‘I could not tell you if we shall, Mother, given that our handsome visitor has done no more than introduce himself.’
Pearce was good with women, especially those whom he found alluring. Emma Hamilton’s words and manner were, he was sure, designed to fluster him into a nervous response, not from any malice, but just the natural element of a status game he had played often before, so he smiled, and turned to indicate her portrait.
‘Lady Hamilton, I am so very pleased to meet you. I was just looking at the portrait, and seeing you in the flesh I am much taken with the likeness.’
The green eyes flickered slightly, as if she was amused. ‘In what respect, sir?’
‘Why, I am amazed that, given it must have been painted some years ago, there is no dissimilarity between subject and depiction.’
‘So you are telling me, sir, in naval parlance, that I have weathered well?’
‘I am telling you, milady, that I was struck by the beauty of the portrait, and I am even more struck by the reality of the person who sat for it.’
A snort from Mrs Cadogan was an inelegant testimony to her thoughts on that exchange, but Emma Hamilton laughed. ‘Mother, I see we have with us a fellow well versed in the art of repartee; not, I have to say, Lieutenant, a common attribute of most of the sailors who visit us.’
‘Then, milady, I can only assume them struck dumb by your beauty.’
God, she takes a compliment well, he thought. Many a creature would have blushed at such a flattering remark; she merely dropped her head slightly to hide a grin, accepting a comment she must have been in receipt of many times in her life.
‘Wine, sir,’ growled Emma’s mother, who had clearly allotted herself the role of chaperone and, from her expression, saw the need to exercise it.
Pearce gave her his most engaging smile. ‘Delighted, madam, and might I add that there is no doubt from where Lady Hamilton acquired her looks.’
‘Have a care with it, sir,’ Lady Hamilton added, in what was clearly a double entendre. ‘We are referring to a robust brew, stronger than the norm.’
He had to respond, but he also had to ignore the warning to take care with the mother. ‘My captain visited the fleet anchorage as soon as we anchored this morning, milady. Having been royally entertained, I would say he has found out already that in such things moderation is a necessity.’
Twin furrows appeared above her nose. ‘You are not the ship’s captain?’
‘No.’
‘How singular, sir. It is usual for the senior officer on a ship to present his compliments to my husband’s office.’
‘Which I am sure he will be delighted to do once he has recovered sufficiently. But I am here on a special undertaking, which is why I have called instead of he. I need to see your husband as soon as humanly possible.’
‘Regarding what, sir?’
‘I am afraid, milady, that is for Sir William’s ears alone.’
For the first time since her entering the room John Pearce saw that there was steel as well as good humour in his hostess. Those green eyes flashed with irritation, momentarily for sure, but unmistakably.
‘You will find, sir, that my husband and I work in harmony. Indeed, he would tell you himself, if he were here, that he would find his office burdensome without my considerable aid.’
Pearce sought to keep his tone emollient; it made no odds if what she said was true or false, no good would come of upsetting the spouse of the man he needed. ‘And I must respond, milady, with some regret, by saying that my instructions are quite specific.’
‘Instructions from whom?’
‘Alas, I am not even at liberty to reveal that.’
If such a response annoyed her, she covered it well. ‘Am I allowed to enquire from where you have come?’
That was a clever gambit and it presented Pearce with a dilemma: to refuse to answer would reek of excessive obfuscation, yet to reply would be as good as admitting who had sent him. It took him several seconds to actually respond, and the reason he was open seemed to him a logical one: he was in danger of making an enemy of Lady Hamilton, and that could do nothing whatever to aid his mission.
‘Toulon, milady.’
Expecting her to respond with the name of Lord Hood, he was surprised and gratified when she said nothing. To anyone with a modicum of a brain – and he suspected Emma Hamilton might be a lot brighter than that – the connection would be obvious. Also, although she had nodded at the name of the place, it was clear by her slightly puzzled expression that she was thinking through the import of what he had said, and what she had extrapolated from it.
‘Lieutenant, please be seated.’ As Pearce moved to a chair to do so, Emma sat down herself on a chaise, speaking over her shoulder. ‘Mother, I think we need to be left alone.’
That got a look which rendered the matriarch’s features exceedingly gravid, and a growl was heard, albeit one locked in her throat. But she obliged, though the door was not closed behind her with anything approaching gentility.
The sound of it slamming made Emma Hamilton laugh, and she leant forward to confide in Pearce. ‘She still sees me as a child, Lieutenant, and fears to leave me alone in strange male company.’
Pearce merely smiled in acknowledgement; he knew from experience not to enter into discussions about a person’s relatives before having a full picture of how they saw each other. He had known folk furiously defend a person they had just damned, blood generally being thicker than water. Not receiving any response, Emma Hamilton sat back and looked at him quizzically, and when she spoke, her voice had a hint of a flirt in it.
‘I see I shall have to work hard to draw you out, Mr Pearce, given you seem reluctant to be forthcoming.’
His hostess could not know she had entered into a game in which her visitor was well practised; coming to manhood in Revolutionary Paris, John Pearce had dallied with many a beauty, exchanged bon mots with acknowledged wits of both sexes, enjoyed a lasting liaison with a beautiful aristocratic mistress, moving from shy, impressed youth, to an accomplished social animal. When it came to flirting, he had learnt well.
‘It is in my nature to be reticent, Lady Hamilton, in the face of such loveliness as you possess, lest my attraction should allow my tongue to run away with itself.’
‘Something tells me, Lieutenant Pearce, that your tongue only runs when you tell it to do so, and I am sure, when employed to the full, it is highly effective.’
There was a definite sexual innuendo in the way she said that and he took no offence at her aim; she was trying to use her feminine wiles to seduce him just enough to get him to open up and tell her about his mission. Emma Hamilton knew she was striking, and took it for granted he found her so, so she would play a little, hoping to draw him into an indiscretion based on his desire to please a woman whom he would surely love to bed. Having made that play, she waited for him to respond, and when he did not, merely holding her gaze without any expression of his own, she burst out laughing, a sound both musical in its tone and coarse in its stridency.
‘I can see that particular ploy will not suffice.’
‘Ploy, milady?’ Pearce enquired, deliberately looking baffled.
‘I am gratified to see you have the manners to pretend you did not spot it for what it was. I see now I shall have to be serious, and treat you with a degree of respect.’
‘I am sure I would appreciate that, milady.’
She stood and began to pace around, though there was no agitation in her gait. ‘I will send a message asking that my husband return to Naples, but he cannot be here quickly since he must first gain the sovereign’s permission to depart, and since King Ferdinand has a great deal of affection for Sir William, and sees him as the ideal companion in the hunt, that may not be immediately forthcoming.’
‘Is there any way in which I can express the urgency of my meeting him, without being open about the purpose?’
‘So he can impress that upon the king?’ Pearce nodded, and Emma Hamilton shoo
k her head. ‘You do not know Ferdinand. The man is like a child, with an infant’s petulance. He is addicted to two things, the seduction of young women and the mass slaughter of innocent beasts.’ That brought forth a full smile. ‘Perhaps the two are not so dissimilar, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I was informed Queen Caroline ran the government.’
‘Then you were informed correctly.’
She sat down again, folded her hands together, and her face took on a serious look.
‘I am going to tell you, sir, that when it comes to the queen, I am an intimate friend; indeed there is hardly a day when I do not see her, and hardly a day when I do not entertain her children. I would go as far as to say she confides in me, to the extent, for instance, that I know, weary of being brought to bed with child, one of her main tasks is to find suitable substitutes for a husband who has too much warm blood in his veins. The man is insatiable. Never mind his royal offspring, the king has sired enough bastards to man a hundred-gun ship.’
‘Milady, I fail—’
She cut right across him. ‘If you have come from Toulon on a mission which can only be related to Sir William, it has to do with some request you require to put to the government of the Court of Naples, am I correct?’
Pearce made a non-committal gesture, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
‘Lord Hood has chosen well,’ she said.
‘You are sure I come from Lord Hood?’
‘Who else? He commands at Toulon. If something is needed, he is the person who would send the request, as he has done once already by means of Captain Nelson, and given what we hear from there through the dispatches from the commander of the Neapolitan forces, Prince Pignatelli, it would not take a genius to work out what any request from Lord Hood might contain.’
‘You read the dispatches from the Neapolitan commander?’
Emma Hamilton made a gesture, as though the answer was obvious. ‘The queen shows them to me, and seeks my opinion.’
His reply, given his own lack of martial knowledge, was tinged with a degree of hypocrisy. ‘You have military training too?’
‘I detect, Lieutenant, a degree of condescension in that remark. I merely underlined those readings to press upon you that I enjoy the full trust of Queen Caroline, as much, if not more than, my husband.’
‘I feel, milady, you are about to suggest something.’
‘Of course I am, but first I am going to tell you the reason why the queen places so much trust in my opinion.’
The grounds for that were too obvious. ‘Could it be that she mistrusts the opinions of others?’
Emma Hamilton smiled at an intelligent gambit, which removed from her the need for much explanation. ‘The queen has an efficient set of secret informers who tell her of anything which might threaten her position. How much, Mr Pearce, do you know about the Revolution?’
The answer, ‘a great deal more than you’, remained unsaid. ‘Enough.’
‘Enough to know how much it affects matters in Naples?’
‘I confess, no.’
‘Then let me tell you, sir. There is a strong body of republican sentiment in this city. To an outsider it looks like a contented place. The sun shines, the markets groan under plentiful produce from the surrounding countryside, there are abundant fish in the sea. Yet it is the nature of man to create so many mouths to feed that some must starve, and that is so in Naples. But it is not the hungry that present the problem, as in Paris, it is those who should know better: members of the nobility, wealthy men engaged in trade, freemasons, who surely know that to let out the beast is to lose control of it.’
She stopped, looked wistful for a moment, and stood to pace again, before continuing.
‘I saw the king and queen of France when we passed through Paris in the year ’91, after my marriage to Sir William. My dear, sweet Queen Caroline’s sister looking forlorn, and the king bemused, it broke my heart.’
‘Naples, milady,’ Pearce said, evenly.
He too had seen Marie Antoinette and King Louis, just after they had been fetched back from their attempt to flee the country, but he would not have had the same over romantic response. He was enough of his father’s son to see that they had brought their predicament upon themselves, while also being enough of his father’s son to have been sure the way to treat them did not include decapitation, or any other form of execution.
‘There are powerful men here who would do to Ferdinand and Caroline the same as that meted out to the French royals. There are men here who work, as we speak, to undermine the monarchy, quite a few of them in the councils of the queen herself. You might ask why she does not dismiss them.’
‘I would guess, then, they are more dangerous outside her councils than inside them.’
‘What is it you want from the queen, Mr Pearce?’
‘What I want is for her ears only.’
‘Troops, cannon, powder and shot, food, it cannot be other than that. Shall I tell you what the queen wants?’
‘Please do.’
The response was loud and sharp. ‘She wants to keep her head, sir! She wants to see the surviving children she has borne grown to become adults in freedom, and to come into their estate. She wishes for a prosperous and secure kingdom, so I will advise you if you have any requests to make to Her Majesty they be couched in such a manner as to reflect those concerns. Do you speak German?’
‘No.’
‘The queen is Austrian and I can tell you she does not speak a word of English.’
‘May I ask, how do you communicate with her, milady?’
Emma Hamilton spun round then, her eyes really flashing with deep passion for the first time. ‘Everyone who comes to Naples expects to meet someone who should never aspire to be more than a serving wench. I take some pleasure in shocking them with my accomplishments.’
‘The queen, I am sure, will be comfortable in French.’
‘As am I, but we generally converse in German or Italian.’
John Pearce was caught in a dilemma: Hood had made it clear that time was of the essence, indeed he had hinted that a mere few weeks either way in such a tight situation might make a difference. Sir William Hamilton, his entrée to the royal presence, was not here, and might not be for some time. Could he believe the man’s wife, or was she just puffing up her position and abilities to impress him? That would only make sense if it was habitual – an act she performed with whoever called. Was that the case? After all, she had just alluded to the constrained circumstances of her own background, though she had neatly sidestepped her more common reputation as a high-paid harlot.
If Emma Hamilton was accustomed to be recognised and treated as a beauty she was also, he was sure, even more accustomed to being the butt of condescension. Those visitors to Naples who saw her as an arriviste tart who had married above her natural station would heap this on her, and constant exposure to such attitudes would make anyone defensive. Was he not, himself, often subjected to something similar?
‘What would you say, Lieutenant, if I was to tell you that if you put a request to the queen, she will ask my advice on the merits of what you say.’
The disbelief in his voice was deliberate. ‘You alone?’
‘No.’
That negative came with another engaging smile, evidence that she had taken no offence at so palpable a correction. What he would ask for must at some point go before the inner members of her council, those she could trust, yet Pearce was wise enough in the ways of the world to know how often people in power relied more on the advice of a confidant, rather than those whose position alone elevated them to the status of counsellor, which could either be a positive thing or the opposite.
The opinion of Queen Caroline when she met with her council would be paramount. If she were ill-disposed towards the matter under discussion it would be dead in the water; if in favour, only strong voices and sound reasoning would dissuade her. As for discretion, Hood worried about a rebuff becoming public and undermining him, not
an agreement to send him reinforcements.
‘I can get you an audience with the queen, Mr Pearce.’ To his questioning eyebrows she continued, ‘But first I have to be sure what you wish to lay before her is a matter important enough for me to trade upon our close association.’
‘So we come full circle, Lady Hamilton.’
‘We do. Lord Hood wants help and I would hazard that he feels it can only come from Naples. That it is a secret you must keep from me means he is acting in a manner which might alarm others, might even lead them to consider the worth of their own present commitments. Am I right?’
There was no point in denying it, and as he hesitated, just enough to ensure it appeared an answer was being dragged from him, he was forced to acknowledge that the ambassador’s wife had correctly and very cleverly deduced the purpose of his mission. At the same time, Pearce was not prepared to go overboard; once he mentioned Toulon and Lord Hood, anyone with a decent brain could have followed logically to the conclusion Emma Hamilton had reached. What was interesting was something else altogether; the way he had heard her spoken about in the past. She was reputed to have no brains at all.
‘More troops are needed to both bolster the defence and to allow for a general assault that would stand some hope of success. Lord Hood has petitioned the government in London for those troops but they are not, apparently, to be had.’
‘Something, I would guess, he is disinclined to pass on to his allies.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘All the submissions so far made to the Court of Naples have been based on a strong contingent of redcoats being sent from England.’
‘Then I cannot see how I am to overcome the surprise when I tell the queen that is not the case—’
‘And,’ Emma Hamilton interrupted, ‘that the Neapolitan forces already in Toulon are therefore in greater danger than at first proposed.’ Since such an obvious conclusion required no answer, Pearce waited for her to continue. ‘I told you the queen fears for her head. Therefore any request put to her must be soundly based on the notion that the frontiers of her kingdom lie with the defence of Toulon. Lose that place and all Italy is threatened.’
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