The Rape of Venice Read online

  Roger looked puzzled and far from happy as he said:

  ‘Permit me, Sir, to question your choice of me for this particular mission. I’d need to see the Venetian a number of times to make any worth-while impression on him. Sheridan well knows my political allegiance to yourself, so ’tis certain he would prejudice him against me, and thus doubtful if I would be accorded more than one brief unsatisfactory interview.’

  ‘My choice fell on you largely because I believe you to be in a position to get over that hurdle with ease. You are still staying with the Countess of St. Ermins at her place down in Surrey, are you not?’

  ‘Yes. The loss of my wife in Martinique has made me reluctant to live again as yet in the home we shared at Richmond; so I shall probably continue for some while at Stillwaters, as Lady St. Ermins’s guest.’

  ‘Did I not know of your long attachment to her. I should count such an association strange, seeing that she frequently entertains there my worst enemies, but in …’

  ‘Your pardon, Sir,’ Roger cut in, his eyes suddenly bright with anger. ‘Georgina St. Ermins is a woman of exceptional intelligence as well as beauty; so it is natural that she should cultivate the friendship of gifted men who play a part in the affairs of this and other nations. She is in no way governed by politics, and were you not so averse to going into society she would, I know, be happy to welcome you to her house. As for her patriotism, it is beyond question.’

  Mr. Pitt made a little bow. ‘I pray you overlook my inept remark. I knew only that Fox, Sheridan and others of their complexion enjoy her hospitality, and at times make use of her house to show their foreign friends something of the English countryside. It was that which gave me the idea that she is unlikely to refuse a request from you to ask Sheridan to bring Signor Malderini down for a weekend. Such an arrangement would afford you a perfect opportunity for conversations with him.’

  ‘Lady St. Ermins would, I am sure, oblige me,’ Roger replied with a shrug. ‘But, in my opinion, even if we succeeded in drawing the Venetians in, as allies, you would find them worthless.’

  ‘You speak without having given the matter due thought. The Serene Republic has lasted near a thousand years, so you may be sure that it will not lightly surrender its independence. Its territories have a population of over three million, so they could put a considerable army into the field; and the Croatian levies that they draw from across the Adriatic are said to be exceptionally brave fighters. Look, too, again at the map. The Venetian lands lie right athwart Buonaparte’s only line of advance to the Tyrol. All this makes Venice a potential ally that we should now spare no pains to secure. Like our other allies she will, of course, demand a subsidy to pay her troops, and you have my authority to tell Signor Malderini that it will be forthcoming.’

  ‘Devil take me!’ Roger jumped to his feet. ‘You can’t really mean that with our Treasury near empty, and our taxes so high, you’d actually pay these soft, lazy decadent Italians to make ugly faces at Buonaparte. For I’ll vow that’s all they will do.’

  The Prime Minister’s glance became icy, and he snapped, ‘That, Mr. Brook, is my affair, not yours. If the war must go on I’ll leave nothing untried which may help to bring us victory. All I require from you is an answer to the question: will you, or will you not, do as I wish?’

  In an instant Roger’s whole attitude changed. Placing his hand upon his heart, he replied, ‘Such sentiments, Sir, make me as ever your devoted servant. You may count upon me to do my best.’

  2

  The Unexpected Happens

  Georgina lay dozing in her great canopied bed at Stillwaters, the gracious Palladian mansion, near Ripley in Surrey, of which she enjoyed a life tenancy under the marriage settlement made by her first husband. She greatly preferred it to White Knights Park, the seat in Northamptonshire of the Earl of St. Ermins, whose tragic death had made her a widow eighteen months before; so she made her home in Surrey for the greater part of each spring and summer.

  She was now twenty-nine, and in the full flower of her striking beauty. Although blessed with the voluptuous curves that were considered the hall-mark of a perfect figure in Georgian times, she had not a pound of superfluous flesh, and, on the splendid mounts she kept in her stables, she could outride most men. Her rich complexion, strong white teeth, glossy dark hair and full red lips all testified to her abundant vitality. Her wicked black eyes were constantly alight with laughter, but when she felt inclined, from under their thick lashes she could launch a challenge that even a monk would have found irresistible.

  A discreet knock came on the door of the room. She called ‘Good morning, Jenny’, then sat up in bed and stretched out a hand for the nightdress that she had left draped over a nearby chair. As the figure beside her did not move, she added, ‘Roger, my love, did you not hear. Tis time for you to leave me.’

  ‘Plague on it!’ Roger muttered drowsily. ‘Although but half awake my thoughts were set on making love to you.’

  Smiling, she leant over and kissed his cheek. ‘Then you have left it too late, dear heart. In ten minutes Jenny will be bringing me my chocolate.’

  Jenny had been Georgina’s personal maid since her girlhood, and it was a long established custom that she should call her mistress a short while before coming in with the breakfast tray. In theory the interval was to give Georgina an opportunity to wash and tidy herself, but in fact it was to give time for her lover, if she had one with her, to make himself scarce by way of the boudoir.

  ‘Really!’ Roger protested a shade petulantly. ‘That we should continue to behave like ostriches is farcical. Jenny knows that we have been lovers on and off for years. As you have no secrets from her, I’ll wager that some time or other you have even told her that it was you who seduced me when a boy.’

  ‘Roger, how dare you! I did nothing of the kind. It was mutual.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he laughed. ‘You know well enough that you were my first experience, and I certainly was not yours.’

  As a girl of sixteen she had, not altogether unwillingly, become the victim of a handsome highwayman; and being a young wanton by nature had later gloried in the affair, declaring it to be ‘a fine romantic way to lose one’s maidenhead’. Now, she returned Roger’s smile and said: ‘You’ve never got over your regret at not having been the first with me, have you? But that was no fault of mine; and I trust, Sir, that I’ve given you no cause to complain of me since.’

  ‘On the contrary. Madam. You have given me many of the happiest hours of my life, and none more so than during these past two months. Yet it irks me that we should continue to pretend in front of Jenny instead of enjoying breakfast in bed together in the mornings.’

  ‘What! Have Jenny bring to my room a tray for two, with hot dishes and cold meats to appease your hunger. How, pray, could she explain that in the kitchen? What my servants may guess at I care not; but ’tis quite another thing to give them clear grounds for dubbing me a whore. The price for breaking your fast in bed with me, m’dear, is beyond your purse; for it would be no less than marriage.’

  ‘Damme, I’ve half a mind to take you up on that! You’ve had two husbands and I two wives, yet neither of us has had the joy with them we’ve had with one another. We’ve the same interests, never had a cross word ...’

  ‘Enough!’ she cut in sharply. ‘I was but joking and you are talking like a fool. The very essence of our golden hours is their impermanence, and the lack of obligation on either side. We’ve long since agreed that were we permanently united the time would come when we would tire of one another; physically I mean. We’d then begin to yearn for pastures new and end like most other married couples, observing the courtesies before the world but cheating, bickering, and disillusioned in private.’

  Sitting up, he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Alas, you’re right. Yet you must marry someone. You owe it to little Charles.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll wed again; although not yet awhile. Charles is barely ten months old; so for some years to come he’ll reap no i
ll from the lack of a father. But your case, Roger, is very different. Your little Susan is welcome to a home here for as long as you may wish, but however loving my care of her it will not be her own home; and that she should have. Poor Amanda used her last breath to place her infant in Clarissa’s charge and express the hope that you two would marry. I pray you ...’

  ‘So Clarissa told you of that?’

  ‘Yes. She did so soon after her arrival here with the child last week, and I pray you, Roger, give Amanda’s wish your serious consideration. Clarissa is a most lovely young creature and passionately enamoured of you.’

  ‘I know it. Has she not pursued me from the West Indies on the excuse of bringing my daughter to me, although the child was over young to travel?’

  ‘That is unfair. There was less risk in her doing so with a wet-nurse in attendance than to wait until the child was weaned and had to be fed for many weeks on such dubious foods as a ship can carry. You could find no better step-mother than Clarissa to rear your child, and ...’

  ‘Yes, yes! I grant you that. She is, too, sweet natured and intelligent. I will admit that did I contemplate marriage I’d be tempted to make her my wife. But I do not; so spare me, I beg, further solicitation on her behalf.’

  Georgina began to put on the nightdress with which she had been toying. ‘I’ll not promise that. But now is no time to pursue the topic, and at such an hour as this it was foolish in me ever to have raised it. At any moment Jenny will be bringing my chocolate. Be off with you now, this instant.’

  Jumping out of bed he snatched up his chamber robe, and exclaimed in mock distress, ‘You drive me from Paradise! How I’ll live through the day I cannot think!’

  She laughed. ‘What a liar you are. You know full well that your mind will be filled with schemes to win over the Venetian. You’ll not give me another thought till it’s night again and time for us once more to essay a flight to Heaven. But the woman is not yet born who would not love your pretty speeches.’

  Grinning, he blew her a kiss over his shoulder before disappearing into her boudoir. Beyond it, through another door, lay the room he always occupied when at Stillwaters. Having rumpled the sheets of the unslept-in bed, he got into it and lay down. As Georgina had predicted, his mind had already switched from her to the members of the house-party that had assembled there the previous afternoon. She had made no difficulty about asking Richard Brinsley Sheridan to bring down the Venetian envoy for the weekend, and both had come accompanied by their wives.

  Roger had known Sheridan for some years and, much as he detested his politics, could not help liking him personally. The son of talented parents, the gifted Irishman had early achieved fame. At twenty-three, his play The Rivals had scored a great success, a few months later his opera The Duenna had taken the town by storm, and at twenty-five his School for Scandal had placed him among the immortals of the British stage. During the years that followed, as poet, playwright, producer, manager, and principal shareholder in Drury Lane, he had become the arbiter of London’s theatrical world.

  A little before he was thirty, realising what an asset his quick brain and silver tongue could prove to their party, the Whig politicians had persuaded him to contest Stafford in their interests at the elections of 1780, and he had won the seat.

  From his entry into Parliament he had given his unquestioning allegiance to Charles James Fox. Now, leading only a rump of Whigs who refused to join the Coalition formed for the better prosecution of the war, Fox was old, embittered and discredited; yet Sheridan continued to support him in his venomous attacks on the Prime Minister and near treasonable advocacy of the policies of the French revolutionaries. Even so, on other matters Sheridan was high-principled and full of good sense; while his fertile mind, charming manner and amusing conversation made him a delightful companion.

  His first wife, Elizabeth Linley, had been a concert singer. Her great beauty and golden voice had brought her a score of rich suitors while still in her teens, but Sheridan, himself then only a few years out of Harrow, had won her heart, fought a duel on her behalf and carried her off to France. Their romantic elopement had proved the prelude to a marriage lasting eighteen years and, although towards its end he had caused her much pain by his unfaithfulness, her death from consumption had proved a terrible blow to him.

  He was now forty-five, and a year earlier he had married another beauty—this time a daughter of the Dean of Winchester. They had bought the estate of Sir William Grey at Polesden, near Leatherhead, and, as it was only seven miles from Stillwaters, Georgina had ridden over several times to see them. She had told Roger that ‘dear Sherry’s new young wife was having the effect of an Elixir of Life on him’ and, apart from the fact that his face had become very red from heavy drinking, Roger, now having met him again, fully endorsed her opinion.

  The couple the Sheridans brought with them were so different from themselves that at first Roger was puzzled by their close association; but during the Friday evening he had learned that Signor Rinaldo Malderini was a rich backer of Venetian theatrical ventures, and that the two men had many mutual acquaintances in the international world of opera singers and ballet dancers.

  They were, too, about of an age, but whereas Sheridan had a fine presence, lustrous laughing eyes, a sensitive mouth and well-cut features, the Venetian’s appearance was so nondescript that one might have met him half a dozen times yet later failed to notice him in a crowd. He was a bulky man, although somewhat under middle height, deep chested and broad hipped. His complexion was pasty, his cheeks flabby and his face pudding-like, its only noticeable feature being the eyes. These were a pale grey under thick dark brows, and had a curious opaque quality which gave the impression that with them he could, while completely masking his own thoughts, read other people’s.

  His English was poor, but he spoke excellent French; so during the evening the company had used that language. As yet, Roger had had no chance to talk to him in private, but he had soon taken a strong dislike to him. Before the evening was out he had formed the impression that the Venetian was cruel, cunning and treacherous. He had never felt any enthusiasm for the task that Mr. Pitt had thrust upon him and now he was unhappily aware that having to deal with such a man would make it doubly difficult of accomplishment.

  The two wives had proved as great a contrast as their husbands. Esther Sheridan was a typical product of a Cathedral Close; moderately intelligent and well-read, transparently honest and good tempered, good-looking above the average in an unmistakably English way, and still aglow with her own happiness as the young wife of a successful man whom she obviously adored.

  The Signora Malderini—or, as her husband always referred to her, the Princess Sirisha—was the still young daughter of an Indian Rajah. Her tall slim figure was accentuated by the beautiful silk sari she wore swathed tightly round it. The loose end of the garment practically covered her raven hair and in the centre of her broad forehead she had a caste mark. Her face was oval and the colour of pale coffee. In it her dark almond-shaped eyes looked enormous and seemed to hold all the mystery of the Orient. But their expression was sad, and that was hardly to be wondered at, as she spoke not a word of any language other than her own, so was cut off from communication with everyone except her husband, and he rarely bothered to address her.

  It was largely this which, despite Georgina’s gifts as a hostess and Sheridan’s inexhaustible fund of amusing anecdotes, had caused the Friday evening at Stillwaters to be a little less gay and carefree than was usual on such occasions. During dinner they had all been rendered vaguely uncomfortable by the presence of the silent Princess. She had eaten practically nothing and, apart from acknowledging with a pale smile the courtesies shown her by her neighbours, had played the part of a beautiful ghost at the feast.

  A further awkwardness arose when the ladies had left the room. Although the other men had not noticed it, Malderini had, throughout the meal, refused all wine and he now declared himself to be a total abstainer. Such an eccen
tricity was most uncommon in those days, and almost in bad taste; for the other men felt that out of civility to Georgina’s foreign guest they must forgo the pleasure of sitting over their port for any length of time. In consequence, although secretly a little disgruntled, they accepted without protest the lead of Colonel Thursby, Georgina’s father, who broke up the session before the decanters were half empty.

  At one end of the long drawing-room a table had been made ready for Vingt et Un. Georgina, realising that the Princess would be unable to join in a card game, suggested taking her round the house and showing her some of its treasures. Her husband, through whom the proposal had to be put, had replied with a somewhat ungainly bow:

  ‘I appreciate your Ladyship’s thoughtfulness, but in India women are brought up to have no other interests than their husbands and, if they have any, their children. That was one of my reasons for taking a wife while in the Orient. If we were still in the East the Princess Sirisha would, of course, be living in purdah. While we are travelling in Europe that is not possible; but whenever we go into society she considers it her duty to remain at my side, and she derives much pleasure from watching me enjoy myself.’

  All the ladies present were hard put to it to hide their shocked disapproval of his selfish attitude towards the lovely Indian girl; but even to show her their sympathy was not easy. Georgina sent Clarissa to fetch from the library some volumes with colour prints of birds and flowers for the Princess to look at, and the other eight members of the party settled themselves round the card table.

  From it, two hours later, Rinaldo Malderini had risen the richer by a considerable number of English guineas, and Roger with a shrewd suspicion that the Venetian had detained his wife in the room for a reason he had naturally not given.