Death in the Setting Sun Read online

  Death in the Setting Sun

  DERYN LAKE

  First published in Great Britain in 2004 by

  Allison & Busby Limited

  Bon Marche Centre

  241-251 Femdale Road

  Brixton, London SW9 8BJ

  http://zvzvw.allisonandbusby.com

  Copyright © 2004 by Deryn Lake

  The right of Deryn Lake to be identified as

  author of this work has been asserted by her in

  accordance with the Copyright, Designs and

  Patents Act, 1988

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,

  by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or

  otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior

  written consent in any form of binding or cover other than

  that in which it is published and without a similar condition

  including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent

  purchaser.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-0749083656

  Printed and bound

  by Creative Print & Design, Wales

  For my special Amelia –

  with Grandy’s best love.

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks, first and foremost, to Beryl Cross who introduced me to Gunnersbury Park and showed me the two houses which now stand there, together with the Round Pond, The Temple and the Bath House. Princess Amelia’s house was destroyed years ago but the Rothschild family built two mansions on the site which I found fascinating. I hope others will too. Next, thanks are due to Keith Gotch, now retired to Devon, but still an expert on bodies. His help with the drowned victim was terrific, as usual. I would also like to thank my editor, David Shelley, always ready to laugh, and my agent Vanessa Holt. Finally come Henry, Elliot and Fintan, whose visits make my day; and Susan Carnaby and John Elnaugh, who brighten my life.

  Chapter One

  Like many seasons that are destined to be severe, the winter of 1764 started moderately enough with mild evenings, crisp leaf falls and a lot of fine clear sunshine in the daytime. A golden October thus gave way to a misty November, though the fog itself was warm and vaporous. But round about the beginning of December the wind changed direction in the night, blowing from the north, with a hint of snow on its breath, so that John Rawlings, closing his shop in Shug Lane and hurrying home to Nassau Street, found himself almost running to keep out the cold. Bursting into the hall, blowing his hands, he thanked the footman who helped him divest his greatcoat and hat, and hurried to the library where he knew the fire would have been lit.

  The room was empty as he had half expected but indeed there was a great blaze in the hearth and John held his hands out to it before pouring himself a sherry from a decanter that stood on a side table. Then, having taken two small sips, he braved the chill once more and hurried upstairs to the nursery where his daughter, Rose, who had been born two and a half years before, awaited him together with John’s wife, Emilia.

  He paused in the nursery doorway, they as yet unaware of his presence, and looked at them with much fondness. Emilia still had that angelic quality which had so attracted him: fair hair and blue eyes and a slim, slight figure unaltered by child-bearing. At present she was three months pregnant with her second child but nothing of this showed as yet and, with the candles and firelight reflecting in her hair and on her skin, she looked young and untouched. Rose, however, had been born with ancient wisdom, though only her father was aware of this, but as he looked at her now she sensed his gaze and smiled at him, lighting up like a flame. Her hair was a deep rich red, curling round her small face in spirals. Dominated by a pair of huge dark blue eyes, fringed by black lashes which brushed against her creamy skin, it was an exceptional face that one day would grow and mature into true beauty.

  Emilia, seeing the child smile, followed her glance and saw her husband leaning against the doorframe. She stood up straight.

  “John. I didn’t know you’d come in.”

  “I was watching the two of you. It was a pretty scene.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Come and join us. We’ve missed you.”

  He entered the room and Rose ran into his arms as he bent to pick her up. “And how are you, lovely girl?”

  “I am very well, thank you Papa.”

  Her speech, like the rest of her, had a curious maturity which was extremely charming.

  John, gathering her into his arms and holding her against him, felt the spring of her mop of hair and buried his nose in it.

  “What’s in there? A little mouse?”

  Emilia remonstrated. “Oh, sweetheart, you’ll frighten the child.”

  But Rose was laughing, wriggling in John’s grasp, and shouting, “Yes, yes. Do you want to see?”

  He peered into her hair then closed the whorls of red again quickly. “I mustn’t disturb him. He’s sitting at supper.”

  At this the child exploded with mirth and John gently placed her on the floor. Crossing to where Emilia stood, he gave her a kiss, then put his arm round her. “And how have you been today, my dear?”

  “Reasonably well. And you?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I am geting old but my new apprentice seems incredibly slow-witted.”

  “Why, what has he done?”

  “It’s rather what he didn’t do. I had left two packets on the counter, one of Saxifrage root, finely chopped, for an old man with toothache. The other was for another old boy suffering with piles. I’d given him oil made from infusing the flowers of Mullein. Anyway, while I was out calling on a patient he gives the wrong packet to the wrong chap, if you follow me.”

  Emilia giggled naughtily and John tightened his grip on her, thinking how much she meant to him, how much they had grown together.

  “Can you imagine the confusion? One fellow wrestling with the root, the other staring in horror at the oil. God’s life, my reputation will be in shreds at this rate.”

  “But he’s a willing boy.”

  “Yes,” John answered thoughtfully, “he’s that all right.”

  He stared into space, thinking how sad it was that Nicholas Dawkins, known as the Muscovite because of his exotic ancestry, had finally left him and had now himself been made free of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. Yet “left him” was hardly describing the case. For Nicholas had gone to Kensington and was running a shop into which John and his adopted father, Sir Gabriel Kent, had invested money in equal shares. Though Nicholas was still without a bride, John imagined that this state of affairs would not continue for long, in view of the Muscovite’s weakness for the female sex. However, at the present time the Apothecary was labouring in the company of one Gideon Purle, who was, as Emilia said, willing but lacking in flair.

  John sighed aloud. “No doubt he’ll learn in time.”

  “What did you do about his error?”

  “I sent him on the run to the house of the man with piles lest he try to put the root of Saxifrage up his —“

  “John! Not in front of the child.”

  “Sorry. I momentarily forgot her presence.”

  He bent down to Rose guiltily but she was already absorbed in playing with a wooden horse and had not heard him. Straightening up, John looked at Emilia over her head, then he winked. Emilia gave a delighted laugh and said, “Husband, you’re incorrigible. Come, let’s hand Rose over to her nursemaid and sit together awhile. Rose, say goodnight to your father.”

  The child looked up from her play, then got to her feet. “Goodnight, Papa.”

  He bent to kiss her once more, pulling her close to him with a sudden urgency, almost as if they were going to
be separated. Rose’s deep blue eyes looked slightly startled but she kissed him none the less, her cool lips against his cheek.

  “You’re rough, Papa.”

  John laughed, fingering his chin. “I need a shave, Rose, that’s all.”

  Just for a moment he had a vision of himself with several days’ stubble on him, and he shivered slightly despite the fire that glowed in the nursery. Fortunately Emilia had turned away so did not notice but John, standing upright, felt an inexplicable finger of melancholy. He quite deliberately fought it off and forced a smile at his wife.

  “Are you ready?”

  “No, give me a moment or two. You go down. I’ll join you shortly.”

  “Very well.”

  He hurried down the stairs, not totally warmed by the fire in the hall, and back into the sanctuary of the library. But still the dark mood was upon him and, finishing his sherry, he poured himself another one and sat down.

  It had been two and a half years since he had last been called to assist Sir John Fielding, the famous magistrate known to the mob as the Blind Beak. Two and a half years in which Rose had grown from a newborn baby into a delightful little girl, whose powers of speech were well-advanced, Sir Gabriel Kent, her grandfather, was now aged eighty, having celebrated his birthday last summer in tremendous style. He had returned to London, to Nassau Street, and invited the whole of the town to feast and play cards and dance. It had been a sumptuous occasion and John had been amazed at how many important people came to celebrate with the old man, who still dressed to the inch in stunning ensembles of black and white, all topped by a very old-fashioned wig of three storeys in height.

  One of the guests had been John’s childhood friend Samuel Swann, now quite definitely putting on weight, the thinness of his wife, Jocasta, fortunately hidden by the fact that she had been en ceinte. The Apothecary had to admit that marrying an heiress had given Sam a certain portly air of self-satisfaction which he found fractionally irritating. But all had been forgotten when he had looked at Sir Gabriel’s aristocratic face and seen it glowing with pleasure.

  Other guests had included Sir John and Lady Fielding, together with their adopted daughter Mary Ann, actually a niece of Elizabeth Fielding’s. John had been highly amused to observe that the arrival of Lord Elibank, an old friend of Sir Gabriel’s, had the young woman preening like a cat while Milord had been covered with confusion. The Apothecary guessed at once that there had been some previous connection between the two, one which had presumably ended in tears. Still, he could hardly blame his lordship, for Miss Whittingham — or Fielding as she called herself these days — at the age of eighteen was gorgeous to behold indeed. And wasn’t the girl aware of it, casting her predatory eyes round the room and getting into conversation with the richest and best-connected men there.

  “She’s after a fortune,” John had whispered to Samuel — and somewhat to his surprise his friend had blushed, conclusively proving that once upon a time he, too, had had a fancy for her.

  But the little temptress was still unmarried and, as far as John knew, had not received any firm offers for her hand, which only went to show something or other, though the Apothecary was not quite sure what.

  A log shifted in the fireplace and John went to throw another on, wondering what had caused his earlier dark mood. Imagination, he told himself, though he had to admit that these strange feelings often prefaced a disaster of some kind. Yet again he shrugged the presentiment away, glad that Emilia was coming into the room to keep him company.

  They had been married five years, very happily. So happily indeed that he rarely thought of Elizabeth di Lorenzi, a woman he had met on honeymoon with whom he could have fallen in love had circumstances been different, and hardly at all of Coralie Clive, his former mistress. In fact, he had grown to love Emilia more in that time and now could say he was truly content.

  Yet there was something in him, some basic part of his character, that longed for adventure and excitement. So much so that he often found himself wishing that he could be like other men who settled into a life of routine and regularised living. Like Samuel Swann, for example. But the very idea made him smile. Dear Samuel, the most affable of all his friends, was within a hair’s breadth of growing pompous and prematurely middle-aged, a route down which John had no intention of going.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Emilia from the doorway. “You’re smiling.”

  “I was actually dwelling on Samuel. Do you not think he’s changing?”

  “Well, he’s getting older.”

  “Obviously. But I actually meant in himself. He’s growing rather important, don’t you agree?”

  Emilia giggled. “He’s getting fatter certainly.”

  “And by contrast Jocasta is so thin. Which reminds me, when is her baby due?”

  “In early January, just after Christmas.”

  “Dear Sam. He’s been wanting a child for years. Perhaps its arrival will bring him to his senses.”

  Emilia drew her chair closer. “Oh come on, John, you’re being unkind. Just because he’s growing middle-aged in a different way from you there’s no need to pillory the man.”

  “Pillory? I’m doing no such thing. I merely said that his sudden wealth and his enhanced status are making him self-important.”

  Emilia laughed. “Perhaps you might have got that way if you had married money.”

  John shook his head vigorously. “Never. I quest adventure too much.” His face fell. “Am I middle-aged? I rather thought that didn’t happen till forty.”

  She gave him a beautiful smile. “My darling, you will never be middle-aged, even if you live to be ninety. You have about you the eternal youthful spirit. And I think it is all the adventures you’ve been involved with over the years that has brought this about.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. And you’re missing them now, aren’t you? There’s been a restlessness about you recently.”

  John put out his hand and took hold of one of hers. “Sweetheart, you know me as well as my father does. Yes, I have been longing for a call from John Fielding. But all’s quiet. Though mind you, that last affair, riddled with bodies as it was, was enough for me for many months.”

  “So I should think.” She stood up. “Come along, Husband. Dinner will be served at any moment. Let’s go to the dining room.”

  “Not before I’ve given you a kiss.”

  “If you insist,” said Emilia, but she made no move to get away from him.

  The dining room was on the first floor and they made their way there, Emilia’s arm linked amiably through his. Then they sat down at opposite ends of the table and John, hungry indeed after a day with Gideon, ate his way through three courses without conversing. It was while they were on the fruit and cheese that Emilia spoke again.

  “I forgot to tell you that I had a letter this morning from a girl I was at school with.”

  “Oh yes?” said John, sipping his wine.

  “It seems that she contacted my mother to find out where I was and was surprised and pleased to hear that I was married.”

  “It has been some time since you saw her then?”

  “Yes. We drifted apart after we left. But she has tracked me down and wants to come and visit me. She is dying to meet Rose — and you of course “

  “Of course,” said John with a serious expression, and was shot a look of reproof. “Anyway, go on.”

  “Her name is Priscilla Fleming and she is a year younger than I. Apparently she has got rather a good occupation as a companion to one of Princess Amelia’s ladies-in-waiting.”

  “A fine post indeed.”

  For George II’s daughter, Amelia, unmarried but with a lively reputation regarding certain peers of the realm, was known to live a life of luxury and indulgence, wintering in Cavendish Square and spending her summers at Gunnersbury House. Her parties were considered quite the thing and an invitation to one of them meant that socially one had arrived.

  “Which lady-in-waiting
employs her?” John continued, genuinely interested.

  “Lady Theydon. Apparently Priscilla is distantly connected with her — third cousin or some such thing.

  Anyway, when Priscilla’s mother died shortly after the girl left school, Lady Theydon wrote and offered her the post — which she gladly accepted.”

  “Quite a step up for her.”

  “It certainly was. In any event, I wrote back immediately and invited her to come and see me as soon as she has some free time. She is in Cavendish Square at the moment so that shouldn’t prove too challenging.”

  “No,” John answered, but he was no longer concentrating, his mind already wandering off, wondering how long it would be before Gideon Purle began to think sensibly and act accordingly. In fact he was so deep in contemplation that he jumped when Emilia spoke again.

  “… you will be sure to come home promptly, won’t you?”

  “When?” he asked, forcing himself back to reality. “Oh John, you haven’t been listening. I said I was going to invite Priscilla to visit next Tuesday and stay to dine. Then she can meet both you and Rose.”

  “A good plan, my dear. Carry on.”

  She gave him a reproachful look. “You don’t care, do you?”

  “Of course I do,” he answered. Then he looked at her most sincerely and said again, “You know I care about everything you do.”

  “Oh John,” she answered, and smiled her special smile at him.

  * * *

  The minute he set eyes on her he knew that he had met her before somewhere, though where that had been for the moment eluded him. While he was thinking, he gave his best bow then kissed her hand. Priscilla fluttered a little in response and made another small curtsey.

  He looked at her and just for a fleeting second had the impression of a porcine face staring back at him, though when he looked again he realised that this was somewhat unfair. A pair of blue eyes set slightly close together and a flattish nose were what were creating the effect, though the rest of Priscilla Fleming’s face was pretty enough. A fine head of blonde hair was drawn back beneath a large befeathered hat, while the lashes surrounding the somewhat small eyes were thick and dark. She also had a wide smile, displaying a set of gappy teeth. Yet she was so well dressed, such a belle of fashion, that she had the air of a truly attractive woman. And so convincing was this demeanour that John found himself believing it.