Breaking the Line (2 page)

1

There was an uncomfortable sensation in Nelson’s breast as he wondered why Sir William Hamilton had come aboard
Vanguard
to see him. The ambassador was fully recovered now and they had met many times ashore in the last week at the daily levee the royal family insisted on holding even though they were in mourning for Alberto. Any discussions of a military or diplomatic nature had taken place then, usually in the company of Sir John Acton or the Marquis de Gallo.

Not that there had been much to discuss. The French had occupied Naples, but had found that although the nobles welcomed them the peasants were another matter. Rumour had it that no Frenchman dare walk the streets alone for fear of being murdered. The Neapolitan naval officers who had remained had surrendered their ships to the enemy, which caused Nelson to curse the fact that he had failed to destroy them.

At least one officer, Commodore Mitchell, ex-Royal Navy and British in the Portuguese service, had taken it upon himself to attack the Neapolitan ships, forcing them in under the guns of the Naples forts. Meanwhile Nelson was busy making dispositions that would not only keep them there, but cause as much trouble to the French occupiers as he could with what were strictly limited resources.

An uprising was underway in the countryside. Cardinal Fabrizo Ruffo, religious advisor to the King, had sailed to Sicily with the royal evacuation, only to return immediately to the mainland. He had sent word that he was traversing the hinterlands of Calabria, where he had huge holdings, raising a force, the Army of the Holy Faith, under the banner of the cross, to fight the heathen invader. Religion was the mainspring of this enterprise, though no one in Palermo had much
faith in what it could do. If a trained army could not beat the French, what chance would a rabble of barefoot peasants have, however much they loved their king and their God.

‘The villa I spoke of, Lord Nelson.’

‘Yes,’ Nelson replied warily. He recalled a discussion he had had with Sir William several days before, when the Ambassador had declared himself eager to move out of the crowded royal palace into a residence he could call his own.

‘The Villa Bastioni,’ Sir William added.

‘You mentioned it, I recall,’ replied Nelson.

What Sir William recalled at that moment was the discussion he had had with Mary Cadogan who, once she had discerned the direction of Sir William’s intentions, had reverted to practicality. He had admitted that his admiration for Nelson as a man and for what he had achieved was unbounded. He also admitted to his jealousy at Emma’s regard for the admiral and his cares for her future.

Emma’s mother had shown swiftly where her sentiments lay. She assured Sir William that he had a good few years left, but had enough sense to know what the future would be like without him and the protection of his income. She was willing to damn her daughter for fanciful notions and for her outrageous extravagance in the article of clothes, hats, pets, jewellery and the like, which, in her humble opinion, ‘Sir William should have clapped a stopper on some time past.’

Mary Cadogan offered an astute opinion of Nelson’s nature and his character. He might be God-fearing but he was also impulsive: he was man who could go from social shyness to dominating a gathering in a few seconds. As to his knowledge of her sex, however, ‘why I doubt he has an ounce of it’. But he had passion nonetheless, and was at this moment a man with ‘ants in his pants’, lashed tight by his country-squire upbringing, nothing but a mass of ardour bursting to get out.

Sir William had listened until Mary Cadogan had reached the crux of her concern. It was all very well for Sir William to be saying that the time had come for him to surrender exclusive rights to his wife’s bedchamber. That was as maybe and up to him. But was this sailor just toying with Emma’s affections? There was a wife back home, a shrew she had heard, ‘who is not the type to take kindly to liaisons.’

It had been odd for Sir William to hear himself insist that should Nelson succumb to his natural desires, he was not the type to leave the lady in the lurch. That given the Nile victory and the fame and wealth that was bound to bring him, he would be able to support
Emma – and her mother – in the manner to which they had become accustomed.

‘Then it be simple, Sir William,’ Mary Cadogan had said, with an emphatic toss of the head. ‘You’re planning to take a place away from the palace, a villa of your own. Lord Nelson resided with you in Naples and he can do so here. If you put the two of them close enough to let their blood boil, nature will do the rest. Then we will see if you are right about your little Jack Tar, or not.’

The feeling that a problem had not necessarily been solved, but at least had been acted upon, was shattered by her last words: ‘And let’s face it, Sir William, it would be no harm havin’ another to share in the expense, what with these Papist heathen charging sinful prices for a place a decent person can lay his head. You needs to preserve what you has when you gets of an age.’

Sir William realised that Nelson was staring at him, that he had been lost in recollection, which made the barbed remark about old age all the more pertinent. ‘I have secured the use of the Villa Bastioni for six months. Naturally my wife and I would be only too happy that you should see it as your home while you are based on the island.’

Nelson did not react, so Sir William carried on, his voice deliberately enthusiastic. ‘I grant it will not be as commodious as the Palazzo Sessa, my friend, but I daresay we will manage.’

‘I had thought to stay aboard ship,’ said Nelson cautiously. ‘It is not uncomfortable in such a well protected harbour.’

Sir William smiled in a way that showed he though the notion absurd. There was no need to add that at this time of year, and with the foul turn of the weather, the whole ship, even Nelson’s well appointed quarters, felt damp. There was a draught coming down the companionway that led from the cabin to the quarterdeck, even though it was secured by a hatch. The stoves in each of the partitioned cabins belched away, yet failed to warm the place. Nor did he say that Nelson would succumb to a chill if he insisted on remaining aboard a berthed vessel.

‘I think you must admit that you would be more at ease on dry land.’

Nelson bit off the temptation to insist that he would not. He had seen Emma every time he had been ashore, but with the protective shield of numerous company only their eyes had met. Hers were often red, from the time she spent weeping with the Queen, who could not reconcile herself to her son’s death. But those shared looks had been troubling.

‘And I must add, my dear Lord Nelson, that my wife will insist. Lady Hamilton is of the opinion, and so I must say am I, that the Palazzo Sessa was never so complete as when you were in residence. It felt, somehow, more of a home.’

Sir William, staring intently at the rock-still Admiral, was convinced he could say no more. If the man could not read between those lines there could be no others to replace them. An open invitation was out of the question; whatever happened between Nelson and Emma, Sir William had his dignity to maintain. Yet he could not help but feel that Nelson, with his lack of social skills, had somehow missed a point as obvious as the proverbial barn door. He was forced, after all, to go further. It has often seemed to me, Lord Nelson, that our fates are inextricably linked, that we are bound together not just by mutual regard, but by circumstances.’

In his mind Sir William was screaming for Nelson to respond, aware as he added the next observation, that he had comprehensively breached the limits of what he been prepared to say when he came aboard. ‘We are, as I pointed out to Lady Hamilton, like the inscription of the knightly order of the Bath we both wear, a
tria juncta
in
uno
.’

When Nelson still failed to respond, Sir William stood up and said, rather testily, ‘I will have my servants prepare your apartments.’

Nelson did speak then, to say maladroitly, ‘You are too kind.’

The Villa Bastioni was a marble summer mansion that stood on a wide statue-covered promenade that ran between its noble facade and a clear view of the sea. It had an air of exterior magnificence, yet inside it seemed a desolate place after the Palazzo Sessa. The vast under-furnished rooms, stone-floored without chimneys or fireplaces, were prey to every draught. With the unusual weather – snow, sleet and a biting cold
tramontana,
a cold north wind that came straight off the ice-covered Alps – the place was freezing. Sir William had placed braziers in some, one being Nelson’s bedroom, but his guest considered himself just as much at threat from chills here as he was aboard ship.

That was until Emma came, wrapped in a heavy velvet cloak, the hood framing her shining hair. Nelson was suddenly reminded of a day in London, at Charing Cross, of the sight of a beauty he had seen heading through a teeming crowd of travellers for a coach, an enchantress he had seen the night before. He had visited a charlatan doctor who had dosed him with electricity to cure a painful arm. Only the discomfort of the treatment had taken his eyes of a scantily clad
vision of a nymph standing in a raised alcove. When he had first met Emma, there had been the faintest feeling of recognition, and he had it again now.

A liveried servant opened the door for her, and she threw Nelson a look of deep longing. That was followed by a glance at Tom Allen, who was unpacking his master’s sea chest. Tom was slow to react, but eventually the meaning of that look penetrated his skull. He slammed the lid of the chest, edged towards the door, tugged at his forelock and left.

An eternity seemed to pass as they stared at each other. Then Emma moved forward, her eyes alight, her hands coming from inside the cloak to take his. The knowledge that contact between them would be his undoing did not stop Nelson’s arm from responding, and as he had known it would, his resistance crumbled.

The need to say something foundered when Emma kissed him full on the lips, then took his hand and slipped it inside her cloak. The feeling of naked flesh was electrifying, as potent as the knowledge that Emma had come to this room with only one purpose. He rested on her hip for only second, moving up first to cup the ample flesh of her breast, which brought a slight moaning gasp. Her hands, expertly working at his breeches produced a corresponding moan from him.

He felt the edge of his sea chest touch the back of his knees, which forced him to sit down heavily, the vision of Emma’s rounded belly before his face. Nelson buried his head in that, his hand pulling to increase the pressure. Emma had straddled the chest and him, moaning incomprehensible endearments behind his head.

The greatest number of charcoal-filled braziers had been placed in a salon without windows, with a semicircle of screens to create a feeling of intimacy. The same people who had been constant visitors to the Hamilton palazzo in Naples were gathered round the table; the Knights, mother and daughter, the painter Angelica Kaufmann, the Prince and Princess Esterhazy. Sir William sat at the head. Cunningly he had placed Emma closer to himself than to Nelson, but with the pair on opposite sides of the table. Thus the Admiral had looked at him every time his wife addressed him, and Sir William could watch his friend’s face unobtrusively as Emma dominated a very light hearted conversation.

Sir William supposed that she and her mother had spoken. He knew his Emma well, that patience was not one of her virtues. On arriving back from the King’s shooting party he had sensed an odd atmosphere in the villa: the way the servants would not meet his eye,
and his valet, not by nature convivial, had seemed more taciturn than usual. As this was an unfamiliar household, he might have read something into innocent acts that did not exist. But he had lived with servants all his life and he knew them to be an infallible barometer of domestic life. Nothing happened in a household that the servants didn’t know about, and it imperilled any master or mistress who forgot that. He had attended law courts aplenty to watch and laugh as everyone from skivvies to head footmen gave evidence of their employers’ shenanigans, which provided grounds for an injured party to win that near impossible prize: a legal divorce.

Seeing Emma in her present mood, he realised how constrained she had been these last four weeks with the proximity of war and the prevalence of death. Now she was quite her old self, in a newly made dress of burgundy silk over white lace, laughing, making risqué sallies, forcing by her sheer brio everyone at the table to share in her good mood. Everyone except a preoccupied Nelson, who could barely smile.

Nelson felt as though he was at sea, with some sixth sense warning him of a threat over the horizon. Emma’s beauty was heightened by the soft light of the candles in a way that he had not seen since the night of his victory banquet. The memory of the afternoon produced remorse and a feeling of radiance in equal measure.

Those emotions had to be suppressed. He knew that, much as his host tried to disguise it, he was under scrutiny. A man raised in the tight confines of a naval wardroom was always conscious of the feelings and surreptitious glances of others. Sir William might suppose himself discreet, but to the sensitive Nelson he was as obvious as a ship’s bell.