Free Death on Beacon Hill by P.B. RYAN Page A

pallbearers squinting against the sunshine—except for towering, silver-haired Orville Pratt, who stared grimly ahead with eyes like glacial lakes.
His face is dirty,
Nell thought, until she realized, with a start, that he had a shiner. The contusion had stained his left eyelid and cheekbone a dull, mottled purple, meaning it was about two or three days old. On another gentleman, it might have imparted an aura of vulnerability; in Orville Pratt’s case, it only made him look more formidable.
    The Pratt ladies emerged from the church, Winifred still briskly fanning herself, her face a moist white dumpling nestled in a shirred bonnet, while Cecilia laughingly prattled away to her sister and the older lady. The latter, very thin and with a face pale as bone, appeared lost in thought as she watched the men lug the big iron box down the church steps.
    “Aunt Vera!” Cecilia snapped. “You aren’t even listening!”
    “I’m sorry, dear. You were saying...?”
    Emily brought up the rear. Nell tried not to stare at her dress, the one that had looked from the back like a wrapper. An understated garment gathered at the waist, it was reminiscent of Mrs. Kimball’s medieval-inspired grave clothes, albeit more voluminous, and of a fluid black twill. It was clear that there was no crinoline shaping its skirt and, given the blousy bodice and natural silhouette, no evidence of a corset, either. Cecilia, on the other hand, had the kind of cinched-in waist a man could wrap his hands around with a fair expectation that his fingers would touch. She wore a ruby brooch and matching ear bobs, a violation not just of funerary protocol, but of the injunction against faceted gems for daytime wear.
    Cecilia, Emily, and their aunt Vera descended the front steps to watch the coffin being heaved into the hearse. Their mother was about to follow them when she glanced to the side and noticed Will. “William? William Hewitt?” She touched her fan to her great pigeon’s breast of a bosom as she stared up at the much taller Will.
    “Guilty.” Will lifted his hat and inclined his head. “Good to see you again, Mrs. Pratt.”
    “Good heavens!” she exclaimed in a twittery little voice. “Oh, my word. I can’t remember the last time I saw you.”
    “I believe it was Christmas Eve, ‘sixty-three,” he said.
    “Quite right,” she said. “Yes, quite. Your parents had us over to the house, along with the Thorpes. You were home on furlough, you and...Robbie.” Her smile faded; that was to be Robbie’s last visit home, Nell knew.
    If Will was saddened by the mention of his late brother, his expression betrayed no hint of it. Looking from Mrs. Pratt to Nell, he asked, “Do you ladies know each other?”
    Winifred Pratt regarded Nell with a sort of vague, puzzled recognition. “Were you at that lovely dinner party on the Cabots’ yacht last month?”
    “No, ma’am,” Nell said. “We did dine together once, you and I, but it was about a year and a half ago, at the Hewitts’. I’m their governess.”
    “Ah.” The older lady blinked at Nell. “You don’t say. Ah, yes. Yes, of course. Now I remember. Miss...?”
    “Sweeney. Nell Sweeney.”
    “Miss Sweeney. Of course. Of course. How silly of me to forget. I’ve got the brain of a peahen, that’s what Mr. Pratt says. Yes, indeed.” Mrs. Pratt’s gaze lit on Will’s hand, still curled around Nell’s arm. Her smile was inert, her eyes knowing. “Well. A pleasure to see you again—both of you—even under such melancholy circumstances. I take it you, er, knew Mrs. Kimball?” she asked, looking back and forth between them.
    “I did, some years ago,” Will said.
    “Yes?” Winifred Pratt’s smile was very close to a smirk. As a friend of the Hewitts, she would have known all about Will’s penchant for actresses. Schooling her expression, she said, “Terrible thing, just terrible, to have happened right on Beacon Hill. One has come to expect this sort of thing in...certain