A Murder at Rosamund's Gate - By Susanna Calkins Page 0,103

her then, as I shall teach you now!”

Lucy screamed as Lucas lunged forward, striking at the reverend in a frenzy. Unable to protect himself from the sudden onslaught, the reverend quickly fell to the ground with a sickening thud, blood seeping onto the cold stone floor.

Barely pausing, Lucas pulled a small knife from his belt and with one smooth practiced motion swung the blade into the reverend’s chest. His body contorted grotesquely for a moment and then, one last groan escaping him, lay still.

A sudden silence filled the chamber. Nauseous, Lucy could not move, could no longer scream. Even Lucas seemed struck by what he had done, sweat beading on his forehead. He worked his mouth, as if trying to find words to explain what had just unfolded.

Then the sound of steps racing down the hallway galvanized him. He clamped one arm tightly around her chest, and held the knife against her throat with the other hand. Adam appeared in the doorway, panting heavily. “Lucy!” he cried. “I heard you screaming!” Stopping short, he looked around the room. Instantly, he took in the scene, from the blood pooling through the reverend’s robes to Lucy shaking under the blade of Lucas’s knife. He paled but stepped forward. “Let her go, Lucas.”

Lucas snarled. “Come to rescue your lady love, I see. How charming! Then come get her, why don’t you!”

He slammed Lucy down the steps into the catacombs. Desperately, she tried to catch herself, but she only succeeded in halting her descent slightly. In tremendous pain, she saw Lucas trip Adam as he lunged down the steps after her. Adam shouting her name was the last thing she heard. She struggled to get up, but the ache caused her to slump heavily to the floor.

* * *

When she regained consciousness, Adam was lying near her, a length away. Lucy could see that both his feet and hands were tied. She began to scream for help, but only a rusty, dry wheezing sound came out.

Lucas smirked. “Don’t bother, Lucy,” he said, idly scratching the dirt floor with his knife. “No one will hear you. Not with all the excitement up there, anyway.”

Lucy could hear the sound of bells and men shouting. The noise sounded very far away, but the church was so solid that everything was muffled and eerie. “What is happening?” she asked, scrambling to keep calm. “Outside, I mean.”

“Well,” Lucas said, still scrabbling in the dirt, “it seems that London is in flames.”

He offered this startling pronouncement as blandly as if he were purchasing a loaf of bread. She heard Adam exhale sharply.

“What?” Lucy gasped. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, yes, it’s been going on some hours now. Started on Pudding Lane, I’ve heard tell. Just a mile off. They’ve come here, asking for buckets, ladders, squirts, and such supplies we clergymen are supposed to keep, but there is little enough man can do against almighty providence, of this I have no doubt.”

Lucas drew himself up, as if he were standing at his pulpit. “Ring the bells, go on, I told them, if only to warn the people of London that their time is nigh, and that judgment day is upon them!”

Hairs raised on Lucy’s neck, and she glanced nervously at Adam.

“I see you staring at me,” Lucas continued. “I can see in your eyes that you think I am a madman. Perhaps I am, I do not know.”

He got up and started pacing the floor, the stone columns of the catacombs causing his steps to echo menacingly, as if the ghosts of a thousand lost souls had come to sit in on his hapless victims’ plight. He threw up his hands. “I couldn’t tell you when it all started.”

“You said ‘Evangeline,’” Lucy whispered, her throat scratchy and hoarse. She was trying not to look at the reverend’s body, lying on the hard stone floor. Lucas must have pushed the body down the steps after she fell.

“Evangeline?” Adam asked slowly. A look of dawning comprehension crossed his face. “Good God! Evangeline!”

“Adam, why you don’t tell our dear Lucy about Evangeline,” Lucas said. “She looks confused. You seem to know all about her.” Sniffing, he added, “I barely remember that little tart.”

Lucy looked at Adam, who still seemed dumbstruck. “My God. I could never put it together. It just seemed too fantastic, too improbable … but Jane Hardewick, Effie … it all makes sense now.” A growing sense of horror showed on Adam’s face. “I remember Evangeline. That is, I remember you speaking