William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

he caught up with her just as she started down the steps.
    She swung around when he was a yard away from her, a knife in her hand.
    “You watch yerself, mister!” she warned. “Try anyfink, an’ I’ll cut yer gizzard out, I warn yer!”
    Monk stood his ground, though she had taken him by surprise. If he backed away she would tell him nothing.
    “I don’t pay for women,” he said with a tight smile. “And I’ve never had to take one who wasn’t willing. I want to talk to you.”
    “Oh yeah?” Disbelief was plain in her face, and yet shewas looking at him squarely. There was no broken spirit behind her dark eyes, and her fear was only physical.
    “I’ve come from your sister-in-law.”
    “Well, that’s a new one.” She arched her fine brows with amusement. “I in’t got no sister-in-law, so that’s a lie. Best try again.”
    “I was being polite,” he said between his teeth. “The benefit of the doubt. She is certainly married to Angus. I thought it possible you might be married to Caleb.”
    Her body tightened. Her slim hands on the broken railing were grasping it till the knuckles were white. But her face barely changed.
    “Did yer. So wot if I are? ’Oo are yer?”
    “I told you, I represent Angus’s wife.”
    “No yer don’t.” She looked him up and down with immeasurable scorn. “She wouldn’t give yer ’ouse room! She’d call the rozzers if summink like you even spoke to ’er, less’n it were to ask her for an ’alfpenny’s charity.”
    Monk enunciated very carefully in his best diction.
    “And if I were to come here in my usual clothes, I would be as obvious as you would be dressed like that at a presentation to the Queen. Young ladies wear white for such occasions,” he added.
    “An’ o’ course yer invited ter such fings, so you’d know!” she said sarcastically, but her eyes were searching his face, and the disbelief was waning.
    He put out a strong, clean hand, slim-fingered, immaculate-nailed, and grasped the railing near hers, but did not touch her.
    She looked at his hand a moment, then back at his face.
    “Wotcher want?” she said slowly.
    “Do you want to discuss it on the step? You’ve got nosy neighbors—upstairs, if nowhere else.”
    “Fanny Bragg? Jealous ol’ cow. Yeah, she’d love the chance ter throw a bucket o’ slops over me. Come on inside.” And she took out a key and inserted it in the door, turned it and led him in.
    The room was dark, being lit by only one window, and that below street level, but it was larger than he would have guessed from outside, and surprisingly clean. The black potbellied stove gave out a considerable warmth, and there was a rug of knotted rags on the floor. There were three chairs of various colors and in different states of repair, but all of them comfortable enough, and the large bed in the shadows at the farther end was made up and covered with a ragged quilt.
    He closed the door behind him and looked at her with a new regard. Whatever else she was, she had done her best to make a home of this.
    “Well?” she demanded. “So yer come from Angus’s wife. Wot abaht it? Why? Wot does she want wi’ me?” Her lips tightened into an unreadable grimace. Her voice altered tone. “Or is it Caleb yer wants?” There was a world of emotion behind the simple pronunciation of his name. She was afraid of it, and yet her tongue lingered over it as if it were precious and she wanted an excuse to say it again.
    “Yes, Caleb too,” he agreed. She would not have believed him had he denied it.
    “Why?” She did not move. “She never bothered wi’ me afore. Why now? Angus comes ’ere now an’ agin, but she never come.”
    “But Angus does?” he said gently.
    She stared at him. There was fear in the back of her eyes, but also defiance. She would not betray Caleb, whether from love of him, self-interest because in some way he provided for her, or because she knew the violence in him and what he might do to her if she let him down. Monk had no way of knowing. And he would like to have known. In spite of the contempt with which he had begun, he found himself regarding her as more than just a means to find Caleb, or a woman who had attached herself to a bestial man simply to survive.
    He had assumed she was not going to answer when finally she spoke.
    “ ’E in’t got no love for Angus,” she said carefully. “ ’E don’ understand ’im.”
    There was something in her inflexion, the lack of anger in it,