Death in St James's Park Read Online Free PDF Page B

to five. It meant they were living well beyond their means, and visions of debtors’ prison loomed like a spectre.
    ‘You look like a tradesman, Thomas,’ she declared irritably. ‘We have our reputations to consider, you know, and sometimes you embarrass me with your eccentric habits.’
    Chaloner had dressed for apprehending felons, and his clothes were mostly grey and brown, two colours she decried as vulgar. He was still chilled to the bone, but imagined he would have been considerably colder had he worn a courtly suit of silk in place of his practical wool long-coat.
    ‘I am sorry,’ he said, lacking the will for an argument. ‘I did not expect to come here today.’
    She nodded, and some of her annoyance receded. She was a small, vivacious, fair-haired woman with an engaging smile, although few would have called her pretty. She was lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and she loved her post, White Hall and her mistress in equal measure.
    ‘Have you heard the latest news?’ she asked, bursting with the need to gossip. ‘Roger Palmer is home, after serving two years in the Venetian navy.’
    Chaloner wondered what he was expected to say. He was not interested in Court chatter – least of all about Lord Castlemaine – although he knew he should be, as only a foolish intelligencer did not learn about the people among whom he was obliged to move.
    ‘There will be trouble,’ predicted Hannah gleefully, when there was no response. ‘His vile wife will have to curtail her sluttish behaviour now.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Their marriage is dead. He has no control over her or she over him.’
    ‘True,’ acknowledgedHannah. ‘Indeed, she began her affair with the King within weeks of their wedding. None of her four children are Palmer’s – the King has claimed them all as his own. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, Palmer is a papist – divorce is out of the question.’
    ‘I see.’ Chaloner supposed it was a covert reference to their own situation. Hannah had converted to Catholicism when she had been appointed to serve the Queen, which meant she would not countenance an annulment either, no matter how disastrous their union.
    ‘We had a nasty shock today.’ Hannah flitted to another subject. ‘Mary Wood is dead of the small-pox. Do you remember her? She and her husband own a mansion near Dowgate. It is not somewhere I should like to live, as I imagine it is very noisy.’
    Their own house on Tothill Street was not exactly a haven of peace, given that it was near a number of taverns, not all of them reputable. But London was like that – respectable homes often rubbed shoulders with insalubrious alehouses, and Dowgate was not much different from Tothill Street in that respect.
    ‘Did you know Mary well?’ he asked, not sure whether to offer sympathy or congratulations.
    ‘Yes, she was the Queen’s dresser. There are rumours that she was murdered, but I doubt they are true. She became unwell last month, and I hope she did not pass the disease to the rest of us before she collapsed and was carried home. Of course, I did not like her very much.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘When things went missing from the Queen’s jewel box, it was nearly always Mary who had last been seen with them. Of course, her faults are forgotten now she is dead – everyone is extolling her virtues. Do you know her husband? Sir Henry is sixty-six years old, and Mary was thirty-eight, but they still managed to produce a baby.’
    Hannah’s voice wasbitter. She wanted children herself, but her first marriage had been barren and her second was proving to be the same. As Chaloner had fathered a child – dead of plague in Holland – she had accepted that the fault lay with her. Chaloner had been mildly ashamed of his relief, suspecting there would have been no end of trouble had she believed otherwise.
    ‘Do you mean the fellow who is Clerk of the Green Cloth?’ he asked.
    Hannah nodded. ‘Which, as you will know, means he has very