The Very Daring Duchess Part 11

But maybe that same difference was the reason. He hadn't swept into her studio spouting aristocratic demands, and he'd even seemed almost ashamed to be a duke's son. He'd been amazingly immune to her customary manner with male visitors to her studio, the automatic teasing, cajoling flirtation that had convinced a great many men to buy a great many third-rate paintings. He'd barely been able to meet her eye, let alone ogle her like all the other men, and he'd been so overly courteous and formal that he'd made her wary and wonder what he was hiding behind such a straitlaced facade.

But all that had changed when he'd glimpsed her drawings at the amba.s.sador's villa. It wasn't just that he'd seen pictures that she'd made for her own enjoyment. He'd responded to them with such open pleasure and understanding that she'd been left stammering and fl.u.s.tered. His interest had been as personal, as intimate, as creating the pictures themselves had been for her, and it had made a bewildering bond between them that she'd never sensed nor sought with any other man. The feeling had only grown when he'd come to return her shawl, his concern for her welfare achingly genuine, and when he'd chosen to see her own paintings over the lewd showiness of the Oculus.

He'd chosen her as she truly was, alone with her paints beneath the roof, instead of the flirtatious braggadocio of her very public persona. In turn he'd let her see beneath the gold lace and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and glimpse the heart that beat inside that righteously formal exterior. And, oh, what that had done to her!

Now when she looked at the writhing figures of the Oculus, her imagination leaped to the same shocking idea that Lady Hamilton proposed. She imagined herself lying naked beneath Edward, her legs curled around his waist and her back arched and her head tossed back in ecstasy as he rode her as fiercely as any of the ancient lovers. Her heart began to race and her body grow warm and heavy with desire as the wicked, tempting images of the Oculus mingled with the reality of Edward's body joined to hers, of feeling him driving deep within her in a way she'd never considered, never imagined, never wanted with any other man.

To lose herself in him like that, to desire a man with that intensity-no wonder it frightened her near to death.

"There will be no scenes of any sort between me and Captain Ramsden, my lady," she said almost curtly as she forced herself to look away, thankful that the muted light would hide the l.u.s.t that must show now on her face. "It is not meant to be."

"Because of the war?" prodded her ladyship gently. "Because he is an English lord? Because of a thousand other little protests you could make, all of them meaningless?"

"My lady, the French could be here any day!"

"And Vesuvius could wake and bury us all beneath hot ash while we sleep tonight, and we'd be just as dead." Her ladyship sighed, and shook her head. "If you lead your life looking for sorrow, then trouble will most certainly find you first."

"But to conceive of an intrigue between me and Captain Ramsden-"

"You're a virgin, little Robin, aren't you?" asked the older woman softly. "Here, in Naples, despite so much temptation and pleasure, you're still a virgin."

"By choice, my lady," said Francesca defensively, striving for the conviction that she'd never questioned in herself, or at least not before now. "My choice. Why should I wish to grant my life and my art to a man to ruin?"

But her ladyship only smiled sadly, lightly tapping the diamond plume on her lapel. "So you've never been in love, either? Oh, my dear, whatever your reason or excuse, pray don't close yourself away from all the joys of love!"

"From this?" Scornfully Francesca swept her hand through the air, encompa.s.sing the sixteen different paintings of the Oculus with sixteen writhing couples. "Why should I be eager to give myself over to this?"

"Base couplings like these are not the same as love, little Robin," said her ladyship. "Any beasts can do this, or at least inventive beasts. Love, the truest love, comes from the union of two souls, two hearts, and not just their bodies. Sometimes a lifetime can pa.s.s before that special one appears, but when he does-ah, you'll risk all to be with him. Look at me. I know what I am. I'm no longer young, nor beautiful, and I'm wed to a man who treasures me above all others, and yet my heart was not complete until Horatio Nelson sailed into my life."

The wonder and joy in the older woman's smile had nothing to do with age or beauty, but only the little one-armed admiral that had captured her heart. Francesca remembered the glances the two had exchanged, how even in a room with others they hadn't needed words to share their feelings.

So this was love, and against her will she thought of how Edward Ramsden's stern lord-captain's face had gentled when he'd studied her painting, how that gentleness had remained when he'd shifted his gaze to her, how she'd felt the warmth of it curl like smoke though her body.

But what would happen when this love Lady Hamilton so cherished was gone? Even in Naples, the scandal of what she and the admiral were doing was carving the first cracks into his career and her reputation. Sir William's diplomatic career was in shambles, and he'd become a figure of mockery, every caricaturist showing him with cuckold's horns. The admiral fared scarce better, his triumphs at sea tainted with public outrage and sympathy for his wronged wife at home in England. Disgrace hovered upon the horizon, and if-no, when-the two lovers returned to London, the scandal could ruin them both with an efficiency that would make Napoleon envious. They'd lose their fortunes, their homes, their spouses, their friends, their careers, and for what?

For love. But to Francesca, this sort of grand love that her ladyship had found was no more appealing, no more tempting, than the kind that her father had painted in the Oculus.

And no matter how Edward Ramsden smiled at her, she wanted none of it.

"You don't believe me, do you, little Robin?" With a sigh, Lady Hamilton rose. Briefly she looked up at the ceiling, blinking hard as if to stop tears before they came, then smiled at Francesca again. "Perhaps it's something that can't be taught. Perhaps it's something you must learn for yourself. All I can do is pray that you do."

"Yes, my lady," answered Francesca dutifully.

" 'My lady, my lady', as if I were born any better than you!" To Francesca's surprise, her ladyship leaned forward and kissed her on each cheek, the diamond plume sharp where it grazed against her shoulder. "Take care, my dear. You have a good head, and a better heart, and I know wherever you land, you will thrive."

Confused by such a gesture, Francesca twisted away, unconsciously touching her cheek where her ladyship had kissed it. Only one other had showed any such concern for her, only one other in all Naples since Papa had died.

To keep yourself safe and from harm, la.s.s, until affairs here are more settled...

"I don't know where Nanetta can be with the biscuits, my lady," she said in a rush. "She has been so willful today, that I cannot promise that she hasn't forgotten entirely. Mi scusi, my lady, and I'll go fetch them myself."

She didn't know why her eyes were blurred with tears as she hurried down the back stairs to the kitchen, her skirts bunched in her hands. She'd never been a weeper, or given to tears to get her own way-except, of course, when it meant a sale, though that was entirely different. Perhaps it was being with her ladyship, who cried all the time as a way of drawing attention to her eyes, or maybe it was simply because she was so tired from packing and worry about her future.

Yes, that must be it, reason enough for anyone, and swiftly she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, gulping away the last of her tears before she pushed open the door to the kitchen. She needed to be stern with Nanetta for forgetting to bring the chocolate and biscuits, not weak and sniveling with self-pity.

"Nanetta," she said as she pushed open the door to the kitchen. "Nanetta, why haven't you-ohh!"

A feral young man with a scraggly beard and hollowed eyes, Nanetta's nephew Carlo Brigatti, was sitting not at the table, but crouching on a low stool in the chimney corner with his back pressed against the warm bricks: A young man long reputed to be a half-mad troublemaker, and whose enlistment in the army had brought nothing but rejoicing in their neighborhood. He clutched the porcelain chocolate cup in one dirty hand and a half-eaten biscuit in the other, the same chocolate and biscuit that had been intended for Lady Hamilton.

"Carlo, you must leave at once," said Francesca sharply, her heart pounding. At least with Nanetta here in the kitchen, too, Carlo should behave himself. "You have no place in this house, nor are you welcome. Why aren't you with your regiment? Why are you skulking here like a coward, instead of fighting the French?"

"Carlo is no coward, signora!" said Nanetta defensively, hovering beside him with her hands tucked in her ap.r.o.n. "He fought bravely, as a hero!"

Carlo spat into the fire, emptied the cup, and flicked his dirty fingers beneath his chin in scornful disrespect.

"I am no coward, Signora Robin," he growled. "But that wh.o.r.eson King Ferdinando-that is your coward, sitting here on his fat a.s.s while we die to defend his miserable throne!"

"Carlo, no!" said Nanetta anxiously. "You swore you wouldn't say such thing about the king, not in the signora's house!"

"b.u.g.g.e.r them all, I say," muttered Carlos. "They care nothing for us. What loyalty do we owe them? Kill them all, and be done with it."

"The army's losses have left Carlo feeling very low, signora," said Nanetta, bobbing and bowing like a nervous black bird. "A sin, it is, a mortal sin! Deserted by their officers, forced to leave their wounded behind, scattered to make their way back home to Naples as best they can! How can you fault his pa.s.sion in the face of such trials?"

"Because his pa.s.sion is treason, Nanetta," said Francesca as firmly as she could. Her position in Naples was precarious enough without harboring a half-mad deserter like Carlo. "I want him gone now, or else I shall call the constable to take him back to the army."

Carlos jerked to his feet, his eyes wild, and smashed the porcelain cup on the bricks at his feet. "Ten days, Signora Robin. That is all the time my friends must wait. Ten days before the French will be here, and we will welcome them, sharpening our blades for Ferdinando's throat. I would kill him myself! I would kill the whole royal dunghill of a family with my own hands!"

"Hush, hush, Carlo!" warned Nanetta with a hiss, her gnarled hands on her nephew's shoulders as she shoved him back down on his seat upon the stool. "You hold your filthy tongue before a lady like Signora Robin! You will spoil everything if you talk to her that way!"

But everything already was spoiled, and Francesca knew it. With a certainty heavy as lead, she also knew now that Carlo had been the one who'd vandalized her studio, Carlo and his fellow deserters, and the one who'd filled Nanetta's head with so much venom and hatred, and that even if she told Signor Albani, it would be virtually impossible to arrest a man as well-known and dangerous as Carlo Brigatti with the city in such turmoil already. Oh, yes, everything was spoiled, and what could she alone possibly do?

"You will go, Carlo, and never come back!" With trembling hands Francesca grabbed the tray with the chocolate pot and biscuit plate from the table, holding them high before her in the doorway. "This is my house, my home, and I will not see it defiled by your treasonous gossip! Nanetta, see that he leaves, and that he does not return. Then you will attend directly to me and the packing."

She didn't wait to see if they'd obey, terrified that they wouldn't. Instead she fled back up the stairs with the tray in her hands, her heart pounding and her stomach sick with dread and fear.

How many more like Carlo were there in Naples already? How many more would join him when the English ships left, and the French came in their place? How much-how little-would her life be worth?

"Forgive me for taking so long, my lady," she said as she rushed back into the studio. "A problem in the kitchen, no more."

But the studio was empty, and when Francesca looked from the window into the street, Lady Hamilton's elegant chaise was gone as well. With a dry little sob, she dropped the tray down on the sill, a clatter of silver and china.

Gone, gone. And so now, without a doubt and by whatever means, must she go, too.

The admiral paced back and forth as he spoke, unable to keep still in spite of the grayish pallor that betrayed the strain these last weeks had placed on his always-precarious health. He was dressed splendidly, in his best dress uniform, as were Edward and the other officers gathered here in Lady Hamilton's music room one last time before they went from the emba.s.sy to the palace for the evening's ceremonies. Tonight, just one day shy of Christmas Eve itself, the emissary of the Sultan of Turkey was going to present the admiral with the Award of Triumph in honor of his victory over the French at the Nile, with a great celebration and ball to follow.

And tonight, in the middle of that same celebration, the admiral and his little fleet would carry King Ferdinando and his family from Naples, away to Sicily and safety.