Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(74)

Katherine sighs. “Fine. Take good care of her. I’ll be by later.”

Then it’s just me and the Duchess and the endless walk to the whorehouse. Every movement sends agony singing across my back. My skin is hot and aching, and I fight to keep from sobbing. I ain’t successful, though.

We enter the house of ill repute, heading straight for the Duchess’s room, which is on the first floor. She helps me sit on the edge of the bed, and I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and groan.

“Until Mr. Gideon comes by with his concoction, there ain’t much I can do for your . . .” She trails off.

“Thank you.”

“There’s no need for thanks. This is wrong. Everything about this place is wrong.” A slight brogue has appeared in the Duchess’s voice and when I glance up at her, tears stream freely down her cheeks.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

A bark of laughter escapes from her. “Here you are flayed within an inch of your life and you’re asking after me.”

I sigh. “Sometimes it’s easier to think about other folks’ small hurts than your big ones.”

She sits next to me on the bed, sniffling. “I was married before I came here. Leopold. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, skin like it had been kissed by the night. We thought we’d be safe if we could just get far enough away.” Her gaze goes distant, her face twisted with the memory of some distant horror. “You can never get far enough away from people like the preacher.”

I half laugh. “I suppose so. And the sheriff.”

“The two of them are peas in a pod, but the sheriff is only following his daddy’s lead. He’s mean, but he isn’t smart enough to run this town on his own.”

The uneven sound of boots on the wooden floor makes me raise my head, and Mr. Gideon stands in the doorway with a small pot of something and his eyes averted in deference to my modesty. Not that it much matters now. I reckon nearly all of Summerland had a chance to spy my bosoms had they cared to.

“I shall take care of this,” the Duchess says, rising and plucking the jar of salve out of Mr. Gideon’s hand. Behind him stands Nessie, the colored girl who braided my hair, with a steaming bowl of water and a cloth.

“Thought you might need this,” she says in a low voice. She sets the water on a nearby table.

The small kindness warms. “Thank you,” I say. “Could I trouble you for a glass of water?”

“Of course,” Nessie says before disappearing from the room, Mr. Gideon stepping aside to let her go.

He clears his throat. “Jane, the sheriff has agreed to allow you a day of rest from your patrol. Katherine has asked him to give you back over to her supervision, but I’m not sure she’ll get her wish. It’s doubtful the preacher will allow it.” He hovers in the doorway uncertainly, and a glance at his face reveals a worried expression.

“What’s wrong, tinkerer?” I ask, my voice rough from the pain of my back.

“This isn’t right,” he says, as though he ain’t quite sure what else to say.

The Duchess pushes the edges of my shirt aside and begins to clean my wounds. I can’t help but cry out in pain, eyes watering from the agony.

“No, this ain’t right,” the Duchess finally says after a few heartbeats. I’m too befuddled from the whipping to think proper, my entire existence narrowing to the screaming of my back. “The question, Professor, is what exactly you plan to do about it?”

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.”