"Were Sir William to allow me? Thank you, Sir William, I am honoured by your condescension. Lady Emma, then," he experimented, with a smile. "Uhm, you say His Majesty is not too formal…?"
"The most unassumin' monarch ever you did see, Alan," she cried boldly. "Goes about the town afoot, on his own half the time, chatting up just anyone of his subjects he comes across. For a Spanish Bourbon… what you call a stiff-necked don…!"
"Emma, really," Sir William interjected, merely pretending to be scandalised.
"His people love him, and he truly loves theml" she prattled on, all but squirming on her coach seat. "He gives them festa, form, et farina. Oh, see how much Italian you're learning, Alan? Festa, forza et farina… festivals, force and flour. For bread and pasta. There are some think it boorish, but he realises there's more commoners than rich, and if the commoners… the lazzarone … support him, then his crown is safe. And, of course, what he calls the other three pillars of his reign… church, crown and mob. Heavens! So much to relay, and so little time, Hamilton," she said, almost breathless in her haste. "Quite another reason King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina are dead set against the revolutionaries… they're Catholic monarchs, in a Catholic country, and not only did the Republicans supplant royalty when the king and Queen Marie Antoinette were beheaded… the French are preaching atheism! All sorts of vague, humanist prattle… Deist at best! All the churches turned into Temples of Man… priests thrown out, called to the armies to get them out of the way… churches closed, and rich properties seized for the state… it is a pity, Hamilton, that Alan cannot be presented to Maria Carolina."
"I believe she is in the last weeks of her confinement, Lady Emma? And in grief over her royal sister's… murder."
"Exactly. God, you should see her. Big as a housel" Emma hooted with earthy good humour. "But, were you to meet her, and get to see her resolve, her mind, Alan… you'd meet one of the most formidable women in Europe, she's so…"
"Ah, we're here," Sir William announced as their coach jangled to a halt. And with the slightest sound of relief from his wife's enthusiasm in his voice. "I will, of course, alight first, sir. Would you be so good, once you have done likewise, as to hand Lady Hamilton down?"
"Like the Navy, Sir William? Seniors last in, first out?" Alan snickered. "It will be my pleasure to assist Lady Hamilton."
Dear God, I hope so, he thought, giving her what he also hoped was the sort of significant grin that had worked in his past. Coarse and too damn' forward she might be, but she was, by that very nature, damned intriguing and exotically exciting. Like Naples itself.
He slid near the door, waiting for the tall Sir William to set foot on the iron coach step, to plant his shoes on the ground and move far enough away to give him room to alight. He was taking his own, old sweet, arthritic time about it. Lewrie glanced meaningfully to her once more as she gathered her skirts.
She lowered her gaze slowly, in what looked to be a most covert nod of agreement. Slowly she glanced out the windows of the coach, to Sir William, who was huffing, grimacing and accepting the arm of a liveried postillion boy. She looked back to Lewrie just as slowly, smiling a bashful smile over her husband's infirmities, as if to say, "What may one do?" Then inclined her head to one side, ever so slightly, presenting a strong yet graceful neck. Her gaze became less bashful, turned forward and bold. She appraised him, cocked hat to well-blacked shoes. And gave him another brow-lifted nod of acceptance.
Thankee, Jesus, we're aboard, Lewrie thought triumphantly!
He alit at last, once there was space enough, and reached in to hand her down safely, in front of what appeared to be a most plebeian fried-fish shop. Her silk-hosed ankles winked for a dizzying moment as she emerged. She took his offered hand, and as she departed their coach (with only moderate grace) she gave his fingers a firm and intimate squeeze, and both their grasps lingered far longer than his gentlemanly task demanded.
"Old Nosey's a caution, Alan," she whispered, leaning close to his head in final warning; using that final warning as an excuse for a public intimacy. "A bit on the loud side. A touch… vulgar… for what most deem acceptable behaviour for royalty. More exuberant than British visitors are wont. I'd tell you more, but time does not admit it."
"Perhaps later, Lady Emma?" Alan suggested, almost leering now. "I'm asea, with need of tutoring. And you the most capable. And the most handsome."
"I expect you have very little need of tutoring, Alan," she said with a light laugh, which quickly became a full-throated guffaw. "Come. Be presented."
And she brushed past him to join her husband, leaving him wondering if she'd been teasing after all, and had just laughed all his lustful pretensions to scorn.
Chapter 5
King Ferdinand the Fourth was a touch more than crude. II Re Lazzarone was as vulgar as a horse-coper. For a moment Lewrie was not sure which of the low figures in the cook shop he was, until a tall, beaky fellow came from behind the counter, dressed in a flamboyantly figured black-and-silver waist-coat, silk shirt and laced stock, in fawn breeches and gleaming top boots. He wore a white publican's apron, which he cast aside as he approached.
Sir John Acton presented him, then stood in as translator. A moment later, after the latest news had been digested, Lewrie ended up in a bear hug, being bussed on both cheeks over and over, lifted off his feet, and danced round the cook shop, as a pack of wastrels and idlers cheered lustily.
"His Majesty cannot express his joy upon learning…" Sir John condensed for him.
"He's doin' main-well, consid'rin', Sir John…" Lewrie muttered as he tried to maintain an innocent, unabashed fool's face as the ruddy-featured monarch jounced him around.
"… this vow made by His Britannic Majesty, now fulfilled… the prowess of British arms…"
"Uhm, speakin' of arms, Your Excellency…?"
King Ferdinand the Fourth set him down at last, clapped him hard on both shoulders, and rattled off a positive flood of Italian.
"He offers to feed you now," Acton concluded.
And then, in a run-of-the-mill cook shop, not much grander than a coffeehouse, chophouse or tavern back home, he was sat at a red-and-white chequered table, with a prime minister, an ambassador and his lady, had a glass of wine shoved into his hands, and was presently presented with soft breadsticks and an assorted plate of sliced cheeses and meats by the very hands of a king. A remarkably florid and ugly king, he thought; but a king, nonetheless. The experience was nearly as heady as the wine, a rough but full-bodied local vintage, fruity yet dry. It went devilish-well with the strips of ham and sausage rounds and the cheeses.
The place was festooned with hunting trophies; boars' heads and stags, shaggy horned mountain goats, bears, lynx, stuffed geese or ducks.
"His Majesty adores the hunt, do you see, sir," Acton explained.
"Ah, si," King Ferdinand agreed, followed by another linguistic avalanche, to which Lewrie could but nod and smile, a breadstick near his middle chest, wondering if one could partake as long as a king was talking. And the smell of frying fish, broiling fish, the tang of oil and garlic, onion and God knew what else, the smoke from the grill like a thin mist overhead, the very rafters redolent with rapturous…!
"Mangia, His Majesty says. Do not stand on ceremony. Eat!" Acton encouraged. "Marvelous big hunts, His Majesty stages, sir. Whole villages for beaters… with the gun… with the lance… with the sword he takes his prey," Acton relayed, cocking his head towards his monarch to catch it all. "Thousands of beasts, thousands of birds has he taken, signore tenente. His Majesty believes, the bigger the slaughter, bigger the 'bag,' the better, ha ha!"