Free A Murder at Rosamund's Gate by Susanna Calkins Page B

judgment would be upon us? That a scourge is coming?” Adam looked down at her then, searching her face. “You choose.”
    Lucy scratched her nose. He grinned in response, the tension between them spent. She smiled back. A scourge seemed very far away, not something to worry about, when she was walking beside the magistrate’s son in the moonlight, wearing his cloak. Unconsciously, she slowed her pace.
    After a moment, he asked her another odd question. “Lucy, do you believe in free will?”
    Though again this was not what she was expecting, she pondered the question carefully. “I believe my thoughts are my own, if that’s what you mean. I believe I can choose to do good or evil.”
    “So, you believe we have control over our own actions, over our own fate?” He pulled a branch back from the path.
    She stepped through, and he let the branch go. “Yes, perhaps, to a point,” she said. “Can I choose to go to market, or to the plays for that matter, whenever the whimsy strikes me? No, I may do such things only when your mother, or Cook, says that I may.”
    He looked at her then, regarding her intently. She wondered for a second what a looking glass would reveal, since she could feel her hair was completely loose and she had no cap. Her face was probably smudged with dirt, her skirts in disarray. She would never look as poised and graceful as Judith Embry.
    Yet she found she did not care as she went on. “I’m not sure I understand what scripture would say, but I suppose men, and women, must make their own destiny. We can, for example, decide who we love, even if the ability to act on that love is determined by others.” With a little snort Lucy added, “That’s if we understand politics, sir, which I’m sure I do not.”
    Adam looked at her in surprise but stayed silent. They crossed the last field and walked down the street to their home.
    When they approached the house, his mood seemed to change. “You’re a good lass, Lucy,” he said slowly. “Unusual, even.” He stopped, seeming to struggle with what he was about to say. Then he was once again a member of the gentry, scolding and arrogant and sure of himself. “Certainly you’re too young to touch the spirits in such immoderate measure. I may not be around next time to step in.”
    Lucy’s face flamed. “I didn’t ask you to!” she cried, the calm the walk had brought her destroyed. “’Twas not your concern, it was my evening off. I’m not a child, I’m eighteen! I don’t need you to look after me!” Tearing off his cloak, she handed it to him with shaking fingers.
    He scowled. “And just what do you think a man like that wanted with a foolish little girl like you, anyway?” Adam asked coldly. “You are a member of my father’s household. I would not have the reputation of his servants besmirched.”
    His words stung her like a slap. The image of Richard’s leering face and roving hands on her body burned her. Ducking her head, Lucy ran inside to the solace of her little chamber at the top of the house.
    The comfort of sleep did not come quickly. When she did finally drift off, she dreamed that someone was lightly holding her face and moving in to kiss her lips. Somehow, though, Adam’s concerned face was replaced by Richard’s angry countenance, causing her to awake, her heart pounding in fear, excitement, and something else.

6
    Lucy found her cloak in the kitchen the next morning. She wondered if Adam had returned for it, or more likely Bessie had recognized it and fetched it back. She didn’t know if she was happy or angry as she went out on the stoop to await the raker.
    Standing away from two huge basket tubs that held the week’s rotting foodstuffs, slops, and bodily excretions, Lucy held a linen cloth scented with rosemary over her face, trying to ward off the unbearable stench. A few months ago, the city government had mandated that all household refuse be carted away, which meant that servants like Lucy had to wrestle