The Garden Intrigue (16 page)

“As in…” Jane let the words trail off. Neither of them were going to use the words in public, no matter how closely Miss Gwen stood guard.

“Yes. As in
that
device.” The one Horace de Lilly had come stampeding from Saint-Cloud to tell them about. “The diagram was on Delagardie’s desk. She disavowed it, but her handwriting was all over it. It was not,” he added, “a recipe for cough syrup.”

Jane appeared less perturbed than Augustus had expected. Her brow cleared. “Did the diagram involve a pair of canisters and a series of pipes?”

A vague enough description, but…“Yes,” said Augustus cautiously. “Something like that.”

“A hydraulic pump.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What you saw was a variant on a hydraulic pump. Emma’s husband was experimenting with the ideas implemented by the Montgolfier brothers. That was what you saw.”

Augustus might have felt better if he’d had the slightest idea what she was talking about. Montgolfier who? Someone to do with hydraulic pumps, apparently. This was as bad as the time Jane had started trying to explain to him about dephlogisticated air. Augustus’s inclinations had always been more literary than scientific. Human nature fascinated him; mechanical devices left him cold.

“Unless I’m much mistaken,” said Augustus, “Paul Delagardie died four years ago. You can’t mean to tell me that he’s engineering from beyond the grave. Also,” he added, warming to his theme, “why was Madame Delagardie’s writing all over it?”

He half expected Jane to make an excuse about Emma using the spare sheet as scrap paper. Instead, she said, “There’s no great mystery to that. Emma continued her husband’s work at Carmagnac.”

If Jane had known that, why in the hell hadn’t she told him that before?

Augustus puffed his chest out, fighting to retain some dignity. “Why didn’t she just say so, then?”

Jane tugged lightly at one of her earrings. “In her own way, Emma is a very private person.”

Ostrich feathers and diamonds so often betokened a shy and retiring nature. “Of course, she is,” said Augustus. And Pauline Bonaparte was secretly a celibate.

“Don’t let yourself be taken in by appearances,” said Jane seriously.

Augustus stared at her in disbelief. He had managed to stay alive through three changes of government, maintaining his alias in the face of all provocation, warding off the dangers posed by double agents and false friends. Twelve years he had been in Paris, straight through the worst of the Terror, and she was advising him?

He had the greatest possible respect for her, but…no.

Augustus opened his mouth—although to say what, he wasn’t quite sure—but, once again, the Pink Carnation beat him to the punch, nodding in the direction of the door to the gallery, to a small woman in green and gold being escorted by a man in various shades of brown. The sunlight through the long windows cast rainbows off her heavy gold earrings and the scalloped edges of her fashionable overdress.

“Ah,” said Jane calmly. “There’s Emma now.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“Hardly,” said Jane. “I invited them.” Without allowing time for that to sink in, she added, “You did say you wanted to speak about Emma.”

About
, not
to
. Prepositions had been invented for a reason. When he had called for this meeting, he had envisioned it going rather differently.

But then, thought Augustus wryly, he had envisioned this all rather differently. A tête-à-téte, perhaps some wine, confidences given and exchanged, meaningful looks across the bosom of the Venus de Milo.

Jane was right. He had been playing the poet too long.

“The cousin has a controlling interest in a munitions factory,” Augustus said deliberately.

Finally, he had told her something she didn’t already know. For the first time that afternoon, he had Jane’s full attention. But not for him. Never for him.

“They claim he’s here on family business,” said Augustus, speaking rapidly, keeping his voice low. “Georges Marston seems to believe it’s something else. So do others I’ve spoken to. They think family matters are a smoke screen for business of a more businesslike kind.”

“Bonaparte’s device?”

“Perhaps. It would explain the timing of its testing.”

Someone had taken Livingston to a barber in the past few days; his hair was no longer clubbed back but cut short, in the modern fashion, combed forward over his brow. The coat was still brown, but it had been augmented with a crisp cravat, and the man’s boots looked like they might have finally seen more than a dirty rag for polish.

“See what you can do with the cousin,” Augustus said roughly.

He would have preferred they play it the other way around. He could speak man-to-man with Livingston, Jane could take coffee with Delagardie.

It wouldn’t work.

Jane couldn’t be trusted to be objective when it came to her Emma. As for Livingston, Jane would be able to get a good deal more out of him than Augustus ever could. The thought of Jane working her wiles on another man, quiet, ladylike wiles though they might be, made Augustus’s gut churn, but there was nothing else for it.

He had been a professional for too long to allow his private emotions to compromise a mission.

No matter how much he disliked it.

“You take care of the cousin,” Augustus said brusquely. “I’ll keep an eye on your Emma.”

Y
ou want me to do what?” asked Kort.

“Take part in a theatrical production,” Emma repeated. This wasn’t going exactly as she had intended.

“A theatrical production? As in a stage? And tights?” The last word was uttered in tones of masculine disgust.

“There don’t need to be tights,” said Emma soothingly. “You always seemed to enjoy our amateur theatricals at Belvedere. Remember the time you got in such trouble for stealing the rooster’s tail feathers to make a Cavalier’s hat?”

“Yes, but that was conducted in English,” protested Kort. “Not French.”

“No, it was really more of a squawk,” said Emma. “Followed by loud pecking noises.”

“I meant the play.”

“If you do take the role, you’ll be playing an American. Everyone will
expect you to have an accent. It will lend verisimilitude.” She didn’t tell him she had borrowed the phrase from Mr. Whittlesby. Somehow, she didn’t think that would help her argument. Kort hadn’t seemed overly impressed by Mr. Whittlesby. It might have had something to do with all the mincing and wafting and entirely unnecessary alliteration.

Kort wasn’t convinced. “It’s one thing to embarrass myself in front of family, quite another to do so on the international stage.”

“It’s not the international stage, just a little stage at Malmaison.” Emma gave him her best smile, the one she had perfected way back when, in the days of the rooster-tail hat. “And Madame Bonaparte has been all but family to me, which means that, by extension, she’s family to you.”

“That makes no sense at all.”

“Why not?”

Kort gave her an incredulous look. “You can’t just declare a family by fiat.”

“Don’t be silly. The law courts do it all the time. It’s called adoption.”

Kort wisely decided not to pursue that line of argument. Instead, he narrowed his blue eyes at Emma, asking shrewdly, “Why do you want me there so badly?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “
So
badly? You flatter yourself.”

“In that case,” said Kort, “why not find another leading man for your theatricals? I’m sure there are any number of them lining up in the wings.”

“Yes, but none who can affect an American accent quite so convincingly.” Emma linked her arm through his. “Do I have to have a reason for wanting to prolong the visit of my favorite cousin?”

“I can just see the headlines now,” Kort grumbled, and Emma knew she had won. ‘American Merchant Makes Fool of Self in French Farce.’ And that will just be the offstage part.”

“Just think of all the adoring maidens flinging themselves at your feet. No one can resist an actor.” Emma cunningly played her ace. She pointed down the gallery, past a strapping Apollo garbed in the latest in fig-leaf fashion. “Speaking of which, there’s your leading lady, should you choose to take the part.”

Kort squinted. “The purple horror?”

Emma thumped him in the side with her reticule. “No, silliness. The other one. The pretty one.”

Almost as though on cue, Jane emerged from behind the outstretched arm of the statue, a symphony in lilac linen. There was a man with her, a man garbed in tight, knit pantaloons and a shirt that billowed out at the waist and sleeves. His eyes met Emma’s over Jane’s shoulder, and Emma felt an absurd flutter of excitement, as though he were a lover rather than a collaborator, as though their assignations had involved something more than ink.

All nonsense, of course. Nonsense and tight breeches. Emma forced herself to attend to her cousin, turning her head deliberately away from the poet.

“I met her, didn’t I?”

“Yes, at the rout at the Hotel de Balcourt last week.”

Kort looked blank.

“The house with all the Egyptian bits in it,” Emma translated. She fluttered her lashes at Kort. “See? Aren’t you glad you’ve decided to take the part?”

“I hadn’t said I would,” Kort corrected. With studied casualness, he added, “As it happens, I’m going to be at Malmaison anyway. Uncle Robert secured an invitation for me.”

“Oh.” That took the wind out of her sails. So much for impressing her cousin with her French connections when he was able to obtain the same coveted invitation by other means. “Well, then! You have even less excuse not to play my leading man. I’ll expect you in rehearsals next week. Once we’ve written it,” she added, as an afterthought.

“Unless you decide not to,” said Kort hopefully.

Emma struck him playfully on the arm. “Don’t even think it. Resistance is futile. I will have you in those tights.” Something else struck her. “Wasn’t your business meant to be concluded by then?”

Kort flexed his hands in his tan gloves, manipulating the muscles to
make his knuckles crack. “There have been unexpected complications,” he said shortly.

“Ah,” said Emma knowingly. Not that she actually knew anything about conducting business, but it was always best to assume the pretense. “You’ll have to book a later passage, won’t you?”

Kort looked down at her, shifting slightly from foot to foot. “Emma…”

“Yes?” Was that an apology she heard coming?

Kort stepped abruptly back, his boot heel connecting with a sharp sound against the marble floor. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Come along. Don’t you want to reintroduce me to your friends?”

Before Emma could argue that it did matter, that whatever he had to say, she wanted to hear it, he had started forward, tugging her along behind him, like…like a poodle on a leash, she thought indignantly. Just like back at Belvedere. Her flat-heeled slippers skidded against the marble floor as she scrambled to keep up.

“Emma,” said Jane, her voice rich with amusement. “What a surprise to see you here. And your charming cousin as well.”

Kort executed an old-fashioned bow. “Ladies.”

Jane stepped forward and extended a hand to Kort. “I hear you are to be my hero.”

“On the stage, at least,” Kort said. His eyes slid towards Miss Gwen. Miss Gwen nodded regally, giving Kort permission to take Jane’s hand.

“Hero?” managed Whittlesby, in a mangled voice.

“In our masque!” Emma’s voice came out too loud and too high, waking the echoes in the corners of the room. “Isn’t it above all things wonderful? Kort has agreed to take the role.”

“But…” Mr. Whittlesby was still looking at Jane, not at her. “Miss Wooliston?”

Jane gently retrieved her hand from Kort’s. She gestured to Emma, her smile never wavering. “Our ever persuasive Madame Delagardie has induced me to tread the boards. Provided, that is,” she added, with mock reproach, “that you write us something fit to act in.” She turned back to Kort.
“What do you say, Mr. Livingston? Shall we leave them to their artistic musings? I fear we are sadly in the way.”

Kort offered his arm with flattering alacrity. “I wouldn’t want to be the man to stand in the way of genius.”

“Lovely.” It was very neatly done. Within a space of a moment, Jane was leading Kort away. Emma could hear her voice floating back, oddly distorted by the echoing space. “Have you had much experience on the stage, Mr. Livingston?”

Jane would never wink; it wasn’t her way. The look she cast Emma over her shoulder, however, might as well have been a wink. It had the same effect. As Miss Gwen stalked along behind her charge, Emma realized, with growing horror, exactly what her friend had done.

She had left Emma alone with Mr. Whittlesby.

On purpose.

And it wasn’t so they could discuss the masque.

It wasn’t fair, Emma thought passionately. She didn’t try to shove off her unwanted admirers on Jane or embarrass her friend by pointedly obvious efforts to throw her together with the object of her affections.

Of course, that was only because Jane was too circumspect to ever admit to having an object of affection. But the point still remained: Emma’s hands were clean, even if only by default.

Did Mr. Whittlesby realize? He would have to be an idiot not to.

An idiot…or a man in love. He was, Emma realized, not looking at her at all. He was still watching Jane, his eyes following her as she led Kort along the marble hall, as her hand gestured elegantly at this painting or that statue.

Of course he didn’t realize. Emma didn’t register for him at all, did she? At least, not that way.

The thought oughtn’t to be that lowering—she did only admire him for his breeches, after all—but it was. It clung to the back of her throat like lye, base and corrosive.

“She never told me,” he said, more to himself than Emma. “Why didn’t she tell me?”