Free Death in the Peerless Pool by Deryn Lake

Soho, the thought of dining with his father and discussing the morning’s events too great a temptation to be overcome. However, such pleasurable notions were driven straight from his mind by the sight of a carriage just leaving his front door and going round to the stables in Dolphin Yard, where Sir Gabriel Kent’s own equipage was housed.
    Guests, John thought, and made a point of going to his room and not only washing away the smell of the lunatic asylum but also changing his clothes for something far more elegant than he had worn for the morning’s business. And as he entered his father’s library, from which the buzz of lively conversation could be heard from halfway down the stairs, the Apothecary was glad that he had dressed up, for the place seemed full of people.
    The first person to catch his eye was a tall, thin grandee, with dark lustrous eyes, a hawk’s nose, and black eyebrows which contrasted interestingly with the full white wig that the man wore. Beside him stood a woman that John took to be the grandee’s wife. Encased as she was in lilac taffeta, with eyes of an almost identical colour, the Apothecary thought for a moment that she, too, was wearing a wig, until he realised that it was the woman’s own hair, swept up and adorned with fashionable feathers. The fact that she was white-haired surprised him, for he had taken her to be not much more than forty-five. Just for a moment the woman’s eyes rested on him and she smiled, transforming herself into a beauty, regardless of age.
    There were two other couples in the room, one of whom John knew slightly, the other very well indeed. The first, a round and jolly physician by the name of Dr Drake and his lanky wife, Matilda, who towered over him, he greeted with a polite and formal bow. The second, Comte Louis de Vignolles and his marvellous wife Serafina, John saluted then embraced. Indeed, he would have spent time talking to them had not his father summoned him to his side.
    Addressing the violet-eyed woman, Sir Gabriel said, ‘Lady Dysart, may I present my son, John Rawlings?’
    She gave the Apothecary a warm glance, replied, ‘How dee do,’ and held out her hand for a kiss. Brushing her fingers with his lips. John smiled up at her and she lowered her lids, thus betraying what a flirt she once had been.
    Turning to the grandee, Sir Gabriel, with a certain ring of pride in his voice, said, ‘Anthony, this is the son of whom I have spoken. May I introduce him to you?’ The grandee nodded his striking head and Sir Gabriel continued, ‘John, this is my old friend, Lord Anthony Dysart.’
    The Apothecary gave his deepest bow and said, ‘An honour, my Lord,’ feeling rather than seeing Sir Gabriel’s smile of approval.
    â€˜Your father and I were at school together,’ Lord Anthony remarked. ‘My parents were particularly progressive and disliked the idea of tutors beyond a certain age for their sons. Consequently, I was sent out into the world, and look into what company I fell.’
    He and Sir Gabriel laughed uproariously and John was left to consider that money bought everything. For Sir Gabriel’s father, a minor baronet but an extremely wealthy one, had been able to send his son to Winchester, the great public school and the oldest in England, founded in the fourteenth century. There he had mingled with the sons of the aristocracy, a fact that had done Sir Gabriel no harm at all when he entered the world of commerce in order to enlarge his fortune.
    Lord Anthony interrupted the Apothecary’s train of thought. ‘Your father was senior to me, of course, but was kind enough to help me read Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Entropius. I fear that Latin and Greek were never my strong suit. I was always more interested in learning how to measure the stars.’
    Lady Dysart joined in. ‘There is a general laziness in all Englishmen about studying a foreign tongue, which