Rondo Allegro by Sherwood Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

bargain better
than you will be able to.”
    Anna agreed, adding, “I will keep only the pearl ear drops
Lady Hamilton gave me when I first sang for her Attitudes, and my mother’s
trinkets. They would not bring much, anyway.”
    o0o
    At the same time that Anna and Parrette embarked on the
arduous journey to Paris, on the far side of the Atlantic, Captain Duncannon
received word of his promotion to post captain. Overjoyed, he did not mind
being ordered to hand over the Danae to another man and return to England. He was promised command of a frigate
recently bought into the service.
    He spared a thought to Naples, trusting that no
communication arriving with his new orders meant that matters were in train as
promised.
    But in Naples, as servants labored to load Sir William’s
collection of antiquities and art into the hold of a ship, in a small room over
an inn not far from the legation, several men labored to sort through a mass of
papers. The erstwhile Mr. Jones sat among them, deftly unsealing letters and
reading them.
    He had made three piles: those to be sent on as was, those
to be copied by one of the young clerks at the far table before being resealed,
and those he consigned to the fire.
    Presently he came to Anna’s carefully written missive, which
brought memory of the entire affair rushing back.
    He set the letter down to consider. Nelson was about to
strike his flag and return to England. If Lord Keith had his way, Nelson would
never sail again, but in any case his influence was diminishing fast. Troubridge
had made it plain that his own portion of the wretched business had ended with
supplying a suitable captain. After that it was Whitehall’s problem.
    Mr. Jones tapped the letter against his fingers, then rose
and crossed to the far room, where his superior was instructing a young man
carrying a dispatch case. The young man wheeled about and departed.
    “What is it?”
    Mr. Jones eyed his superior, whose tired, embittered
countenance did not encourage speech. In silence he held out the letter.
    The senior agent had operated under many names over the
years, but none of them were aristocratic. In his secret heart, he sometimes
thought that the French had had the right of it, words he would never speak
aloud.
    He threw the letter back. “What of it? Duncannon is the son
of a wealthy baron. Send it on, and let him settle his own affairs.”
    “With respect, sir,” Jones said smoothly. “He is the son of
a wealthy baron, as you say, and much cherished by Fremantle. He could raise
exactly the sort of stink we do not want, if we renege on our promises.”
    The senior agent’s rancor had originated in what he believed
an inescapable truth: that a man of parts could not get ahead because of his
birth. That virulence left no thought for those he considered beneath him. “ Lady Hamilton,” he said with scornful
emphasis. “We might have supposed no better from the likes of her. Why did we
have to make promises at all?”
    Jones, scenting the cloud of blame heading his way, said
with an earnest air, “We had to act precipitously, with whatever means we had
at hand. And we gained the knowledge needed at that moment.”
    “In a disgraceful caper that ought never to have happened.
Folly, sheer folly.” The chief agent picked up Anna’s letter. “Leave it to me.
You will soon be Mr. Simison of Halifax, on the King’s business in North
America. We will deal with this here.”
    In relief, Mr. Jones departed from the office, and thence
from this history, leaving his chief to scowl down at the letter. Irritation
boiled up into righteous anger.
    They had carried out their orders, but he understood the
ways of the world. If this missive prompted Duncannon to send off a hot
complaint to the First Admiral before the new legation and its staff came in,
he knew who would catch the blame.
    He picked up the letter and stood over the fire. The stiff
formality of the wording made it plain that the girl was not in the habit