“Yes, I know the times.”
They flashed through Katya’s mind. The frazzled woman in bulky green. The tall, stately Isolde. Agna Lieber’s fists pounding Mr. Warden’s chest before Katya knew who she was.
Magdalene patted Brady’s sleeve. “That’s the kind of night we’re waiting for. We need the tide to turn in our favor. Then there’s nothing to stop us from succeeding.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Katya could not help glancing the length of the dining table at Lizzie’s hair. Even after a few weeks of it, the sickly green hue amused and mesmerized Katya. Lizzie’s bonnet hid most of it, and Katya knew by the hat’s conservative, frumpy style, just paying for it had bruised Lizzie’s self-worth. To wear it for days on end must be eating her alive.
“I see you looking at me, Katya Romanova,” Lizzie informed her, too proud and bitter to return the stares. She sliced the piece of chicken on her plate into tiny pieces and dabbed each one in tomato-garlic sauce before she ate it.
“I’m just saddened, Lizzie,” Katya said, a hint of her devious nature rolling under her forced concern.
“Why’s that?”
“You missed your big chance. At the carnival.”
Lizzie finally rewarded Katya with a frustrated glare. “What are you talking about?”
“We had an opening recently for a charwoman. You should’ve filled it. Then you could’ve worn any bonnet that suited you and covered up every last curl of your hair.”
Lizzie picked up one of her peas and flicked it at Katya. Katya giggled as it bounced off her shoulder.
“When are you going to dye it again?” Katya pressed. “Even Mr. O’Sullivan asked me that. If you don’t dye it soon, I’m going to recommend Mrs. Weeks redecorate the dining room. Your hair clashes with the drapes.”
Lizzie narrowed her eyes to furious slits and aimed another pea at Katya.
“Do it,” Katya baited her. “Then we’ll match.”
Lizzie let the pea fall onto her plate.
Mrs. Weeks lowered her newspaper, appearing over it where the rest of the table could see her. “Now, Katya, Lizzie’s hair is getting better. A few more weeks, and she’ll be down at the beauty salon. You’ll see.”
Lizzie stuck her tongue out at Katya. “I never see you getting your hair done at the salon.”
“I don’t need to. I can do it perfectly fine myself, and besides, men like to do more than just look at me.”
Lizzie sat up taller in her chair, relaxing her tense eyelids. “Yes, is it possible you can’t afford the salon? Did Mr. Warden not think you were worth quite that much?”
Katya lunged to jump out of her chair at Lizzie but restrained herself. She remained seated, delicately lifting her water glass and taking a civilized sip from it. “How’s your doctor suitor, Lizzie? I can’t even remember his name, it was so long ago he courted me.”
Lizzie’s thick eyelids drew together again. “Dr. Kirby.”
“Has he come around recently?”
“No.”
Katya feigned surprise, laying a limp hand over her chest. “No? I thought you were growing so close. Can it be that he rejected you?”
“He was a toad, anyway,” Lizzie scoffed. Her voice cut off, and she covered her mouth with her hand, coughing several times. “I could have Mr. Warden if I wanted him. I just don’t want any part of that stinky old carnival.”
“You and Mr. Warden would deserve each other. That’s for sure.”
Lizzie coughed harder, suppressing it with a long drink of water.
Katya watched her more closely as the coughing went on. She snuck a glance at Mary. Mary’s expression hung blank, her cheeks pale and her eyes staring straight across the table at Lizzie.
“Are you all right?” Mrs. Weeks spoke up helpfully. “Mary, get the bottle of Ayer’s I keep by my bed.”
Lizzie shook her head, coughing harder and soon recovering from her fit. “I’m all right.”
“Do you have a cold, dear?”
“I think so.”
Katya asked another question. “Have you been coughing a lot, Lizzie?”
Lizzie batted a hand at her through the air. “Like you care.”
“I care. Have you been sick long? Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“It’s a little cough. I’ll be fine.”
Mary spoke up, her voice tentative and shaky. “Maybe you should see a doctor.”
Lizzie set her head at a disapproving angle. “I don’t believe you, Mary, siding with her.” Lizzie took another sip of water and stood up.
Mrs. Weeks folded her newspaper closed on the corner of the table. “Don’t storm off to your room, Lizzie. Finish your dinner.” Lizzie dropped into her seat, and Mrs. Weeks peered the length of the table at Katya. “I’ll have no more of that sharp tongue tonight. I think we’d all agree you won that exchange, for what it’s worth. If it’s a husband you want, you might want to consider closing that mouth of yours from time to time.”
Katya held her tongue for Mrs. Weeks’ sake. She glanced at Mary, but Mary gazed down at her plate, pushing her chicken aimlessly through the fragrant sauce with her fork.
Magdalene spoke up for the first time in twenty minutes. “The chicken’s very good, Mrs. Weeks.”
Mrs. Weeks’ solemn temper softened with a chuckle. “Thank you, Magdalene. I’ve always wondered that you could sit between those two while they quibble.”
Magdalene sat quietly, but Mrs. Weeks watched her, awaiting an answer. “Patience, I suppose,” Magdalene offered.
“Ah,” Mrs. Weeks said, nodding as if she had suspected that same virtue. “Patience.”
“Katya really isn’t that spoiled, Mrs. Weeks,” Magdalene insisted. “I wish you could see her in action at the carnival. Her outgoing nature is in its best element there.”
Mrs. Weeks helped herself to another spoonful of green beans. “You finally succeeded in drawing Mary to the carnival, and now you’re after me. Is that it? I don’t have time for that kind of foolery, especially at that hour, but I envy you girls. I really do. If I were younger – and I won’t say how much younger, but a few years at least – I’d be there in a heartbeat. I promise you.”
“Do you have friends who haven’t been there yet?”
“I’m sure I do.”
“You should send them. Maybe if enough women want to go to the carnival by themselves, Mr. Warden will buy a streetcar of his own and send it all through the city to collect them.”
“You’re really something, you girls. I don’t know where you get such ideas, but I suppose the carnival wasn’t built on small dreams, was it?”
Magdalene answered more seriously. “No, it wasn’t.”
“I suppose I could recommend my friends pay a visit to the carnival. I think they’d like it.”
“How about your friends, Lizzie? Have you told them about your visits there?”
Lizzie took a few moments to answer, twirling the cube of chicken on her fork in a puddle of red sauce. “Yes, I told them.”
“Did you enjoy it at all? Do you think they would?”
“Are you Mr. Warden’s advertising department now?” Lizzie laid her fork down on her plate. “I think they’d enjoy it more than I did.”
“You should tell them to come. The side stage gets better sponsors all the time. Everyone loves the dance contests. And don’t worry about your hair, Lizzie. Nobody will remember the short time it was less than perfect when you dye it back the way it was.”
Lizzie wiggled her shoulders, a pucker of conceit shaping her lips. “I think you’re right.” She treated herself to the waiting piece of chicken, biting it off her fork with a taunting smirk at Katya.
Katya let Lizzie bounce back to her self-entitled attitude. She had tried to help Lizzie, and Lizzie did not want it. Only Katya’s loyalty to Mary kept her mouth shut. She would have relished the horror on Lizzie’s face when she announced “You’ve got consumption” from the head of the table.
Katya snuck a glance at
Magdalene, demurely nibbling her dinner. She would never expose Magdalene for the cunning mind she was, but Katya did stew in the vast difference between the reputations of their personalities. Even if Katya saved the carnival singlehandedly from Mr. Warden’s illegitimate rule, she would be labeled a busybody. Meanwhile, Magdalene could walk naked through the carnival, and people would call her revolutionary. Nude models would spring up in all public places, advertising the openings of banks and possibly a few churches.
Magdalene finished her dinner and placed her cloth napkin on the table. She looked at Katya’s plate, still scattered with vegetables and a few bites of chicken. “I’ll be upstairs getting ready.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Magdalene strolled out of the dining room, and Katya reminded herself why Magdalene’s reputation was so much better than hers. Magdalene would never think such judgmental thoughts about Katya or anyone else. No one needed to hear their thoughts to know this. It was evident in the way they spoke and the way they carried themselves. Katya had only herself to blame, something she had either accepted with a sneer or tried fiercely to dispute.
Maybe Magdalene was right. Maybe there was one place in the world Katya could inhabit better than anyone else, where her big mouth did not get her into deep trouble. Maybe, eventually, it could save them.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Maddox swept the backs of his fingers over Katya’s naked skin, tracing a slow, ever-changing pattern over her body. They crowded together in Maddox’s narrow bed, the only light a dimness seeping through the small room from the lamp turned low by the door. Katya lay with her back to Maddox. His fingers trailed from her shoulder down her collar bone, between her breasts, over the softness of her stomach, and up the climb of her hip. Katya felt every swipe and glide of his hand, her mind alert but troubled. She could not form her situation into words, but it haunted her. As her body glowed and reawakened to every inch of skin that Maddox rested against her back and the backs of her legs, Katya could not shake the rumble of doom.
Maddox nestled his face into the hollow between Katya’s jaw and shoulder. He kissed her neck, his fingers blazing a new route down her side to the top of her thigh and up her pelvis.
Katya reached for Maddox’s hand. “Hold me,” she whispered. She could hear the tension binding her voice.
Maddox slipped his arm around her, letting his hand rest on her opposite arm. He kissed the back of her neck, the unforgiving bone behind her ear, and the softer padding of her cheek.
“Do you think there’s something wrong at the carnival?” Katya asked. She could not tell Maddox the whole truth, but she could warn him. She had to warn him.
Maddox chuckled in her ear. “How can you think about the carnival? We finally got out of there for the night.”
“Something’s not right.”
“Of course not,” Maddox murmured, moving his lips against Katya’s shoulder. “Two people died, am I right? I was talking to one of the game stall men. Did you know the games are rigged?”
Katya’s muscles tightened, thinking of Mr. Kelly. “Which one?”
“All of them.”
“Not the games. Which game runner were you talking to?”
“He didn’t give me his name. He runs the one in the front where you throw the baseballs. Have you tried it?”
“No.” Katya’s restless fingers stroked Maddox’s arm.
Maddox adjusted his position behind her, shifting his other arm up under his head and brushing it past her hair. “There’s a mechanism under the bottles that holds them in place and makes them harder to knock down, if not impossible. One step on the foot pedal, and the game runner can make a winner out of anybody.”
“Mr. Warden’s behind all that.”
“How do you know? Did he tell you?”
Katya found herself shaking her head, which was not a lie. Mr. Warden had never admitted to it. Brady had told her the first night they talked at his game stall. She fibbed to the first question to cover up her conversation with Brady. “It’s just a guess. He decides everything.”
Maddox pinned his arm closer against her stomach. “He doesn’t know everything.”
Katya’s insistent yes caught in her throat. She kept it there, making her eyes water. Mr. Warden knows too much. She blinked the wetness out of her eyes and turned over on her back to look at Maddox.
His expression greeted her gently, confident but not arrogant. The lamplight glinted in the stubble covering his chin and jaw. His eyes shone with appreciation rather than the preoccupation weighing on Katya’s mind.
“Promise me,” Katya whispered, “that you’ll be safe there.”
Maddox breathed with good humor. “Be safe with what? Fixing the machines?”
Katya could imagine Mr. Warden rigging one of the devices to hurt Maddox, maybe even mangle his hands for life so he could never work again. “Yes, that too.”
“What else, then? I don’t understand why you’re so afraid.”
Katya tried to find the best answer that did not involve Brady and his journal or Mr. Lieber’s unknown murderer. “Mr. Warden’s jealous.”
“Of me?”
“He’s a possessive man. If he finds out that we rode the carnival together or were seen slipping into the maintenance office together–”
Maddox gave a wide grin.
Katya took a deep breath to keep herself on track. “It’d explain to him why I didn’t want to kiss him.”
Maddox’s amusement faded as quickly as it had brightened into being. His jaw tightened, and his eyebrows furrowed over sharpened eyes. “He tried to kiss you? When?”
“After Mrs. Lieber killed herself.”
“What did you say?”
“I excused myself from his office.”
Maddox’s tone darkened. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. He thanked me for my help, and I left.”
“If he’s so envious, he can clear off the side stage. I’ll gladly stand toe to toe with him and fight for you. I wouldn’t mind taking a few swings at William Warden.” Maddox’s eyes flashed in a different light as he pictured it. “I bet he’s never been in a fight before.”
Katya remembered Mr. Warden’s more humble, thieving roots. “I’m sure he has.”
“You seem to know a lot about Mr. Warden.”
“Rumors. I don’t think he’s always had this much privilege. He started the carnival from nothing. Investors paid for it, not family fortune.”
“Why didn’t you tell him you were interested in me? How come nobody seems to know that we’ve been getting acquainted? Are you ashamed of me?”
“No.” Maddox’s insult pierced Katya’s heart. “I’d tell anybody. I don’t care. Do you honestly think it matters? Do you know what people think of me? If they saw us in the street, they wouldn’t think, ‘The Romanova girl’s throwing herself away.’ They’d say, ‘He’s still too good for her.’”
Maddox said nothing, and Katya rambled on, the wetness coming back into her eyes. “I’m sorry I told you money and station mattered, and I’m sorry that was the shallow, simple person I was. I don’t know what you want me to say to take that back. I can’t make excuses for it. I can only tell you that I like being with you, and if that’s not good enough, there’s no way I can make this right.”
Maddox pulled Katya closer to him, his arm sturdy around her waist, and kissed her. “No, that’s more than good enough.” He rested his forehead against hers.
Even as Maddox’s temper cooled into the reliable stillness and comfort she knew him for, Brady’s words picked at Katya. “How well do you know him?” First Brady’s gnawing questions, then the joke. “He’s Irish.” Brady’s purposefully thickened accent made anger flare inside Katya like a newly struck matchstick. Maddox’s indirect rivalry with Mr. Warden was justified. Katya could no more picture Maddox stabbing a letter opener into Mr. Lieber’s thick German neck than she could imagine Magdalene or Mary doing it. Katya resented Brady for making her doubt Maddox, e
ven for a second, but she understood Brady’s reasons. Agna Lieber having taken her own life did not make her death any less affecting. The carnival reeked of loss and sorrow and bad fortune.
Maddox held Katya for a long time before he spoke. “There must be a better way you can come here. I don’t like you riding the streetcar alone at this time of the morning.”
Katya did not care for it, either, surprised at the difference between riding it home with Magdalene from St. John’s Church and riding it alone across the southern part of the city. “If there is, I don’t know it. The only options are to hire Mr. Davies for a few hours or purchase my own carriage.”
Maddox returned to his breathy, joking responses, his face pressed close to hers. “I think Mr. Davies would rather get some sleep than wait out in the street for us to be done. As for owning your own carriage, I’m not sure your reputation could handle the extra pressure. It might be simpler for me to find another boarding house closer to where you live.”
“I’d like that,” Katya said, smiling although she knew she had offered the more selfish of the two possible answers. “That is,” she added, “I hope it’s not too much trouble.”
Maddox shrugged. “I don’t have much to move. Not like you would.”
Katya turned under the easy weight of his arm, looking over the shapes and shadows of clothing strewn across the room. The great mass of her dress took over the back of a chair. Buckles and buttons glimmered from pants, jackets, and undergarments on the floor. “I do have a lot of things. But I only have one of you.”
Maddox took advantage of Katya’s twisted, vulnerable position. He kissed her neck, sweeping his hand up her stomach to her breasts. Katya shivered at the familiar sensations trickling through her body.
Katya’s mind flitted past the advancing hour of the morning, which she could not read on the alarm clock out of view on the bedside table. She tried fleetingly to calculate it, how long it might have taken her to ride Mr. Davies’ carriage home, slip out of the boarding house after Magdalene drifted to sleep, and ride streetcars to the southeast corner of the city. She must have been at Maddox’s boarding house for at least an hour.
Steampunk Carnival (Steam World Book 1) Page 19