The Ninth Daughter - By Barbara Hamilton Page 0,44

since this imbecile from the office of the Provost Marshal seems to think of nothing but that there is a political conspiracy to murder both M’sieu and Madame over this question of tea—”

Abigail said, “What?” and the woman raised her dark, straight brows.

“The imbecile,” she explained. “With the pale face and the little nose like a girl’s.” Her own was a noble organ; had her uneasy shock at this confirmation of Coldstone’s inquiries been less, Abigail would have smiled at the description of her adversary’s dainty features. “He asked, did anyone follow Madame, did anyone hide themselves about the stables while Gerald was taking out the chaise for her, did she receive letters threatening her life from such a one, or such a one—”

“Which such-ones?” asked Abigail. “Do you recall any names?”

The maidservant considered the matter, with aloof dis passion that seemed to be native to her. It was difficult to tell whether her dark bombazine dress was intended to constitute mourning for her mistress; Abigail was inclined to think not. “Son of Liberty,” Lisette said at length, pronouncing the words with care. “That was one. Mohawk was another he asked after; and Adam. And Novanglus—that is Latin for . . .”

“New Englander,” Abigail finished softly. “Yes, I know.” Adam. Or Adams? A mistake would be easy. Mohawk, Son of Liberty, and Novanglus were all names under which John had written pamphlets and articles for the Gazette and the Spy.

“It is politics.” Lisette shrugged. “It is nothing. One does not do murder over politics. You must take tea, Madame, or coffee if you will—”

Scipio brought a small pot over to the table, and a cup. Abigail in fact found coffee’s bitterness unpleasant and cursed the Crown for its tax that had pushed the colony into a boycott of her favorite comforter in the late afternoons, but knew she had to accustom herself to drink the stuff. In Malvern’s respectable house there was no hope that the tea had been smuggled in by the Dutch, tax-free.

“How long had you been in Madame Pentyre’s employment?”

“Three years, Madame. I was taken on at the time of her marriage. These pamphlets, these Sons of Liberty”—she made a very Gallic gesture with one hand—“When first she married M’sieu Pentyre, my lady read them all, these pamphlets. She would stamp her pretty foot and fling up her hands, so! and shake her hair about. She had lovely hair.” A trace of sadness came into her voice, like a woman mourning the loss of some particularly fine roses in a childhood home. “And she would call M’sieu a Tory and a dish-licking dog. M’sieu would laugh, and kiss her, and she would be wild with indignation, and storm away out of the house . . . She was very young, Madame. When M’sieu learned that she had fallen in love with Colonel Leslie, and become his mistress, how he laughed! ‘All it takes is a red coat after all,’ he says, and she colors up, and pouts, but we hear no more about the Sons of Liberty.”

So much, reflected Abigail, for The Husband’s Revenge. “And when was this?”

“Almost a year, Madame. They become lovers at the New Year, at a ball at the house of the Governor, in the pantry where the silverware is cleaned. I found some of the cleaning-sand in her petticoat-lace afterwards. But since first she is introduced to him, in the summer at a picnic in honor of the officers of the regiment, she has—what is the word? She has set her hat in his direction.”

“Did she love him?” asked Abigail. “Or he her?”

One corner of that wry little mouth turned down: Eh, bien, what will these Americans think next? “Oh. Madame. He was quite fond of her—men usually are, if a good-looking woman will consent to go to bed with them. I have heard he is genuinely grieved, and swears that he will hang every Son of Liberty in the colony for the crime. But she—” Lisette shrugged again. “He is the second son of a Scots Earl. Myself, I think my lady was jealous. It was not a month before, that M’sieu took a mistress for himself—”

Abigail tried hard not to look shocked.

“And though he was just as generous to her as he had been before, as I say, she is—she was—very young.”

Abigail closed her eyes briefly, seeing—as if with the memory of a nightmare—the blood-engorged face, the bitten shoulders and neck. So distorted had the features been by the blood