Part 28 (1/2)
”Well.” The handsome Spaniard rubbed his hands together, leaning toward the fire. ”There were whisperings-nothing proven, you understand, or even openly charged-that he was less than honorable to a maidservant who left their employment last year.”
”English girl?” Even a servant should have been able to go to the Colonial Police if her master's son laid hands on her.
”Irish,” Don Sebastien answered, his frown raising him an inch or two in Garrett's estimation. Her own history gave her a certain sympathy to pariahs of any stripe-Irish, Negro, even the Romany and Indian half-bloods who were welcome nowhere-but few aristocrats harbored fellow-feeling for their 'inferiors.' ”No family I've been able to locate. Not even a last name.”
”What became of her?” What is your agenda, Don Sebastien? What is it you want of me? Of New Amsterdam?
He shrugged expressively, smoothing his damp hair behind his ear. ”I do not know. I understand she may have been- embarazada, although such things are not openly spoken of.”
”So we have a motive for the killing. A potential motive, at least. Sorcerous blood runs strong in those old Irish families.”
Don Sebastien nodded. ”There may be other motives as well. The father is a member of Colonial Parliament. House of Commons.”
Garrett stirred wax with a gla.s.s rod, the hot scent filling her head. ”They must be better off even than the house shows.”
”Not necessarily. The father-Robert Carlson-has familial links to Mayor Eliot. And the Mayor's patronage.”
”Ah.” The wax was clearing. Garrett fished the wicks out of the bottom of the crucible and trapped them against the rim, scorching her fingers slightly as she pinched them out. She blew on the scalds. ”Would he not have been the target, then?”
”Perhaps. We cannot be certain he was not-he is, after all, gone. And we also cannot rule out other, unknown, enemies.”
Garrett lifted the first of the watch gla.s.ses and held it over the seething pot. ”What troubles me is the consents,” she said. ”The boy was killed outside the door of his house. Outside its protection. But the family-although that upstairs window was open, there is no trace of forced entry.”
”Continue, Crown Investigator.” She thought she saw respect in his eyes. Perhaps his open-mindedness about the worth of things extends to Irish and women both. Will wonders never cease?
”Human agencies can come and go as they please. Magical ones-the forms must be observed. One of the forms is consent, expressed or implied.”
”Ah, yes,” he said. ”I am familiar with the theory. And of the difference between implied and informed consent, and that one will serve as well as the other.” He smiled as if something amused him. ”So, in adherence to the princ.i.p.al tenets of magic, if no human agency entered the house-excepting the officers of the Colonial Police-”
She stirred the contents of the watch gla.s.s into the wax. ”-then a consent must have been issued to whatever did. Did you note the damage to the door?”
”SA-.” He watched her intently now, eyebrows rising as she frowned at the contents of her crucible.
”That's odd.”
”Crown Investigator?” He stood from the wing chair and would have come to her, but she raised one hand to forestall him before he crossed into the circle.
”A moment,” Garrett said, selecting another gla.s.s. ”As I was saying, whatever killed the boy-and I too become more convinced it was a whatever and not a whomever-made an attempt at the door and was barred from entrance. However, it-or something else-apparently managed to enter the house almost immediately and remove the residents tracelessly.”
”Except.... ”His long fingers indicated the shallow dish in her right hand.
”Candlewax. Yes.” She nodded and upended it.
Don Sebastien leaned forward, curiously, his boots firmly on the outside of the tiled circle. ”What are you looking for?”
”Antipathy,” she answered, and looked up long enough to shoot him a brief, real smile.
”What every woman wants.”
Garrett laughed and set the dish aside, rather more casually also capsizing the third one into the vessel. She did not lift the one containing the splintered bits of door. ”I've learned something interesting, Don Sebastien. You may enter the circle now, I'm finished. Come and see.”
Mary served them dinner on a card table in the book-paneled library, where Garrett normally took her solitary meals. Silver candelabra decorated the table, and when Garrett commented on the extravagance, Mary remarked that she'd gotten a bargain on candles. Don Sebastien lifted his Windsor-backed chair and placed it adjoining Garrett's, rather than across. Amused or contemplative, she permitted the familiarity. He tasted his wine and picked up the heavy, long-tined silver fork gingerly, investigating the salmon on his plate.
As he teased the flaking fish apart, he glanced up and met her eyes, smiling. ”You did not find what you expected,” he said.
Garrett ate carefully but with good appet.i.te. ”One tries not have expectations, precisely,” she answered. ”But yes, I would have to say that I did not expect the splashed wax to exhibit similarity with the candles remaining in the house. You saw how the wax in the crucible accepted what I introduced to it?”
Don Sebastien nodded. ”I could see no difference.”
”The principle of antipathy states that two substances which do not share an ident.i.ty will not normally commingle. This tells me that the splashes of wax which we retrieved from the Carlsons' house are magically identified with the candles they were using.”
”Those candles were from several sources, however. Beeswax and paraffin, you had.” Don Sebastien laid his fork down by his plate. Rain drummed on the windows.
”But what is important in this case is that they were bought by the same person, with the same sense of purpose-that of lighting her home. The will of the individual who uses a thing is very important. A bullet and a gun, for example, are manufactured separately-but a bullet may be traced back to the gun from which it was fired, using the principle of sympathy-which is the converse of that of antipathy. Do you understand?” She peeled b.u.t.tered bread apart with her fingers and offered a tidbit to the terrier, her expression challenging Don Sebastien to say anything as the little dog nipped her fingers with sharp white teeth.
He smiled, amused, swirling wine in his gla.s.s. ”Very well, I think. So the splashed wax came from candles inside the home.”
”Precisely. Which means....”
Sebastien effortlessly picked up her thread. Annoying or not, it was a pleasure to talk to a man with a wit. ”...our lad must have gone out to the stoop to investigate something-some noise, some cry-and been carrying a candle in his hand.”
”Then we are left with another question, Don Sebastien.”
” SA-DCI. What became of the candle?”
”At dinner, Don Sebastien, you may call me Abigail Irene if you so desire.” She lifted her gla.s.s and drank deeply. ”From the evidence of the wax, there was nothing special about it. I wonder if it was picked up by a bystander, perhaps?”
”Perhaps.”
”Don Sebastien, you've barely touched your dinner.”
He shook his head slightly, smiling. ”This is not what I am hungry for.” And then he sighed and glanced toward the windows. Mike, curled watchful near the door, whined. ”I wonder what this night will bring.”
”Rain,” Garrett said, and-weary to the bone-kissed him on the mouth.
Later, in the darkness of her bedroom, he paused with his cool face pillowed on her belly. ”This is what I hunger for, Abigail Irene.”
”A request for consent, Sebastien?”
He nodded against her skin.
”What harm will come to me of it?”
”A day's weakness. Or two. No more, I promise; I would not take from you the sun.”
With some slight idea of what she offered, she smiled into the darkness and whispered, ”Yes.”
And screamed against her m.u.f.fling fists as he turned his head and sank fangs like spikes of ice and flame into the inside of her thigh.
Sometime in the night, the rain stopped, and Sebastien slipped from beneath the covers to dress. Garrett stirred sleepily, the stiffness in a blackening bruise tightening her leg. ”Stay until morning?”