The five of them sat in low armchairs about the inlaid table. Esmée took in the elegant room redolent of beeswax and something she couldn’t name. It smelled ancient ... unaired. She longed to open a window or two. She craved the salty tang of the sea.
“As soon as I saw you on the drive, I rang for tea,” Margaret told them.
Refreshments came, the equipage flawless, and were served in the biggest silver pot Esmée had ever seen. She placed her serviette in her lap, never more mindful of tea etiquette. These antique women looked as if they’d written the rules. Sugar first. Milk at the last,afterthe tea was poured. Eliza performed flawlessly, as usual. But not Esmée. A bit flustered, she added milk first.
“To put milk in your tea before sugar is to cross the path of love, perhaps never to marry,” Dorothy said with a slight, reproving smile.
“Such an amusing superstition,” Eliza countered between sips. “And may I say how I admire your spiral molded porcelain? Chelsea, I believe? And with handles, all the rage but still so rare.”
“Chelsea, yes,” Margaret said, holding her cup aloft. “No sense burning one’s hands.”
“I miss sipping from a dish,” Dorothy told them, pouring the steaming tea into her saucer with nary a misplaced drop. “The old ways die hard.”
“Have you a chocolate pot?” Esmée asked them.
Margaret made a face. “We are rather chary of cocoa, given what’s printed about it in Europe—chocolate being one of many disorders that shorten lives.”
“Oh? Our York physic espouses its health benefits—” Esmée startled as the bird squawked, her cup rattling in her saucer. “Of which there are many.”
“Chocolate is but a lure for any who happen down Water Street,” Dorothy said in whispered tones. “Heavens! A woman such as yourself doesn’t plan to keep tending shop forever, do you? And at so disagreeable a place under the hill as Water Street!”
Did they disapprove of her trade or mainly her location? Though there were many women who kept shop, it was mostly left to the middling sort, of which these women were most decidedly not.
“I’m continuing in my mother’s stead,” Esmée told them quietly. “Proudly so. As for Water Street, little else could be had as far as buildings go when my father bought it. We’re making the waterfront more respectable, I hope.”
Charis held up her empty cup, eyes plaintive.
Dorothy clucked sympathetically. “Sister is in danger of rivaling Dr. Johnson’s tea consumption at five and twenty cups in one sitting.”
Truly, Charis’s cups exceeded them all and she’d yet to speak a word. Was she mute?
A lengthy silence followed, with no explanation given about Charis’s silent state.
“Tea amuses the evening, solaces the midnight, and welcomes the morning, I believe Dr. Johnson said.” Unable to endure the tense silence, Esmée finished her own cup and placed an upturned spoon atop it. Would Eliza take the hint?
Her sister merely smiled serenely and stirred more milk into her cup. No doubt she was missing her pot of cream. Despite their means, these sisters appeared quite frugal.
“I’ve always thought hyson smells of roasted chestnuts,” Dorothy told them.
Margaret focused on her sister. “Oh? I prefer souchong’s delicate, floral flavor.”
“And you, Miss Shaw? Which is your favorite?” Dorothy inquired.
“Gunpowder tea. Such a honeyed taste,” Esmée replied as the mantel clock struck three. “’Tis the freshest on long trade routes, my father said.”
“Ah, your father.” Margaret’s eyes narrowed. “The esteemed admiral from Rhode Island.”
The sisters exchanged a furtive look.
“Which puts me in mind of Captain Lennox, cut of the same cloth,” Charis told them. “Our nephew’s daring sea captain.”
Esmée nearly sighed aloud. Clearly Charis wasn’t mute. And what a topic she’d chosen to expound upon! Would everything always circle back to Henri?
CHAPTER
twenty-three
Henri was on the verge of saying nay to the proposed mission, and he sensed that the governor’s council, a body of astute, shrewd men, knew it. The temperature in the paneled room was cool, but tempers were a-simmer. And it had little to do with the French threat.
