Death at St. James's Palace Read Online Free PDF Page A

and they looked up from their conversation to see that George Goward had joined them.
    He really was a strange looking individual, very ginger beneath his flowing white wig. Indeed, his skin was so freckled that he appeared almost to be mottled orange, John thought, and what facial hair there was, where the razor had presented a blunted edge, was sandy. Further he had a tfery odd profile, there being scant division between his nose and brow, which except for a bump over the eyebrows continued in one long line. However the chin receded beneath his full, loose lips so that the entire countenance seemed to consist of one enormous beak. In fact, with the front of his wig slightly curled outwards in fashionable style, George Goward looked incredibly like a vulture.
    “How’s the lady wife?” he asked now.
    “Resting, Sir. She has regained consciousness.”
    “What caused her to faint like that?”
    John hesitated, then said, “I believe she was too tightly laced.”
    George looked knowing. “She does that to hide her corpulence, you know.”
    Not succesfully, John thought, but did not say so.
    “She was the Countess of Lomond, when I first met her,” Goward continued, taking champagne from a passing footman and digging in for a story. “However, she had a far older title than that in her own right. She was born Lady Mary Milland, daughter of the Earl of Grimsby. She married Lomond when she was quite young, you know, and gave birth to a son a year later. Her husband was a drunken wastrel...” George drained his glass and took another, and fell off his horse while hunting. Broke his neck, of course. They tried to pretend it was an accident but the man was a piss-maker, nothing more nor less. Now, how could one regard a woman left alone like that and not feel pity? I met her at a ridotto and married her in a three month.”
    John’s earlier uncharitable thoughts about a fortune returned.
    Emilia asked the unaskable. “Was Lady Mary fat then?” Then realised what she had done and went very pink indeed.
    “Huge,” said George comfortably. “But she slimmed down under my tutelage quite considerably. I think fat runs in the family, though. Old Grimsby was vast and riddled with gout. While the boy, little Frederick, grew more and more obese, like a barrel of lard. Well, there you have it, these hereditary tendencies cannot be denied. So, Rawlings ...” He patted his pocket. “... how much do I owe you for your services.”
    “Nothing, Sir. I acted as a guest of Miss Chudleigh’s.” John looked round. “Now, if you will forgive me...”
    But he was interrupted. A familiar voice said, “I believe I hear Mr. Goward in conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings,” and there stood the Blind Beak, his arm linked through his wife Elizabeth’s.
    “You do indeed, Sir,” answered George, bowing as did John, while Emilia curtseyed and smiled, clearly glad to be rescued by another female.
    From his considerable height, John Fielding held out his hand. “Then let me congratulate you, Sir.”
    George took it and pumped warmly. “As I you, Sir.”
    The Apothecary’s mobile eyebrows rose and Mrs. Fielding said by way of explanation, “Mr. Goward is to receive a knighthood on the same day as John.”
    George’s slack lips parted in a smile. “Charitable work, you know. I have done much to support the Foundling Hospital.”
    Emilia said, with a secret smile at John, “I don’t know how women can abandon their babies so. Were I to have a child I would love and cherish it.”
    At that moment Miss Chudleigh floated past with Joe Jago in attendance, again to John’s intense amazement.
    “Not all women are of like mind with you,” said George, waving his fingers at his hostess. “Why, there’s many who put newborn infants out to cruel guardians and there let them die.”
    “I know of it,” Emilia answered, “and it sickens me.”
    There was a sudden burst of laugh ter and Mary Ann, complete with four men including Samuel,