Susanna Gregory - The Piccadilly Plot

‘He will give all three equal attention,’ said the Earl, although the tone of his voice made it clear that there would be trouble if his own concerns were not given priority. Chaloner bowed again, thinking unhappily that none of the enquiries filled him with great enthusiasm, and he would be lucky if he solved one of them to the Earl’s satisfaction.

In the corridor outside, the Earl’s retainers were waiting to escort him to his meeting. His seal bearer stood ready to lead the way, and his secretary and gentlemen ushers had lined up to process behind him. All wore his livery of blue and gold, and made for an imposing sight.

‘You cannot join us, Chaloner,’ said the Earl, looking pointedly at the spy’s soiled and crumpled clothing. ‘So you may escort my wife home instead.’

‘Not yet, though,’ said Frances. ‘I should like to see the great lords of the Tangier Committee make their appearance. I adore a spectacle.’

But she was to be disappointed. Her husband was the only man who stood on ceremony, and the other members arrived in a far more modest fashion. Most had not even bothered to don wigs, and badly shaven heads were the order of the day.

One person had taken care to look his best, however. He was Samuel Pepys, an ambitious clerk from the Navy Board. Because Chaloner was standing with Lady Clarendon, Pepys deigned to acknowledge him, although his eyes widened in shock at the spy’s dishevelled appearance.

‘Tangier’s residents say Teviot was the best of all their governors,’ he was informing the man at his side. ‘But to my mind, he was a cunning fellow.’

‘He died gallantly, though,’ replied his friend. ‘But never mind him. Tell me why you object to paying what Governor Bridge has demanded for the mole.’

‘Because of the casual way he presents his expenses,’ explained Pepys. ‘We should demand a better reckoning. Lord! How I was troubled to see accounts of ten thousand pounds passed with so little question the last time the Committee met. I wished a thousand times that I had not been there.’

‘Perhaps my husband was right to ask you to look into Teviot’s death,’ said Frances, after Pepys and his companion had entered the building. ‘If such vast sums really are being sent to Tangier with so little accounting, then it will be easy for the unscrupulous to line their pockets. And to some villains, five hundred lives is a small price to pay for personal profit.’

‘If so, then I shall do all I can to avenge them,’ promised Chaloner.

‘But not today,’ said Frances kindly. ‘You were only married a month before sailing to Tangier, and you have been desperately busy since you returned. Spend the rest of the day with Hannah.’

Chaloner woke before it was light the next morning, aware that he had a great deal to do. He lay still for a moment, working out a plan of action, and decided that he would begin by hunting down Harley, Newell and Reyner, on the grounds that the deaths of so many soldiers was a rather more serious matter than missing planks and the lunatic letter about Pratt.

He was not sure what time Hannah had returned from her duties with the Queen the previous night, but she did not stir as he slipped out of bed and dressed in the dim light of the candle she had forgotten to extinguish before she had retired. He bent to kiss her as he left, but she chose that moment to fling out an arm, catching him on the shoulder. With a squawk of pain, her eyes flew open.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, wringing her knuckles and eyeing him accusingly.

She was a small, fair-haired lady with a pert figure and an impish grin. She was not pretty, but she possessed a strength of character and an independence of thought that he had found attractive. They had married before they really knew each other, but it had not taken them long to learn that each possessed habits the other did not like. Chaloner disapproved of the company Hannah kept at Court and was appalled by her surly morning temper; Hannah deplored Chaloner’s inability to express his feelings and hated the sound of his bass viol.

Music was important to Chaloner. It soothed him when he was agitated, cleared his mind when he was dealing with complex cases, and there was little that delighted him more than a well-played recital. He could not imagine a world without it, and felt incomplete when deprived of it for any length of time. Unfortunately, Hannah did not like him playing in the house, and ignoring her and doing it anyway negated any enjoyment he might have gained from the exercise. As far as he was concerned, it was a serious impediment to their future happiness together.

His frustration with the situation had led him to rent a garret in Long Acre the previous week. All spies kept boltholes for those occasions when returning home was inadvisable, but Chaloner needed one for the sake of his sanity, too. He had taken his best viol, or viola da gamba, there immediately, along with the clothes Hannah had parcelled up for the rag-pickers — she also hated the fact that his work meant he was sometimes obliged to dress in something other than courtly finery. His second-best viol was stored in a cupboard under the stairs, and was only played when she was out.

‘I am just leaving,’ he whispered. ‘Go back to sleep.’

‘Leaving?’ Hannah cast a bleary eye towards the window. ‘In the middle of the night?’

‘It is nearly dawn.’

‘Exactly! Dawn is the middle of the night. Come back to bed, or you will wake the servants.’

The servants were yet another bone of contention. Chaloner accepted that his post as gentleman usher and Hannah’s as lady-in-waiting demanded that they keep one, but he had returned from Tangier to find she had hired three. None were women he would have chosen, because they were brazenly curious about their employers, and watched them constantly. Even if he had not been a spy, obliged to keep a certain number of secrets, being under constant surveillance in his own home would have been an unwelcome development.

‘I will not wake them,’ he said, wishing he had abstained from reckless displays of affection and that she was still asleep. ‘But you might, if you continue to bawl.’

‘Do not tell me when I can and cannot speak,’ snapped Hannah, displaying the sour temper that invariably afflicted her when she first awoke. It was so unlike her personality during the rest of the day that he wondered whether he should take her to a physician. ‘I shall shout if I want to.’

He sat on the side of the bed and took her hand in his, speaking softly in the hope that it would soothe her back to sleep. ‘I am sorry I disturbed you.’

‘You are improperly dressed again,’ said Hannah, wrenching her hand free and struggling into a sitting position. ‘That old long-coat is not fit for a beggar, while your shirt does not have enough lace. People will think I married a ruffian if you go to White Hall looking like that.’

‘You did marry a ruffian. The Earl said so only yesterday.’

That coaxed a reluctant smile. ‘Then I retract my words, because I refuse to agree with anything that pompous old relic says.’

Although the Earl was fond of Hannah, the affection was not reciprocated, partly because he disapproved of most of her friends, and partly because she disliked the fact that he kept sending her husband into dangerous situations. She also objected to the fact that Chaloner spent more time away from London than in it — since being employed by the Earl, he had been sent to Ireland, Spain and Portugal, Oxford, Wimbledon, Holland and most recently Tangier.

‘Did you catch whoever is stealing his bricks?’ she asked, grinning suddenly. ‘Everyone at Court is laughing about it, and I cannot help but wonder whether they are being removed as a prank.’