Steampunk Carnival (Steam World Book 1)

by Cassandra Leuthold

  Katya spotted the woman more clearly. She had stopped with her back to Katya, not as certain as she once was about heading to Mr. Warden’s office. She hesitated by the corner of the Beast, not far from the game stall where Katya had first approached Brady. He walked the grounds himself now, seeing to guests before attending to the account books. A new man stood in the stall with only one set of rings to hand to customers. Brady had straightened out all the games when he took over.

  Katya sidled up to the woman, hoping she was not approaching the wrong guest. This woman had the same shining black hair, the same lackluster bonnet. Katya patted her lightly on the shoulder. “Pardon me. Do you need some help?”

  The woman twirled to face Katya. She bounced a baby in her arms, swaddled loosely in pink cotton. Her dark eyes strained wide with confusion. “I’m looking...” She sighed. “No, I’m... I wondered if somebody might know where Mr. Warden ran off to.”

  “No, I’m sorry. Nobody knows. We don’t expect to see him again.” Each of Katya’s professions made the woman look more lost and disheartened. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “I... I don’t think so.” The woman lowered her face to the baby, bouncing her bundle a little faster but just as smoothly.

  Katya remembered too well Mr. Warden’s impact on her and her life. She wanted to help, and she would not walk away unless she knew there was nothing she could do. The great Beast’s metal cars rattled and careened over their heads as Katya reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder. “My name is Katya. I was like an assistant to Mr. Warden, or maybe I wished I was. I saw you here a couple of times. I know you were talking to him.”

  The woman nodded. A thin wetness glimmered in her eyes as she raised them. “My name is Gianna. This is my daughter, Lucretia.”

  “Mr. Warden’s daughter,” Katya said. She admonished herself for saying it so bluntly, so sure of herself. She should have asked. She should not have mentioned it at all.

  “Yes,” Gianna admitted. “I told him she was on the way.”

  “He didn’t believe you?” Katya stroked Lucretia’s soft, supple cheek with her fingers.

  “He said it could be anyone’s. I told him it couldn’t.”

  Katya recalled the calculating flash in Mr. Warden’s eyes when she had pulled away and denied him the kiss he tried for. She could only imagine the expressions and coldness Gianna must have met with. “Was he mean to you?”

  “A little. Not as cruel as the German.”

  “Mr. Lieber?” Katya’s heart skipped as her mind raced to make connections she never thought she would.

  Gianna looked down at her baby. “I think so.”

  “Were you here on the night he died?” Katya asked, choosing the least accusing of words.

  “I was here much earlier,” Gianna insisted. Her eyes shot up, wide and sharp with panic and pleading.

  “I’m sure you were,” Katya assured her.

  “I was.”

  Katya remained determined to tease out the rest of the story. “But Mr. Warden wasn’t in his office, was he?”

  “No. I didn’t see him at all that night, only the German. But this was hours earlier.”

  “Of course.” Katya edged closer to Gianna. “I know what a bastard he was, pardon my French. I’m sure he wasn’t pleasant for you to deal with.”

  Gianna’s jaw quivered. “Would you mind holding my baby?”

  Katya gathered Lucretia into her arms.

  Gianna produced a handkerchief from her threadbare purse and patted it under her watering eyes. “I’ve never been spoken to like that. I’ve had things yelled at me. I’ve heard the rough way men talk to each other, but that man...”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Gianna shook her head. “I was polite. I assumed Mr. Warden was in his office as usual, so I let myself in. When I saw it was just him – Mr. Lieber – I asked him where I could find Mr. Warden. One look at me, and he guessed the whole thing. He told me to go home and find an ignorant cuckold to take care of my child.”

  Gianna pressed the handkerchief to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. She sobbed into the wadded fabric.

  Gianna’s pain tore at Katya’s chest. She held Lucretia against her, safe and loved.

  Gianna recovered and dotted her cheeks dry. “So I left,” she said hurriedly. “I was very upset, and I left Mr. Warden’s office. I left the carnival as quickly as I could. I never came back until tonight.”

  “Gianna.” Katya waited until the woman stopped stuffing the handkerchief into her purse and met her gaze. “I know what you did, and I’m glad. I’m glad, and I’m not the only one.”

  “Please don’t send me to prison.” Gianna’s fingers pulled at Katya’s sleeve through thin gloves.

  “I won’t tell a soul. You should be paraded up and down Washington Street as a hero if you ask me. Most of us hated him.”

  “What happened to his wife?” Gianna’s fear compounded, tensing deep folds into her features.

  “Don’t worry about her. She can’t feel pain anymore.” Katya left a light kiss on Lucretia’s wrinkle-free forehead and passed her to Gianna. “Do you have a decent place to stay?”

  “We’re rooming with my parents for now. It’s not much, but it’s clean.”

  “Do you need a job?”

  “No. I clean houses over on the east side.”

  “If you need anything, Gianna, I’m serious. Let me help you. I know how charming Mr. Warden was.” Katya wondered at how long she had savored the feeling of his hands on her body. “He was good at many things. You could be standing in a crowd of women, and if he looked at you, you believed you were special.”

  For the first time, Gianna nodded in relief, the tension releasing from her face. “Yes.”

  “I do understand. Take care of yourself and Lucretia. Don’t be afraid to come to the carnival. I’ll be the only one who knows who you are.”

  “Bless you, Katya.” Gianna leaned forward and pecked Katya on both cheeks. She walked away toward the exit with Lucretia held tightly in her arms.

  Katya released a long breath. She could see the scene play out, all the details Gianna had not provided. She was a slight woman in messy clothes. She would have stepped into Mr. Warden’s office with a hopeful, hopeless expression that Mr. Lieber would have pounced on.

  “What do you want?” he would have demanded. Katya could not decide if his tone would have been condescending or humored by Gianna’s appearance.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Warden,” Gianna would have answered. Mr. Lieber’s piercing gaze would have made her shift her limbs uncomfortably in the baggy sleeves and oversized skirts. “Do you know where I might find him?”

  Mr. Lieber looked Gianna over, seeing from his angle what Katya never could from the back and through the thick crowds. Gianna attempted to hide her extending belly under unnecessary drapes of fabric. “Go home,” he sneered, enjoying the opportunity to turn away one of Mr. Warden’s many affairs. “Find yourself a cuckold willing to raise that little brat.”

  Gianna, whether more words were spoken or not, let her temper rule out over fleeing the office in broken tears. She grabbed Mr. Warden’s letter opener – Katya saw it as a recently sharpened blade, perhaps with a fancy sterling silver or inlaid pearl handle – and without thinking, speared it into Mr. Lieber’s neck. He never would have expected it. He would not be laughing now, realizing that the ripping pain and spurting blood were going to leave him dead on Mr. Warden’s hand-chosen carpet. Gianna must have been horrified at herself. How long had she stayed? Did she reach her hands out to try to help, or did she turn and run?

  No, Gianna would not have run. She would not have called that kind of attention to herself. She might have noticed she had blood splattered on her jacket and taken it off as she left the office. She would have made herself walk across the entire depth of the carnival grounds to the gate, her jacket folded neatly over her forearm. She would have gone home, washed the jacket or burned it. By that time, Katya was
walking innocently into Mr. Warden’s office and finding the police there.

  Someone tapped Katya’s arm, and she jumped. Brady stood beside her, his confidence wavering under the brim of his new black top hat.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Katya rushed to reassure him. “Yes. I was just helping someone, and she’s been taken care of. I was thinking of where I should go next.”

  “You can always try the entrance, but then again, you’ve worked here longer than I have. I won’t tell you how to do your job.”

  “Can I tell you something, Mr. Kelly?”

  Brady raised his eyebrows.

  “I’d rather work for you than anyone else in the country.”

  Brady suppressed a smile. “I haven’t been in charge long. I haven’t made many alterations yet. You might change your mind.”

  “I don’t think I will. For the first time since I started this job, I trust the person I work for.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The brim of Katya’s hat bumped the outside back wall of the maintenance building where she leaned her body. Maddox’s lips pressed against hers, his hands flat across her lower back, pulling her hips closer. The chugging and whirring of engines and machines reverberated around them, never letting them forget they were stealing a moment from their jobs at the carnival.

  Katya kissed him harder, knowing they could not spend much more time there. She laughed at herself as she pulled away. “It’s only a few hours,” she sighed.

  Maddox had moved into a boarding house two streets away from the Weekly Boarder, the convenience only fueling their need to spend time together. If any of Katya’s housemates noticed her slipping out in the early morning and back to her room before Mrs. Weeks served breakfast, no one mentioned it.

  Maddox collected his hat from where he had laid it atop the grass. He brushed off the underside of the brim. “Only a few unending, insufferable hours.” He grinned and placed the hat on his head.

  “It’s not insufferable. It’s a good thing we work together and not on opposite sides of the city.” Katya adjusted the position of her hat.

  “Do you think that would keep me from seeing you? I’ve traveled half the country. What’s a few miles between us?”

  “Then you won’t mind moving back across town,” Katya teased, pretending to preoccupy herself with brushing lint off the sleeve of her jacket. She was glad her elbow had healed well enough to achieve this without discomfort or her sling. “You live too close. It’s too much of a distraction.”

  Maddox grabbed her waist and tugged her up against him. “Some day I’ll ask you to marry me, and we’ll buy a house together. I’ll never let you out of my sight. How’s that for a distraction?”

  Katya bit her lip, tempering her smile to make sure Maddox did not know how much she wanted that. “I look forward to hearing your proposal, Mr. O’Sullivan. I’ll have to consider my answer very carefully.”

  “You won’t think. You’ll just say yes.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Aye. That’s what you like about me.”

  Katya kissed him lightly and strolled to the corner of the building.

  Maddox called to her. “Miss Romanova.”

  Katya turned to him, striking a pose with her perfect posture.

  “I like your new dress.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Katya wove herself into the crowd, ecstatic with the latest tailored and embroidered outfit she had put together. Part of it was Mary’s doing, luring Katya to the seamstress’ shop under the pretense of shopping together. The back of the luxurious velvet jacket had already been outfitted with gears and a working clock just as Katya envisioned. Mary stayed to watch Katya try the jacket on while Katya explained at length how puffy she wanted the shoulders of the sleeves constructed.

  Lizzie had already been too ill to continue working in the shop. She divided her time between her bedroom and the backyard, either confining herself or sucking down copious amounts of outdoor air. Neither one helped, and the entire house erupted in a frenzy when Mrs. Weeks found Lizzie dead in her bed. The household showed up dutifully at the funeral her parents held, standing in a depressing black row in the clinging cemetery mist. Mary did not speak to Katya about it for several days afterward until she let herself into Katya’s room one afternoon, so guilt stricken she could barely speak.

  “It was no one’s fault but her own,” Katya said, hiding her guilt behind strict objectivity.

  Mary grabbed Katya’s arms, tears shining in streaks down her face. “I killed her, Katya. You know I did.”

  “Look on the bright side, Mary. Lizzie dyed her hair dark again before she gave up the ghost.”

  Mary tossed Katya’s arms down, not completely missing the humor. “Be serious, Katya.”

  “Then go to the hospital so you don’t kill the rest of us.”

  “Do you have an alibi for me?”

  “Yes. I have the best one now, don’t I?”

  Within the week, Katya convinced Mrs. Weeks to plan a vacation. “See the east coast, Mrs. Weeks,” Katya persuaded. “See the ocean. You’ve had far too much stress lately.”

  “What about Mary?” Mrs. Weeks protested.

  “Don’t you worry about Mary. I’ll send her on vacation, too.”

  The day Mrs. Weeks boarded the train for Rhode Island, Mary, as President Cleveland once had, set off from Indianapolis for Terre Haute. She wrote to Katya often from her private room at St. Anthony’s, and Katya hid every letter from Mary in the bottom of a drawer in her room.

  Another letter, hidden in the sleeve of her glove, scratched Katya’s arm. This one had come for her at the carnival from a person who, as usual, surprised and did not surprise her with his actions.

  My dearest Katya, it began in generous, swooping letters as if he were not on the run from the law.

  I wish you were here. The Idaho Territory has a sparse sprawl of civilization across it but tons of opportunities for a trained eye such as mine. Katya doubted he would be smart enough to stay in the territory now that he had mentioned it in writing. She expected him to reach Canada by the end of the month.

  I hope you are healing well. I suspect that had certain plans played out differently than they did, things would’ve ended much differently for the two of us.

  In a grand sign-off across the bottom, he had written, Yours always, William Warden.

  More than the assumed name in his signature, the last full sentence haunted Katya’s memory. Yes, she thought. If he were still a pillar of the community and a sought-after entrepreneur, he might have reeled her in even farther than he did. She imagined she might have gone so far as to marry Mr. Warden if he asked her. Given the way he played Isolde Neumann, he would have entertained a new mistress every week while Katya struggled to keep up the house. She was glad for many reasons things had not worked out any differently at all. She was happier with Maddox than any older, established man could have made her, including the talented Mr. Warden.

  Katya stopped in her tracks, grabbed by an unexpected image. Isolde Neumann, the gilded peacock, glided past her in another elaborate three-story hat. One hand held a parasol over her shoulder, and her other hand rested around the arm of a man Katya did not recognize. So even Isolde could get over the mysterious Mr. Warden without batting an eye. The man’s suit was perfectly pressed and clean, likely a lawyer or restaurateur. Katya was glad she did not look like a money grubber anymore, seeking out men much better off than herself to take care of her. Katya wondered, as Isolde’s green velvet dress disappeared into the crowd, if Mr. Warden had sent her a letter as well. She doubted it. Mr. Warden might have been interested in Isolde’s fortune, but he had demonstrated his interest in Katya time and time again. They remained tightly tangled in each other’s lives. He could disappear into the western wilderness without notifying Isolde of his thoughts, but he could not flee incarceration without one last communiqué to the woman who brought him down.
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  A lot had happened since Mr. Warden’s flight. Katya testified against Mr. Weis and the other security men. Her face might have healed, but photographs and a dozen testimonies made the men look worse than scoundrels in public opinion. Magdalene remained reluctant to testify, afraid the defense would insist she was too close of a friend to Katya to tell the absolute truth. Katya’s lawyer persisted, especially interested in Magdalene’s account of seeing the security guards leave Mr. Warden’s office. He included a few character witnesses for Magdalene as insurance, including Irina, who won over the courtroom with her blunt observations.

  “I don’t like many people,” Irina famously said, quoted verbatim in all the papers. “But I’ve always liked Miss Harvey. She’s a decent woman. She wouldn’t lie.”

  It had given Katya little pleasure to point out Mr. Weis and the two men who had laid hands on her sitting in the courtroom. She felt a lot better once they were found guilty and almost vindicated when she read about their sentencing to jail.

  “It seems like too short of a sentence,” Mrs. Weeks said, shaking her head at the News.

  Katya was just relieved she had proven her point and the men had been sent where they could not touch her in the near future. “It’s all right, Mrs. Weeks.”

  “What if they want revenge? What if they come after you when they get out?”

  Katya considered it, but she thought it unlikely. They would probably find a hard time getting a job in the city when they left jail, and Katya hoped they would join the gold rushes out west. She braved a smile for Mrs. Weeks. “With Mr. Warden gone? I doubt they’ll try anything. They couldn’t get to me, anyway. I’m usually surrounded by people.”

  Mrs. Weeks accepted Katya’s logic with a series of slow nods. “I’ll have someone put an extra lock on the back door, though, just in case.”