Death at St. James's Palace (2 page)

She opened her mouth to object but the Apothecary did it for her, his fingers probing but delicate for all that. Then he threw his head back and laughed, then shed a tear, then kissed her exuberantly. “Mama,” he said.Emilia’s colour restored itself and she went very pink. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as anyone could be at this stage. There’s a tiny something there. Oh, my dear, let me go to my compounding room at once.”

“How romantic of you.”

John hung his head. “I’m sorry, the herbalist spoke, not the husband. My darling, this is the proudest day of my life. I thank you for the gift that you are giving me.”

Emilia got to her feet and flung herself into his arms. “I am so excited and pleased. I wondered if it was ever going to happen.”

He smiled. “I think the timing is just right. Two years wed, so we’re ready for a newcomer.”

“I suppose you planned all that.”

John’s crooked smile appeared. “I’m not an apothecary for nothing, my dear.”

“Oh you!” said Emilia, and gave him a luscious kiss.

“I think I will drink a little champagne,” John announced, walking back into the morning room.

The newspaper rustled. “A little early, is it not? But then I suppose it is not every day that we hear of Mr. Fielding’s advancement.”

“No, Grandfather, it certainly isn’t.” John rang a bell set upon the table and said to the girl who appeared, “Fetch a bottle of champagne from the cellar, if you please, Molly. And bring two glasses while you’re at it.”

“I don’t think I’ll join you. I am still drinking tea.”

“Surely not too old for a toast, Grandfather?” John continued.

The newspaper rustled once more, then lowered slightly. “Are you referring to my extreme longevity or are you merely being cheeky, my dear? For to tell the truth I do not care to be addressed by that name.”

“Well, you’re going to have to get used to it,” the Apothecary answered cheerfully, spreading marmalade on toast and crunching noisily.

“What do you mean?”

“Precisely what I say, Sir. From now on. Grandfather it is.”

The paper hit the table fast. “John, what are you saying? Is Emilia...?”

His son stood up and danced round the room, ending by Sir Gabriel’s chair and kissing him soundly on both cheeks. “Yes, yes, yes. I’m certain of it. Of course she must see a doctor as soon as we get home...”

“No, she shall see one this very day,” put in his father. “Every care must be taken of my daughter-in-law and her child.”

“Well said. Grandpapa,” Emilia commented from the doorway.

“Oh, Madam, should I fetch another glass?” asked Molly, returning from the kitchen.

“No,” Sir Gabriel announced grandly, “fetch one for every member of the household. I am to be a grandfather. Everyone shall drink to my grandchild.”

Why, thought John Rawlings, quiet for just a second, should this be the moment when he experienced that frisson of fear which always told him trouble lay ahead? Why now after two years of peace and tranquility?

“John?” said his wife, giving him a strange look.

“My darling,” he answered, pushing the feeling away with every ounce of his will and very gently picking her up in his arms till her feet no longer touched the floor.

“I saw you grow still,” she whispered into his ear. “And I’ve seen that look before, just once, when we were on honeymoon in Devon. Is something going to go wrong with me - or the baby?”

“No,” he answered seriously. “I shall make it my business to care for you both to the limit of my skill.”

“Then what?””I don’t know.”

“Is murder afoot?”

“I don’t know that either.” Yet inwardly, somewhat to John’s shame, he felt the first thrill of excitement.

Two hours later Sir Gabriel Kent’s household was ready to go calling on Mr. John Fielding at his country retreat. A year earlier, in 1760, the Blind Beak had decided to take a place away from the stress and turmoil of the heaving city and had settled on Grove House, a spacious and elegant mansion, situated between highly fashionable Kensington Gore, where stood the homes of the monied and the mighty, and Brompton, a quiet hamlet regarded as very healthy by those who lived there.

Dressed to the whisker, Sir Gabriel in black and silver to mark festivity, Emilia wearing a bright blue open robe with embroidered white petticoat beneath, John striking in purple, the three were just entering Sir Gabriel’s coach when there was a great cry of “Tallyho” and a thunder of hooves coming from the direction of Church Lane. They stared aghast as a large and familiar figure astride a sweating black horse came into view.

“Damme, but it’s Samuel Swann,” said Sir Gabriel, entering the coach. “Now here’s good sport.”

The Apothecary’s childhood friend drew alongside and heaved himself off his mount, which snorted with obvious relief. “My dear,” he said, wringing John’s hand enthusiastically, “what wonderful news. I rode from town immediately hoping to catch you in. I thought there might be a celebration”

John gaped at him incredulously. “But how did you know?”

“Why, it was in the paper, of course.”

“Oh, that’s not possible. We’ve only just found out ourselves. Even now we’re not absolutely certain.”

Samuel stared. “Are you being humorous?”

“No, I’m not. It’s early days.”

Sir Gabriel put his head through the carriage window. “We’re on our way to see Mr. Fielding now. Would you care to join us? We can wait ten minutes while you remove the stains of your journey.”

“I would love to accompany you, Sir. That was the purpose of my visit.”

“Oh, dear Samuel,” said John, “I believe we have been at cross purposes. I thought you were referring to something else.”

The large young man who, when excited and flailing his arms, could closely resemble a windmill, looked puzzled. “I was talking about the Blind Beak’s impending knighthood. Is there some other news afoot?”

It was the turn of Emilia, who had accompanied her father-in-law within, to join in. Her head, topped by a very smart hat with the brim raised at both the front and the back and the crown almost totally concealed by a large blue bow, appeared at the coach’s window.

“Samuel, how nice to see you. Take no notice of my husband, his mind is on other things. Now hurry about your toilette, do. We’re impatient to visit Mr. Fielding, that is if he’s in residence.”

Samuel blew her a gallant kiss. “I shall be five minutes only, mark me.” And with that he hurried indoors to change into something more suitable for a social call. He emerged fairly rapidly, his sturdy frame crammed into what was obviously his best suit, a daring attempt at the new fashion of English ‘country’ clothes, the skirts of his coat cut away in front as if for ease on horseback. John, who preferred a great deal of embroidery on his clothes, was not sure that he liked the style, though he had to admit that it suited his well-built friend.

Samuel squeezed into the coach. “So what was this other cause for celebration, then?”

Nobody spoke, everyone looking at everyone else.

“Let me apply my mind,” John’s friend continued. “You’ve only just found out, you’re not absolutely certain. So what can it be?” He grinned round jovially, the perpetual innocent, as ingenuous and lovely as an overgrown schoolboy.

“I am with child,” said Emilia. “At least so my husband tells me.”

Samuel swallowed noisily. “Well, he should know,” he said, and looked wonderingly when the other three members of the party burst out laughing.

In view of the various delays encountered that morning, it was noon by the time Sir Gabriel’s coach clattered down Church Lane, turned left down Kensington High Street, continued down the length of Hyde Park Wall, passing Mr. Mitchell’s house and the Brompton Park nursery gardens on their right, then turned into the tree-lined lane that joined Kensington and the hamlet of Brompton together. At the junction of this lane with another, smaller, track, and surrounded by its own large garden, stood Grove House. Not as tall as Mr. Fielding’s Bow Street residence, it was for all that wider and more generously supplied with windows, presenting a gracious facade to the coach which pulled up outside its front door. Carrying no postillion that day, it was the coachman’s task to descend from his box and pull down the step for Sir Gabriel to alight. This, with much use of his great stick, John’s father did, refusing all help from the younger members of the party.

A manservant who worked for Mr. Fielding at his Bow Street residence and who had obviously travelled to the country to be with his master at this time of celebration, answered the door.

He bowed. “Sir Gabriel Kent, is it not?”

“Indeed, it is, my good fellow. Is Mr. Fielding within?”

“No, Sir. Miss Chudleigh called in her coach and insisted
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that the family accompany her to her house for an informal levee. She had, of course, read the announcement in the newspapers. She did also say, Sir, that anyone who presented their card at Mr. Fielding’s door, provided they were a person of
bon ton,
should make their way to her home to join the festivities.”

“Good gracious!” said Sir Gabriel, clearly both surprised and delighted, for Miss Chudleigh was a woman of vast reputation and someone to whom he had been particularly anxious to be introduced.

From the coach came a shout of laughter, an interruption greeted by John’s father with a severe look and a raised eyebrow.

“We shall be delighted to join Miss Chudleigh,” he said crisply.

The servant bowed. “Very good, Sir. You know where the lady lives?”

“I have passed her house many times, a fine place indeed.”

“Indeed, Sir.” And with that the man bowed again and closed the front door.

“Well,” said John as his father rejoined the company, “we’ve been invited into the hornet’s nest, it seems.”

“I would hardly have described Miss Chudleigh in those terms.”

Samuel rolled his eyes. “She is much spoken of, Sir, you must admit.”

“I feel nervous,” said Emilia. “She is the sort of woman that makes other females totally terrified.”

“Why?” asked her father-in-law. “She is unconventional, it’s true, cares nothing for what the world says about her, has used her beauty to lure and entrap men, but I do not believe her to be actually cruel.”

“Is it a fact,” asked Samuel, “that she once appeared at a ball at Somerset House stark naked but for three fig leaves?”

“So they say.”

“I wonder what she will be wearing today,” John said, laughing.

“I wonder too,” Emilia echoed nervously.

With that heady mix of high spirits and apprehension which sets pulses racing, the coach party went off once more, turning back towards Kensington and proceeding up Brompton Park Lane, then bearing right to Miss Chudleigh’s house, presently quite modest but clearly still under construction. Yet for all its moderate size, it stood in extensive grounds and was obviously one day destined to be a mansion, the home of a woman who had made her way in the world - by whatever means. Greeted at the door by a fancifully liveried footman, Sir Gabriel presented his card. But there formality ended. From some inner room, the sounds of gaiety clearly audible as soon as she had flung open the door, Elizabeth Chudleigh herself emerged.

“Ah, the most elegant man in Kensington,” she cried, going directly to Sir Gabriel and giving a deep curtsey. “I had intended to call on you one day, Sir Gabriel Kent, is it not?”

He was utterly charmed, his son could see that. “Madam, you are even more beautiful than your portraits would have us believe. It is a pleasure to meet you at last.”

Miss Chudleigh turned, as politeness decreed, towards Emilia, then she gave a greeting that was a masterpiece of hidden messages, managing to convey simultaneously a hostess’s welcome, a smile that did not extend to the eyes, and a sweeping glance at Emilia’s ensemble together with a look that dismissed it as boring, John felt a definite flush of annoyance and only wished that he could have thought the same about his hostess’s appearance. But this was not possible. It was a rig fit to daunt a queen, which, so the world said. Miss Chudleigh’s appearance did to the new mouse who occupied the throne beside young George III.

The hoops of the lady’s gown, in a deliberate snub to the fashion of wearing English country clothes, were as wide as the style of some ten years previously, at least fifteen feet in all and stretched over rods of osier. The black petticoat visible through the wide gap in her skirt was encrusted with rows of drop pearls, the gown itself was flauntingly crimson. But it was to Miss Chudleigh’s face and hair that John’s eye was drawn. For she wore the very latest coiffure, beginning to rise in height, plastered with pomatum and covered with white powder, the edifice topped with swaying black feathers of enormous size. This was a trend in fashion that the Apothecary had read about but not yet seen, a daring move away from the natural ringleted style that Emilia still wore. He noticed with slight anguish that his wife’s attention was riveted on Miss Chudleigh and hoped that she was not feeling too much the pregnant little frump.

The Apothecary’s gaze moved down from the formidable hair creation to the face below. It was beautiful, there was no denying that, though the passing years had added the lines of experience here and there and given a slightly wrinkled look to the petulant drooping mouth. But the large wide eyes, a difficult colour to pinpoint, clear as a stream and with the same liquid intensity, showed little signs of the excessive living of which Miss Chudleigh was accused. Yet even while they gave him a frank stare, in the depths of which flickered a definite appraisal, John had a strong sense of something else about the woman, something that he could not quite pinpoint.