He ran his fingers through her hair and down over her back. “Now that,” he said, “is a shame.”
Hunger drove them from her bed some time later. They dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen, where Ethan, savoring a rare morning of leisure, cooked them a grand breakfast of pancake, bacon, and eggs. Thunder continued to shake the tavern, and lightning flickered around the edges of the window shutters.
While they were eating, and sipping English tea that Kannice swore she had purchased months before the nonimportation agreements took effect, there came a pounding at the tavern door.
“Could that be Kelf?” Ethan asked.
Kannice stared at the door, a frown on her face. “I suppose. But he and I agreed last night that if the storm was as bad as some said it would be, he wouldn’t come to the bar until late in the day, if at all.”
Ethan stood, drew his knife, and pushed up his sleeve. They approached the door together. Kannice drew the lock key from within her bodice.
Whoever had come hammered at the door a second time.
“Who’s there?” Kannice called.
“Kannice?” came the reply. “Ethan? It’s me, Diver. Derrey.”
Kannice looked back at Ethan and rolled her eyes. She unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Diver stood before them, his coat, scarf, and Monmouth cap caked with snow. Beyond him Ethan could see that the entire city was blanketed in white. There must have been at least a foot of snow in the street, and it was still falling so hard that he could barely see the shops on the far side of Sudbury Street.
Diver made to enter the tavern, but Kannice planted herself directly in front of him.
“Don’t you dare!”
“But, I’m cold!”
“And you can get warm as soon as you take off those boots,” she said, gesturing at his feet, which were completely covered in snow. “But you will not track all that snow into my tavern.”
Diver looked at Ethan, a plea in his dark eyes.
Ethan held up his hands. “I can’t help you, Diver.”
“Well, at least give me a shoulder to hold on to.”
Ethan moved to the threshold, putting himself as close to Diver as he could without stepping into the snow himself. Diver gripped his shoulder with one hand and wrestled off his boots with the other.
“All right?” he asked Kannice when he was done.
She regarded him with a critical eye, then pulled off his hat and shook the snow off it. Still holding it, she brushed snow off his coat.
“Very well,” she said at last, stepping aside.
Diver hurried past them both to the hearth. Kannice and Ethan shared a smile. Kannice closed the door and Ethan joined his friend before the fire.
“What possible reason could you have for being out in such a storm?” he asked.
“You haven’t heard then. I told Deborah that you wouldn’t know.”
Ethan’s pulse quickened.
“Know what?” Kannice asked.
“Samuel Adams is arranging a funeral for Chris Seider. It’s to take place the day after tomorrow. He expects it will draw a crowd the like of which the lobsters have never seen.”
Chapter Eight
Ethan’s conversation with Henry had prepared him for this, but still he didn’t want to believe what Diver was telling them.
“He’s going to use the boy’s funeral to gather another mob?”
“No!” Diver said. “It’s not like that. Not really.”
“Tell me how it’s different.”
Diver opened his mouth, closed it again. “Well, what do you expect, Ethan? Richardson shot the lad while trying to defend Theophilus Lillie and the other importers, didn’t he?”
Ethan shook his head. That wasn’t precisely what had happened. But thinking about it he knew that for Adams’s purposes it was close enough. “Go on.”
“So, it’s like people are saying. Chris Seider died for the cause of liberty. He’s the first, but probably not the last. And he deserves a hero’s funeral.”
Kannice had joined them by the hearth. She slipped her hand into Ethan’s. “You say this will be in two days?”
“That’s right. Monday. We’re to gather at the Liberty Tree.”
Ethan shuddered. The Liberty Tree had long been a symbol of Adams’s cause, beginning back in 1765, when effigies of Andrew Oliver and other Crown officials were hung from its branches. But the tree was also significant for Ethan. That same summer, he was chained to its trunk and tortured by the conjurer who killed Jennifer Berson. He managed to win his freedom and kill his captor, although, ironically, only after Adams shot the man.
He gave Kannice’s hand a quick squeeze and then released it. “I have to go,” he said.
She rounded on him. “Go? Go where?”
“I have to speak with Adams.”
“Why?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “Does this have anything to do with your new employer?”
She was as clever as anyone he knew.
“Aye, it does.”
“Who are you working for now?” Diver asked, looking from one of them to the other.
Ethan caught Kannice’s eye and gave a small shake of his head.
“Ethan?”
“It doesn’t matter, Diver. But I have to go.”
Kannice didn’t look at all happy, but she said, “Come back when you’re done.”
“I will.”
He retrieved his greatcoat from her bedroom, pulled on his scarf and gloves, and put on his hat.
“You didn’t finish your breakfast,” Kannice said, as he came back down to the great room.
“Give it to him,” he said, waving a hand at Diver.
He stepped to the door, but halted and faced his friend again. “Is Adams at his home or at the Green Dragon?”
“I’m not sure,” Diver said. “The Dragon, I think.”
“My thanks.”
Ethan pulled the door open and squinted against the glare of the snow. The air was thick with flakes, and the wind still blew, though not as fiercely as it had. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Ethan struck out southward on Sudbury.
The distance between the Dowser and the Green Dragon was not great. But the streets were choked with snow, which made for slow going. With every step, Ethan sank knee-deep, until his legs and feet were wet, heavy, and cold. Snow flew into his eyes and gathered on his shoulders and back. His bad leg ached, and though his face and hands were freezing, by the time he reached the Dragon, he was sweating within his greatcoat.
The tavern was housed in the basement of a plain, two-story brick building that was owned by the Freemasons. A cast-iron dragon sat perched over the entryway, its wings raised, tongues of sculpted flame issuing from its open mouth. Ethan paused in the doorway to shake the snow off of his hat and coat before descending a dim stairway to the tavern.
The storm might have kept much of Boston’s citizenry at home on this day, but the Green Dragon overflowed with people, their voices raised in a din of conversations. A few drank ales or ate from plates of oysters. Most however, appeared to be there to talk and plan. Ethan threaded his way through the patrons, searching for Adams and moving in the general direction of a small room at the back of the tavern where he last had encountered the man.
Reaching the door, he knocked once.
Immediately the door opened, revealing a chamber as crowded as the great room, its air hazed with pipe smoke.
Ethan didn’t recognize the young gentleman who blocked his way.
“Who are you?” the man asked, sounding more harried than threatening.
“Ethan Kaille. I’m looking for Samuel Adams.”
“You and half of Boston. He’s busy right now.”
The man started to close the door. Ethan put out a hand to stop him.
“Now see here-”
“Mister Adams and I have had dealings before. And today I bear a message from Thomas Hutchinson.”
The man’s expression turned cold. “And why should any of us care what he has to say?”
“Because like him or not, he is the acting governor.”
“Aye. Fine. Give me your message. I’ll see that it reaches Samuel.”