Free The Perils of Command by David Donachie Page A

or reference to a mister, she ran the establishment for the Chevalier in a way that occasioned from him much praise. Prior to her arrival as escort to Emma, he was open in his admission that those he employed to care for him had, since he had become a widower, run rings round his attempts at husbandry.
    The temptation to snap at Emma Hamilton and berate her for stating the obvious had to be concealed; both he and Emily were still in her house and her debt for the level of hospitality they enjoyed. Added to that, Pearce was never going to accede to his lover going back to her husband and he might need the good offices of another woman to make his case.
    ‘The law leaves us both in a parlous state.’
    ‘It does indeed: paternity is no match for conjugal rights.’
    The way that was imparted hinted at some past sadness, lacking as it did her usual ability to manufacture a double entendre. There was also no gainsaying what she had stated: it mattered not who was the actual father of Emily’s child, Ralph Barclay had privileges that transcended bloodlines. As her wedded husband he could take the child from its mother and do with it what he wished, while in the process denying Emily bed, sustenance and a roof over her head.
    Marriage was an estate that massively favoured the male. If a man managed to wed a wealthy woman, her money, unless special entails had been placed upon it in inheritance, became his to do with as he wished. The gossip of the town was replete with tales of seedy rakes gambling away a wife’s fortune at the card table.
    That it was a bad thing seemed beyond doubt yet, standing on this balcony now, it seemed absurd to recall that whenhis father had called for equality before the law regardless of gender and the denial of rights, much of the howling in protest came from the women he wished to help. Right of this moment it seemed he was faced with some of the same kind of stubbornness.
    ‘I need to persuade her that what she proposes to do is folly.’
    ‘While a woman carrying a baby is not always in a position to be wise.’
    ‘You do agree, milady?’
    ‘I did think we had progressed beyond such formality.’
    That got a nod but no name; Pearce was cautious of being too intimate with this woman, who took pleasure in ensnaring men which she then displayed as trophies, though there was no more than that in his reluctance. Emily had been quite explicit: accounts of infidelity to the Chevalier, in a city where to indulge in extra liaisons would have been simple, were notable by their absence even as rumour.
    For all her flirting and the attentions she received on a daily basis there was not even a hint of scandal attached to her name. It was something to be remarked upon that a woman with such a chequered reputation was by all accounts utterly faithful to her much older spouse.
    ‘I need to formulate some plan to confound her intention.’
    ‘Do you look forward to the birth of the child?’
    ‘Who could not?’
    ‘You will smoke why I ask the question?’ A sad nod. ‘There is a certain type of creature in a place like Naples who can facilitate a solution.’
    ‘Something to which Emily would never agree. Neither, I think, could I seek to change her mind for my heart would scarce be in it.’
    ‘Perhaps you could persuade her that a sea voyage risks harm to the child and may bring on that very result.’
    ‘At such an early stage?’
    The response was snappy. ‘How ignorant you men are! That is the time at which a pregnant woman is most vulnerable. Coax her to wait on those grounds, which will give you time to perhaps change her mind.’
    In his pacing Pearce had not been idle and that conclusion he had already arrived at. Emily was unaware that Ralph Barclay was in the Mediterranean, a fact he had deliberately kept from her so as to avoid her worrying that he might turn up in Naples. It could not be that he was in these waters by accident – the coincidence would be too acute – which meant that