from The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine

    The clatter of wheels broke the stillness. Two horses strained in harness, nostrils flaring, breath steaming in the night air. Wearing a greatcoat and low-crowned hat, the driver rode hunched over, face hidden by his scarf. A gloved hand cracked the whip. Faster.

     The woman lying in the road seemed unaware of her imminent peril. She kept her eyes fixed on the church rising against the night sky. And as the mists parted, the rose window emerged, a circle of textured shadow patiently awaiting the sun’s fire.

     The horses reared, and the woman’s body tumbled beneath hoof and carriage, arms and legs a-tangle. Whipping around the wheel, her cloak yanked her back and up so that for one instant she was held suspended. Down she tumbled to land in a heap. The coach tilted wildly, regained control, and sped on. Hoof beats echoed away. The silence closed in with the fog.

***

     Penelope tumbled out of sleep, stifling a scream. Someone was in the room. A step shuffled; a drawer edged open with the scratch of old wood. Her arm reached instinctively for the child at her side, but Sarah still slept, warm and sweet, breathing softly.

     A form detached from the shadows by the bureau and moved toward her. She heard a thud followed by a muffled curse.

     "Jeremy?"

     "Who left that blasted thing in the middle of the room?"

     As he bent to right the rocking horse, Penelope slipped out of bed, groping for the tinderbox on the nightstand. Fingers trembling, she struck metal against flint until a spark caught. She lit her candle and turned to face him.

     Jeremy stepped into the flicker-glow, slivers of light illuminating eyes, nose, or mouth, each in turn then thrust back into darkness. He was smiling.

     "What do you want?" she said.

     "You’re not curious about how I breached your defenses? Quite simple actually. You should remember to lock your windows."

    "However you entered, you can exit by the same route."

     He looked hurt. "Now is that any kind of greeting after so long an absence? That trellis is deuced rickety. I could have been dashed to my death."

     "You’d have landed in the rosebushes. And perhaps a bed of thorns is in order here." She loosened her grip on the candlestick. "Keep your voice down, or you’ll wake Sarah."

     Jeremy bent closer to the bed and grazed the child’s cheek with his fingertips. "She’d sleep through the storming of the Bastille. All’s well with her?"

     "What do you want?" she said again.

     "I am short of funds at present. I hoped you might spare a few pounds out of the household money."

     Anger quickly flamed in her: a familiar anger, a warm and secure anger that set her jaw. "Scorched again? Well, I won’t have it, Jeremy. Besides, we’ve little to spare as you should know." But she knew she had no choice, for he might take everything if he so desired, and she could not stop him. A few pounds would satisfy him--for now.

     Penelope took his arm and pulled him into her tiny sitting room. Turning up the lamp, she perched on the settee, indicating he should take the chair opposite. Instead, Jeremy removed his cloak and squeezed next to her.

     He leaned closer so that she could smell the brandy on his breath. "Listen to me, love," he said. "I’ve had a run of ill luck. I need a trifle to tide me over until I finish my commission. Just to pay my shot with a few of the more pressing duns and get my shirts out of hock from the laundress."

     "What commission?"

     "The daughter of a baronet named Constance Tyrone. Possessed of a face like the Virgin’s, but there’s fire beneath. Sixty-five guineas for a full-length, no less." His voice was reflective.

     "You should see my sketches of her," he went on. "Best work I’ve ever done. And there’s more, Penelope. She’s got influential friends. If I play my hand right, I’ll be awash in solicitations for portraits."

     "Why should she do that for you?"

     Jeremy looked mischievous. "A favor for a favor. I know some and suspect more."

     "What can her private affairs mean to you?"

     "Why nothing, of course. Except that handled delicately, she may not be averse to lending aid to one who understands her so well." He chuckled, leaning back against the cushions. His eyes fluttered shut.

     For the first time she looked at him in the light. He wore dark breeches and a white waistcoat traced with silver thread under an evening coat which fit perfectly across the shoulders. She had not seen this particular ensemble before and eyed him with some disgust, calculating how much it might have cost.

     "Understanding women is rather a specialty of yours," she said.

***

     "Who found her, Constable?" said John Chase. His gaze swept down the line of terrace houses and back to St. Catherine’s church, imposing in the early light. There was something about the colorless dawn that made the day start bleak. It was not a cleansing light. Dirt from the day before looked that much dirtier, ugliness that much uglier, and human frailty that much more frail.

     He looked down at the woman at his feet. They would have to move her soon. Already a line of drays and carriages had formed, and tempers grew short, drivers shouting curses at the street-keeper who waved them toward a detour.

     A small crowd had begun to gather on the pavement, the curious eager to sniff out any lurid details. And soon the Grub Street hacks themselves would arrive. Someone was bound to have informed them since the journalists paid a shilling for any tidbits.

     "Who found her?" Chase repeated.

     Constable Samuel Button pulled his eyes from the body. "Sorry, sir. The curate Mr. Thaddeus Wood discovered her before daybreak. Unlocking the church gates he was, sir, when he shines his lantern into the street and sees her lying there."