A Murder at Rosamund's Gate (7 page)

Laughing, Lucy put a few drops behind her ears, careful not to spill on her beautiful dress. Why not? Indeed, Bessie’s own skin glowed, and she was flushed and lovely in the twilit room. To be sure, she looked like a princess, or at least like one of the king’s lady loves. For a moment, Lucy was filled with great admiration and love for this girl who had become like a sister.

“Oh!” Bessie recalled herself with a start, becoming a well-trained servant again. “I forgot! The vizard! The mistress wanted me to fix it. And I must still do my hair.” She pulled out one long blond curl forlornly. “Perhaps it is good that Will shall not see me so.”

The vizard was a harlequin mask that the women would use to court mystery and mischief at the ball. It would not do for the mistress to appear without hers, and several feathers still needed to be attached.

“Oh, I can take care of it,” Lucy reassured her. “I know where it is. You finish getting ready.”

Lucy ran lightly down the stairs, enjoying the unaccustomed luxury of taffeta against her skin. It was not silk, of course, but it was a great improvement over the wools and heavy cottons to which she was accustomed.

Retrieving the vizard, Lucy rushed out of the mistress’s chamber, keeping her head down so as not to put her foot through her skirts. In her haste, she collided with Adam walking swiftly down the narrow corridor, smashing her nose on his book. The book and vizard flew in the air. Losing her balance, Lucy stumbled backward, hovering over the steps.

For a dizzying moment, Lucy felt she was going to plunge backward down the hard steps and break her neck. Frantically, blindly, she grasped for Adam. The next instant, he had grabbed her arms and swung her safely back to the landing. She leaned into him, breathing hard.

“Lucy!” Adam exclaimed, still gripping her tightly. “Are you all right?” Managing to nod, she stepped back, a little unsteady on her feet.

“Easy, there!” he said. “You’re liable to plunge right back down the stairs. I’d like to avoid that.” Then he looked at her closely. “Hey! Your nose is bleeding.”

“Oh, no!” Lucy wailed, putting her hand to her face. It felt strange, swollen. She started to move past him.

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Wait a minute, Lucy.” Removing a handkerchief from the pocket of his new plush-lined cloth suit, Adam raised her chin, holding the linen lightly to her nose. “Here, tilt your head back. That should stanch the blood.”

Lucy could smell the slight, pleasant aroma of tobacco, soap, and something else. Suddenly, she was acutely aware that they were alone in the hallway, standing not even a pace apart. No man, not even her brother, had ever held her face.

Their eyes met. For the first time, she realized that his eyes were a deep blue-gray, not the brown that she always supposed. Now something flickered in them as he gazed down at her intently. He dropped his hand abruptly.

She flushed, taking a step back, smoothing her dress. Reaching for the cloth with a trembling hand, she stammered, “Thank you, sir. I’m fine. I’ll wash out your kerchief.”

Adam nodded, seeming to be searching for words. Seeing the vizard, which had fallen to the floor, he picked it up, smiling slightly. “Yours?”

“No, sir, it belongs to my mistress. Your mother, I mean.” She looked down at her simple taffeta. The elaborate mask was not something servants would wear. He might have followed her thoughts.

“Indeed. Well.” Adam’s manner grew brisk. “Have a care tonight. Mind you’re not running down hallways at the Embrys’. I doubt they’d like it much.” He turned abruptly on his heel, leaving Lucy alone with her flurried thoughts.

*   *   *

Moments later, her nose still aching, Lucy pushed open the door to her chambers to find Bessie rummaging through her wooden chest. Bessie started, hiding something under her spring muslin dress. Why did Bessie look guilty? Lucy wondered. She looked like she’d been caught eating the master’s own mutton pie.

Then Bessie caught sight of Lucy’s face, and nothing else was important. “Oh, dear, Lucy! What happened to you? Why’s your nose all red and swollen?”

Adam’s face flashed into Lucy’s thoughts, and just as quickly she put the image away. She didn’t want to share the odd moment with anyone, even Bessie. Besides, if Bessie could have secrets, then so could she. “I ran into something,” she hedged, “but, oh! I must look awful!”

Wordlessly, Bessie pulled out the tarnished old looking glass that the mistress had allowed them to use for the evening. Horrified, Lucy looked at her nose, which looked misshapen and huge. She groaned, sure that her lovely night would be ruined.

Instantly, Bessie’s arm came around her, comforting and sweet. “Oh, Lucy! Don’t you worry. We’ll have Cook prepare a poultice. You’ll feel better right quick!”

In the kitchen, Cook took one look at her and began to bustle about. From one stone jar, she pulled a piece of dried fruit off a medlar. She crushed it into a fine powder, then mixed in the juice of red roses, adding a few cloves and nutmeg.

Lucas, quite comfortably eating a bit of cold turkey pie by the fire, gave a low whistle when he saw Lucy’s face. “Been in a scrap?” he teased. “Your conk’s out of sorts!”

Her nose now throbbing, Lucy responded tartly, raising her hand. “Yea, and you keep laughing at me, you’ll be getting a right knock across your kisser!”

Lucas grinned at her country expression. “Is that so? Then come here. I could use a knock across my kisser, particularly if it came from you. You look lovely, even if your nose is fast looking like a goose’s egg.”

Startled, Lucy looked at him. Though he was joking, the compliment seemed real. Then he winked at her, continuing to chew. Cook tousled his hair and wagged her finger at him. “None of your nonsense, now,” she said, and then to Lucy, “Don’t ye worry, lass—I’ve just the thing.” Adding a crust of old bread and some water to the fragrant concoction, Cook soon had a paste, which she then smoothed gently around Lucy’s tender nose. “This will do the trick.”

After washing her face in cold rainwater a little while later, Lucy surveyed herself critically in the cracked looking glass. She could not compare to Bessie’s plump loveliness, with her dimpled cheeks and full lips that begged for a kiss. Even so, she thought her own dark lashes were wonderfully long and framed her brownish green eyes nicely, and when she moved her head just so, her brown hair glinted with golds and reds like the setting sun.

Then her mother’s voice came dancing to her ears.
The devil loves a looking glass.
She put the mirror down abruptly.

*   *   *

Later that evening, Lucy and a few of the maids from the Embry household peered from behind the curtain into the great room at the feast and the dancing. The festivities of Lady Embry’s Easter masquerade in the great room were being mimicked happily by the servants in the lower kitchens and the servants’ dining hall. Barrels of beer and ale were flowing freely among the servants, while near fifty guests in fancy costumes and masques dipped their mugs into open barrels of Rhenish and French wine.

The musicians hired for the occasion played fashionable new pieces from France on beautiful stringed instruments. Lady Embry’s newly imported spinet and harpsichord were widely admired at their prominent location by the great fire. Men and women danced gracefully together in sets of sixes and eights, the ladies holding their masks and fans coyly to their faces, the men leading confidently through the intricate steps. Jewels winked softly in candlelight, and a number of lovers, some acknowledged, others not, laughed and murmured together in the shadows.

From her vantage point of the hidden balcony, Lucy found herself looking for the Hargraves. The magistrate was deep in conversation with three dour-looking men, all of whom looked like they’d rather be in someone’s home, sipping sherry, than caught in this gorgeous and flamboyant display. Lucy recognized them as frequent visitors to the house. Two were members of Parliament; the other was a justice of the peace.

Mistress Hargrave was sitting with several other matrons, watching her daughter whirl from one handsome partner to the next and allowing herself to be fanned by a young whelp. Adam was listening politely to a beautiful young heiress who, if the whispers in the alcove could be believed, had just been presented at court, her vizard held to one side so he could see her fine features. As Lucy watched, the young woman daringly laid her hand on Adam’s sleeve and, with great pleasure evident in her face, allowed him to lead her into the next set.

Others had been watching Adam, too. “He’s really the best dancer of the lot,” one of the maids said with a sigh.

“I wonder what else he’s good at?” asked another young woman, grinning wickedly. Lucy recognized her as one of Lady Harrington’s lady’s maids. “I may aim to find out, one of these days!”

“I expect he’s already had his way with
you,
Lucy?” Janey asked, her smile bright but her features hard. Seeing Lucy flush, she continued, “Do tell, did he have you over the kitchen table? Or spread your skirts as you bent to pick up his linens?”

“Not when Bessie’s around for the taking, I’d say!” chimed Mariah, Janey’s companion.

“I’d trouble myself to have a brat with him!” a much younger girl added. Lucy did not know her. “He’d be one to take care of his own, I wager.”

“Stupid git!” Janey said. “Them that think like nobles think themselves too fine for the likes of us. It’s all sweet talk till they get the chit with child, and that’s the end of it.”

Janey’s fierceness chilled Lucy a bit. The sorry fate of a serving lass done in by her master was all too well known a tale, usually ending with the mistress casting her out of the house, with nary a reference but with plenty of names for the girl and her babe—hoyden and bastard but two.

“He’s not like that,” Lucy said. “Neither is the magistrate.”

Janey sneered. “You must not be pleasing enough for them, then.”

“Oh, poo!” Bessie’s voice sounded in her ear. Lucy had not heard her under the taunts of the other girls. “Who wants to watch
them
dancing! Come, Lucy, they’ve started dancing downstairs, and I mean for us to have some fun!”

They made their way downstairs, and there to the servants’ dining hall, which connected to the Embry’s large kitchen. Lucy found a quite different party. The servants had moved the tables and benches out of their dining hall, creating a cramped but lively dancing area. Several couples were already whirling about, the weariness of their dreary servant’s days forgotten, while others clapped and stamped their feet in time with the old familiar country dances. When Bessie and Lucy walked through the door, each was seized about the waist by a young man eager for a partner to bounce about with in merry confusion.

Breathless with laughter and the quickness of the steps, both girls found themselves passed playfully among a number of different men. Some of the men she knew from houses along the Hargraves’ street; others she did not know. These Lucy assumed were members of the Embrys’ extensive livery and household.

After she grew tired of dancing, Lucy moved into the kitchen, where men and women, young and old, perched about the room, trading quips and jests. Some couples began stumbling out of the kitchen, flagons of ale in their hands. Young serving girls, freed from their normal routines, flirted outrageously.

Squeezing onto a bench, Lucy smiled at the woman next to her, holding a sleeping babe in her lap. Lucy marveled at the baby’s ability to sleep through the good-natured revelry. Accepting a mug of ale, Lucy laughed along with the others as jokes and outrageous stories continued to fly. She saw Bessie in the corner, flirting a bit with some men from the Embrys’ stable. Looking at Bessie, laughing and happy, it was hard to see the moody girl she’d been these last few weeks.

Richard, one of the Embrys’ liverymen, heaved himself up onto the edge of the wooden table, his tongue clearly loosened by ale. “I heard tell of an old thief, Jack Grubb, who was to meet with the hangman one fine morning,” Richard began. “When the hangman placed the noose around his neck, our good man Jack said, ‘Nay, good sir! Do not bring the rope too near my throat. For I am,’ says he, ‘so ticklish about that place that I shall hurt myself, laughing so hard, that the rope will like to throttle me!’”

Everyone roared and clinked their pewter mugs. A strumpet snuggled beside Richard, slipping under his arm. When he put his arm around her waist, she smirked at the other girls, for Richard was easily one of the most handsome men there.

Yet a few minutes later, he came over to Lucy and poured more ale into her mug.

“Thank you.” She smiled up at him.

Richard caught her look and seated himself beside her on the long low bench. “Oh, little minx,” he said, taking a hearty swig of ale. “I did not catch your name. I’m Richard.”

Lucy murmured her name, her head beginning to swim from her three cups of ale. Richard covered her free hand with his and spoke in a caressing tone. “Lucy. What a lovely name to match a lovely face. Are you enjoying yourself, my little sweet?”

Not sure what to say, Lucy nodded and managed a tremulous smile. As the man began to whisper things in her ear that made her blush, she felt confused and stood up. The room wavered around her. She put her hand on the wall to steady herself, saying, “I think I’m off, then.”

Moving toward the door, Lucy paused as the room spun around her. Once she was outside, the fresh night air welcomed and soothed her, and she was glad to leave the noisy din behind. Shouts of laughter and music drifted from the house. She saw a man stride out of the main door, a woman following after him. Squinting, she sighed when she saw Adam and Judith Embry.

Lucy stepped quickly into the shadows of a gracious elm tree, so that she would not be seen. A chill breeze blew, reminding her she had left her wrap inside. Not wanting to return to the house just yet, she wrapped her hands around her bare arms.

Judith’s voice carried in the still air, allowing Lucy to catch snatches of their conversation. “Father, you know, believes—” Lucy heard Judith say, but her words were lost in the light wind that had arisen. Although unsure why, Lucy moved closer, keeping care to keep her figure hidden in the bushes.