There was the tinkle of mandolins and guitars and a soft breeze blew from the sea, which relieved the heat of the day.
The smart carriages with their liveried lackeys set down an endless stream of elegant and bejewelled guests at the Palazzo Sessa.
Men with their dark curls heavily powdered and wearing an inordinate amount of decorations were a colourful complement to women in silks, satins, gauzes and laces, glittering with jewellery that might have come from the fire of Vesuvius itself!
Among the chattering gossiping crowd Captain Stanton, who was a head taller than any other man present, looked with his unpowdered hair and sunburnt face like a giant among pygmies.
Cordelia, doing her best to avoid him, found it difficult not to find herself seeing him every time she looked amongst the Ambassador’s guests.
Mark Stanton was well aware that the Neapolitans were proud, patriotic, intelligent and cultured. In their ranks were many brilliant men, philosophers, scholars, writers and scientists, who loathed the reckless, heartless tyranny that they lived under.
They detested the Bourbon Royals, the meddling Austrian Queen with her Secret Police and her lazy uncultured husband.
These were people, he was thinking as he moved among them, who would welcome an invasion by the French and, if it came to the point of war, would undoubtedly put up very little resistance, if any, against Napoleon.
Because however he had frequently been to Naples he was well aware that the one bulwark against the French designs was Queen Marie Carolina.
Since her sister Marie Antoinette had been executed in Paris, the Queen had loathed the French with a hatred that was pathological.
Her closest friend, confidante, guide and adviser was undoubtedly the wife of the British Ambassador, the beautiful Emma Hamilton, who, because of her humble origin, was rated of no consequence at all in England.
Mark Stanton knew that, when the French Fleet under Admiral Latouche had put into Naples, not only did the Warships of France overawe the populace, but also the guns of the French Fleet had been pointed at the City.
King Ferdinand had been given one hour in which to decide whether they should be fired or not.
Flabby with fright the King had accepted terms of abject submission in his Reception room, but, when the ponderous ships had moved slowly down the Bay, there were many Neapolitans who watched the departure of the tricolour with regret.
It remained to be seen, Mark Stanton thought, what would happen if the English Fleet came to Malta?
Would Queen Marie Carolina and Lady Hamilton be strong enough to defy the King and victual the British ships?
However nothing of what he was thinking showed in his face as he smiled at the beautiful women who were trying flirtatiously to attract his attention and answered respectfully the Neapolitan Statesmen who considered him nothing but an adventurous corsair.
Late in the evening he realised that he had not seen Cordelia for some time and thought, because it was so hot in the salon, he might find her in the garden.
There was no sign of her on the terrace and he moved through the orange, lemon and pomegranate trees, seeing the fireflies dancing among the blossoms and watching for a moment the lanterns of pleasure boats glinting beyond the shipping in the quiet Bay.
He had a sudden longing to be away from the glittering throng and down on the crowded quayside, where the fishermen lounged and gossiped wearing striped trousers and red jackets, black caps and gold earrings.
There their voices would be raised in song and every shadowy corner would be filled with a man and a woman locked in each other’s arms.
It would be gay, it would be natural, and to Mark Stanton at this moment preferable in every way to the perfumed artificial pretensions of the guests around him.
To a great number of them, he knew, he was an enemy, the representative of a country that was opposing Bonaparte in his fevered impatience to crush all Europe beneath his heel.
He still had not found Cordelia and he moved further down the garden, wondering if she had been enticed by some amorous young aristocrat into such a romantic setting.
Then suddenly as he stood alone she was beside him and, even before her hands went out to clasp his arm, he knew with an unmistakable instinct that she was frightened.
“I-I saw that y-you were – alone,” she stammered.
“What has happened?” he enquired. “Who has upset you?”
He could see her face very clearly not only in the light from a lantern hanging in the bough of one of the trees but also in the light from the stars, which made the whole sky a glittering panorama of indescribable beauty.
“I am – all right – now.”
She was not stammering and yet he knew that her breath was coming quickly from between her parted lips and her small breasts were stirring tumultuously against the bodice of her low-cut gown.
“Tell me what has frightened you,” Mark Stanton insisted.
“It is – foolish of me, but – ”
Her voice died away and he had the feeling that she was trying to decide whether she should trust him or not.
He did not move and merely waited and to Cordelia his very presence was somehow comforting and gave her a sense of security.
He was so big, so strong and he was English. He was also her cousin.
She made up her mind.
“Please – Mark – will you – help me?”
Chapter Two
“Why must you leave so soon?”
The voice, low and a little tired but caressing, came from the bed. Mark Stanton looked towards the first rays of sunshine coming through the open windows and replied,
“I dislike arriving back at my lodgings in full evening dress when the sun is up.”
“The Neapolitans think it proves their virility!”
There was a soft laugh.
“But you, my Man of the Sea, have no need to prove yours.”
Mark Stanton turned to smile at the speaker, his strong athletic body silhouetted against the mirrors on the dressing table with its profusion of lotions, creams and salves glittering on its painted surface.
From her pillows Princess Gianetta di Sapuano watched him with smouldering velvet black eyes that no man as experienced in women as Mark Stanton could mistake.
Her hair, which was like silk to his touch, held strange purple lights in its darkness as it fell over the lace-edged pillows.
Her parted lips were red and inviting in an oval face that poets had written odes to and which artists had tried vainly to reproduce on canvas.
At twenty-six Princess Gianetta was at the height of her beauty.
There was no one in the whole of Naples who could rival either her sensational attractions or the position she held in that snob-ridden class-conscious society.
Widowed before she was twenty-one, the Princess had refused all further offers of marriage and preferred to choose her lovers with discrimination while enjoying the freedom that her late husband’s enormous fortune ensured for her.
Mark Stanton visited her every time he came to Naples and he was well aware that he was regarded by her other admirers with a jealousy that at times was almost murderous.
“I was hoping you would not be away for long,” the Princess said now, “and it was like an answer to prayer when I saw you at the British Embassy this evening.”
“I knew you would be there,” Mark Stanton replied.
He fastened his fine linen shirt deftly and with the ease of a man who was used to dressing himself without the help of a valet.
There was silence in the bedroom scented with a fragrance that all the Princess’s lovers associated only with her.
It was distinctive, unusual and had a persistent haunting aroma that remained on their hands, their bodies and in their nostrils long after they had left her bed.
There were great bowls of flowers on the balcony outside the window and the huge carved headboard of the bed and its draped curtains of jade green silk were a perfect fra
me for its owner’s exotic beauty.
The Princess raised herself a little on the pillows regardless of the fact that the action revealed even more of her perfectly proportioned body and that her pink-tipped breasts were an invitation to the man watching her.
“Have you ever thought, Mark, of marriage?”
He picked up his well-cut evening-coat from the chair where he had thrown it before he answered,
“Am I to take this, Gianetta, as a proposal?”
His eyes were twinkling and there was a note of amusement in his voice.
“Suppose it was one?”
The reply from the bed astonished him and he paused in the, act of putting his arm into his coat sleeve.
“If you are serious you know the answer.”
There was a little sigh.
“Yes, I know the answer. You want to be free to roam about the world committing reckless acts of piracy that one day may prove fatal!”
“The alternative to being enclosed in a gilded cage. My dear Gianetta, you cannot confine a wild animal.”
“Even the wildest, I am told, can be tamed.”
Mark Stanton laughed.
“That is debatable, a Fairytale made up to instruct children in kindness towards dumb beasts.”
The Princess suddenly put out her arms towards him.
“I want you, Mark! I want you!”
Now there was a note of passion in her voice that was unmistakable.
“Stay with me,” she went on. “Stay with me at least as long as you are here in Naples. And when you leave, you will take my heart with you.”
Mark Stanton pulled the lapels of his coat into place. Then he walked towards the bed to stand looking down at its alluring and very lovely occupant.
Gianetta was, he thought, one of the most beautiful women he had ever known. She was also one of the most passionate.
He lifted her hand from the sheet where it lay and raised it to his lips.
“Thank you,” he said gently, “for the happiness you have given me tonight and at other times.”
She knew without words that he refused what she suggested. Yet because like all women she wished to have her own way, her fingers tightened on his.
“I said that I wanted you.”
“You are insatiable!”
“Where you are concerned that is true. With other men I am the one who tires.”
He released her hand and touched the shadows beneath her eyes.
“Go to sleep, Gianetta.”
“I shall only dream of you.”
“I wonder.”
“That is true and it would be much more satisfying if you were here when I woke.”
She threw back her head in a passionate gesture of surrender.
“No, Gianetta, I am leaving. I have a ship, which is waiting for me.”
His eyes were laughing, but the Princess held on to him when he would have moved.
“Don’t go yet,” she begged. “We have not had time to talk and there is so much I want to ask you and so much I wish to hear.”
“At this time in the morning?”
“Why not?” she enquired. “And if you will not talk of love, let’s talk about the political situation.”
Her fingers caressed his as she asked,
“With how many ships is Admiral Nelson blockading the French Fleet in Toulon?”
“You are interested?” Mark Stanton enquired.
“But of course! I have no wish to see the French in Naples again.”
“And yet the French Resident would be extremely interested in the answer I might give to your question.”
He felt her stiffen. Then, as she peeped up at him a little apprehensively from under her long dark eyelashes, he laughed.
“Gianetta, my sweet,” he said affectionately, “you will never make a good spy and you have so many other much more alluring talents.”
Her eyes met his.
“The French Resident is so grateful for even a tiny piece of information.”
“And I would, of course, be equally grateful for anything you might be able to tell me.”
The Princess hesitated for a moment and then she replied,
“Napoleon Bonaparte has been told that the Russians are interested in acquiring Malta.”
Mark Stanton sat down on the bed.
“Talleyrand informed Bonaparte last year that Malta was a hive of Austrian, Russian and English spies.”
“It’s no secret that he himself provided two more, one Maltese, one French!”
Mark Stanton saw that the Princess was listening and went on,
“The Czar Paul has founded a Russian Priory of the Order of St. John. The only use he has for Malta is that the Grand Master should send him Knights to teach seamanship to his Russian Officers.”
His eyes were watching the expression on the Princess’s face as he continued,
“I can assure you that the fortifications of Malta are impregnable if adequately defended. And that is something you can tell the French Resident, so that he can pass it on to Bonaparte with all possible speed!”
There was something contemptuous in his tone and in reply the Princess put her arms around his neck and drew his lips down on hers.
“Forgive me,” she breathed, “I should not have tried such an old trick to keep you interested and with me for a little while longer.”
Her arms tightened as she whispered,
“Because you are English my sympathies are with your countrymen and not with the French, but really I am interested in only one person – you!”
Her lips were pressed against his and Mark Stanton felt the passion in them.
He kissed her and then resolutely he unfastened her arms from around his neck and rose to his feet.
“Goodbye, most beguiling and unforgettable Gianetta.”
“I shall see you again?”
It was both a plea and a question.
“I am not certain when I will be leaving,” he replied evasively.
“I love you! Oh, Mark, remember that I love you!”
He smiled at her from the doorway. Then, as her arms went out to him despairingly, he was gone and the door closed behind him.
The Princess gave a little cry and threw herself back against the pillows, her face hidden in their soft silk.
Outside the Palazzo the air was fresh and there was that lucidity of light that was peculiar to Naples and had a brilliance that Mark Stanton had found nowhere else in the world.
Although it was still very early, the streets were full of people going to work, to Church and to the quay! The majority of the women wore red skirts and white aprons, the men striped shirts, black caps and bright sashes.
There were the cheerful insolent lazzaroni, the idle, jolly and picturesque fishermen, the tradespeople and the loungers who formed a large part of the population, all yawning after a night of insufficient sleep.
The bells were beginning to toll in the belfries and towers of the innumerable Churches and women with lace veils over their heads were hurrying up the steps to Mass. There were monks, nuns and Priests appearing from every direction.
Mark Stanton sauntered along with an air of superiority that made those he met invariably step out of his way to let him pass.
But he was thinking not of Gianetta, whose fragrance still lingered with him, but of Cordelia.
He could hear her voice as she had said,
“Please– Mark – will you – help me?”
It was the cry of a child.
“Let’s sit down somewhere where we can talk,” he had suggested quietly.
Taking her by the hand he led her through the shrubs heavy with blossom to where there was a seat in an arbour overlooking the Bay.
Here they were shut off from the rest of the garden and the ground dropped beneath them so that they could look out towards the deep blue horizon where the sea met the starlit sky.
The arbour had been discreetly lit with a small lantern, by the light of which Mark Stanton, s
itting sideways to look at Cordelia, could see the fear in her eyes.
As they sat down, she had taken her hand from his and now she sat with her back straight, her head on its long neck held high and yet there was something defenceless about her.
She stared straight ahead and Mark Stanton had the idea that she was feeling for words.
“Tell me,” he prompted gently.
“It is – the Duca di Belina,” she said slowly after a moment.
Mark Stanton raised his eyebrows, but he did not speak and after a moment she went on,
“He – he will not – leave me alone. He has spoken to – Lady Hamilton and she favours his – suit.”
“He wishes to marry you?”
Cordelia nodded her head.
“He asked me to do so the second time we met – and although I – refused he will not take – ‘no’ for an – answer.”
“You have spoken about this to David?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
“He thought it would be a very – advantageous marriage for me. Of course the Duca is looked upon as being very important in Naples.”
“He is important,” Mark Stanton nodded. “But you do not like him?”
“I – hate him!” Cordelia replied. “I hate him and he – frightens me!”
She turned her head towards her cousin for the first time and she said with a throb of fear in her voice,
“You will think me – foolish. Like Lady Hamilton – you will perhaps press me to accept the Duca but I – cannot.”
“Why not?”
Cordelia hesitated for a moment and then she said in a very small voice,
“I do not – love him!”
“You consider love important?”
She put out her hands almost pleadingly towards him and then she dropped them.
“You will not – understand,” she said, “I know you are thinking that I should be – grateful that anyone who belongs to such a – noble family, who is so rich and powerful and the owner of vast possessions, should wish to – marry me, but – ”
She stopped and after a moment Mark Stanton asked curiously,
“What is the end of that sentence?”
“ – I could not – let him – touch me,” Cordelia replied almost in a whisper.
The Dream and the Glory Page 3
