A Murder at Rosamund's Gate - By Susanna Calkins Page 0,42

a comb she had never seen Bessie wear. This must have been what Adam found, she reasoned, at the site of Bessie’s murder. Why had he been looking for it? He had definitely been searching for something that day. Had he known something about it? Was there any connection to the miniatures?

Thoughtfully, she put everything back where she had found it, lest she’d be caught in his room. Her little quest had left her with far more questions than answers, and her curiosity was far from satisfied.

* * *

“I’d be pleased to go to market today,” Lucy called to Cook as she laid out the breakfast dishes the next morning. Last night, as she lay in her bed, staring at the crack in her shutters, she’d begun to realize that she needed to learn more details about Bessie’s murder. Maybe there’s some truth to be found in the accounts of her death, she had thought. Something someone may have missed.

Lucy murmured a quick prayer that the rain would hold off till she was home. Though it was just noon, the sky was looking to break open with a quick April shower. It would not do to walk through the market with her hair and dress plastered to her body. Although, truth be told, her mind felt as slushy as the outside world, and right now it was an effort to care about her appearance.

Stepping quickly around the peddlers hawking their wares, Lucy hurried past a carpenter pounding nails into a row of coffins. The solemn nature of the simple wood boxes unnerved her and made her think of Bessie. Wincing from the memory, she moved past another shop with a sign that had only a man’s and a woman’s hands intertwined. At that shop, Lucy knew, marriages were performed for those too poor or too desperate to get married properly in a church. At last, she stood in front of the apothecary, watching the sign with a unicorn’s horn swaying with the hustle of the crowds.

At that moment, a young girl caught her attention. Lucy squinted, trying to figure out why the girl looked familiar. Dressed in a dirty frock, the lass was trying to sell ribbons as soiled as her cloak, looking like all the other ragamuffin children tearing about the streets. Yet there was something about her. “Ribbons for sale!” the girl called this way and that. Tired and wan, she had a thin voice that barely carried over the din. No one paid her any heed as she stumbled, falling into a pile of something steamy.

Lucy dashed over, crouching down beside her. “Are you all right?” Seeing the girl’s slight nod, Lucy added, “Do I know you? What is your name?”

Pushing back her dirty cap, the girl looked up. Her eyes were sharp, taking in Lucy’s headwrap and servant’s clothes. Guarded, she shook her head.

Lucy studied her features. She knew she’d seen her before. Something about the set of her lips. Snapping her fingers, she said to the girl, “You’re Cook’s niece, aren’t you?”

The girl shrugged. “How should I know? Who’s Cook?”

“Sorry,” Lucy said. “You have an aunt Mary, right? And, I suppose, a cousin Samuel? He’s now a fishmonger in Leadenhall, but she’s with the magistrate. Our household. You came with your mother to visit us.”

The girl was nodding, looking wistful. “Yes, that’s right. I remember now. What a grand house that was. That was when my pa died.”

“Oh, right.” Lucy recalled. “Where’s your mother now? Have you a stall nearby, then?”

Something did not seem right. Thin and dirty was not unusual for children living in London’s clogged streets among swelling debris and rattling garbage, but the ribbons she was trying to sell looked to be just scraps, a weaver’s cast-offs. The girl also looked like she had not eaten for days. Lucy held out the apple she had saved for the long walk home.

The unexpected gift loosened the girl’s tongue. “I’m Annie. It’s just me and my brother Lawrence now, since my mum died in the last sickness; took a number from the city, it did. Now she’s up in blessed heaven with my dear father.”

Annie must have been talking about the last cholera outbreak, Lucy thought. She had heard that hundreds had died.

“Have you no family, then?” Lucy asked. “Are you alone?

“Shh!” Annie said, looking around fearfully. “I dunna want to be stolen.”

Lucy put a hand to the girl’s cheek. She knew only too well that bad sorts did sometimes prey on luckless children,