A short walk took her thence to Hull Street, and a few inquiries among the neighbors had identified the residence of Mrs. Belle-Isle, likewise closed. Unlike the immense Pentyre house, the modest two-story dwelling—set back, like Rebecca’s and Mrs. Fishwire’s, behind a larger building, but infinitely more snug and stylish—bore the appearance of complete desertion. A young woman crossing the yard from the bigger house to what appeared to be a small hen-coop affirmed that indeed Mrs. Belle-Isle had taken her servant girl with her when she’d left.
“It may be a complete coincidence, that he left his mistress’s house not long before his straying spouse was due to arrive at the home of his enemy’s wife,” Abigail went on as she laid the dinner dishes beside the basin, dipped up a little soft-soap onto her rag. “As it may be mere happenstance, that he arranged with his friends—and fellow tea consignees—the Hutchinson boys, to swear that he was playing cards with them until three thirty in the morning, which is when he returned to his house. If that be the case—and his quite natural grief for a wife he was betraying is genuine—I would not scrape salt into his wounds by accusing him of doing such a deed himself.
“And indeed,” she added thoughtfully, and set out the washed cups on a towel on the opposite side of the basin, “there’s no reason that Richard Pentyre has to have done the killing himself. He’s a wealthy man. He could have hired someone . . . As I suppose you could have found another Son of Liberty to do the murder while you were at Purley’s Tavern—”
“Always supposing I—or Richard Pentyre—didn’t mind paying blackmail for the rest of our lives,” snapped John.
“There is that,” Abigail agreed. “But answer me this, John. If a woman has been betraying her husband quite profitably with the Colonel of a regiment—who can provide the husband with contracts and protection for his property if he happens to be about to take a whacking great consignment of tea from the East India Company—and that woman then becomes entangled with a young Adonis to whom Colonel Obliging may take exception, whose whereabouts would it be more reasonable to inquire after when she’s found dead? The twice-betrayed husband who may be about to lose both contracts and protection due to his wife’s romantic self-will, or a total stranger who has done nothing worse than object to the import of tea?”
“A hit, Portia.” John’s hand closed over her wet and soapy one. “A palpable hit. Yet I remind you that your Lieutenant Coldstone is not a stupid man, and what you have told me, he already knows. And yet whatever else he knows—or thinks he knows—causes him to believe that I, and not the deceived husband, wielded the knife.”
“I wonder if there’s a way to ask the Lieutenant to be in the room with me when I speak to Pentyre?” said Abigail. “I’m sure there is. For I’m very curious what Pentyre’s reaction will be when I mention that someone of my acquaintance saw him—or someone very like him—walking down Hull Street at eleven thirty Wednesday night, only a half mile from where his wife was found dead. I don’t expect he’ll cry out or anything, but as Hamlet says,
“Not a bad idea,” agreed John. “And I’ve done the same myself in courtrooms. Yet I urge you to remember, Portia, what happens to Hamlet at the end of Act Five.”
Once the dishes were washed up John wrapped himself in cloak and scarves and vanished into the slow drizzle of the rain. Colonel Leslie had proclaimed a curfew on the town but no one was keeping it: John calculated that some four thousand countrymen had come into Boston so far. As she stitched at the mountain of household mending—and tried to keep her attention on her children’s reading—Abigail reflected that the tea crisis and subsequent presence of the mob in Boston may have been the only reason John hadn’t been arrested for the Pentyre murder already, if Coldstone were that certain of whatever it was that he refused to tell her.
“
But it cut both ways, she reflected, her mind straying, yet again, from her son’s childish drone. Now more than ever, Colonel Leslie and the Provost Marshal would be seeking a reason to arrest John—and any other Sons of Liberty they could prove were in collusion with him—for a shocking murder, rather than for standing up for the rights of colonial Englishmen.
“That’s very good, Johnny.” Abigail set aside the shirt she was working on, helped the boy close the heavy book.
“Ma, would God really have forgiven Jacob for cheating his brother, just because Jacob promised him back a tenth of what God gave him?” Johnny sounded worried. “Didn’t God love Esau and Jacob the same?”
“Later on, Jacob cheated his uncle Laban, too,” added Nabby.
Abigail was still disposing of this piece of divine favoritism—not to say bribery—when she heard footsteps in the yard. The door opened to reveal John, with Sam at his side. Her eyes went to the clock—shocked—Yes, it really was half past eight—and she got quickly to her feet. John’s lips were cold as marble, his mantle flecked with the last of the rain. “Now, it’s past time you children should be in bed,” she said, as Johnny and Nabby threw themselves on their father and their uncle Sam. “You may ask your father about Jacob tomorrow,” she added, since the six-year-old showed signs of opening the subject with a more satisfactory authority: understandable, given that, like the much-put-upon Esau, he was the firstborn son. “Now—hot bricks!”
These Pattie had ready by the hearth, each wrapped in layers of towels. Abigail collected a candle from the sideboard, lit it at the work-candles on the table, woke the sleepy Charley from the settle where he’d been curled up, and gathered Tommy from his crib. She kept her voice cheerful, though Sam looked grim and John looked troubled: It was one of her foremost rules of the household, that though politics might be argued and the iniquities of the King freely aired, the darker matters of the Sons of Liberty must be kept separate from these four little souls whom God had elected to launch on their childhoods during this confusing era.
Only when she came down to the kitchen again did she ask, “Sam, what brings you here tonight?”
Sam glanced at John, who looked aside, being a firm believer in letting people fight their own battles. Sam, Abigail had noticed over the years, had a habit of getting between Bess and anyone who wanted to have words with her. She didn’t know whether this was because he considered Bess his property, or because he liked to control the flow of information, and edit it if necessary for the good of all concerned. Taking John’s silence as tacit permission, Sam turned back to Abigail and said, “You do, I’m afraid.”
John sat down on the settle where Charley had been sleeping, and picked up the nearest book, which Abigail had been reading earlier in the day. Had the rest of the house not been freezing he would have left the room. Sam clearly waited for either John or Abigail to make some remark, and when neither did, went on grimly, “John tells me you’re going to Castle Island tomorrow, under the auspices of the British Provost Marshal.”
“Corrupting his servants was proving rather costly, I’m afraid, so I thought I should save money by making my inquiries direct.”
“What have you told that Lieutenant?”
“Nothing,” said Abigail.
“You’re sure of that, are you?”
She folded her arms. “Obviously, not having been party to any of my conversations with him, you’re not.”
Sam’s face seemed to darken in the flickering light. “You’re not to go.”
“Ah,” said Abigail in an enlightened voice. “You know where Rebecca is, then. I must say, that relieves my mind—”
“Don’t you be pert with me, Nab—”
“And don’t you be bossy with me,” she returned. “I’m trying to save a woman who is almost certainly in
