He took a step closer and bared his teeth in a ferocious grin.
Oh, Foggi. Mary could barely resist the urge to roll her eyes. You ham-fisted buffoon.
“So you need money. Did you ask Mr. Shelley?”
Foggi threw his head back and laughed theatrically. “Everyone knows, madam, that Signor Shelley has no money. But—you do.” The teeth gleamed again. “And you are a very clever lady, as well, quick to understand.”
“I would be a simpleton, indeed, if I did not understand when I was being threatened with blackmail.”
Mary rang the little bell beside her table, and the butler reappeared.
“Show this man the door. He is never to be admitted here again.”
“Certainly, ma’am.”
“Wait! Wait!” Foggi struggled with the butler. “I shall do it! I shall tell Mrs. Shelley everything! I will! I will!”
“Pray, suit yourself, Foggi. Good day to you.”
Foggi wrenched himself away from the elderly butler, and advanced again upon Mary, who struggled to sit up.
“You, you think you are so superior to all of us—you. What do you know? You know nothing. You think Mr. Shelley loves you, and you alone. Only I know. I know what Mr. Shelley and Signora Claire do together—how they meet in the garden when the wife is asleep—what they do in the carriage on the way to Venice.” He gestured out the window to Vesuvius, smoking in the distance. “And when they climb Vesuvius, the little fat Claire, she is too weak to walk, and she must be carried by four men! Why is she so weak? And why does she scream for the doctor last week?”
Mary felt the child inside her leap and dive. She took a slow breath, and placed her hand on her belly. Not now, she thought. Not now.
“Signore Foggi, Signore Foggi,” she began again. “Is Miss Clairmont—did she—is she well?”
“Well enough, madam. She was bad, but she did not die. And she eat her breakfast—as usual.” Foggi was about to discourse mockingly on the lady’s appetite, when Mary told him to hold his tongue.
He waited, twisting his cap in his hands, while Mary closed her eyes and thought. She wished she could rub her aching back, but did not want to show any weakness in front of Foggi.
Shelley said Claire had gone to Venice to see her daughter and rejoin Byron. Perhaps she and Byron resumed their intrigue. Or, perhaps Claire and Shelley were lovers. Perhaps Foggi was lying. Or even mistaken.
This is what life with Shelley would be. This is how it was for his first wife, and his present wife. Condemned to suffering the torments of jealousy and uncertainty, just as Shelley was assailed by the jagged shards of pain in his side. Well, he deserved it. He deserved every bit of the pain. He deserved to be chained like Prometheus to a rock, with birds ripping out his liver, for all eternity.
It was time to put an end to this farce.
“Tell me, Foggi, if you had sufficient funds, would you leave Naples?”
He sighed theatrically. “How can I, madam? I have not enough money—and we must be married soon,” he waggled his eyebrows. “Very soon—if you understand me.”
Mary ordered her butler, who had been hovering uncertainly behind Foggi, to go and fetch her jewel box.
“Foggi, I believe we can assist one another. I do not want my private affairs spread all over Naples. But if you go to Venice, for example, you could—”
“Anything, madam! It would be a pleasure!”
“You could tell Lord Byron. Tell all his friends. Tell the—tell the British consul. Tell everyone that Percy Bysshe Shelley has gotten his wife’s sister with child. Say nothing of me.”
Foggi could hardly find the words to express his eagerness to do the signora’s bidding. The name of Miss Clairmont would be in the mud when he was finished with her. She would be unable to show her face anywhere.
Mary waved him to silence as the butler returned with the jewel case. Mary removed some bracelets and ear-bobs and some bank notes, and gave it all to Foggi, whose eyes lit up.
“Do your part, Foggi, and do it well, and I will not forget it.”
Foggi bowed deeply—”You have my word, madam.”
Mary sighed and leaned her head back against the pillow. She lay awake for hours, watching the sun set, watching the dull red glow of Mount Vesuvius in the night. Shelley had compared her to water, to the sea; she was his Marina, he wanted to drown in her soul. He was going to discover he was wrong: she was fire.
* * * * * * *
A month passed. Mary’s door remained closed to Shelley and she kept to her sofa, feeling her belly tighten and relax, tighten and relax. She felt tolerably certain she would have a daughter, and she selected the name Elena Adelaide, after her mother and the new princess. It was a pity she would have to keep the child hidden away. Perhaps she could present Elena in London as a Neapolitan foundling she had adopted. So long as she had the backing of her friend Lady Delingpole, would anyone dispute the point? But with or without Shelley, she was determined to return to London so soon as she could travel.
One evening, Mary began to feel feverish, then chilly. Her headache and fever continued the next day, and she could not be persuaded to eat anything. “Just let me rest,” she murmured. Dr. Roskilly came and bled her, but her fever persisted. On the third night, her throat was so sore she could not speak. She tried to ring for more blankets, but she accidentally knocked the bell to the floor, and no-one
