Too Great a Lady

by Amanda Elyot

  “Well, ’e can’t be miffed at you for your ’air. What, then?”

  “I am being summoned to Leghorn to account for my actions in Naples this past summer—the Caracciolo business, the interrogations of the rebels on board the Foudroyant—and to explain what he perceives to be my current inactivity.”

  “Why, don’t he know? The very presence of your fleet ’ere keeps the Frenchies at bay! All they need to do is ’ear the name of Nelson and they ’ave nightmares of the Nile! And isn’t Leg’orn dangerous now? I won’t let you go!” I dreaded he might succumb once more to the charms of Adelaide Correglia as much as I feared he might get blown to bits.

  Nelson shook his head. “Leghorn is neutral territory. Anyway, as it’s the Mediterranean headquarters for the Royal Navy, the Frenchies would be fools to attack it.” Nelson reached across the breakfast table to stroke my hand. “And I must go. There isn’t a question of my disobeying orders this time. Keith wants a full explanation of the Minorca business as well.”

  “What’s to explain there? You was given contradictory orders. How was you expected to dispatch marines to Minorca when they was already fighting the republicans on the mainland and thrashing the rebels that was holding St. Elmo? A man can’t be in two places at once, let alone three!” I was disgusted. “But since you’ve worked miracles before, I suppose the Admiralty wanted you to be a conjurer this time, too. They’re punishing you like a schoolboy is what’s ’appening. I can see it. The ‘letters’ Troubridge referred to ’ave reached Keith’s ’ands as well. ’E mopes about like a jilted lover, y’nau? Troubridge, I mean. And ’e’s trying to come between us.”

  “That, my dear, beautiful Emma, will never, never happen. No matter where I go. This I can promise you.”

  What happens when you are truly happy with everything in life, when finally, after a long and arduous climb, you have everything you want? You love deeply and are loved deeply in return; you have a talent for admiration that is returned to you tenfold. And then—when you have reached the pinnacle of happiness and can peer into the cup of it, filled near to overflowing—then, you meet the one who can be no other but your soul mate, and everything explodes in a riot of ecstasy?

  Our eyes were wide open. We both knew what we were getting into. We had denied ourselves for so many months, both of us at war with our consciences, struggling mightily to resolve our mutual passion, desperate to neither injure nor shame our spouses. We always knew the pot that was on the simmer would eventually boil over—and when it did, our greatest desire and our greatest fear would both be realized.

  Did Nelson lead me to his rooms then, or did I take him there, that first time? It’s odd that I don’t recall that detail. Even with the slight chill in the air, his bedroom, with the sash thrown up wide, smelled of cassia and cloves. We did not rush, expecting somehow to remain undisturbed by the servants and uninterrupted by Sir William.

  The room was very light. We sank down on the settee and for the longest time gazed into each other’s faces as if to etch an impression of them forever inside our souls. And then, almost as if Time were suspended momentarily, Nelson reached for me and drew me close until our lips met. We had waited so long to make love; every precious moment had to be savored. I buried my face in the scent of his skin, kissing, not only his lips and eyes and cheeks, but his neck and the hollow of his throat where his shirt was open to expose the tender flesh. Nelson caressed my shoulder, reaching to release it from my gown.

  Gently, I pulled away from our embrace. “Let me ’elp you,” I murmured, then stood up to untie my dress and stays. Slippers, hose, and linen followed.

  Awestruck at the picture before him, Nelson whispered, “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” He rose and came over to me, wrapping his arm about my waist.

  “I do love my macaroni and champagne,” I jested self-consciously. “You don’t find me too fat?”

  Kissing me passionately first, he replied, “I find you perfect.”

  I led him back to the settee, where I divested him of his shoes and hose. Kneeling before him, I began to unbutton his breeches. His hips were so slender, almost like a youth’s. Removing his pants, I allowed my fingers to play upon his thighs and calves, and having disposed of the garment, I laid my head between his legs. I could feel him stiffen when his linen grazed my cheek.

  “I am almost afraid to let you remove my shirt.”

  I smiled. “The only man in Europe not afraid of Bonaparte fears what I might think when I see two naked shoulders but only one bare arm?” He swallowed and looked away. “Then let’s put an answer to’t.” Nelson raised his left arm and I lifted his shirt over his head. His nearly hairless chest was well made, though not muscular.

  “Well?”

  Tenderly, I kissed his “fin,” then caressed it that I might learn every inch of the poor disfigured anatomy. “It is a sight I ’ave been waiting years to get my fill of.”

  “Come here,” he murmured. Obligingly, I returned to the settee and nestled into the crook of his left arm. “Kiss me.”

  I loosened his queue with one hand while the other began to meander below his waist. “I am neither disgusted, nor am I dismayed, Nelson. I find you magnificent.” Kneeling once again, I removed his linen. He grew hard at my slightest touch, and I brought my fingers and lips to him, enjoying the giving of the pleasure as much as I could tell he enjoyed the receiving of it.

  At length he placed his hand upon my wrist, then tipped my chin to raise my head. “I need to feel your skin against mine. If I don’t, I think I shall go mad.”

  The sheets were cool against my back. I was so hungry for Nelson that I had become a furnace. And finally, after so many months of torment, here we were. In the late-morning light, there was no disguising Time’s hand upon our bodies and the price that each had paid for the pleasure of seeing so many days. Flaws and all, we came to each other, two worldly people of middle age, who saw nothing in one another but perfection.

  Nelson wanted to touch, to kiss, to explore every part of me, from my eyelids to the backs of my knees. He wrapped a lock of my cascading hair around his hand and lingered at my breasts and belly, and then at the smooth, sugared flesh between my thighs. And I had lain with more than my share of men in the past to know that this experience, beyond my having waited so long for it, was something extraordinary. Physically, we were an unlikely pair: slender, almost-frail Nelson, and Emma, beginning to become Junoesque. And yet our mutually passionate natures, so blazing, so intense, such a perfect meeting of the minds and souls and hearts as we shared, could not help but translate into a combustible coupling in the boudoir. When his lips touched my sex for the first time, I thought my body would melt into his mouth and drown him. And when he eased himself on top of me and slipped inside, with the first thrust, I never wanted to be anywhere else in my life ever again; and then I feared to drown him with my tears, for never had I been so happy.

  “Will they let you come back from Leg’orn?” I whispered fearfully as we lay together facing each other, unable to leave off caressing.

  “God, I hope so. And I wouldn’t leave you ever, but that I must. I own that I have been often made to feel the hero I always wanted to be, but never until now have I felt the most exquisite sensations that arise from loving fully and completely and being so fully loved in return. Heavens, Emma—my Emma—you would walk barefoot across the Sahara to bring me a cup of water if you knew I was thirsty.”

  I chuckled. “I would, too. Quite literally. No figger of speech.”

  Nelson stroked my hair and kissed a fistful of it. “I know you would.”

  “And I am ‘your Emma,’ too. I ’ave been for some time already; just we didn’t say it. And I will be until my last breath.”

  He smiled wryly. “Death or Glory.”

  “But I’d prefer to think on the second part of the credo, if that suits you.”

  “While we’re under the same roof, I never want to spend another night without you in my . . .”
>
  “Arm. It’s all right. A one-armed Nelson as my lover is better than all the two-armed men in the rest of the world. We must try to be discreet, then. It’s not only the servants as concern me. I never wish to injure Sir Willum. ’E’s a man of the world. ’E may suspect that there ’as already been a tendresse between us for some time now, or ’e may simply acknowledge its possibility. In any event, ’e is not the kind of man to openly broach the subject with either of us, and if ’e does let on that ’e knows, or at least suspects something, ’e will do so with the utmost discretion and diplomacy. Leastways, ’e loves you near as much as ’e loves me. ’E won’t call you out. But ’e don’t deserve even the slightest hint of ’umiliation. I owe Sir Willum everything and ’e has never been anything but dear to me.”

  “And never have I been able to call a man a dearer friend. Not for the world would I injure him. And yet, we are betraying him, even if we can manage to keep our love a secret.”

  I sighed and let my fingers play upon his chest. “My conscience torments me. But we cannot undo what ’as passed between us, nor do either of us wish it ’ad never ’appened. I can just hear Mam saying, ‘Be careful, gal. Wunst you get what you’ve been wishing for, it’s easy to get cocky about it, y’nau?’ She’s a canny woman. She’ll read it in our faces long before Sir Willum sees it.” I rested on my elbows. “Don’t go to Leg’orn. Send Keith a letter and tell ’im . . . tell ’im whatever it pleases you to write, but I fear this is all a ruse to get you to quit Palermo, and me. And once they’ve got you in Leg’orn, they’ll send you packing for Portsmouth.”

  Nelson’s brow was rutted with furrows. “I fear being sent home just as much. For there is someone there I do not wish to see and I would prefer never to have the conversation with her which I must, perforce, engage in.”

  “Fanny.”

  “Fanny.”

  “It will take you a few weeks to put everything in order before your departure. My dearest, dearest, dearest love, can we not at least pretend the days we have left to us are one grand ’oliday?”

  Cupping my breast, he brought it to his lips. “It’s like pudding,” he teased, fondling the pale, firm flesh.

  “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

  “Um-hm. I love pudding.” He navigated his way along my collarbone and throat until he reached my mouth, tasting my lips as if for the first time. “Sweet, adorable Emma, your holiday suggestion is the finest idea I have ever heard in my life.”

  Thirty-three

  Recalled!

  In early January, as Nelson prepared to report to Leghorn, Sir William was discovering England’s displeasure with him through a significantly less direct route.

  One morning he opened his mail packet and read in an issue of London’s Morning Chronicle that his request for retirement had been granted by King George.

  “But I haven’t made any rumblings about retiring for years!” My husband was stunned, his face as pale as if he had been knifed in the chest. “And to heap further insult upon injury, my replacement is to be Arthur Paget, a pup so young I daresay he’s scarcely out of skirts. Paget has but a single year in Bavaria by way of diplomatic credentials, and I’ll lay a wager with anyone who cares to take it that he speaks neither French nor Italian. And to read about it in the papers! Presented with a fait accompli—in print, no less! Back in London they must be sniggering behind their snuffboxes and hands of whist.”

  “ ’E will prove a disaster, then! The fatal Paget!” Poor Sir William looked monstrous glum. “My dear Sir Willum.” I embraced him and held him in my arms for several moments. “They are punishing you for being a partisan in Neapolitan politics. When the queen ’ears about this, she’ll bost a stay, I warrant you.”

  “Unless she can somehow turn back the hands of Time and undo my own sovereign’s order, I fear there is little to be done but prepare to go home,” lamented Sir William, “for I do not wish to remain in either Naples or Palermo as a private citizen.”

  As my husband weighed his options with regard to his diplomatic career, my lover, who had sailed on January 16 for Leghorn, was tormented by our separation. I was no less sensible to the anxieties placed upon our mutually aching hearts. Our love had so lately reached a new and higher plateau, only to be painfully interrupted by Nelson’s departure. The parting had been agonizing for both of us, and fraught with tears. “Duty, love,” Nelson had reminded me, though his voice was cracking with emotion and he was hardly willing to wrest himself from our embrace.

  “It’s deliberate,” I insisted. “I am sure that if Keith wished it, he could put his queries to you in writing and allow you to respond to them without leaving Palermo. The Admiralty are flexing their muscles, to show that they will always have more power over Nelson than Emma ever could.”

  But of course, he did have to leave my arms. And I lived for every word I would receive from him:Wednesday, 29th Janry, 1800

  Separated from all I hold dear in this world what is the use of living if indeed such an existence can be called so, nothing could alleviate such a seperation but the call of our Country, but loitering time away with nonsense is too much. No seperation, no time my only beloved Emma can alter my love and affection for you, it is founded on the truest principles of honor, and it only remains for us to regret which I do with the bitterest anguish that there are any obstacles to our being united in the closest ties of this worlds rigid rules, as we are in those of real love. Continue only to love your faithful Nelson as he loves his Emma. You are my guide, I submit to you, let me find all my fond heart hopes and wishes with the risk of my life. I have been faithful to my word never to partake of amusemt: or to sleep on shore.

  Thursday, Janry 30th: we have been six days from Leghorn and no prospect of our making a passage to Palermo, to me it is worse than death. I can neither eat or sleep for thinking of you my dearest love. I never even touch pudding you know the reason. No I would starve sooner. My only hope is to find that you have equally kept your promises to me, for I never made you a promise that I did not as strictly keep as if made in the presence of heaven, but I rest perfectly confident in the reality of your love and that you would die sooner than be false in the smallest thing to your own faithful Nelson who lives only for his Emma.

  Friday: Last night I did nothing but dream of you altho’ I woke 20 times in the night. In one of my dreams I thought I was at a large table you was not present, sitting between a Princess who I detest and another, they both tried to seduce me and the first wanted to take those liberties with me which no woman in this world but yourself ever did, the consequence was I knocked her down and in the moment of bustle you came in and taking me in your embrace wispered I love nothing but you my Nelson. I kissed you fervently and we enjoy’d the height of love. Ah Emma I pour out my soul to you. If you love any thing but me you love those who do not like your N.

  Nelson returned to my eager arms a few days later, only to learn that, pursuant to Keith’s orders, he was to sail for Malta on February 12.

  On the eve of his departure we lay together for the entire night. Moonlight streamed through Nelson’s bedroom window onto his back while I gazed into his eyes, enjoying the length of him deep inside me, memorizing the planes of his narrow face with my fingers and lips, from the bump on the bridge of his nose—imperceptible unless you touched it—to the gentle bow of his upper lip and the soft swell of his fuller lower one. We made love well into the wee hours of the morning, giving and taking pleasure in every kiss and caress. When a lark heralded the dawn Nelson and I were still nestled together, and I could feel him grow hard against the hollow of my back as his hand cupped my breast. “Nelson,” I breathed, “are you awake?”

  “I’ve been awake all night. Are you all right?”

  We spoke in hushed whispers. “I suppose so. You?”

  “I am now. I won’t be in a few hours when I have to leave you.”

  “Nelson . . . ? Let’s ’ave a child. I want to ’ave your baby.”

  His cry of joy
startled the bird on the sill, which flew away in haste. “You do? Really? Emma, my beloved, darling Emma, I never dreamed you might. I cannot imagine a greater blessing than to be the father of my Emma’s child.” He rolled on top of me, balancing himself against the mattress with his hand. “I leave at eight,” Nelson added as I helped to ease him inside me. Our bodies melted together, and a mischievous smile played across his lips. “We have no time to waste.”

  Mr. Tyson, Nelson’s secretary, corresponded with me regarding naval affairs and the state of Nelson’s health, for I was anxiously inquiring after it in my every dispatch. In March, I received an alarming letter from him. Nelson had “dropped with a pain in his heart and was always with a fever.” Oh, that I could commandeer a boat and sail out to find him! I could not rest until I knew he was out of danger. After consulting with Mam as to the surest remedy for such an attack of the heart, I wrote to Tyson by the next dispatch. “Hot stupes,” I told him. “Soak rags in boiling water and turpentine and apply them to his chest. My mother also advises you to rub his chest with packs of baked salt, and dose him with opium. And for God’s sake, write by the next post to tell me how he is!”

  While my heart was utterly filled with Nelson, Nelson, Nelson, my hands were filled with Sir William. Though Paget was now in Palermo, my husband—maintaining his promise not to remain in the Two Sicilies as a private individual—refused to relinquish his diplomatic credentials until such time as we were ready to depart for England. Nelson had promised to bring us home, and at present he was somewhere in the Adriatic.