, Gabe knew something was amiss. The hush was instant, and he didn’t need to see Mercy Tiergale’s badly bruised cheek to tell Tils was unhappy. It wasn’t like him to tap a popular girl in the face where it would show, either.
It was midafternoon, so the serious drinking hadn’t started yet, and wouldn’t for hours. The card games were going full-force though, and Mo Jackson was banging on the tinny little piano, waltzing his way through “She Was A Charming Filly” and humming off-key. Mercy made a beeline for Gabe, and he barely had time to lay his bit on the counter and accept a shot of something passing for whiskey before she was at his elbow.