Rondo Allegro by Sherwood Smith Read Free Book Online

won a spectacular battle against the
French man-of-war Genereux . But a
great portion of his fleet, including Captain Duncannon, remained at sea at the
other end of the Mediterranean, and hard on that came the astounding news that
Sir William had been recalled to London.
    Everybody and everything was in an uproar.
    Parrette kept her worries behind closed lips until she was
told by the palace steward that the legation was soon to depart, and Anna must
either depart with them, or find somewhere else to live. No, there was no Mr.
Jones at the legation, and never had been.
    Anna, on hearing that, ran straight to the legate’s house,
where she spent the rest of the day in a crowded antechamber waiting for an
interview.
    It was very late that night when at last Lady Hamilton’s
maid summoned her to the lady’s powder room. While Lady Hamilton clasped
diamonds at her throat and ears, and her personal maid finished arranging her
hair, Anna explained what the steward had said.
    Lady Hamilton looked sorrowful. “My dear, there is simply
nothing to be done! Here, take this.” She unclasped the bracelet from her arm,
and handed it to Anna. “Alas, Sir William’s affairs are all in a muddle, and
his health is wretched. This is one reason why the dear Admiral has generously
offered to carry him, and of course myself, as his devoted nurse, on a
repairing cruise to Malta. Once Sir William has regained his strength, Queen
Maria Carolina is pressing him to keep his promise of conveying the royal
family from Palermo to Leghorn. We are already too crowded. There is not an
inch of room to spare! If you have not yet heard from your captain, why do you
not speak to the queen about an appointment? I am truly sorry, but even dear
Lord Nelson can do little at present, not with Lord Keith as his most
determined enemy.”
    Anna departed tired and worried. When she reached the
palace, Parrette was sitting by their single window with her sewing.
    Once Anna had related the news, Parrette said firmly, “You
must write to The Captain.”
    “But he is so far away,” Anna said. “And we have heard
nothing at all. I have been thinking. It seems to me that he has forgotten.”
She sighed, then admitted, “I was listening to the talk while I waited, and it
seems some of these captains are not all they should be. Who is to say that he
has not done as M. Duflot did? Perhaps he already possesses a wife somewhere
impossibly far away, such as Scotland?”
    Parrette bit her lip. One of the many sins that her wretch
of a husband had committed, she had discovered before she left France, was that
he had another wife in Marseilles. Anna had learnt that by accident, before her
parents discovered how much Italian she understood. “I think you owe it to him
to report that the Hamiltons have abandoned you. He made a promise before God.
It is his duty to keep it.”
    “I will write to him, but I’ll also talk to Maestro
Paisiello,” Anna said. “I would as lief work in the theater at any event.”
    “No,” Parrette stated, her arms crossed. “You promised
Signora Eugenia you would never stoop to taking wages in the theater. A lady
cannot do that, especially in England.”
    Anna nodded slowly, thinking of the horrid things that she
had read in Mama’s cherished English newspapers about Mrs. Billington, the
great soprano, who earned her living as a singer. Then she crossed her arms,
mirroring Parrette’s own gesture. “It seems I am not going to England. I must live somewhere, and on what?”
    She walked in brow-furrowed puzzlement to the music chambers
behind the royal theater, where she encountered Signora Paisiello, who was busy
stitching costumes.
    “The maestro is away getting those new music sheets printed.
What clouds the brow of our angel?” the signora asked.
    Anna began to relate her bad news. To her vast surprise, she
had only got a few sentences in when the signora exclaimed, “So!”
    The signora raised her needle, resettled her wig, and