She had loved him blindly as a child might do, not dissecting or analysing her feelings, only knowing that she was happy when he was there.
Sir William reminded her a little of her father and she could understand how Lady Hamilton who, if the stories were to be believed, had lived an insecure and somewhat reprehensible life before she came to Naples and had found happiness with him.
He did not seem to mind the extravagantly amorous compliments or the obvious adoration that a great number of handsome Neapolitans felt for her.
‘Perhaps marriage to a man who is so much older than one’s self would be a mistake,’ Cordelia thought.
Then she added that it might be very comforting to have a sense of protection and safety.
The idea of being married to a young man like the one who had pursued her in England, or to the Duca in Naples who had made her shudder.
The Duca particularly frightened her with his ardency, which she sensed went much deeper than his words and by the expression in his eyes that she was too innocent to understand.
‘I must not judge all men by the few I have met,’ Cordelia told herself with practical common sense.
She heard someone approaching along the path towards the arbour and thought that it might be Mark Stanton.
If he had been told that she was in the garden, she thought, he would guess that she would go to the arbour to look at the view.
The footsteps came nearer and next the evergreen branches of the syringa parted. Then with a sudden gasp of fear she saw that it was not Mark Stanton as she expected but the Duca di Belina!
He came towards her with a smile on his lips and she was unable to move and unable to do anything but stare at him with wide frightened eyes.
The Duco di Belina was understandably an exceedingly conceited man.
He had been the most aristocratic and eligible bachelor in Neapolitan Society since he was twenty years old.
At thirty he had sampled all the delights of the pleasure-loving Capital and found that women, from the highest to the lowest, were only too eager to offer him their favours.
In fact he could not remember when he had ever been repulsed or refused anything that he demanded of a woman until he met Cordelia.
Her beauty fascinated him from the first moment he had set eyes on her.
He was satiated with the voluptuous charms that were offered to him in Naples, in other parts of Italy and in every country bordering on the Mediterranean.
In contrast to dark flashing eyes, a golden skin and eager hungry lips, Cordelia’s small classical features, her white skin and proud reserve excited him as he had never been excited before.
Determined that she should be his and knowing that with her social position he could offer nothing else but marriage, he proposed with the air of a King conferring a favour.
His astonishment when she refused him would to an outsider have been amusing.
But the Duca only assuaged the insult to his pride by explaining to himself that because Cordelia was English she would not be hurried and was therefore playing hard to get.
That Cordelia actively disliked him and was frightened of him never entered his mind.
He was completely sure of his virile attractions where the female sex was concerned, since his long line of successes had given him an unshakable confidence that no woman was beyond his reach.
When Cordelia refused his suit, he had gone to Lady Hamilton to enlist her help.
He found, as he had expected, that she was only too willing to assist him. Indeed she thought it an excellent idea to have another Englishwoman in such a position of importance in Naples.
Yet however skilfully Lady Hamilton pleaded the Duca’s suit, she made no impression on Cordelia. To his astonishment the Duca found that the young English girl, far from being flattered by his attentions, was deliberately avoiding him and slipping out of his way in a manner that he found more and more frustrating.
Where he had been attracted and undoubtedly enamoured by Cordelia’s beauty, he was now driven almost to madness because she was so elusive.
His hunting instinct was aroused and he was determined, as he had never been determined in any project before, that she should marry him.
‘No one,’ he told himself, ‘and certainly not a jumped-up Sea Captain, will prevent me from making her my wife!’
Concerned only with his own feelings and not understanding other people’s he had been jolted out of his complacency when unexpectedly he had learnt the previous night in the Royal Palace that Cordelia’s departure to Malta was imminent.
He tried to speak to her at the party that she had accompanied to by Sir William and Lady Hamilton, but, with an astuteness that he had not expected, Cordelia left the Royal Palace without the Duca talking to her alone even for a few seconds.
He had therefore risen unprecedentedly early the following morning and decided that he would call at the Palazzo Sessa before what would normally be considered a reasonable time.
He had the idea that Lady Hamilton would still be in bed and neither Cordelia’s brother nor her cousin, Mark Stanton, would be playing watchdog at such an hour.
He knew that he was right in his assumptions on being told by the servants that Cordelia was in the garden.
“I will announce myself,” he said firmly.
When the Major Domo would have protested, he said a few sharp words in his own language that made the lackey bow respectfully and let him pass.
The Duca knew the garden at the Palazzo Sessa well.
He had philandered in almost every part of it with one attractive woman or another at the innumerable Receptions and balls given by the British Ambassador.
In fact, he told himself with an amused smile as he walked along the narrow paths, there was hardly a nook or a corner where he had not kissed a willing pair of lips or held a soft body quivering with passion in his arms.
When he pushed aside the syringa boughs and saw Cordelia sitting in the arbour, her fair hair haloed with sunshine, he thought that she was even more beautiful and more desirable than he remembered.
He walked towards her, swaggering a little because he was well aware that he was a prepossessing figure of a man and exceedingly handsome.
“I thought I should find you here,” he said in a voice that always seemed to inject a kind of amorous undertone into everything he said.
“I-I must – go back to the – house.”
Cordelia would have risen to her feet, but the Duca put his hand on her arm to prevent her from doing so and sat down beside her.
“I want to talk to you, Cordelia.”
She thought it an impertinence that he should call her by her Christian name, but for the moment she was concerned only with the feeling of disgust that swept over her at the touch of his hand.
She was well aware also that her heart was beating frantically and her lips felt dry.
She could not understand why he frightened her so much, she only knew that she longed to run away.
But to reach the path from the arbour she had to pass him and she realised that he would not let her go.
“We have – nothing to – discuss,” she managed to say with a tremendous effort.
“On the contrary there are many things,” he said. “Is it really true that you are leaving tomorrow?”
“Yes – we are going to – Malta.”
“Then that is something I must prevent you from doing.”
“I-I am – going with my – brother and my – cousin, Captain Mark Stanton.”
She had meant the words to sound firm and perhaps defiant, but instead there was a quiver in her voice and she knew that it was because the Duca still had his hand on her bare arm.
She tried to move but realised that it was a mistake because his fingers tightened.
“I love you, Cordelia!” he said. “You cannot sail away when you know I wish you to be my wife.”
“I have already – told Your Grace that while I am deeply – honoured by such
a – suggestion, I cannot – marry you.”
‘Why not?”
“B-Because – I don’t – love you!”
He gave a little laugh that seemed to contain a threat in its very sound.
“I will teach you to love me, carissima. I will teach you all about love. You will learn to want me as I want you.”
It seemed to Cordelia as if he drew nearer as he spoke and there was a fire behind his words which made her feel as if it leapt out from him to scorch her.
“No! No! I can never – love you! Never!”
“How can you be sure of that?” he asked. “You are so beautiful, so desirable. There is something about you that drives me crazy! I cannot sleep at night for thinking about you and I want you, God knows I want you, as I have never wanted a woman before.”
Now there was a raw note in the words that made Cordelia jump to her feet.
“Let me go!” she cried. “I have told you I can – never be your – wife!”
“And I am determined that you shall be!”
The Duca rose too and was now facing her, making it impossible for her to squeeze past him and escape.
With an effort she fought to control the panic she felt sweeping over her and to face him defiantly with her chin held high even though her lips trembled.
“Let me go! I have – nothing to say to you – nothing except that I will never – marry you and I am – leaving tomorrow!”
When she finished speaking, her voice was hardly above a whisper.
Yet as she saw the blaze in his eyes she knew that her very resistance had inflamed him to the point where he lost his self-control.
His arms went out towards her and, as she fought against his strength feverishly and frantically, she screamed and screamed again –
*
Mark Stanton had also been saying ‘goodbye’.
He had only just announced to the Hamiltons the time that his ship would be ready to leave when he received a note from Gianetta asking him to dine with her.
“I have something of the greatest importance to impart to you,” the Princess wrote after her sprawling signature.
He was in fact intrigued by the postscript and anyway he knew, after all they had meant to each other over the years, it would be impossible for him to leave Naples without seeing her.
He discovered at the Palazzo Sessa that Cordelia would be well looked after that evening.
It had been arranged for them to attend a performance at the Theatre where the King and Queen were to be present and then go on to a supper party at the Palace.
“We shall be delighted if you would come with us, should you wish to do so,” Lady Hamilton suggested.
Mark Stanton had, however, excused himself.
A Royal evening was something he found incredibly boring and, if he was honest with himself, he was prepared to admit that he disliked the King.
He also found the Queen irritating despite the fact that he hoped there was a chance, because of her hatred for the French, that she might prove a good ally to Britain.
But the toadying Court Officials, the disloyal Italian Princelings who had scattered like a pack of cards before the French, disgusted him.
He had learnt that the tricolour flew high above the ramparts of many of the ancient Patrician Castles and their owners were, in schoolboy parlance, ‘sucking up’ to those they expected would conquer them in a very short space of time.
It was therefore with a genuine sense of pleasure that Mark Stanton accepted the Princess’s invitation and arrived at her Palazzo to find, as he had foreseen, that he was the only guest.
It was fortunate that the weather in mid-May was so warm that she could afford to wear the minimum amount of clothing.
Certainly the diaphanous gown she wore of gauze threaded with gold revealed rather than concealed her nakedness. She, however, wore round her neck a magnificent necklace of emeralds, diamonds and rubies, which, with her swinging earrings, gave her an almost Oriental appearance.
Her dark eyes slanted at him invitingly and there was no need for her red lips to tell him how pleased she was to see him.
“Mark! Mark! How can you have neglected me so cruelly these past few days?”
“I have been concerned with repairing my ship,” he replied automatically.
“And dancing attendance in the British Embassy,” she added. “Is it the full-blown rose or the bud that attracts you?”
Mark Stanton did not answer, but moved through the open windows of the magnificent salon onto the balcony outside.
“I will not tease you,” she said in a low voice, holding onto his arm. “I am only so glad you are here. All I want is to feel you near me and to tell you of my love.”
He smiled at her quizzically and there was a mocking note in his voice as he said,
“I am honoured to receive such protestations, Gianetta.”
“I love you, Mark, I never realised how much until the other night. And now, because of you, I have taken a very revolutionary decision.”
“What is that?” he enquired.
He was slightly surprised by the serious way she spoke.
“I have decided to leave Naples.”
“This is very unexpected.”
“Because you will not marry me, you have made all the men that I know here seem bores and nincompoops!”
“I regret I should have had that effect,” Mark Stanton said, but his eyes were twinkling.
“It is true!” the Princess went on passionately. “Because you are the perfect lover, a man who makes all other men seem small and insignificant by comparison, I cannot stay here.”
“In fact you seek ‘pastures new’,” he quoted.
She nodded her dark head so that her jewelled earrings jangled against the round column of her neck.
“I think I shall go to Paris!”
She knew that it was a provocative statement and she looked at him under her eyelashes to see his reaction.
“A good idea. When Napoleon gets tired of war, he will set himself up a Court of some sort or other. You will undoubtedly shine even in that City of beautiful women.”
“That is what I thought,” the Princess said with a little sigh. “But it has been a big decision to make and by refusing me you have altered my whole life!”
“So I shall be responsible for whatever happens,” Mark Stanton observed.
He did not sound very perturbed and he raised to his lips the glass of champagne that the servant had brought to him.
“Yes, it will be your fault,” the Princess said, “and, although I shall seek someone like you in Paris, in Vienna or perhaps even in Moscow, I know that I shall never find another Man of the Sea to capture my heart as you have done.”
They dined by candlelight in her boudoir.
It was impossible for Mark Stanton not to be moved by the love, if that was the right word for it, that he saw in the Princess’s eyes or the hunger in her lips.
When dinner was over and the servants left the room, Mark leant back in his chair with a glass of brandy in his hand and asked,
“What was the important secret you have to tell me?”
The Princess glanced over her shoulder to make certain that they were alone and lowered her voice.
“I dined at the French Ministry last night.”
He raised his eyebrows, but he did not speak.
“It was a small party,” the Princess went on, “and the Minister spoke freely.”
“You mean he believed that he knew where your sympathies lie?”
The Princess’s eyes flickered.
“I have been useful to him on – several occasions.”
Mark Stanton sipped his brandy.
“The Minister told us what Napoleon Bonaparte’s aims are in the Mediterranean.”
Mark was still and his eyes watched the Princess.
“He means to take Egypt!”
It was what he had suspected, but it was a blow to hear it confirmed.
“His plan,
” the Princess continued, “is eventually to conquer India.”
Mark Stanton drew in his breath. It was audacious and wildly ambitious but to the young Corsican who had achieved so much already it was possible.
“French agents,” the Princess almost whispered, “are endeavouring to raise a revolt against the British in Hindustan.”
“How many men has Bonaparte in Toulon?”
There was a pause before the Princess replied,
“They say about eighty thousand.”
Mark Stanton was appalled, but it did not show in his expression.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“I could express myself more eloquently if we were closer.”
“That is what I want!”
She rose from the table.
They moved into the bedroom next door. Discreetly lit, the shadows were full of mystery and her special fragrance scented the air.
She turned to face him and he removed first her long earrings and then the necklace of rubies and emeralds.
Then he pulled her roughly into his arms and his mouth crushed hers.
The fire that had always existed between them burst into flame.
The passion of it scorched and consumed them both with a wild irresistible blaze, rising and falling as the hours passed until the night faded and the dawn came up pale and golden over the misty sea.
They then slept from sheer exhaustion.
*
When Mark Stanton awoke, it was to find that it was far later than he had expected and he had broken his rule of returning to his lodgings before the world was awake.
He lay for a moment against the silken pillows and looked at Gianetta asleep beside him.
She was very beautiful in repose and her dark hair fell over her bare shoulders and her eyelashes swept her cheeks.
He wondered as he regarded her why he found it impossible to give her the love she wanted from him.
She roused him passionately and there was also, because she was intelligent, a mutual interest that did not entirely rely on physical attraction.
But he knew that what she offered him was not enough.
Passion would fade in time and he knew that he demanded a great deal more than passion in the woman he would make his wife.
The Dream and the Glory Page 6
