steady gaze, she had an idea as well, and Sebastien wondered what she might choose to do. Her loyalty had always been to the Crown.
But that had been changing recently.
"Were there agitators?" Phoebe asked. She perched on the edge of the divan beside David, who edged over to make room.
"Yes," Jack said. "Although I could not say for a fact that they were French. It would be best to sit tight at home, I think."
"I have to get back to Mary and Mike," Abby Irene said. Mary was her Negro housekeeper. "I can't leave them alone in a strange city."
"Was there fighting on the Hill?" Phoebe, ever practical.
"No, nor in the Back Bay."
"Then sit tight," Sebastien counseled. "Mary will have the sense to stay in the hotel, and she can take care of the terrier. They're as safe there as here. Safer: the building has security and brick walls."
Abby Irene winced, but acquiesced. Sebastien continued, "Could it come to civil war?"
Jack nodded. Abby Irene picked up her brandy—Sebastien had provided her a somewhat larger measure than Jack—and did away with it most professionally. "I should say it's inevitable, in fact. There were some fires, but they've been controlled so far."
Boston boasted an excellent fire-fighting system: water ran through lead-lined hollow logs buried under the streets, which could be chopped into by firefighters in need.
"I spoke with the Governor, briefly, before being escorted out by his son and a pair of burly friends." Abby Irene said, breaking the silence that followed. She held out her glass for a refill, and Sebastien accommodated her before Phoebe could rise. David smiled archly at him, though, and he would have blushed if he could have managed it, because he realized was usurping Phoebe's role as host. Not my house? David mouthed, and Sebastien set the carafe down with a click on the white marble bartop and turned back to Abby Irene.
"Tell me more," he said.
"He not-so-gently suggested that I return to New Amsterdam and cease troubling his fair city, if I were concerned for my continued well-being."
"He threatened you?" Jack, who should have been too old for such naivete.
"He offered to pay my train fare," Abby Irene said, placing her wand across her knees. She reached into her sleeve and drew forth a handkerchief, which she draped over the wand and carefully unfolded. "But you should look at this."
In the center of the handkerchief was a stain of palest rose.
"What's that?"
"A thaumaturgical reaction," she said. "This handkerchief is impregnated with samples that Sebastien and I collected evidence from the bodies of the murdered men. I used the magical principle of similarity to lay a spell on it that would cause a color change if it came within a short distance of the. . .source of the samples."
"But you've already proven Michael Penfold didn't commit the murders. At least with his own hands," David said, abandoning his the calculated expression of boredom to lean forward, craning around Phoebe.
"It didn't change color last night," she said. "It changed color this morning."
David's pale eyes were quite startling when they widened so. "You're insinuating that it's perhaps not the Governor who is ashamed of his. . .proclivities."
Abby Irene looked up, lips pursed, and nodded to David before she glanced around the room. "Would the Governor's actions make sense, Sebastien, if he were protecting his son? Would a man protect the son who murdered his lovers?"
"Oh, yes," David said. "I should say he might. Especially if he were ashamed himself."
"We'll never get an arrest," Sebastien said. "Never mind a conviction. Not in Massachusetts."
"A Colonial Governor's not too much of a personage in London," Abby Irene said. "There are higher courts."
"Courts you've severed your connections with," Sebastien reminded.
Abby Irene shrugged, and tucked the stained handkerchief into her reticule. Sun streamed down behind the drawn curtains and closed windowshades, bright enough even through the muffling fabric that Sebastien could not look at it directly. He said, "Jack, do you think both David and I can fit in that coffin?"
"Coffin?"
"Grant Nelson's coffin. If there's revolution in the streets, I shan't suffer us to be parted. And the mails may not be reliable." The morning post had not arrived, and neither had the forenoon one.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Good God. How. . .cliché."
"Indeed. But if the Governor's darling son is murdering his lovers, then Chouchou must be warned."
"Oh darling," David answered, laughing hopelessly, "do you think for an instant she doesn't know?"