This is official. "Highness? Could I deny you?" Would I, if this were a personal visit? She didn't know the answer, even now. The Atlantic, it seemed, hadn't been as wide as she had thought.
"Anon, then." A quick bow, and he was gone, leaving Garrett to hide her urge to stand and stare after the Prince's retreating back like a terrified doe. She turned in time to catch the Lord Mayor's eye still on her, his lanky red-haired wife posed beside him in marten and gold and emeralds. The fabric falling back from her fashionably pale hand was a royal blue so dark it was almost violet, and Garret wished she had a wine glass to raise in a silent, mocking toast. Instead, she twined fingers in the jade moiré silk of her skirts and let her steps carry her toward the Eliots, Peter and Cecelia. A blonde head moved through the crowd: Duchess Jacqueline trying to intercept her, but Richard's wife would not be quick enough.
Cecelia had evaporated by the time Garrett reached her goal, but she succeeded in catching up with the Lord Mayor. She reached past him to liberate a canapé from the refreshment table. "This must be quite uncomfortable for you."
"Crown Investigator?" His expression gave her to understand he had no idea what she might be insinuating.
She licked a crumb free of her lip varnish. "A party in His Highness's honor. I'm surprised you found it appropriate to attend, given your politics."
"Because a man is loyal to the needs of his own home over the demands of a distant emperor, does not mean that that man doesn't wish the op-
portunity to discuss matters discreetly and in a mannerly fashion. Or
perhaps I'm just here to flirt with the lovely Duchess." Eliot smiled his fishy smile, and Garrett winced as she swallowed the second bite of canapé. Creamy goat cheese tasted like crumbled lard and ash, but she managed
with dignity.
"She's lovely enough to warrant it."
Eliot leaned forward. "I had no idea you were so intimate with the Crown."
She let herself laugh; she had practice. "It's my job. To uphold the Crown and the law."
"Even when the Crown is above the law?"
"Parliament would disagree with that contention, Lord Mayor." The Duchess came up beside them at that moment, and Garrett saw Eliot smile thankfully. Interesting that his hatred for Richard doesn't extend to Richard's wife. Garrett excused herself, refusing to squirm under Jacqueline's raised eyebrow, and went looking for the Duke through the gentle swirl of music drifting across the floor.
A compact, strong-shouldered man in evening clothes intervened. She studied him without seeming to—as was her habit—as he bowed and handed her a bit of parchment sealed in violet. "Compliments of his Highness." He had an aquiline, pockmarked face and grass-green eyes, strange in mahogany skin but matching the beryl in his cravat-pin. She took the note, imagining the crisp oiliness it would have on her flesh. Gloved fingers brushed hers. "You are as lovely as your reputation, Lady Abigail."
"Please," she said, feeling something—a chain?—shift inside the packet as she touched the corner to her lip. "Abigail Irene. May I know your name, sir?"
The smile rearranged his face under the terrible scars. "Nezahualcoyotl. Michel Nezahualcoyotl. Charmed."
"Aztec! Are you an ambassador from the Emperor?"
"I am." His accent was slight and cultured. "Five years in the court of King Phillip. This has been my first chance to visit my home, however. And my first time in your fair city: very lovely by moonlight."
"I saw it rise," she said. "Gorgeous indeed. Nearly full."
"On the waning side." His smile gentled the correction. "My father's people say the shapes on its face make the outline of a rabbit, but my mother taught me it was an old man. What do your New Amsterdam people see?"
"I'm from London." She changed the subject. "You have very charming eyes. I've never met an Aztec before: I had thought you would have eyes as dark as a Mohawk."
"My mother was white." A trace of coolness in that? "It's why I survived the smallpox, and why I was sent to England when a diplomat was needed."
"It is no doubt to his Highness' eternal benefit that you did." She
shook the packet again, lightly, to hear it rustle. "Were there instructions with this?"
"He only asked me to deliver it. My Lady." And he bowed slightly and turned away.
Garrett took a half-step after him, squinting as her skirts belled forward and then settled, swaying, about her hips. She tilted the parchment once