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Malachi Cartwright stood in the doorway, the bright summer sun casting a halo around his head and throwing his face into shadow. His tone had been light, as if joking, but the way he held his body, tense, ready, revealed he was not at all amused.
"Sabina," he murmured. "I told you not to be coming into town alone. "
The girl hurried out, head down, completely chastised or perhaps terrified. But of whom?
"We had a misunderstanding," I began.
"Which happens often enough with narrow-minded people. " Cartwright stepped into the store, his bland expression somehow more accusing than a glare would be.
"If the child had just spoken up, there wouldn't have been a problem," Mrs. Charlesdown said.
"Except she doesn't speak, any more than she uses her right hand. "
"Oh. " Mrs. Charlesdown became flustered. "That's too bad. "
"She does well enough with her snake," Cartwright continued. "They understand each other without the words. "
"Was that a cobra?" I asked, though I knew that it was.
He dipped his chin.
"Aren't they poisonous?"
Mrs. Charlesdown gasped. "Poisonous? Are you insane, allowing that addled child to wander about with a poisonous snake?"
"She isn't addled, nor is she a child, and the snake's fangs were removed long ago. Sabina is a gifted charmer, but it's best to be safe rather than sorry. "
"Snake charmer?" Mrs. Charlesdown repeated, in a voice that was more of a shout. "Next you'll be telling us you have a fat lady, two dwarfs, and a tattooed man. "
"If you're wantin' a traveling circus, then you hired the wrong people. " He shifted his gaze from the older woman to me. "I told you we performed like the Gypsy caravans of old. "
"I'm afraid we're fresh out of old-time Gypsy caravans. You're our first. "
"Your first?" His smile was so suggestive my face flushed.
Mrs. Charlesdown snorted, and I indicated with a jerk of my thumb that Cartwright should join me outside. A group of customers remained huddled on the sidewalk.
"All's clear now," I announced, and they filed back in, casting wary glances at Sabina over their shoulders.
The Gypsy girl stood a few feet away, running her good hand over the silvery mane of a snow-white horse.
"You rode a horse?" I asked.
Cartwright crooked a brow. "People do it all the time. "
"In the nineteenth century. "
"A simpler, better age. "
Considering the price of gas, he was probably right.
I contemplated Sabina and the horse, which nuzzled her, despite the cobra. "Don't horses hate snakes?"
This one didn't seem to care that a cobra was within striking distance. He didn't even seem to notice.
"I trained Benjamin myself. He works the show, and he can't be afraid of the animals who work it, too. "
"You're some horse trainer. "
