as fine a figure as Master Adam. Lucy knew the local gossips whispered about Lucas’s history—“Was he from the wrong side of the blanket?”—yet the truth was far more sad than sordid. Bessie had told her, in confidence, that Lucas’s mother, dying of pleurisy, had begged the magistrate to take her son as his ward. Apparently there was some distant relationship to the family. Having shown no inclination to be a soldier, Lucas had only one other option: to enter the clergy, a decision he accepted easily enough. “Treat me with respect,” he would tease the girls, “or when I deliver my sermons, I’ll have you cast from the Church.”
Laying out the pewter in the dining room, Lucy fought a small pang of disappointment. When the family did not have guests, the servants were allowed to join them for the evening meal and sit together afterward, provided the day’s chores were done. That was Lucy’s favorite part of the evening. Or at least it had been, before Adam had returned to the household. Before, the magistrate would read passages from the Bible and, more interestingly, from other texts. She didn’t always understand what he was reading, but she always attended to his words and on occasion ventured a question. She’d stunned everyone, including herself, the first time she’d spoken up during his reading. The magistrate had been talking about how a man freed from prison would be hard-pressed to regain his liberty. “Because no one would ever trust him again,” she had murmured. No one else had been listening—Sarah, Bessie, and Lucas had been playing jackstraws, Cook was dozing in the corner, and the mistress had already retired—but when she whispered these words, everyone had stared at her, causing her to flush painfully. The magistrate had paused and peered at her, his expression in the candlelight inscrutable, although his eyes were kind. “That’s right, Lucy.” Before long, the magistrate would regularly query her. The rest of the household had taken notice, amused at his interest in his chambermaid’s opinions. Still, as Sarah said, “At least Papa has someone to discuss those deadly dull texts with him.”
This all had changed when Adam had returned and real debates between son and father ensued. Lucy would usually take her little stool from the kitchen and sit by the women, positioned so that she could sew in the light of the hearth while she listened to them debate politics, religion, and the law. Shy before Adam’s superior words, Lucy stopped venturing her point of view. Only once did the magistrate ask her for her opinion straight out. “What say you, Lucy?” the master had asked. When father and son looked at her, she grew tongue-tied, staring at the mending in her lap. Adam and the magistrate were both surprised, Adam that his father was seeking the serving girl’s opinion, and the magistrate at Lucy’s silence. After that, Master Hargrave never pressed her again.
This evening, Lucy brought fruits and sweetmeats to the withdrawing room, lingering as much as she dared, hoping to hear some interesting conversation. Sarah and Lucas were playing draughts at a small table in the corner while Adam and the magistrate conversed quietly with their guests, Sir Herbert Larimer, an important physician from the Royal Academy, and Sir Walcott Chalmers, a barrister at the Inns of Court. Their wives sat with Mistress Hargrave in another corner, engaged in their own private conversation, which as far as Lucy could gather seemed to be something about a recent scandal involving one of the king’s mistresses.
Accepting a mug of beer from Lucy’s carefully polished tray, Sir Walcott turned to the bespectacled man sitting in an embroidered chair by the hearth. “Well, Larimer, what do you make of this recent business? Who was this lass found in the field?”
At the barrister’s words, the women abruptly stopped their own conversation. “A horrible business,” Mistress Hargrave sniffed. Lady Chalmers murmured agreement, but both women hung on the physician’s response. He was often called to serve as coroner for suspicious or important deaths and could offer some fascinating detail that did not make it to the printed account.
Lucy lit another candle and brought it over next to Adam. He nodded at the gesture but was intent on hearing what Dr. Larimer had to say.
Larimer leaned back in his chair, touching his pipe stem to his lips. “’Tis an odd thing, that is certain. The body is being brought around to my office tomorrow morn; I will conduct my investigation