The Emperor
Authors: Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Tags: #Aristocracy (Social Class) - England, #Historical Fiction, #Family, #General, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Sagas, #Great Britain, #Historical, #Great Britain - History - 1789-1820, #Fiction, #Domestic fiction, #Morland family (Fictitious characters)
SPHERE
First paperback edition published by Futura Publications in 1988
Second paperback edition published by Warner Books in 1993
This edition published by Warner Books in 1995
Reprinted 2000
Reprinted by Time Warner Books in 2006
Reprinted by Sphere in 2008
All characters in this publication, save those clearly in the public
domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 1988
by Macdonald & Co (Publishers)
Copyright © Cynthia Harrod-Eagles 1988
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-7515-0648-8
Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Sphere
An imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y ODY
An Hachette Livre UK Company
www.hachettelivre.co.uk
www.littlebrown.co.uk
W.J. Ashley
The Economic Organisation of England
Jacques Bainville
Napoleon
H.L. Beales
The Industrial Revolution
Geoffrey Bennett
Nelson the Commander
Asa Briggs
The Age of Improvement
John Fielden
The Curse of the Factory System
Pauline Gregg
A Social and Economic History of Britain
Christopher Hibbert
George IV Prince of Wales
William Howitt
The Rural Life of England
William James
Naval History of Great Britain
William Jesse
Beau Brummell
Michael Lewis
England's Sea Officers
Michael Lewis A
Social History of the Royal Navy
R.S. Liddell
Memoirs of the Tenth Royal Hussars
H.C. Maxwell-Lyte
History of Eton
George Rude
Revolutionary Europe 1783-1815
J.M. Thompson
Napoleon Bonaparte, His Rise and Fall
Oliver Warner A
Portrait of Lord Nelson
J.S. Watson
Reign of George III
R.K. Webb
Modern England
E.L. Woodward
The Age of Reform
BOOK ONE
Eagle Chained
I loved a love once, fairest among women: Closed
are her doors on me, I must not see her.
Charles Lamb:
The Old Familiar Faces
One day in March 1795, Hawkins, the butler at Chelmsford House in Pall Mall, paused on his way through the great hall to speak to Bunn, the porter.
‘
The Countess of Aylesbury is expected today, Mr Bunn,'
he said — ceremoniously, because Bunn's boy was at his
elbow, his mouth open in wonder.
‘
Was hany time o' day mentioned, Mr 'awkins?' Bunn
replied in kind.
‘His lordship did not specify, Mr Bunn. Her ladyship is coming from Wolvercote today, was all I was told.'
‘I'll set the boy to keep a lookout for Lord Aylesbury's
travelling chariot, then, Mr 'awkins,' said Bunn. The boy,
who was new and had, in Bunn's opinion, a deal too much
of what the cat cleaned her paws with, spoke up shamelessly in the presence of his betters.
"Ow will I know the kerridge then, Mr Bunn? Pall Mall is full o' gentlemen's kerridges.'
‘Not of travelling chariots, it ain't,' said Bunn quellingly.
‘Four 'orses — her ladyship wouldn't travel with two.
Matched, most like. With postilions an' prob'ly a couple of
outriders, all in the Aylesbury livery. You get out there on them steps, and when you see that lot a-coming, you sing
out.'
‘
What colour livery is that, then, Mr Bunn?' demanded
the unquellable boy.
‘Sky blue, o'course. Don't you know
nothing?
Get along
now. Boys!' he exclaimed to his superior as the child scuttled off. 'Don't know nothing, don't want to know
nothing. I don't know what the world's coming to, straight I don't, Mr 'awkins. It wasn't like this when I was a boy.'
‘
It's the war, Mr Bunn,' said Mr Hawkins condescend
ingly. 'Stands to reason. War changes everything.’
It was hardly the boy's fault, however, that Lady
Aylesbury took the household by surprise, for instead of
arriving in the travelling chariot, she confounded everybody
by bowling up Pall Mall at a clipping pace, driving herself in
a smart curricle drawn by four enormous York chestnuts,
with her maid beside her and her groom up behind.
‘
You was right about the four 'orses, anyway, Mr Bunn,' the boy piped up, and this time Bunn thought it right to see
how far a clip on the ear would go towards teaching the boy
a more respectful demeanour towards his betters.
‘
Good morning, Bunn!' Lady Aylesbury called cheerfully
as she entered the black-and-white tiled vestibule, stripping
off her long gloves. 'How is your leg now? Did that salve do
any good?'
‘
Yes, your ladyship. Thank your ladyship,' Bunn replied,
blushing with pleasure. Only last year the Countess had
been plain Miss Lucy Morland, and her appearance had
hardly changed since then. Her sweet, pleasant face was
speckled with mud from the journey, which mingled with
her own natural freckles; her hay-coloured hair, which she
wore in a short crop, was a tangle of wind-blown curls; and
her movements were brisk and boyish. She was only sixteen,
after all — yet there was a kind of authority in her bearing
which made it perfectly natural for Bunn to bow low to her
and call her 'your ladyship'. He noticed, too, that Mr
Hawkins received her with genuine respectfulness, and
Hawkins was capable of a very withering irony towards
mushrooms and nabobs and others he considered not quite
of the first consequence.
‘
I trust your ladyship had a good journey?' Hawkins
asked.
‘
Very pleasant. The road is very good from Oxford — I'm
told we are never cut off now, even in the winter. Ah,
Charles!’