of her.”
“Indeed?” Lucas asked. “I hardly recall.”
“It was just once. The summer that Father and I had visited, four years now, just before I went to Cambridge. Father had wanted to speak to your mother, since he knew she wanted you to become his ward. You had spoken of a girl, a young miss, the daughter of the tavern keeper. She worked in the local inn,” Adam said, a distant look on his face as he remembered the scene. “You had convinced me to stop in for a pint. I remember you pointed her out to me. You said her name was Evangeline, a heavenly name, you said. I thought her a comely lass, but one rather free with her smiles. I recall you said she had promised to go walking with you. Did that ever happen, I wonder?” He stared at Lucas, who shrugged. “For it was not too long later that we received a letter from your mother, who mentioned that a local lass had been found killed in the field. A young man hanged for it, I believe.”
“Yes, George Pickering. I did not know him well.” Lucas smirked, chilling Lucy. “Although, you know, I recall seeing them together once.”
He paused, rubbing a spot of blood into the dusty ground with his boot. “We had gone walking. Me and Evangeline. We held hands, and when we got into the trees, she let me kiss her. But then she asked me for a bit of coin, which I didn’t understand. She said she liked me well enough, but she was trying to get a dowry together, because her father, the tavern keeper, kept drinking away her chances.” He looked at Lucy. “There was a lad she had her eye on. George. His family had some money and would not like him marrying the likes of her. So she wanted money from me. I was bemused, bewildered. How could such words come out of her mouth? I stumbled away, gagging. And she laughed as my world tumbled all around me.”
Lucas came closer to Lucy. “Later, I could hardly think. I would flush, then freeze, then flush again, just thinking of it. I barely slept that night. To think of her selling herself so she could lie in his arms. I who loved her! The whore! My fury grew. The next evening I resolved to follow her. I knew she would slip away, after the evening meal had been served at the inn, to meet that scurrilous George. And she did!” He took a deep breath. “She darted out of the tavern, the vixen that she was. I watched her through the trees, watched them. He took her willingly enough, but then afterward, I heard her say something about him wedding her. Then he laughed, the cad, saying she had confused ‘bedding’ with ‘wedding.’ I could almost take solace in the despair upon her face. Then he punched her, leaving her weeping. When I was sure he was gone, I raced to her, wanting to comfort her. Still wanting her, despite the vile disgusting thing she had just done. She was glad to see me.”
Lucy watched him helplessly, unable to speak, tears slipping down her cheeks.
Lucas paused again, caught up now in recalling his deeply hidden pain. In the candlelight, his face glistened with sweat. “She was glad to see me, that is, until I told her I would still marry her, though I was but fifteen. She called me an ‘untried calf, baaing for my mother.’ Though my fury rose with her words, I hid the hate that started to swell inside me. She begged me to go and talk to George. She held out this necklace to me, wrapped in a handkerchief that she had embroidered for him, and begged me to take it to George, so that he would think fondly of her. At that, my forbearance snapped.”
“And you killed her,” Adam said.
Lucas shrugged. “I did not want to, but something rose up within me. I wanted to smash her lovely lips and make her wish she had not scorned me. My hands around her neck, I looked deep into her eyes. She could not talk and could only make strange rasping sounds. I relished her fear.” He smiled. “Then her eyes closed, and she was gone. I shook her, but her eyes did not open. ’Twas at that moment the enormity of what I had done came to me, and I did not feel fear but power!