Delilah Dawson - The Damsel and the Daggerman

“I’d just hate to see you get hurt before you can completely corrupt my daggerman.”

“Marco’s a big boy. And I’m not one of your carnivalleros, you know.” She flounced away to hide her embarrassment.

“Keep telling yourself that, pet,” he called with another mad laugh. “You’re practically his assistant, which means you’ll be asking me for wages soon.”

A shiver ran up her spine at the word “assistant,” but when she turned back around to shout at him, the ringmaster had disappeared.

“I’m no one’s assistant,” she muttered under her breath. “I’m a goddamn journalist.”

She was beyond the caravan lights now, out among the wilder winds of the moors. A bludbunny darted out for her, and she kicked it away, wondering where Brutus had gotten off to. She’d left the metal dog on Marco’s doorstep, but she’d seen no sign of it since emerging and had forgotten to leave it with orders. It had malfunctioned before and was programmed to return to the homing beacon in her conveyance. Still, out here, without her guard or an escort, she felt ill at ease.

The field between her conveyance and the warm lights of the caravan felt larger, wilder, and colder than it did in the daylight. Thunder grumbled menacingly, and Jacinda hurried faster, stumbling over a rogue bludbunny and almost falling into the waist-high grass. Back on her feet, she broke into a jog and didn’t look back until she stood on the steps of her conveyance, unlocking her door by gaslight with shaking hands.

Gazing back down to the caravan that was beginning to feel like home, she shivered. Criminy was nowhere to be seen, and the carnivalleros were in place, waiting for the crowd that was moving down the moor in a frightened cluster of bright silks. No one looked toward the shadowy conveyance on the hill. And yet she felt eyes on her, danger hovering near, dogging her every step since she’d left Marco’s wagon.

Perhaps she should have gone to watch Marco’s show, paid her copper to wander again among the glittering golden lights and laughter, where things felt safe. But no. Foolish fears had never stopped her before, and they wouldn’t now. She didn’t know if Criminy had been joking about the dangers of his pet Bludmen and the wild animals, if there was any real threat other than the same strangely oppressing darkness that hung always over the moors.

Drawing her curtains, she realized what was missing. She wouldn’t feel safe again until the dangerous daggerman was back in her arms.

Once she was fortified with a cup of hot tea splashed with whiskey, Jacinda took great care preparing herself for Marco’s visit. She’d spent time within the labyrinthine walls of a sultan’s harem once, and the women had taught her all the ways to entice a man using the full force of her beauty. With candles arrayed along the windowsill and soft rain beginning to play in counterpoint to the song she hummed under her breath, she bathed with a soft cloth and rubbed rich creams into her arms and legs. She plucked every hair that was out of place, lined her eyes with kohl, and brushed her hair a hundred strokes until it shone like fire in the candlelight. And although she’d told Marco she’d wear nothing, she slipped into a nearly transparent lace shift she’d found in a Paris boutique while shopping with a daimon courtesan.

Midnight came, and she arranged herself on the bed like an odalisque, waiting for Marco’s knock to ring out over the sudden thunder of raindrops on the conveyance roof. At one o’clock, she yawned and went to check the door, to see if perhaps a shadowy form was crossing the moors under a dark umbrella, his eyes deeper than the sky. The door swung inward, and movement caught her eye. An envelope, pinned to the wood by one of Marco’s knives.

Her hands shook as she pulled out the knife and slammed the door on the sputtering raindrops. Had he made good on his earlier threat and run from her, even after the intimacy and mutual hunger they’d shared? Was he having second thoughts about having a physical relationship, much less the real one she was starting to crave?

There was no wax seal, and the paper was damp but not soaked. She hadn’t heard the knife, nor had she seen a shadow under the door. Moving to her bed, she clicked on the lamp and unfolded the paper. The familiar writing was hurried and frantic, the paper crumpled as if he’d written it against the conveyance wall.

Meet me at 3 Cocklebur Lane in Scarborough. I’ve leased a small cottage by the shore where we can be alone for a while. I’m ready to tell you everything.—M.

Her heart had sunk upon seeing the envelope instead of the man, but it rose again when she read the last line. If he was ready to tell her the truth, surely that meant he felt the same attraction, longing, and fondness, that the dangerous daggerman was ready to finally open up.

She shed the nightgown and dressed in her heaviest adventuring gear, because even if her heart was ready to rush to him, her mind knew well enough that crossing the moors alone at night could be dangerous, even in a conveyance as well appointed and rugged as hers. Although the seaside was lovely, there were still bludseals to consider. Strapping her leather corset on over her canvas dress and pulling on thick gloves and the bracelet she always wore, she willed her heart to still and sought her thickest boots. Best-case scenario in this getup: she’d enjoy Marco’s delicious slowness as he labored to undress her.

Brutus hadn’t returned to her conveyance, which troubled her. The mechanical dog was programmed to return when its orders were in question, but sometimes heavy rain could cause it to short out. She dug out her emergency homing beacon and pressed the red button, willing the dog to live up to the grand price she’d paid for it and function according to its programming. When it hadn’t arrived at the door within five minutes, she decided she would ready her weapons and go anyway. Making brash decisions was her general mode of operation, and she wasn’t about to let one malfunctioning metal mutt keep her from Marco’s body and heart. She’d never trusted clockworks too much, anyway; not enough brain for her needs.

Powering up the conveyance, she flicked on the outside lights and rain wipers and undid the brake. The caravan was dark as she rumbled past, with only one light shining from the dining car. She smiled to herself, hoping that Demi and the daimon boy might be sitting in a booth, fidgeting with their cups and flirting awkwardly. For a homeless collection of mismatched wagons and people, the caravan was starting to feel a little like home.

Scarborough was the nearest city, and she remembered passing the white chalk cliffs and mostly abandoned seaside villages on her way to find the caravan. She followed the black ruts left by the banks over the lashing moor grasses, all the way to a high hill that showed the shifting sea, black and unfathomable, beneath a towering, jagged city like a beehive plastered in flotsam. When the bank tracks met the road to Scarborough proper, Jacinda turned left, maneuvering carefully down the white shell path that led to the beach roads. The rain had turned to drizzle, and the road was cut diagonally to keep it from being too steep and toppling the various conveyances of seagoers and fishermen. Her fingers clenched the trembling wheel as hard as they had curled around Marco’s bed earlier.

As the main road leveled out and began to split off onto smaller avenues, she anxiously looked for Cocklebur Lane. She nearly missed the narrow white path bordered by a cliff, turning the conveyance on two wheels at the last possible moment. It was a tight fit, and the road was more of a footpath, but she wasn’t about to get out in the dark, alone, to feel her way along sharp rocks.