New Storm Rising

24. Answers, Gallows, and other Deadly Dangers

"Mr Ambrose?"

Silence.

"Dicky darling?"

Silence.

"Answer my question, please. Am. I. Fat?"

More silence. Lots of it.

"This is not the kind of question you can avoid answering by keeping quiet!"

"Are you certain?"

"Yes!"

"Then my answer is that...I have seen many a woman in your condition who is much more corpulent than you. In fact, sooner or later, all of them are more corpulent."

I beamed. "You might make passable husband material yet, Dicky Darling!"

"I am so very glad to hear it."

Happily, I nodded—but then frowned, and glanced down at my waist. Was I getting fat? My dresses had been feeling a bit tight, recently. Perhaps...

Nah.

I shook my head. Mr Ambrose had said it himself. I was in excellent shape!

Pushing away those silly thoughts, I focused on the newspaper in my hand and the interesting article on the front page.

"Hm...interesting. Do you know they've apparently decided on our sentence before the trial has even started?"

"Very gracious of them. As I understand local customs, in most cases, a trial is dispensed with altogether."

"Hm...hey, they call you a greedy, money-grubbing profiteer!"

"So, they are actually capable of accurate and unbiased reporting? How gratifying."

"And me they refer to as...those sons of bitches!"

"Mrs Ambrose?"

"I'm going to gut them! I'm going to tie their limbs in knots, roast them over a small fire and feed them to the pigs!"

"Indeed?"

"And then I'm going to have the pigs trample their relatives and dump their business in their living room!"

"Indeed."

I took a deep breath, trying to calm down—then cocked my head as I spotted something else on the front page that distracted me from the reporters' less than flattering words.

"Hey! Will you look at that? They're even going to try and make money from getting rid of us!"

Mr Ambrose, who had been on the other side of the cell getting dressed just a moment ago, was suddenly behind me, peeking over my shoulder. "Indeed?"

"Yep, they're gonna charge people entrance fees and—hey!" I narrowed my eyes at him. "How come you suddenly look a whole lot more interested than when I told you they were insulting me?"

Mr Ambrose considered this for a moment.

"Priorities?"

I had been wrong earlier. It would take a lot of hard work yet before he'd make decent husband material.

Cracking my knuckles, I stepped towards him.

Emphasis on 'hard'.

But before I could start indulging in my violent fantasies, I heard footsteps approaching down the corridor, along with rattling keys. My amazing female intuition told me it was probably not room service.

"Up with you, you two! The early bird catches the worm! Or a bullet in the head, depending on how much trouble they're in."

Putting down the paper, I glanced over at the deputy sheriff with the amazing sense of humour.