Free A Murder on London Bridge by Susanna Gregory Page A

suggesting the Earl was right about him being in the Dowager’s favour. He was a lean, sharp-eyed specimen, with a large purple nose and the look of someone who found a great deal to displease him.
    ‘He is talking to Sir John Winter,’ the Earl went on disapprovingly. ‘Do you know him?’
    Chaloner recognised the enormous moustache from the previous night, too – Winter had also been at the Dowager’s gathering in Somerset House.
    ‘He knows a lot about gunpowder, and wants to be the next Green Man,’ he said, recalling what Bulteel had told him about the man called Sir John Winter.
    The Earl nodded. ‘His Majesty is resisting his petitions, though. And I thank God for it, or we would all be blown up in our beds. Winter is Catholic, you see.’
    Chaloner itched to point out that all Catholics did not harbour murderous designs on members of the government, but knew there was no point: the Earl was not reasonable where religion was concerned. He nodded noncommittally, and tuned out the bigoted diatribe that followed.
    The Earl was still holding forth when they reached St James’s Park’s newly dug canal, which was prettily dappled with swans and geese. The air was clean and fresh outside the city, and smelled of damp grass and frost. The day was a fine, crisp, winter one, with the sun shining in a clear blue sky.
    ‘I like this place,’ said Chaloner, to change the subject from Catholics. He took a deep, appreciative breath. ‘It is peaceful.’
    ‘It is,’ agreed the Earl. ‘And when it is built, Clarendon House will have fine views across it.’
    ‘Really?’ asked Chaloner unhappily.
    The Earl scowled at him. ‘I know you think my new mansion too grand, but I am Lord Chancellor of England, so I should have somewhere palatial to live. And why not? I suffered with the King all the years he was in exile, so why should I not be rewarded for my discomfort?’
    ‘Because it is going to be funded by public money, so its opulence will cause resentment.’
    ‘You mean I might lose the respect of apprentices and traders?’ asked the Earl unpleasantly. ‘Why should I care about them?’
    ‘Because they are on your side, sir,’ explained Chaloner, struggling for patience. It was not the first time they had covered this particular topic. ‘They favour you over your enemies, because they see you as a moral man in a corrupt government. But Clarendon House will turn them against you.’
    ‘According to you, they are against me anyway, because of my stance on religious dissenters,’ said the Earl tartly. ‘The Clarendon Code – the new laws that suppress all those aggravating non-Anglicans – bears my name, and while I did not write these edicts, it is common knowledge that I support them to the hilt. So what do I have to lose by invoking the wrath of grubby Londoners?’
    ‘Your post as Lord Chancellor? The life you have built for yourself in London? The City holds the Court’s purse-strings, and if its people bay for your head, the King may well give it to them.’
    ‘You have a blunt tongue,’ said the Earl, regarding Chaloner with wide eyes. ‘But at least you are honest. You are wrong, of course, but that is to be expected, given that you seem more foreigner than Englishman, especially regarding religion. How is Hannah Cotton, by the way?’
    ‘She is well, thank you.’ Chaloner was not sure he liked the juxtaposition of remarks. ‘Why?’
    ‘I am just making polite conversation – there is no need to look suspicious. I understand you and she have been . . . walking out for some weeks now.’ The Earl leaned back in his seat and let the pale winter sun touch his face. ‘You should marry her. It is a good match, because she is the daughter of a gentleman, and you are the son of one. I shall give the union my blessing.’
    The thought had crossed Chaloner’s mind to turn his relationship with Hannah into something more permanent, but spies did not make for good husbands: their occupation was