Free Good Man Friday by Barbara Hambly

prim humor and astringent tongue. ‘She’s often said that she knows she couldn’t make M’sieu Viellard – or any man – a comfortable wife, and that it isn’t his fault their families insisted on the match. And she knows my sister makes him happy.’
    Trigg grimaced. ‘I guess it’s better than everybody sneaking around making each other miserable … I’ll let Mrs Trigg know.’
    Upon their return from their tour of the city, January had found two letters on the table in the hall, addressed in Henri Viellard’s tiny, unreadable hand. One was to Minou, advising her that his carriage – hired, coachman and all, for their stay in the capital – would call for her that evening, to take her to a house in Georgetown, also rented for the evening from a Mrs Arabella Purchase. It was this which had prompted January’s quest for his host, not only to make sure that Mrs Trigg understood the conventions inherited from French society which might not be viewed in the same light by Americans, but to ask about Mrs Purchase. The memory of Preston’s words about Kyle Fowler and his hollow-bottomed wagon lingered unpleasantly.
    â€˜Oh, she’ll be perfectly safe,’ said Trigg, when January – a little circumspectly – mentioned the evening’s program. ‘I know Bella Purchase. She knows her business depends on a good reputation and repeat customers. That’s the custom of the country here in Washington.’
    They climbed the two rear steps to the kitchen door: like the new American houses in New Orleans’ Second Municipality, those here in Washington had kitchens built into the back part of the main house, rather than as a separate building across the yard. ‘Men are in and out of town all the time. Most of their families are back at home, especially if they live in some Godforsaken place like Wisconsin. Some of ’em just go down to Reservation C if they need their ashes hauled, or visit places like Mrs Newby’s over on Louisiana Avenue if they’ve got the money. But a lot of gentlemen take regular mistresses. Ladies who’re maybe married to somebody else.’
    He set down the kindling basket beside the wide hearth. ‘So there’s folks in town who run “houses of accommodation”. Nice little cottage, quiet neighborhood, servant or two who know how to keep their mouths shut. Gentleman books ’em for an afternoon, or an evening, same as you’d book a church hall. For a little extra, they’ll even arrange to find you a lady. The owners have their regular customers, some of ’em for years.’
    â€˜Considering how the overseer of the place I was born on went about getting
his
greens,’ said January drily, ‘I’m not going to throw stones at any man who commits adultery like a gentleman. Besides,’ he added, ‘anything that’ll put a Senator in a kindlier frame of mind before he goes into Congress is all right with me.’
    The second note from Henri contained a request that January accompany himself and Chloë to Georgetown the following afternoon, to meet with Rowena Bray, who had had tea with Selwyn Singletary shortly before the elderly mathematician’s disappearance.
    Georgetown (according to Trigg) was an older community than Washington, slightly upriver on the other side of the wooded gorge of Rock Creek. From what January could see from the driver’s box of Henri Viellard’s extremely stylish landaulet on Saturday afternoon, it was also a more prosperous one. No cows browsed in its vacant fields, no pigs rooted in its lanes. When the landaulet rumbled across the wooden bridge at P Street and out of the trees, it was as if they had entered another world.
    Handsome houses of mellowed brick lined streets of cobblestone or gravel. Further up the bluffs along the creek, January glimpsed a paper-mill and a couple of grist-mills, half-hidden among