Steampunk Carnival (Steam World Book 1) (15 page)

Why did Mary have to be dying?

Katya rode in the carriage along its insufferable route, dropping Agna off first in the southern neighborhoods of the city, then Irina closer to the Weekly Boarder. Katya could not wait to reach home, but she also dreaded it, which was the true mark of having to perform serious work.

Magdalene chatted infrequently whether Katya responded or not. “It was nice to see Mary at the carnival.”

Katya bobbed her head slowly.

“Did she say when the last time she went out was?”

Katya swiveled her head from side to side. Her eyes focused on the scuffed floor boards past the squared toes of her narrow boots.

“I like to see Mary happy. It’s so rare sometimes. She perked up tonight, though, when she tried the root beer. I only pretended to take her money in case anyone was watching. I didn’t want anything that Mary’s earned to go to Mr. Warden.”

The carriage finally pulled up in front of the Weekly Boarder. Magdalene, seated closest to the door, stood up at what Katya deemed to be a snail’s pace or slower. She eased the door open and gradually descended to the sidewalk. Katya followed close behind her.

“Good night, Mr. Davies,” Magdalene bid him quietly.

Mr. Davies leaned into view and tipped his black hat. “Good night, ladies.”

Katya managed a hasty but passable curtsy before rivaling Magdalene for the stairs to the porch. Katya pulled her key out of her bag and let them into the hall. She locked up impatiently, now stuck behind Magdalene’s slow footsteps up the circular staircase.

In the upstairs hall, Magdalene pattered to her door. “Good night,” she whispered.

“It’s good morning,” Katya corrected her. “Sleep well.”

Katya hid in her room long enough to hear Magdalene’s door click shut. Katya did not even bother removing her hat. She slipped back into the hallway and tried the handle of the room on her right. Mary’s door swung open.

Mary was not sitting up reading this morning. She stretched out in bed, her eyes blinking in the dim light from the hallway that Mrs. Weeks left on for her more nocturnal boarders. Mary gazed at the wall, giving no indication she knew Katya was there. Her braided hair fell back from her face, the white cotton sleeve of her nightgown illuminated on her shoulder.

“I know you’re awake,” Katya accused under her breath.

Silence dominated the room. Katya would wait all night for a reply if she had to. Determination always gave her energy.

At last, Mary whispered, “Go away.”

“Tell me what’s going on, or I’ll tell everyone first thing at lunch.”

Mary pushed herself up sideways, twisted in the bed sheets to challenge Katya. “You wouldn’t.”

“Yes, I would. I’ve done worse things in my life.”

Mary straightened her back and sat up in bed. “Come in before you wake someone.”

“Where are the matches?”

“There by the door.”

Katya felt amidst the shadows on top of the small table beside her. She closed her fingers around a box of matches and singled one out. She struck the head against the side of the box and lit the gas lamp on the wall. She blew the match out as she closed the door to the hallway. Katya left the box and the spent match on the table. She positioned herself in the center of the room and folded her arms.

“My mother needs me,” Mary appealed to her.

“She wants you well. We all do.” Except maybe Lizzie, who would immediately realize there would be an extra slice of pie available at dinner. Katya ignored this and focused on Mary. “How long have you been coughing up blood?”

“A few months, I suppose. Maybe half a year. I haven’t been keeping track.”

“You sound better now.”

“It’s not that serious.”

“What do you have? Do you know? Have you sent for a doctor?”

“No. I think it’s consumption.”

Katya thought of Brady watching his wife cough herself into oblivion. “People die from that, you know. You should see a doctor. We don’t want to bury you, Mary.”

“I’m fine, really.” A cough bubbled up through Mary’s lips, and she sipped water from a glass by her bedside.

“You weren’t sitting up reading all those nights because you wanted to, were you?” Katya asked, a new realization dawning on her. “You were trying to stop the coughing.”

Mary nodded, draining half the water in her glass.

Katya wanted to step toward Mary and reassure her with a gentle touch, but she remembered she should keep her distance. “You should tell your mother. She’ll feel awful if anything happens to you and she didn’t know you were sick.”

Mary nodded again.

Katya watched Mary take small sips of water over and over. Mary’s insistence she was not critically ill had comforted Katya, but a sinking feeling sucked her down into the muck of reality. “You want to cough, don’t you, Mary? That’s why you’re not saying anything.”

Mary held onto the glass with relaxed fingers. “I can–” She barely threw her arm over her mouth in time to block the forceful hacks of air.

Katya lurched back a step.

Mary extended the glass toward the bedside table until it clinked steadily on its surface. She pulled a dark rag from under her pillow and coughed into it, holding it tightly over her mouth to muffle the sound.

“Mary, are you sure you’re not dying?” Katya whispered. She thought of Mrs. Weeks, sound asleep at the other end of the hall. “Please, let me get your mother.”

Mary shook her head vehemently. She opened the top drawer in the bedside table. A row of bottles played against each other with various high-pitched rings. Katya eased closer to look at them, staying a few feet away from Mary.

The bottles, maybe a dozen in all, lay on their sides with varying amounts of liquid sloshing inside of them. Katya recognized the glowing burgundy of Mrs. Week’s favorite, Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral. Some of the syrups were so dark, they gleamed almost black, while others shone amber, rosewood, and ginger.

Mary lifted out the bottle of Ayer’s and took a small swig. She eased a few breaths in and out as her coughing subsided.

“How long have you been sick, Mary? Don’t lie,” Katya pressed her. Fury constricted her chest, and she thought about dragging Mary out of bed, straight down to City Hospital.

“I don’t know.”

“Why haven’t you been to the hospital? This is ridiculous.”

“I don’t have time for the hospital. My mother needs me.”

“Why don’t you rest for a few weeks so you don’t die and leave her to manage the house by herself for the rest of her life?”

Mary pushed the stopper into the mouth of the rectangular bottle and set it back in the drawer. “Mother would never let me help her around the house again if she found out I’d been sick.”

“It’s not worth your life, Mary.” Katya looked away from the collection of bottles.

“They do help. They help a lot.”

“You’re still dying.” Katya tapped her gloved fingers against her arm, trying to find a solution or at least a way to talk Mary into being reasonable.

Mary reclined against her crushed pillow. “You have to promise me you won’t tell anyone. Please, Katya. It’s very important to me. I’m all that Mom has left.”

Katya pointed to the open drawer. “I think she’s going to know you were sick when she discovers those bottles. Do you expect me to clear them out of here after you’re dead?”

Mary swung her face towards the wall. “Please, go to bed. It isn’t your problem.”

“It’s all of our problem. We could all get it from you. Do you want to kill us all?”

“No.”

“Then go to the hospital.”

“Only if Mother doesn’t find out.”

“Then I’ll find you an alibi. I’ll find a way to get the help you need.”

Mary said nothing.

“Is there a stronger medicine I can get for you?”

“Don’t use your money on me.”

Katya rocked an inch toward her. “Don’t tell me what to do with my money. I earned it. I fought for this job, and I didn’t care that it took Mr. Warden’s wandering hands to secure it for me.” Mary raised her eyebrows, and Katya cut in. “Don’t bother to fake surprise. I’m sure you knew.”

“It’s none of my business, just as my sickness is little concern of yours.”

“I’ll keep your secret, Mary, but I warn you. If I ever find you passed out on the floor, I’ll have you admitted to City Hospital whether your mother is there to see it or not.”

“That’s fair.” Mary dotted the dark cloth across her forehead. She shoved the covers away, only to shiver in a great, uncontrollable spasm. She rolled the covers up to her chest.

Katya backed up toward the door.

“It’s just night sweats,” Mary explained, her voice hushed by discomfort and exhaustion.

“Get some sleep if you can.”

Katya let herself out of the room and eased the door closed. Her gaze fell over the other bedroom doors in the hallway, Lizzie’s, Mrs. Weeks’, and Magdalene’s. Katya slipped into her room.

She was going to do something for Mary. She could not live with herself if she did not.

Katya heard knocking at the front door. She sat at the back of the house, where several pieces of comfortable furniture filled out the living room. As Mrs. Weeks often said, the front parlor was prettier, but the living room was better suited to just that, living. Katya lowered the borrowed copy of
Mrs. Beecher’s Homekeeper and Healthkeeper
from her face, listening in case the caller turned out to be for her.

Heeled boots sounded in the hallway, and the door creaked open. Mrs. Weeks’ voice traveled weakly from the opposite end of the corridor. “May I help you?”

Katya caught the undertones of Maddox’s Irish-tinged voice. “Good afternoon, ma’am. I was told I might call on Miss Romanova at this address.”

Mrs. Weeks responded warmly but cautiously. “Please come in. I’ll see if she’s receiving visitors.”

Katya set
Mrs. Beecher’s
on a one-drawer side table and crept to the doorway at the back of the hall.

“Whom should I say is calling, sir?” Mrs. Weeks asked.

Katya rounded the corner, sweeping down the hallway towards them. “Mrs. Weeks,” she called, as if her landlady should know. “This is Mr. Maddox O’Sullivan of Warden’s infamous Steampunk Carnival.”

Mrs. Weeks turned to look at Katya, but Katya barely noticed the trim grey eyebrows cocked in surprise. Maddox held his hat in his hands as he glanced Katya over, making her flush with pride and affection.

“Did you know he was coming?” Mrs. Weeks asked Katya.

“I knew he was coming one of these days,” Katya admitted, her attention still focused on Maddox. She had never seen him in one of his own suits, a pale grey that made his mottled blue eyes irresistible.

Mrs. Weeks chattered on. “I wish you would’ve told me. I could’ve had tea ready. Would you like some coffee or some tea, Mr. O’Sullivan? I have Darjeeling. If you’re staying, that is.”

Katya answered without pause. “Yes, he’s staying.”

Maddox’s gaze remained entangled in Katya’s. “Tea, please, ma’am. Thank you.”

Mrs. Weeks chirped on, formal but excited. “Have a seat in the parlor. I’ll bring up the Darjeeling within fifteen minutes.”

Katya led Maddox into the parlor while Mrs. Weeks closed the front door. She disappeared down the staircase.

“You look spectacular in the daylight,” Maddox praised Katya.

Katya almost blushed as she turned to admire him, the afternoon sunlight flooding in at them through the large bay window. His medium-dark brown hair shone in highlights of blondish red. “You do, too.” She noticed the hat still propped in his hands. “Let me hang that up for you.”

Maddox offered his hat to her. Katya reached for it, and he snatched her hand instead. He kissed the back of it at length. “Don’t walk out yet. I’m not done wondering at you.”

Katya took a half-step back to give Maddox a better view. She knew exactly how she looked, as she had every afternoon since Maddox promised to stop by and see her. She had pulled her dark hair back in perfect, messy curls. Her black and white dress had been designed in the latest fashion, its bright blue jacket tailored with notched lapels in the menswear style.

“This old thing,” Katya teased. She purloined Maddox’s hat and drifted into the hallway. She hung it on a metal flourish of the wooden coat rack by the door.

Lizzie tossed her voice down the spiral staircase. “Was it a visitor for me? Did Mrs. Weeks tell them I’m not seeing anybody?”

Katya searched the stairwell but could not glimpse Lizzie. “Why not?”

“On account of my hair.”

“What happened to it?”

“Is anybody down there?”

Katya glanced at Maddox, holding her index finger up across her lips. “Nobody’s here, Lizzie. Come down and show me.”

Lizzie’s boots landed on each step of the staircase as she wound her way down. “I tried to dye it red. I heard the horror stories. It’s worse than they say it is. Just look at what that stupid potion did to my hair.”

Lizzie dropped into view, brushing stray waves back from her face. Every last strand of them wilted a sickly, muted green. As Katya’s mouth gaped open at how far from henna red Lizzie’s hair was, Lizzie’s jaw dropped at the sight of Maddox occupying the parlor.

“You said–” Lizzie gasped in accusation.

“There’s no one here for you,” Katya replied coolly.

Lizzie raised an eyebrow – still mercifully chestnut brown – and strolled toward Maddox. “Elizabeth Huffman. How do you do?”

Maddox straightened out the smirk on his lips. “Maddox O’Sullivan. Very well, thank you.”

“Do you think I’d look good with red hair, Mr. O’Sullivan?” Lizzie posed with her hands behind her head, her elbows pointing outward. In a golden-yellow dress, with her waist tightly cinched and her bustle even larger than Katya’s, Lizzie would have looked stunning, were it not for her faded green locks.

“I’m sure you would,” Maddox afforded her.

“Perhaps you should return in a few weeks, when I’ve restored my hair to its proper glory.”

“I’m sure I will, but it’ll be to see Miss Romanova again, I’m afraid.”

Lizzie cast a disapproving leer over her shoulder at Katya.

“She warned me about you,” Maddox added. “I’m sorry to disappoint.”

Turning her nose up, Lizzie strutted the length of the hall to the far staircase and swished her sizeable bustle up the stairs.

Katya moved into the parlor. “Mrs. Weeks should only be a few more minutes.”

“I can wait for tea. I couldn’t wait to see you.”

Katya settled onto the edge of the low, black walnut settee. “I’m glad to see you. I know the house seems quiet, but it can be as busy as the carnival sometimes.”

Maddox sat down in a matching, armless side chair. “Everyone’s come to see your poorest suitor, have they?”

Katya leaned forward, wishing she could say it was not true. “Who cares if you are? You look like you belong here, not like the others. They sit there with insincere praises falling out of their mouths while they eye the furniture suspiciously because it wasn’t imported from France.”

“Who could praise you insincerely?”

Katya knew whom: the kind of man who did not mind trading a fraction of his fortune to secure a woman to bear him a few heirs to inherit it. She appreciated Maddox’s genuine incredulity and avoided the more negative subject. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

“I hope you don’t think I’m misleading you.”

“Of course not.”

Mary appeared in the doorway, lingering by its dark frame. She nodded to Maddox. “Good afternoon. My mother said to tell you the tea’s almost ready.”

Katya frowned, but she could not really be upset with Mrs. Weeks. “Your mother told you to come check out my new suitor.”

“No,” Mary insisted. She looked from Maddox back to Katya. “All right, she did.”

Katya lifted her hand toward Mary. “This is Mary Weeks. I like
her
.”

Mary offered a shallow curtsy to Maddox. “Did Lizzie show her head?”

“Yes, her very green head.” Katya’s eyes sparkled to picture it.

Mrs. Weeks carried a tray in past Mary. “Now, I brought plenty of Darjeeling. It’s piping hot. And I brought you some crackers and raspberry jam.” Mrs. Weeks set the tray on the wooden tea cart inside the doorway. She wheeled it to the middle of the room between Katya and Maddox. “Do you read the papers, Mr. O’Sullivan?”

Maddox took a moment to answer. “On occasion.”

“I’ve been so fascinated by the plights of our new president and the late president’s murderer.”

“So have I.”

Mrs. Weeks released an excited coo, relaxing the matronly tightening of her muscles. “They’re going to hang him, you know. Soon.”

“I know. I told Miss Romanova weeks ago I thought they would.”

Mrs. Weeks patted the braided bun of silver hair at the nape of her neck. “Katya’s not as interested, but I can tell you I know the young Mrs. Cleveland would rather have her husband back than watch his murderer say his final prayers.”

“I’m sure she would.”

“And I have such sympathy for President Bayard, not that he’ll mind going down in the history books as one of our presidents. But I’m sure it was quite a shock to be elevated to such a high office.”

“I’m sure it was.”

Satisfied with Maddox’s answers, or perhaps only the opportunity to express her opinions, Mrs. Weeks retreated toward the hall. “If you want anything else, just call down the stairs. I’ll be straightening the kitchen. Come along, Mary.”

The two Weeks women excused themselves from the room. Mrs. Weeks sashayed with obvious approval of Katya’s most recent choice in men.

Katya stood up and raised the tea pot by its handle. She wished Mrs. Weeks could be more subtle with her judgments. “May I pour you some tea?”

“Please.”

Katya eased some of the honey-colored Darjeeling into a flowered white tea cup. She glanced at Maddox. Now that her housemates had stopped besieging his visit, she remembered exactly what she wanted to say but could not.
Don’t talk to me at the carnival. It’s too risky.
Once she had raised an alarm, Maddox would never be satisfied until he knew what the precise danger was, and she refused to betray Brady’s trust in her.

Katya handed Maddox the portioned Darjeeling and spouted tea into the second cup for herself.

“What’re you thinking?” Maddox asked.

Katya returned to happier thoughts. “I appreciate how nice it is to have you here. It’s always refreshing to have a visitor and not talk to the same couple of people all the time.” Katya replaced the tea pot and carried her cup a few steps back to the settee. “Did you have trouble finding the house?”

“No.”

“I hope you didn’t have to come too far.”

Maddox revealed a mischievous grin above his tea cup. “Most the way across the city.”

Katya lowered her cup in protest. “No.”

“Yes. Do you think crossing state lines would’ve stopped me from seeing you? If you caught gold rush fever and ran off to the western territory, do you think I’d stay in my pitiful excuse for a boarding house? No.”

Katya sipped her tea, which emitted wispy ghost-strands of steam past her face. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“Would you welcome my company? Amidst all the ruffians and entrepreneurs and their saloons and brothels.”

“Undoubtedly, but it isn’t polite to talk about saloons and... such other establishments.” Katya’s eyes sparkled to show such talk did not truly offend her. She favored any subject that made her appear more civilized and ladylike by comparison.

The front door creaked open, and seconds later, the lock clicked shut.

Katya ran through a mental list of her housemates. Lizzie sulked upstairs in her room or stood picking at her hair in the bathroom mirror. Mary and Mrs. Weeks huddled gossiping in the kitchen. Only Magdalene was missing. Katya had not seen her since lunch.

“Mags?” Katya called to the hallway. “Is that you?”

Magdalene stepped into the doorway, unbuttoning her jacket. She stopped when she caught sight of Maddox. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”

“Have you met Mr. O’Sullivan?”

Maddox stood up and bowed, careful not to spill his tea. “We met briefly. I sometimes help myself to roasted peanuts and root beer.”

“Where have you been?” Katya asked her friend.

Magdalene’s wandering gaze gave her the preoccupied look she often had these days. “I took a short ride downtown, that’s all.”

Katya backed off, resolving to ask Magdalene more about it in private. “Mr. O’Sullivan was kind enough to rescue me from the boredom of the afternoon. Lizzie’s already set her sights on him, the poor man.”

Magdalene swept her hand in a slow arc in front of her face. “Abandon all hope of eluding Lizzie Huffman, all men who enter here.”

Katya stifled a snicker.

Magdalene offered a short curtsy to Maddox. “It was nice to see you, Mr. O’Sullivan.” She swept out of the room toward the front staircase.

Maddox lowered himself into his chair. “She’s always in a hurry, isn’t she?”

Katya nodded and sipped her tea. “That’s Magdalene for you. She never does anything without a purpose.”

“And what about you?”

Katya thought for a moment. “I’m finding that not having a purpose is a freeing feeling I like very much.”

Mrs. Weeks poked her head in unexpectedly. “Do you need more tea or crackers? How’s the jam?”

“It’s fine, Mrs. Weeks,” Katya assured her.

“It’s wonderful, thank you,” Maddox added.

Mrs. Weeks nodded definitively, a cheerful glow illuminating her face. She hummed as she retreated down the hall.

Katya drank more of her tea. “It’s like I told you, Mr. O’Sullivan. Watch the carnival tonight. It’ll seem emptier than it has in ages.”