Rondo Allegro (27 page)

Duncannon had climbed down, aware of an added sense of
burden.

Anna Maria Ludovisi. He had forgotten her name.

o0o

She woke with a start, vaguely aware of that persistent
bell having rung intermittently through the night. The most recent had been
followed by the deck above her shuddering to the thunder of many running feet.

“Is it war?” Anna asked, sitting upright so fast the bed
swung and jiggled.

“I believe it is their mealtime.” Parrette came to the side
of her bed, glancing over her shoulder as she fingered her hair back. “I think
they are wanting in. Or wanting you to come forth,” she whispered. “I have the
rosebud muslin laid out.”

Anna tried to climb down from the hammock, but fell to her
knees when the bed hitched up behind her at the same moment the floor slanted
away. She picked herself up, her knees smarting, and hurried into her clothes,
breathing easily only when she sat on the trunk so that Parrette could comb her
hair into order. Parrette had scrubbed most of the salt from her slippers, but
they were still unpleasantly damp as she slid her feet in.

“Do you want your half-boots?” Parrette asked.

“No. Those heels might make me slip. I scarcely notice the
wet.”

They looked at one another, and Parrette drew in a deep
breath, her expression anxious as she said in Neapolitan, “These English, they
will turn against you if they think you are not by their lights
comme il faut
. You
cannot
tell them that you earned your wage singing in theaters.”

Anna’s eyelids stung as if gritty, her toes were
unpleasantly cold, and her middle churned with unpleasant urgency. “And if they
do? It will only get me the annulment the faster, no?”

“Your mother,” Parrette uttered in a low, guttural whisper,
“would turn in her grave for the shame. I
know
,
me. You were perhaps too young to take note, but I heard how those English
talked, when I accompanied you and your sainted mother to their church, and
their parties, and I had to wait for you to come forth. They did not think I
understood—none of them knew your mother taught me English. If they think you
are little better than an opera dancer, then that is how they will regard you.
And you will be treated so.”

Opera dancer
. Anna
thought of sweet-natured Hyacinthe, prickly Lise, dear, generous little Helene,
curious Eleanor. Catherine, so adamant about equality and freedom for all. Even
Ninon had been honorable in her own way. “I hate to hear you talk about them as
if—”

Someone scratched insistently at the door, and a man said
loudly, “It’s nigh on eight bells o’ the morning watch. Capting sends his
compliments, and breakfast is served.”

Parrette’s head turned quickly, and she grasped Anna’s
wrists. “Listen! It is not I who have this regard. The English are beasts,
beasts
, with their good birth and their
cold manners! You cannot tell them the truth. Promise you will not.” Her grip
tightened. “On your mother’s heart, on her soul,
promise
.”

Anna longed to shout, to turn away, but Parrette, to whom
she owed so much, was in desperate, even deadly earnest. And so she felt
herself take a step into the lies she hated. “I promise.”

Parrette loosened her grip, rubbed her much-pricked, rough
thumb over the red marks she had made on Anna’s thin wrist, and muttered, “I
beg pardon. But I could never hold up my head again if I failed your mother
now.”

“The marks will fade. What is another lie? Should anyone
ask, I will say you caught me before I fell,” Anna retorted, knowing it was
unfair, but she was indignant enough to step past Parrette, her back straight
and her head up, as she opened the door.

The steward had his hand raised to scratch again. His glower
changed to relief, and he said, “This way, Missus. It’s just a step.”

The dining area was indeed scarcely more than a step, a
small cabin on the other side of the bulkhead from where Anna had been
sleeping. She braced herself in the doorway against the pitch of the ship.

And so husband and wife met once again, each anxious to
understand, and determined to be understood.

Captain Duncannon, waiting within, saw her framed there. The
elegance he had perceived so dimly in his sea-drenched—guest?
Wife
—struck him with all the force of
sunlight now. Bathed in the pure glow streaming from stern windows behind him, she
was more graceful than she had looked the night before.

Artfully tousled curls framed her face. Her gown flattered
her shape with its gently scooped neck under the delicate line of her
collarbones, set between little sleeves. Embroidered rose leaves started at one
straight shoulder and curved over her bosom like a court sash, trailing
slantwise between her hips and down to the flounces around her little slippers.
There was nothing vulgar in the way the intermittent rosebuds enhanced her form—the
very opposite of vulgar—but the overall effect was so . . . so
French
.

He reined his gaze hard, and kept it somewhere above her
curly head as he advanced to welcome her; she stood there becoming more
apprehensive with every heartbeat.

He looked so . . . so formidable, as he paced
toward her and held out his hand, as if he had already condemned her as a spy.
She put her fingers in his, her heart beating in her throat—what was to come
next?—but he merely escorted her to the place of honor at the right of the head
of a very long table.

“Good morning, Madame,” he said as he pulled out her chair
himself. “I trust you slept well?”

“Yes, thank you, Captain Duncannon,” Anna said, with more
politeness than truth. She was thankful that he had seated her to his right,
rather than at the far end of that long table, though what did it mean?

I am a guest. That
must be it.

Parrette was correct. She was being given the treatment of a
lady, though she was not seated where a hostess would go. She must recollect
all the little rules she had once been taught.

As he took his seat, he cast a quick glance at her face. He
could see by the shadows under her eyes how well her sleep had been. Overhead
eight bells rang, and she started.

“I apologize for the rudeness of your wakening,” Captain
Duncannon said with a smile he hoped would set her at ease. “Seven bells is the
time for up hammocks. Eight bells has just rung, and it is now the forenoon
watch, that is, eight o’clock in the morning. I am afraid that our shipboard
life is very much ruled by our clocks.” He indicated the open casement behind
him, and the open sea beyond, on which another ship could be seen a short distance
away. “If you should care to listen from the stern window here, you will hear
the same sound all up and down the line.”

“Line?” she asked. Her diction was careful, her accent as
French as her gown, and the little curls around her face. “The ships sail in a
line, not togessaire, ah, togetaire?”

His lips twitched at her attempt to correct her English. “Two
cables apart, back and forth. I was part of the frigates watching Cadiz, but
the Admiral has requested us to join the ships of the line. We lie well out of
sight of the harbor, in hopes of drawing out the French at last . . .”
He saw complete incomprehension in her face, and mentally set aside his
questions about her presence in Cadiz. Odd, he felt so callow, like a reefer at
his first captain’s breakfast. But the situation was so devilish strange.

“And so a battle is to begin?” She cast a frightened look at
the stern windows, as if she expected cannon balls to smash in that very
moment.

Perkins, hovering with a pot, poured out tea into fine china
cups. Very aware of his listening ears, the captain said, “Why, that will
happen only if the Combined Fleet obliges us by coming out of the bay. But I
expect that before that does happen, my tender will have returned from
Gibraltar with supplies, and we can then send you to safety.”

She relaxed incrementally at this, and turned her attention
to the dish full of a lumpish, grayish soup that the steward set before her.

“I am afraid all I have to offer you is burgoo, but it is
well salted, and you may help yourself to sugar. Some say it adds to the taste.
Most of the midshipmen’s berth would heap it in by trowel, had they the means.
I can, however, promise you a much better meal if the admiral invites us to
dinner aboard the flag, as I expect will happen.”

As he spoke the steward lifted a silver cover shaped like a
bell, revealing the remains of a sugarloaf that reminded her of a near-burnt
candle. She picked up the sugar nip and took a small piece.

The captain ate his burgoo with every evidence of appetite.
Heartened, she tried a small spoonful of her own. It was not as terrible as it
looked. She navigated around the black spots, which she could not determine
were insects or burnt bits, and found it surprisingly easy going down.

“It is much better with milk,” the captain said. “But that
has not been possible these four months—our Nanny-goat died during a hurricano
in the West Indies, and we cannot get milk from the bum boats this far out.”

The questions he wanted to ask—that had seemed so sensible
during the night watches—had evaporated with the first rays of the sun. She sat
within reach, her head a little bent, her fingers holding the cup daintily, a
tiny pucker between her straight brows as she tried not to spill. She ate
neatly, one wrist pressed discreetly to the table when the ship gave a
particularly skittish lee lurch. He could not bring himself to interrogate her
as if she stood before the Court of King’s Bench.

So what could he say? He had never been good with polite
gabble. Emily had twitted him on it, so long ago. From long habit he shook away
the thought of Emily, and ventured a question: “Have you been acquainted with
Admiral Gravina long?”

She looked surprised. “Oh, no. I only met him in the once.”

Her tone seemed genuine, and he mentally reevaluated the few
facts. “I am given to understand that you met, then, at a musical performance?”

“It was after,” she said, and mindful of her promise, bit
back the words
we performed
. “The
occasion was
I riti d’Efeso
, for the
Spanish and French commanders and their guests.”

“Farinelli,” he exclaimed, his furrowed brow clearing. “I
envy you that. I was able to see his
Il Cid della Spagna
when we touched at Venice. It was admirable, admirable, though perhaps my
memory is better than the opera deserves. It was entirely due to Farinelli’s
Don Diego, a tenor named Gaetano Crivelli. He had not even the premier role,
but he was splendid. One of the best I have ever heard. Did you chance to hear
him before you left the peninsula?”

“No, I have not,” she said, uncomfortable again. Surely his
comment presaged close questioning about where she had been.

He had been thinking along a parallel path, but with far
less intent than she dreaded. Gravina, Naples, what could be more natural than
Queen Maria Carolina sending a young friend of Lady Hamilton to royal relations
in Spain when the French threatened yet again. Didn’t those royals pack their
extra females to convents reserved to the high born?

He said, “I take it you have spent time in Spain? They are
not known for their opera, though I protest against your thinking me an expert.
I have never been in Spain.”

“Yes. I have been. Spain is not known for the—one might say,
the creation of opera,” Anna enunciated carefully. “Except in the form of the
zarzuela
, which is, one could say, more,
ah, speak? Speech?”

“Recitation,” he offered, smiling.

“Like the French! I ought to know this, me. The early
zarzuela
is more recitation than song,
with a prodigious amount of the Spanish dance. The last opera presented in
Spain, I was given to understand, was
Clementina
,
by Boccherini, and that twenty years ago.”

He nodded encouragingly, secretly as amused by her French
accent as by the quaintness of her English. Some of her expressions reminded
him of his parents’ generation, from the days of towering wigs and satin coats.
“But,” she continued when he made an encouraging gesture, “the Spanish are
passionate about opera, even so. The theater in Seville is monstrous vast,
beautiful, and prodigious well attended. Even in summer, when there was not so
much a breathing of air.” Again she strayed near the truth, and forced herself
to halt.

“You have been in Seville, I collect?” he asked.

“Yes. A much, ah, most beautiful city. One apprehends the
palace as the beautifullest one has ever seen.”

So she’d been sequestered in Seville? He rather thought he
had the gist of it, and without coming it high-handed, without sounding like a
prosecutor in wig and robes. Collingwood must be satisfied. Even the French
fashion explained itself, for were the two nations not allies at present?

And as for his personal interest in the matter, he could
stand before any archbishop and swear the truth, that their marriage had been
unconsummated. Perhaps he was going to scrape through this affair with far less
trouble than he had feared twenty-four hours earlier.

His mood eased considerably on this comfortable thought.
She, seeing that smooth brow, felt less oppressed and they finished breakfast
conversing, if not with ease, at least with no awkward silences as the subjects
of music, favorite composers, famous actors and singers heard and seen, all
passed under review.

They had both heard Mrs. Billington, though at different
times. He was impressed by Anna’s knowledge, but then she had been bred up in
Naples, where it was well known that the great Paisiello had charge of the
royal entertainments. Of course she would possess a high degree of musical refinement.

As they brought the meal to a close, he made a mental note
not to embarrass her with his customary quartet; their awkward adaptations of
Bach’s string quartets for clarinet and flute would only be laughable to so
knowledgeable an ear.