Ramage & the Guillotine Read Free Page A

about and, if sympathy or guineas were needed, had not done his utmost to help or cure.
    As his son and heir, Ramage hoped he would prove as good a landlord and neighbour when the time came, but since he was just past his twenty-fifth birthday and the Admiral was as lively as a frigate in a Channel lop, it would be a good many years before he was put to the test.
    Ramage had been relieved to find that, in the year and a half he had been away in the West indies, his mother seemed to have grown younger while his father had certainly held his own. The reason, his mother had confided in a whisper one evening (touching the side of her nose with her index finger in the conspiratorial gesture used by Italians to indicate secret knowledge), was having Gianna staying with them: her youthful exuberance was infectious, even though, she had added with affection, “The Marchesa di Volterra Has Settled Down!”
    Well, he had to take his mother’s word for that. Certainly Gianna’s tiny figure no longer shook with hatred and anger when anyone mentioned the name Bonaparte, and she no longer wept at the thought of her little kingdom of Volterra and its cheerful people, which she had ruled until Bonaparte’s approaching Army of Italy forced her to flee rather than collaborate with the French like her neighbour, the despicable and weak-willed Grand Duke of Tuscany.
    His mother’s verdict had been especially welcome because he had been doubtful whether Gianna would like staying at St Kew. The rambling old house was big enough by English standards, but the rulers of Volterra had lived for centuries in a palace of which the Medicis might have been proud.
    Gianna had left behind in Italy more personal maids than the entire indoor and outdoor staff at St Kew. Perhaps part of the “settling down” process was that the single maid she now had was a stolid local girl, and likely to say, “Oooh, ma’am, you’ll go into a decline if you carry on like that,” when Gianna threw a tantrum which would have left her Italian maids white-faced and trembling.
    The fact was he had fallen in love with a girl who was as wilful and unpredictable as a puppy in a flower garden. Any man who provoked her anger might as well spend a quiet Sunday afternoon making sparks in a powder magazine. He should know, he admitted wryly. Hot tempered, yet generous; occasionally imperious but always (eventually) understanding; impatient yet—the list was long: any description of Gianna tended to be a list of synonyms and antonyms.
    She certainly did not include punctuality amongst her virtues, he thought crossly, pulling out his watch, and then picking up
The Times
which also reported Lord Nelson’s “secret mission” with much the same wording. This almost certainly meant that it was true and not a wild or hopeful report by one of the
Morning Post
’s journalists.
    At that moment the door was flung open and Gianna came into the room, offering her cheek to be kissed as Ramage stood up. She smiled mischievously, gesturing at the empty place at the table where Ramage had sat and at the newspapers he was holding.
    â€œWhat a wonderful way to start the day! The man of the house has eaten his breakfast in peace and quiet and read enough newspapers to be fully informed about what is going on in the world. Don’t go back to sea,
caro mio!”
    â€œSomeone has to defeat Bonaparte,” he said lightly, knowing he was joking about a dangerous subject.
    â€œLeave it to the others,” she said airily. “You’ve done enough already—” She broke off as Hanson came in with the large tray, and after one look she said firmly: “No oysters, Hanson! Take them away and keep them for the Admiral.”
    The butler’s face fell as he walked to the table, carrying the tray with the forlornness of a man trying to sell bruised apples in Covent Garden market.
    â€œDo
you
like oysters, Hanson?”