Free England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton by Kate Williams Page A

her, but they joked about her and implied she could be passed between them. In Sir Harry's view, he had paid for her services, and she should reward his investment by being always engaging and enthusiastic. Low spirits and headaches annoyed him. Increasingly, Emma was sent off to the house in the grounds because he had visitors he did not wish her to meet. Always shy of emotional commitment, Sir Harry was too busy having fun in the 1780s to worry about a needy teenage mistress.
    In search of sympathy, Emma began to strike up a friendship with a man she had previously overlooked: Charles Greville, second son of the Earl of Warwick and MP for Warwick, in the Midlands. Older and much poorer than Sir Harry's friends, he hated hunting and had very little in common with his brash host other than an enthusiasm for Italy and faith in Charles James Fox. Neither rich nor good-looking, he was thirty-two, still unmarried, and excluded from circles of power at Westminster and the London social set. Greville was a forgettable type of man—the wallpaper of a party rather than its life and soul. Sir Harry and his young blades tolerated him but laughed him off as an oddball and ignored him outright when he talked about his collections of minerals, and they were utterlybaffled by his hatred of hunting. Once Greville thought lovely Miss Lyon might pay him some attention, he made every effort to spend time with her, lagging behind the hunt with her and no doubt staying back at the house when she did. Excited by the idea of a secret intimacy, he was soon in love with Sir Harry's glamorous mistress.
    Emma began to look forward to spending time with this shy, serious man whom the others shunned. In London he socialized with painters and art collectors, and after her work as a model Emma wanted to know more about art. As Sir Harry's interest in her began to wane a little, she welcomed Greville's attention and flirted terribly with him, singing for him, begging his opinion, and hanging on his every word. He called her Emily, a pet name, and when Sir Harry sent her away from the house for a particularly long period, she even traveled up to London to visit him. Soon, however, her thoughts about any kind of new relationship were superseded by a more serious worry. By the summer of 1781, Emma was beginning to suspect that she might be pregnant.

CHAPTER 13

Desperate Letters
    E mma's child with Sir Harry was conceived in late June or early July. She could have purchased contraceptives by post from Madam Kelly or when she and Harry visited London, but perhaps she had not used them. Men hated the uncomfortable, ill-fitting condoms and complained that contraceptive sponges felt as big as apples. They also found the ritual of douching unromantic. Emma was not in a position to make any demands of Sir Harry. But perhaps—since she was careful never to fall pregnant again until she met Nelson—Emma had, even if only subconsciously, hoped that a child might encourage Sir Harry to formalize their arrangement, perhaps even to marry her. More eminent men than he had wed demimondaines. Sir Harry's reactions, however, could be hard to predict. Initially, Emma kept her suspicions about her condition a secret. In the autumn of 1781, Sir Harry made plans to return to London for the season and to attend Parliament. Feeling vulnerable, Emma probably promised to be sweet and uncomplaining, and in return Harry decided to make her his permanent mistress and to set her up in lodgings in London, presumably after paying a large release fee to Madam Kelly. Emma's efforts had been rewarded. She would never have to return to St. James. The Uppark records show that Fetherstonhaugh's estate included a number of large houses in the Strand, which rented for between £20 and £60 per half year. 1 He may well have allocated Emma an apartment in one of these. There she would have to wait, looking out onto the bustling street that had been her first sight of London only a few years