A Murder at Rosamund's Gate - By Susanna Calkins Page 0,100

seemed to brighten. “You must come to the house to dine, Lucas. I’m sure the magistrate would like to see you.”

Lucas took a deep breath. “Lucy, you know, I care about you and—” His face grew red. “Well, you know I make a good living here, and, well, you know, a minister’s wife has some position in society. Perhaps—” His voice dropped off, his eyes saying more than his words.

Ducking her head to avoid seeing his hopeful expression, Lucy quickly shrugged into her cloak. “I’m sorry, Lucas, I must be getting home.”

“Of course,” Lucas said. He seemed stunned, and she was sure he was still staring at her as she hurried from the church.

* * *

Lucy came out of St. Peter’s just in time to catch Maud Little ambling down the main path. The hood of her cloak had fallen back, revealing her gold hair.

“Miss?” Lucy called, not even sure what she was going to say.

The woman turned around. “Yes?”

There the resemblance to Bessie stopped. Her eyes were brown, not blue, and rather than sparkling with merriment, they were set deep in her gray, pockmarked face. Indeed, she exuded death more than life. Like so many of the survivors drifting through London’s streets, she bore scars that were vivid reminders of the havoc the plague had wreaked upon the city’s woeful inhabitants.

“I noticed you,” Lucy stammered. “I mean, I noticed your cloak earlier. It’s lovely.”

Maud looked down, as if surprised to see what she was wearing. She smoothed the folds. “Oh, yes,” she said vaguely, then waited.

Lucy started speaking quickly. “I mean, I was wondering where you had got it; the cloth is so fine. I should like to get one for my sister. Holland cloth, I’ve heard it called.”

Maud frowned. “Well, I don’t really know, now do I?”

Her dark, liquid eyes seemed confused, haunted even, like so many who had lost so much during the plague. What had those eyes witnessed? For a moment, Lucy felt she was drowning and tore her gaze away. “The painter, did he give it to you? The cloak?”

“The painter?” She seemed confused. “Master Del Gado? Is that who you mean?”

Lucy nodded, holding her breath.

“No, I just met Enrique. Someone told me that he might like to paint me, give me a few crowns if I posed for him. But no, this I got when I was at St. Peter’s during the sickness.”

“You got the cloak at the church?” Lucy’s mind began to spin. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” The woman smiled distantly. “My little brother found it, way in the back room, you know, where the reverend works. He’d gone exploring, you see—he was but ten—before he got the sickness.”

The woman was looking fearful and perhaps a little ashamed. “Why, does the reverend want the cloak back? I never told him I took it. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it?” she stammered. “I’m sure he wanted me to have it.”

“Of course,” Lucy said, her thoughts whirling. Something was not quite right.

* * *

Adam was sitting by the fire when she came home, her mind still aflutter. She busied herself with tasks, setting the table before dinner. She hoped to avoid him, but he followed her into the kitchen. “Did you talk to that woman?” he asked. “Who was wearing Bessie’s cloak?”

Lucy nodded, pulling dishes noisily onto the table. “Yes, her name is Maud Little, and she said the most surprising thing—”

Adam wasn’t listening. “Well, I went to see Del Gado. Do you know what I learned?”

Lucy polished the inside of a cup with her skirt, caught off guard by his anger.

He spoke deliberately, as if he had been tossing the words over in his mind for hours. “I learned two things. For one thing, he seemed genuinely perplexed, and a little frightened, that so many of his models had ended up dead. I think I actually believed him. I also learned that you promised to pose for him,” he spat. “To think I worried about you with a scoundrel like him.”

“Your own mother posed for him!” Lucy snapped back. “Besides, I suppose it makes no difference to you that it has been nigh on a year since he asked me to pose for him. I never said I would!”

“You didn’t say you wouldn’t,” Adam countered angrily. “Just don’t think Father will keep you here if you are ruined. He’s got an image to maintain, you know.”

“As do you, I suppose,” Lucy said, her hands on her hips. Words she had held back for so long