The Very Daring Duchess Part 25

"Ah, here are the ladies," said the admiral, shrugging off the coverlets and rising stiffly to his feet. "I have asked your wife to join us, Ramsden, since this will obviously affect her as well. Good morning, Lady Edward. I trust you are well this day?"

Aghast, Edward didn't turn. He'd been so wrapped up in his own misery that he'd forgotten these orders wouldn't affect only him. He now had a wife and her future to consider as well.

And what in blazes would Francesca's reaction be? True, they'd married for reasons different than most couples, but he'd been able to offer her certain guarantees about himself and his situation. Now he had none: No home, no future, not even a respectable means for supporting her.

He wasn't entirely without resources, of course. He'd been careful to put aside most of his prize money, and he did have a small income left from his mother. Even in disgrace, he could surely find a place as captain on board a merchant vessel or, with his fighting experience, a privateersman. But it wouldn't be the same, not by half, and he could not blame Francesca if she felt that, after this morning, he was far less of a gentleman than she'd married, and far, far less of a man.

How fortunate now that she'd kept from his bed after they'd wed, for the sake of each other as well as for those children they hadn't conceived. Had she somehow guessed this would happen, and now would expect her freedom? He'd give it to her, if she asked it, but dear G.o.d, how he'd hate to lose her as well!

He heard the gentle shush of her skirts as she entered the room and the murmur of her reply to the admiral's question. Without looking he knew the exact moment she came to stand beside him, smelling the familiar blossom-sweetness of her scent. They couldn't have been apart more than a quarter hour, and still he'd missed her.

And yet now he couldn't make himself turn toward her or greet her. What the devil was he supposed to say, anyway? How could he explain what had happened when he wasn't sure himself?

The admiral cleared his throat impatiently, obviously expecting Edward to have spoken first. "I've asked you to join us, my lady, because your husband has received his sailing orders. Unless he chooses to leave you here with us in Palermo, we shall be losing your company as well as his."

Edward heard the slight gasp from her, swiftly smothered. Was it the news that they were sailing that had caused that, or the suggestion that he might leave her behind?

"But that is most excellent news, My Lord Admiral-bellissimo!" she exclaimed, though Edward could hear the tremor of brave uneasiness in her voice. "My husband has been eager to sail once more against the French, and now you've granted his wish. Isn't that so, caro mio?"

"It's not my blasted wish, Francesca," he said, more bitterly than he realized, or would have wanted. "They've taken the Centaur away from me, and now I must sail clear to London like so much baggage, to wait upon the pleasure of the lords of the admiralty so I might learn their reasons."

"Oh, Edward," she whispered, too stunned to speak more loudly. "Oh, Edward, mi dispiace, tesoro mio, mi dispiace!"

I am sorry, my darling, I am sorry: He'd learned enough Italian from her to know her meaning, and even if he hadn't, he would have understood from her voice alone, such genuine sadness and empathy that he could have wept with her.

Heedless of the admiral and Lady Hamilton, he reached blindly for her hand. When had he come to need the touch of those little fingers so much? "I am sorry, too, Francesca," he said to her, as if the others weren't there. "Sorry for everything."

"Well, aye, aye, Ramsden, that's how life falls, doesn't it?" said the admiral briskly, drumming his own fingers on the edge of the desk as Lady Hamilton came to stand beside him, ostensibly to pour his tea. "We poor mortals do what we can, while our Maker and the Lord of the Admiralty settles the rest around us."

"Aye, sir." No sympathy from the admiral's quarter, then, not that Edward truly expected any. From this day onward, he must expect less than nothing, and be grateful for that.

"Very well, sir, very well," continued the admiral with too-obvious relief. "Unless you have any grave objections, Lieutenant Pye shall become the Centaur's acting captain until other arrangements can be made. I have already written the orders to that effect, but I thought it best that you spoke to him first."

"He will welcome both the challenge and the honor, sir," said Edward, somehow managing to make the expected response. Of course the ship needed a captain; not even he could deny that. And what a lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d Pye was, to be handed a plum like the Centaur-his Centaur. "Of course I shall speak to him, if that is what you wish."

"I do, for the ease of the Centaur's people," said the admiral, eager to move beyond Edward's own feelings. "Sudden changes can disturb the men if not handled well, what? But I am sure everything stands in excellent order with the Centaur, Ramsden, and since I have your latest reports, there will be nothing left to hang upon your conscience."

Nothing, that is, except this hideous disgrace that no one seemed capable of naming....

"When must we leave, my lord?" asked Francesca beside him, the question Edward hadn't had the heart to ask himself. Her voice was scarce above a whisper, and more weighted with her Neapolitan accent than usual when she spoke among Englishmen, another sure sign of her own uncertainty. "There will be preparations to make for such a voyage."

The admiral blew his nose loudly, using a handkerchief conveniently offered by Lady Hamilton. "You will be joining your husband, then, Lady Edward?"

"Of course, my lord," she said with a gratifying mixture of surprise and indignation. Gratifying, even though Edward guessed it must be London that was the attraction, and not himself. h.e.l.l, at this point his battered esteem would take whatever it could salvage.

But the admiral was looking to him now, his rheumy eyes full of unspoken questions over his handkerchief. Clearly he believed Edward meant to leave Francesca behind like any other officer's mistress in a foreign point, an unfortunate enc.u.mbrance quickly shed, the way the admiral would undoubtedly part with Lady Hamilton.

But not Edward, and not Francesca.

"Lady Edward wishes to know when we must sail," said Edward firmly, placing extra emphasis on that we. If she was willing to throw her lot in with his after this, then by G.o.d, he would take her with him. "Sir."

And most gratifying of all to feel the way her fingers squeezed his, a tiny shared rush of grat.i.tude, empathy, antic.i.p.ation...

"Oh, aye, Ramsden, you inquire only for Lady Edward's sake, I am sure." Irritably the admiral blew his nose again, then pushed through the papers on his desk until he found the one he sought. "I am sending the sloop Antelope with reports and dispatches to London, and I shall ask Captain Pettigrew to find you s.p.a.ce on board her-you and your lady both. He is, I believe, planning to sail with the morning tide. That should be time enough for your preparations, shouldn't it?"

Edward nodded, again not daring to look at Francesca, and swallowed hard. So this would be it: the morning tide, tomorrow, a hasty beginning to an inevitable, unenviable end.

There was more said after that, more instructions given and questions dutifully answered before he was at last standing at the bottom of the villa's steps in the cold morning air. The wind swirled dry leaves rattling against the toes of his shoes while Lady Hamilton embraced Francesca, one last, tearful farewell of the sort that so delighted ladies, before she stepped into the carriage.

"And you-you, my lord captain," said Lady Hamilton, thoughtfully running her forefinger along the gold lace on the revere of his coat when his turn came. "I wish you well, too, of course, a safe voyage and happy future and all the rest of it. But you must promise that you will always remember me whenever we may meet again, and not grow too haughty and proud to greet me like a friend."

Dutifully Edward raised her hand to kiss the air over her fingers. "It is very hard for a man to grow haughty and proud, my lady, when he has as little left to his name as I do."

"Oh, but that isn't true, my lord captain, is it?" she asked, and he almost could have sworn the tears in her famous blue eyes were genuine. "You have far, far more than most men ever will, as you know perfectly well."

"Tell that to the Admiralty, my lady," he said, his bitterness and disappointment spilling over once again. "Tell it to whichever black rogue decided I wasn't fit to be the Centaur's master."

"No, no, you great goose, not that," she said, her hand thumping his chest over his heart, where by rights a medal for the Nile should go. "You have something worth far more than any foolish honors from the Admiralty, my lord captain. You have Francesca."

"Oh, aye," said Edward grimly, "just as she has me, eh?"

"Yes," answered Lady Hamilton with perfect seriousness. "You have her, and she has you, and in short you have the world, because you have each other."

You have each other. How logical and balanced she made it sound, as fine a pairing as any Cupid could wish.

"I'd no notion the amba.s.sador's wife had turned matchmaker as well, my lady," he said with a weary smile as he bowed over Lady Hamilton's hand. "And here I'd been thinking marrying Miss Robin was my idea alone."

"That is precisely what I wished you to believe, Captain." She smiled mischievously, taking back her hand with a twirl of her fingers. "Not such a bad job of it, eh?"

Not for him, no, he thought miserably, but for Francesca-poor dear la.s.s, what had she ever done to deserve him?

The next morning, Francesca sat close to Edward in the sternsheets of the Centaur's boat along with their belongings, watching the watery winter sun struggle to rise over the bay. Edward had barely spoken to her, said nothing beyond what he'd had to, even considering how they'd not been left alone together since that grim carriage ride yesterday from the amba.s.sador's villa. But then Francesca would have been more surprised if Edward had confided in her, given how much he prided himself on keeping his feelings locked so tightly inside himself, the way his blessed navy had taught him.

Yesterday, and last night, and this morning: If everything had pa.s.sed in a rapid blur to her, she couldn't imagine how it must have seemed to him. She'd sat at his side through the final supper in his quarters for his officers, permitted this once to be the lone lady among the gentlemen as the toasts grew longer and more sentimental, brave, strong men moved to tears by Edward's abrupt leaving.

She'd watched as Peart had efficiently packed away every personal item in Edward's cabin, stowed his uniforms and pictures and books, even his bed linens and the gold-rimmed dinnerware reserved for special entertainments, until the cabin echoed, as empty and hollow as Edward's own hopes, and no trace of his captaincy remained.

By lantern light this morning, she'd stood beside Edward as he'd given up the Centaur's command and heard Lieutenant Pye read in as his replacement, and listened to Edward's agonizingly brief farewell from the quarterdeck to his crew, there in the cold hour before dawn, and when they'd cheered him, his face had been as wooden as the ship itself.

When other captains left one command for another, they were ent.i.tled to take their favorite crewmen with them to their new ship, an honored privilege for both the captain and the men who joined him. But because Edward had no other ship waiting, he could take no sailors with him beyond his servant Peart; the entire crew to a man felt the slight, and made their cheers all the warmer to show they shared his outrageous misfortune.

She'd seen how Edward's jaw had twitched, the only emotion that betrayed him as he'd left the ship for the last time to the shrill bo'sn's pipes and the marines' salute. Lieutenant Pye, now acting captain, had offered them the Centaur's captain's gig to ferry them to the Antelope, and Francesca wondered if anyone other than herself had noticed how Edward had paused before he'd sat on that familiar bench, or how he'd given the side of the ship an affectionate little pat, a last farewell for the Centaur as well. But like a heartbroken lover determined to make a clean break, he'd kept his head high and his shoulders squared, and not once had he turned back to look at the Centaur as they'd rowed across the bay.

Which was why, now, Francesca kept her hip pressed close against him and her hand resting lightly over his, letting him believe that he was comforting her rather than the other way around. She hadn't been nearly so brave when she'd left Naples, watching through her tears until the twinkling lights of the city had been lost in the gloom of the storm. Because leaving the Centaur was leaving home for him, she understood his misery, and because she cared for him, she shared it.

But oh, saints in heaven, what she didn't share, that raw shock of guilt she'd felt when the admiral had told them they were bound for London! She'd longed for London, not only for the sake of her painting and her freedom, but because in London she'd be safely distant from Albani's demands and threats.