And by Fire by Evie Hawtrey

Author:Evie Hawtrey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

CHAPTER 11

Marylebone, London

Monday, September 10, 1666

The Bellands remained at Whitehall, and their apprentices were paid to be idle. So the workshop was theirs alone—Etienne and Margaret’s—a place to be scientists: investigating not the stars, or the chemical coloration of rockets, but death.

“You do not have to be here,” Etienne said, preparing to uncover the remains of Thomas Bradish on one of the long wooden tables ordinarily used to shape pasteboard for filling.

“Yes, I must; just as you sat with me as I told Agnes. That which is hardest is best done together.”

Telling Agnes had been the worst moment of Margaret’s twenty years. Done on the Lord’s Day, it had not felt like His work. Nor had any amount of prayer since soothed Margaret or erased the image of her friend’s eyes at the moment the dreadful truth was uttered.

And we may have more ugly words to speak … If Etienne is right, we will have to tell her Thomas’s death was not merely an act of fate, but an act of man—no, the act of a monster.

“Besides,” Margaret continued, picking up her pen, “who will take notes?” She turned her eyes to the page, eager to keep them there and away from the desiccated form Etienne must examine. “You have many talents, my love, but a legible script is not one.” She heard a rustle of fabric accompanied by a sharp intake of breath. Then Etienne retched.

“And the man who brought him insisted he found nothing around or beneath the body?” Margaret asked, hoping that by keeping Etienne talking she could prevent him from losing his dinner.

“Yes. I made sure to show him my purse, but he swore he had nothing else to sell.” He took several deep breaths. “I will begin with the pockets.”

“Only a rosary,” Etienne declared a few moments later.

Another trinket for Agnes. Will she find some comfort in it or in prayers said upon it? Or is she beyond comfort? Margaret wrote “rosary,” watching the nib of her pen on the paper. Pen … pen …

“Thomas’s ivory pen!” The moment of clarity was so abrupt that Margaret made an ink blotch on her page. “That’s what has been bothering me! Thomas showed his favorite pen to Mister Archer on the steps of St. Paul’s, yet we found it in the ruins of his shop. Thomas definitely returned home after the crypt was closed!”

“Good Lord, Margaret, you’re right!”

“You needn’t sound so amazed.”

“I am not amazed at your intelligence—never that—but rather at my not thinking of this. Having made his way home, why did he abandon his plan of making for Marylebone? Why return to St. Paul’s?”

Margaret wrote the questions down.

“Time to take a closer look at his head.” The dread in Etienne’s voice was palpable, yet Margaret, her curiosity proving stronger than her aversion, could not resist glancing in his direction.

Thomas had been turned on his right side, and Etienne stood with one leather-gloved hand on their friend’s left shoulder. Etienne’s face was ashen, his expression vexed. “I wish the hand was not so inconveniently placed.

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