face reflecting the torture and pain she felt.
“Grieving young Bessie, are you?” the reverend asked her.
For a moment, Lucy was surprised that the reverend knew who she was, but she realized, of course, that he’d seen her all these many Sundays past, standing by the Hargraves in their pew. She nodded, a little afraid. Even though he did not sound as fierce as he did when he took the pulpit, Lucy still felt afraid of him. Those eyes! They were too probing, too knowing. Lucas seemed to stiffen, and to Lucy, he looked afraid of what the reverend was going to say.
“I came back here to check on Lucas’s sermon. He is to take the pulpit in my stead this Sunday morning, and I am afraid he is ill prepared, having not committed his sermon to paper and to practice.”
Lucas, looking like a chastened schoolboy, shuffled his feet.
The reverend continued, his tone mocking. “Something about subduing the lust of the flesh, I should think. Avoiding the temptations of young she-devils. Young Bessie’s tale will serve as a suitable parable, I should think.”
A red-hot anger coursed through Lucy at the reverend’s words. Seeing Lucas’s misery was the only thing that kept her from screaming at the man. She wanted to rip and shred and tear at the reverend—just as his words had shredded her—no matter that he was a man of the cloth. Using Bessie as a parable, indeed! She clenched her fists tightly, her fingernails cutting into her skin.
“You’d best be getting back to your chores now,” the reverend said, his eyes boring deep into her. It was clear he wanted her to leave. “Idle hands are the devil’s tools.”
Lucy began to feel her way blindly out of the church. Just as she reached the door, the reverend called to her. “Lucy!”
Reluctantly, she turned around. The reverend stood at the altar, much as she had seen him every Sunday, dark, captivating, and forbidding, the weight of the Almighty behind him. Even without his clerical garb, he was frightening in his godly authority. “I shall ask Lucas to add one more thing to his sermon. It comes from the Book of Exodus.”
“Yes?” Lucy asked, desperate to leave the church.
“’He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall surely be put to death!’” He began to laugh.
With that, Lucy fled St. Peter’s, feeling his eyes boring into her every step of the way.
* * *
At dawn, Lucy awoke, a fantastic thought bouncing about in her head. Perhaps if she could find out more about the other girls, Effie and Jane, she could discover something new about Bessie’s death. Although she could almost hear Adam questioning her logic, Lucy believed in her heart that they were connected.
“Adam thinks so, too,” she whispered. The contents of his tobacco bag suggested this to be true. The murders had to be connected. Unless there truly were three monsters running about, as Dr. Larimer would believe. Lucy laughed uncomfortably to herself.
Still in her shift, she rummaged through her trunk and found the crumpled penny piece that related the sad but true tale of Effie’s murder. She smoothed it out and found what she was looking for. Queen’s Row in Southwark.
It seemed less risky to go to a stranger’s house in a distant part of London rather than to Jane Hardewick’s old employers, the Eltons, who might recognize her from church. “Since I’m planning to be a servant for hire, I can’t have them carrying tales back to the magistrate,” she said to herself. “I just need to find out how to find Queen’s Row.”
Before she could lose her nerve, Lucy tiptoed to the master’s private study. To her surprise, she saw a light from under the door. The magistrate must still be awake. Trying to avoid a pang of conscience, she filled a tray with some rolls, a bit of Cook’s jam, and a draft to keep the chill away. “Here you are, sir,” she said, placing the tray on his desk. As she suspected, he had not lit his hearth, and she bent quickly to take care of it.
“Oh, Lucy, I was just thinking how I’d like a bite to eat. These briefs can be quite dry and cumbersome. You must have read my mind.”
Madame Maraid’s knowing face, poised over her crystal, passed into Lucy’s thoughts. If he had been almost anyone else, she would have done the same silly impression of the fortune-teller. Instead, she suppressed a smile and concentrated on getting the information