“He must be a magician. I was with the Queen when you came ashore. I’m not sure she had quite recovered from her fear that his ship was French.”
“He’s a remarkable fellow, my dear, quite remarkable.”
That gained him raised eyebrows, for Emma knew her husband to be the least impressionable of men. New acquaintances, if they rated a mention at all from Sir William, rarely benefited from a favourable one.
“You will see in him what I did, I am sure.”
“Which is?”
“You know how rare it is, my dear, to meet someone to whom you take an instant liking.”
“I have no experience of you ever succumbing to that.”
Sir William smiled. “I did with you.”
Emma brushed a hand across his cheek, her voice soft and ironic. “It was your breeches, not your heart, that was smitten.”
“I protest,” he responded, without rancour, his hand reaching out to grab her.
Emma slipped into the seat at the harpsichord again and pressed a sharp key. “So, tell me about your naval officer, and why you’re so taken with him.”
“It’s the oddest feeling. I have not, as you know, been a soldier for many a long year.”
“With not a good word to say of the breed in the meantime. Nor do I recall much praise of sailors. I’ve heard you trounce them as an uncouth menace.”
“This fellow is different. He has little height but a commanding presence.” Sir William stood with his head bowed in deep thought. “Is it that he looks you in the eye? That there’s no feeling of any thoughts harboured other than the ones of which he is speaking?” He looked up again. “I don’t know. But I would hazard that he will go far in the service. He certainly thinks so.”
Emma pursed her lips, looking doubtful. “How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
“What?” she cried, hitting another sharp key. “How vain!”
Sir William smiled, but there was still a look of wonder in his eyes. “Perhaps you’ll see what I see, perhaps not. He is to be our house guest. The King is throwing a feast in his honour at the Palazzo Reale tonight.”
She stood up. “Then I must shift since I shall require the dressmaker. Shall I ask my mother to have a room prepared?”
“The apartments we had decorated for the Prince will serve splendidly.”
Emma could not hide her surprise. Sir William had lavished much money and time on decorating special rooms to accommodate the Queen’s sixth son, who even at the tender age of seven was much attached to Emma.
“For a mere naval officer?”
“No, Emma,” Sir William replied. “More than that. I think they are fitting for a man who one day may be vastly more important to both us and our mission here than Frederick Augustus, even if he is a prince.”
Passing, Emma pecked his cheek. “I fear, husband, that you have been too much in the sun without a hat.”
Chapter Fifteen
INSTANT ATTRACTION is such a rare thing that those exposed to it must distrust the immediate onset of the feeling. In seeing Horatio Nelson Emma felt as if some chord had been struck in her breast. He wore the blue naval coat and white waistcoat and breeches that had always given her cause to recall her first, heartbreaking, romantic attachment, when she had been no more than a housemaid, to sixteen-year-old Samuel Linley. Emma had never been able to see a sailor in uniform without being reminded of the Linley House: of Samuel’s life, their stolen moments, but most of all of his lingering and tragic death.
But it was not just this visitor’s attire and a tweaked memory that engaged her. The near-white hair might be less glossy but it was there in all its abundance. The skin was as clear as alabaster, the odd slight scar an enhancement not a blemish. But it was the eyes that struck her: light, blue, and direct in the way they looked at her.
Nelson saw a woman of great beauty, flowing auburn tresses, startlingly green eyes, allied to a vague notion of recognition. The smile she gave him was all-enveloping, her hand held out to kiss far enough away to demand that he move forward to take it. As he bent over he could barely hear Sir William’s introduction.
“My dear Emma, Captain Horatio Nelson of His Britannic Majesty’s ship Agamemnon. Captain Nelson, my wife, Lady Hamilton.”
His fingers were under hers, lifting her hand to his lips, Nelson aware that each tip seemed filled with a tingling sensation. Emma was suffused with a rush of memory—youth, purity, and breathless stolen moments in a corridor. There was a slight constriction in her chest, and her heart missed a beat as Captain Nelson’s lips pressed themselves to her flesh with more pressure, and for a longer time than was either polite or necessary.
Nelson kept hold of her hand as he straightened up, looking at her unblinkingly, a stare returned in full measure. “Lady Hamilton, it is a great pleasure to meet you.”
“And you, sir,” Emma replied, aware that her voice held a trace of huskiness. “I cannot say how relieved my husband and I were to see your sails on the horizon.”
He let go of her hand at the mention of the word “husband,” turning in some embarrassment to look at Sir William, who had an odd smile on his face, knowing and amused, which led Nelson to suspect that his wife had the same impact on everyone she met. Then Sir William’s eyes flicked slightly to his left, which reminded Nelson that he had another duty to perform.
“Lady Hamilton, allow me to name my stepson, Midshipman Josiah Nisbet. Josiah, Lady Hamilton.”
Josiah, brushed and powdered for the royal feast, stepped forward smartly, hat under his arm, his heels tapping on the parquet floor. He stopped and bent forward as if someone had slapped him on the back of the head, and missed with his lips Lady Hamilton’s hand by the merest fraction.
“Milady.”
“Why Mr Nisbet,” she responded, gaily, “what a smart fellow you are, a credit to your stepfather and your ship.” Accustomed to abuse rather than flattery, the youngster blushed to the roots of his hair as Emma took his arm and headed for the open double doors. “And handsome to boot, in your naval blues. I shall have to guard you well, young sir, for I tell you no secret when I say that the Neapolitan ladies are all rapacity when it comes to fresh game.”
William Hamilton laughed, indicating that he and Nelson should follow, his voice near a whisper as he confided, “Damn me, Nelson, she can spot shyness at a mile off. She has every young man in Naples, including the King’s own son, in thrall to her.”
“Given her beauty, sir, I would hazard it’s not only the young men. Your wife could rejuvenate the ancient statuary.” Nelson, who knew himself to be the least accomplished of men when it came to repartee, was quite astounded at his own ability to get that sentence out without a stammer.
“Handsomely said, sir,” Sir William responded, “and very true. Emma does attract the eye. I allow my wife the degree of liberty her station commands, yet she has never once given me cause for misgivings.”
Nelson could not be sure that the older man told the entire truth, given the attention to which his wife was exposed both before they took their places and afterwards. His eye was drawn to Lady Hamilton in a way that he felt sure must be noticed, given that he had been allotted the place of honour at the King’s right hand, an exposed position even in such a huge gathering. Ferdinand helped him, not being the type to engage in quiet conversation with a neighbour, more inclined to shout to someone a dozen places distant, with all his courtiers and their ladies hanging on to his every blaring word. He spoke in Italian, which Nelson couldn’t understand, and the rare asides Ferdinand made to his premier guest had to be translated, which clearly bored the King.
General Acton was close enough to converse with, as was Sir William Hamilton, and much was exchanged about the need for Great Britain to protect such a stalwart ally as the Two Sicilies. Nelson agreed, with genuine feeling, being of the opinion that holding the Mediterranean without good bases was militarily impossible. He was less sanguine about a quick peace, convinced that, without a m
ajor rising of monarchical forces all over France, such a hope was wishful thinking.
“Even if Provence rises in its entirety, General Acton, it will not answer. It is an under-populated part of the French nation, and far from the seat of real power. Lyon, I am told, has suffered the same butchery as Marseilles. A coup in Paris might give grounds for hope.”
“I wouldn’t hold out for that, Captain Nelson,” said Sir William. “My wife and I came through the city on the way back from London, in the time of the Convention, before Robespierre and his regicides took over. Nothing depressed us more than the sheer stupidity of the mob. Parisians are drunk with power, so drunk that every man must fear even to be their leader.”
He could not avoid looking at her again. The object of his surreptitious attention was seated near the Queen, able to engage in pleasant conversation with her and her offspring, which made Nelson jealous. He also observed that Josiah, some distance away with the rest of the Agamemnon’s officers and midshipmen, couldn’t take his eyes off her. But that bothered Nelson not one jot: young swains were supposed to be bowled over by such beauty and charm.
“Then we must fear for Italy, gentlemen,” said Acton, dragging his attention back to the conversation. “Lombardy provides a route to Vienna. Let the Revolution defeat Austria, and the wolves will be at our throats next.”
Nelson thought Acton unduly pessimistic, but diplomacy forbade him to say so. For an ex-naval officer he showed a scant grasp of reality. France, having murdered its king, was isolated, with even their common ally Spain ranged against them. Their enemies included Austria, Prussia, the Russians, the United Provinces to the north, as well as a substantial number of French émigrés encamped on the Rhine. In turmoil, she could feed neither herself nor her armies. British naval power would choke off a goodly portion of what could be imported, taking ships and cargoes to deny French armies the means to sustain themselves. Defeating France was far from certain, but containing the Revolution within her borders seemed eminently possible.
He stole another glance as he raised his wine glass to propose a toast: “Then let us hope that they murder each other until not a Frenchman is left alive to keep their damned Revolution going.”
He felt a delicious thrill as Lady Hamilton, mistaking the purpose of the raised glasses, nodded to accept what she took to be a compliment to her. Rejoining a conversation about fleets, bases, victualling, and the progress of armies seemed to act like a strain on the muscles of his neck.
What Nelson failed to see was that Lady Hamilton was throwing as many glances in his direction as he was in hers, which was why she had mistaken the toast. Too experienced to suffer turmoil, Emma was drawn none the less towards Captain Nelson, without being sure why. His smile, which looked slightly melancholy as he listened to the King’s translator, entranced her, as did the way he moved his hands as he ate or responded to a question: slowly, as if each gesture required deep calculation. The slight air of loss when the King made an obscene gesture to one of his subjects contrasted to the certainty that animated him when he made a point to her husband or Acton.
When not talking, listening, or thinking about Lady Hamilton, Nelson was wondering how this monarch had stayed out of confinement. He had heard that Ferdinand was uneducated, his ignorance a source of humour all over Europe. But the King was more than a buffoon, he was deranged, and would most certainly have been removed as the nation’s ruler if he had resided in England, as King George had so nearly been when he had gone temporarily mad.
“He is a child, Captain,” said Sir William, once they were back in the coach. “No more and no less, with a child’s passion for that which pleases him. Hunting and procreation seem to be his abiding traits. The poor Queen is rarely out of the delivery couch, so ardent is he in the bedchamber.”
“She confides in me that conception is as painful a chore as birth,” said Emma.
Sir William responded with a weary air—but he was checking his wife none the less. “I think that is one confidence that Her Majesty would not wish to be disseminated.”
Emma laughed, in a way that showed she was slightly intoxicated. “You cannot chide me, sir, for there is no greater gossip in Naples than yourself. Believe me, Captain Nelson, you must beware in my husband’s company for no gaffe will go unrecorded. Few English visitors to Naples leave without adding to his store of anecdotes.”
The light of the carriage lamp was just enough to let Nelson see that the rejoinder had been well received. Sir William wore a self-satisfied smile.
“I confess that is true. But I also sense Captain Nelson to be an upright man, my dear, so he has nothing to fear.”
“I daresay I shall find out if he has,” said Emma, nudging Josiah, who was sitting beside her. “Young Master Nisbet here will tell me all.”
“You’re in for a dull exchange, milady,” said Nelson, without much thought. “Josiah’s mother and I hold each other in the highest regard, is that not so, boy?”
“It is, sir,” Josiah replied, with such conviction that he made his stepfather, who had had time to consider the statement that prompted the response, feel like a scrub.
“They say she was a whore, sir,” Josiah exclaimed, as soon as the servant closed the door to their rooms, “and that she tricked Sir William into matrimony.”
“Enough of this!” Nelson was rarely sharp with any of his youngsters and that applied most to Josiah. The evidence of this was plain in the crestfallen expression on the boy’s face. “Is that the first thing you can say of someone who has treated you with kindness? Lady Hamilton is our hostess, so you will oblige me by containing the kind of talk that passes for conversation in the mid’s berth.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Josiah, stiffly.
“I suggest that you retire. We have a busy day tomorrow, that is, unless you’d rather not accompany me.”
Nelson knew that he was being cruel because his stepson was merely repeating things he too had heard, and which he had believed before making Lady Hamilton’s acquaintance. Yet, having met her, how could he give credence to them now? His expectation of some coarse creature had been quite swept away on that first encounter.
The introduction, in her music room, had underlined what Sir William had told him: that she played more than one instrument and sang like an angel. No one had cut her at the Palazzo Reale, quite the reverse: people of both sexes and obvious merit had lined up to greet her. He had heard her speak French to one of the King’s guests, German to another, and her Italian appeared close to fluent, accomplishments to make the most aristocratic woman proud. In translating the conversation between him and the Queen she had demonstrated the regard in which she was held in that quarter. No London trollop could attain such a position—surely her reputation was the result of malicious and jealous tongues.
“Well Josh, do you wish to go to Portico tomorrow?”
“I do, sir,” Josiah replied softly.
“The company of kings clearly suits you.” Nelson put a hand on his stepson’s shoulder and smiled. “Well, I can say that your desire outweighs mine. Another royal feast will be the death of me, I’m sure. And I fear we will have to depart at such an early hour that it will afford me little time to visit those of our seamen who have been brought ashore.”
“Sir William assured me they were being well looked after, sir.”
“It is my duty to ascertain that for myself. The men expect and deserve it. Remember that when you command your own ship. Put the well-being of your crew above all other considerations. Then when they are required to fight, they will do so willingly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I will require you to deliver some orders for me while I am thus engaged, so I suggest it is time we both retired.” He paused, looked around the well-appointed rooms, his mind full of the image of the lady of the house. “This will be something to tell your mother, will it not?”
Sleep was hard, partly because of the amount he had been obliged to eat, all of which seemed stuck somewhere
between his throat and his ribcage. But he was equally troubled by his thoughts. His relationship with Fanny, easy to suppress while afloat and occupied, was now thrown into such sharp relief by the vision of Lady Hamilton that he could not erase it.
There was guilt too, the memory of the relief he had felt when they had finally weighed, the cutting of the umbilical cord to wife and home, a feeling of being released from a prison of his own making. Home was never ashore, it was on a ship in the company of like-minded men: officers commissioned, warrant and appointed; topmen and upper yardsmen, able seamen and even landsmen fit only to haul on a rope. Lepée, for all his drinking and his foul moods, took on the attributes of a saint when compared to the dull, insular servants at Burnham Thorpe.
Nelson nearly groaned when he recalled the first dinner he had thrown for his admiral and fellow captains. He knew he was no drinker, yet he had allowed his normal abstemiousness a night off due to the joy of being at sea and the pleasure he took in the company of men who matched his rank. Naturally at an all-male table, with ample drink, an element of ribaldry had entered the conversation. Instead of diverting it, his responsibility as host, he had actively encouraged his guests.
Admiral Hotham had served with Captain the Honourable Augustus Hervey, famous throughout the fleet for his amatory adventures, twenty years before, in the Mediterranean. It was claimed he had seduced more than two hundred women, English, Italian, Austrian, and French, in a two-year commission, fathering enough bastards to man a frigate. Those who approved of Hervey’s record were matched by the number who thought it a disgrace to the service. Nelson had embarrassed several of his guests, including his good friend Troubridge, by the crass remark, “Every man is a bachelor east of Gibraltar.”
“Am I that?” he asked himself aloud, before thumping his pillow and throwing himself on to his other side, determined to get to sleep.
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