The Garden Intrigue (7 page)

“Much obliged,” muttered Augustus.

“—merely to offer her your poetic talents, such as they are, for the purpose of gaining admission into Malmaison.”

“I fail to see how the one translates to the other.”

“Madame Bonaparte has asked Emma to compose a masque for the gathering at Malmaison next month. Emma can turn a neat enough phrase, but she doesn’t claim to be a poet. She’s wary of taking on the task. You might offer to collaborate.”

Augustus bit down on his automatic objection. It wasn’t a bad idea, on the face of it. The theatre-mad Bonapartes weren’t averse to employing professional help for their amateur theatricals. The great actor Talma regularly directed their productions. No one would think twice about Mme. Delagardie delegating the writing of her masque to a poet, nor object to that poet being on hand throughout rehearsals to tinker with the odd line or extend a soliloquy upon the request of the actor.

There were, however, some rather glaring obstacles.

Augustus gave voice to the most obvious of them. “Even if I were prepared to do so, what makes you think Madame Delagardie would accept the help of a man guilty of perpetrating unspeakable crimes against unsuspecting adverbs? That’s a direct quotation, by the way,” he added.

Jane was silent for a moment. “When you were young, did you ever pull a girl’s hair ribbon? Or tug at her braid to get her attention?”

“Hair ribbon?” Augustus echoed. “Braid? I don’t follow.”

He looked at Jane with concern. He had seen this before in agents deployed too long in the field. The strain must be beginning to get to her.

Jane started to say something but thought better of it. “Never mind. Do give my suggestion some thought, won’t you? Emma is less than thrilled at the prospect of crafting a masque in a month, even if it’s only a short piece. She’ll take help where she can find it.”

“Or where it’s offered?”

Jane nodded. “It might be the easiest way to get you in. Whatever you may think of her, Emma’s wishes carry a great deal of weight with Madame Bonaparte.” She flicked demurely at an invisible speck of dust on her skirt. “You must admit, it would be a marked improvement on creeping into the grounds in the middle of the night.”

“I certainly won’t argue with that.” Climbing fences and dodging night watchmen had lost its charm years ago. Augustus had never been much for swinging on a rope, either. Ropes had an annoying tendency to break. “The concept is sound. It’s the execution that gives me pause.”

“Tell her I sent you,” Jane suggested. “At the worst, she says no.”

“At the best?”

“You have an invitation to Malmaison. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

There was no arguing with that. “
If
my sources are correct,” Augustus said darkly. “This could all be for nothing.”

“You’ll never know unless you try.”

Why was it that cheering expressions were invariably so infuriating?

“Are you always right?” Augustus asked wearily.

Jane spread her fan, uncovering a charming scene of swans drifting on an improbably azure lake. “Only when I’m not wrong. I take it that’s a yes, then?”

It was going to have to be, but there were still questions niggling. Something smelled wrong. Augustus seized on the least of them. “Why a masque? I thought those went out with the Sun King.”

“Because Emma wouldn’t write a play?” Jane spread her hands wide. “I know little more than you do. My guess would be that this is less about the performance and more about Emma’s involvement.”

“In other words,” Augustus translated, “the entire rigmarole is meant to demonstrate to the American envoy how very attached his cousin is to the house of Bonaparte.”

It made a certain amount of sense. For centuries, powers had risen and fallen based on a marriage here, a friendship there.

Jane perched primly on her bench, her hands folded neatly in her lap. “Bonaparte believes in personal alliances. Look at the way he married his sister off to that Roman prince. He hasn’t any spare siblings to espouse to Emma, but he can show the Americans that she’s a valued part of his household.”

“And that way,” finished Augustus, seeing the pieces fall into place, “the Americans will be less likely to cut up rough when he makes his big announcement.”

Jane nodded solemnly. “It is coming,” she said. “Sooner rather than later.”

Neither needed to specify. The rumors had been circulating for months that Bonaparte meant to trade his consular staff for an imperial diadem. Thus far, America had remained neutral in the great struggle between England and France, the sympathies of many tending towards the supposedly republican French who had aided them in their own fight for freedom.

Their Washington had turned down a crown; Bonaparte didn’t intend to. There was no telling how the volatile colonials would react when Bonaparte jettisoned the last pretense of
liberté
, é
galité
, and
fraternité
.

Augustus sighed. “What else did she tell you about this masque?”

Jane didn’t waste time reveling in her victory. “The details were sparse. All Emma said was that it was to be relatively brief, Talma was to direct, and there needs to be a singing part for Hortense. Oh, yes,” she added, tapping her furled fan against her chin. “One more thing. Madame Bonaparte requested that the masque have a nautical theme.”

That afterthought was about as accidental as the Sistine Chapel.

“Nautical,” Augustus repeated. “As in having to do with the water and the sea.”

Jane arranged her hands neatly in her lap, looking a bit like the cat who got the cream. “One might call it just a step away from naval.”

Coincidence? Augustus would have liked to think so, but it was too much. Horace’s hasty report was beginning to sound more and more credible. It would be just like Bonaparte to celebrate the completion of his invasion plans with a nautically themed masque.

It might be more than that, though. One could only assume that this mysterious device had something to do with the sea. As Augustus recalled, one of the primary features of a masque as a form of entertainment was the ingenious machinery involved. A masque was as much or more about spectacle as it was about verse.

Was Bonaparte planning to conceal his precious device among the props and pulleys of his theatre?

There was, as Jane had so sagely observed, only one way to find out.

“Why that weekend?” Augustus wondered aloud. “Why the Americans? If there is a device, why choose that gathering to test it?”

“It won’t do us any good to speculate. Not without further information.” Jane rose, her pale skirts whispering against the marble bench. “We should be getting in. Even your poetry can only run so long. People will start to wonder.”

“Don’t be silly. I have at least ten cantos left to go.” He reached impulsively for Jane’s hand. “If I can persuade Madame Delagardie to this collaboration, I could write in a part for you.”

Jane twitched her hand away. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?” The more he thought about the idea, the better it seemed. “An extra pair of hands makes light work.”

Not to mention that Mme. Bonaparte’s gardens at Malmaison were justifiably famous. With the moonlight silvering the gravel, and the scent of roses heavy in the air, they would be irresistible.

Jane navigated around him, her flat slippers whispering against the flagstones. “We agreed. No more communication than necessary. It’s safer that way.”

“People are used to seeing me following you about.” Augustus tried to make a joke of it. “It’s no secret that I’m mad about you. What man wouldn’t craft a role for his muse?”

“Muses work best from a distance, Mr. Whittlesby.”

The thorns of a potted rose clutched and tug at Augustus’s dangling sleeves as he followed after her. He could hear the rending noise as the linen snagged and tore. “Miss Wooliston—Jane—”

“Where
is
Emma?” Jane turned quickly about, making a survey of the lighted windows. “You should make sure to catch her before she goes home. She has a cousin visiting. Another Mr. Livingston. There seem to be a number of them out and about.”

Bother Mr. Livingston. Bother all of them. “Jane—”

If she saw Augustus’s outstretched hand, she ignored it. “Where can Emma have got to? She was in the music room when we left her.”

Augustus saw Mme. Delagardie’s feathers before he saw her, bobbing not far from the music room window. She was standing by a tall man in a uniform tailored more for show than combat, his dark hair brushed and curled into the very latest style, a half-cape draped rakishly across one shoulder.

Jane spoke only one word, but it was imbued with enough venom to wither all the apples in Eden.

“Marston.”

“You know him?”

Adventurer, opportunist, close friend of the First Consul’s brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, Georges Marston had left Paris under a cloud not long after Miss Wooliston’s arrival in Paris.

“Unfortunately. What is Marston doing bothering Emma?” Jane’s brows drew together with concern. “Come along. We’d best rescue her.” She started busily forward.

Augustus didn’t follow. “Are you sure she needs rescuing?”

Jane paused. “Emma may be fierce, but she is small. And Marston isn’t beyond using force. Strength of character only goes so far against brute strength.” From the expression on her face, she wasn’t thinking of Emma.

That wasn’t what Augustus had meant.

“Didn’t you know?”

Jane frowned. “Know what?”

Augustus would have thought all Paris had heard.

Perhaps not, though. It had been two years ago, before Jane’s time. For all Jane’s clandestine excursions, she was still an unmarried female. Paris might be more hedonistic than London, but even in France, there were certain topics one simply didn’t mention in the presence of maiden ladies.

Augustus gestured towards Marston. “That he and your Emma were lovers.”

G
eorges Marston possessed himself of Emma’s hand, bending to press a kiss to the back of it.

“Madame Delagardie,” he murmured, and, for a wild moment, Emma thought she had escaped, that he intended to be civilized and let bygones be. Marston lifted his head, his full lips curving in a sensual smile. “Emma.”

Or maybe not.

“Monsieur Marston,” Emma said stiffly, repossessing herself of her hand. “I trust you have been well.”

Marston’s gaze dropped from her eyes, to her lips, and below. “So formal…Emma?”

It wasn’t fair. Most of Paris accumulated amours as though they were going out of style. And she? She had committed one little indiscretion, followed by two years of absolutely impeccable behavior. Well, almost impeccable,
unless one counted a little bit of recreational flirting, which hardly amounted to anything by any standards.

Didn’t Marston have a more recent inamorata to bedevil with his attentions? Someone? Anyone?

Emma snuck a glance at Kort. Kort, she was quite sure, wouldn’t understand the culture of casual carnality that had ruled the early days of the Consulate. Nor would he take “It was years ago, really, it was!” as an adequate defense.

Emma thought of her mother and her siblings back home and repressed the urge to shudder. There were some things beyond their comprehension or their forgiving, bits of her life they would never understand. It was all so simple for them. Marry, procreate, go to church on Sundays, attend the legislature in Albany, tend the tenant farmers, and pay calls on cousins. So simple and so easy.

No, no need for Kort to know about Georges. All she could do was attempt to finesse the situation as best she could and hope—oh, hopeless hope!—that Marston behaved himself or that Kort’s French would prove inadequate for nuance.

Unfortunately, a leer was a leer and Emma was Emma in just about any language.

Feathers bouncing, Emma gestured to her cousin. “Monsieur Marston, I don’t believe you know my cousin, Kortwright Livingston. Kort, this is Mr. Georges Marston, who occupies a very interesting position of some sort in Mr. Bonaparte’s army.”

Kort stepped closer to Emma. “A very interesting position of some sort?”

“Oh, you know.” Emma wafted her fan. “Military matters. Marching and things that go bang. What else is there to know?”

Kort ranged himself beside Emma, a self-appointed bodyguard. “Where are you stationed, Mr. Marston?”

“Colonel Marston,” Marston corrected him. When had he received so dramatic a promotion? He had been a mere lieutenant when Emma had known him, three years before. Friendship with the First Consul’s brother-
in-law was a lucrative proposition. “I command part of the garrison at Boulogne.”

It was, his voice implied, a very important post.

“It is,” he added, “a very important post.”

So much for modesty.

“How utterly lovely for you!” Emma babbled. “I’m sure you’ll wish to be getting back there soon. One wouldn’t want to leave it unattended. Well, it was all very lovely to see you again and all that, but I wouldn’t want to keep you. Not when you have Boulogne to get back to.”

She sounded, she realized, like the veriest pea brain. No matter. Her brains had never been the bit of her in which Marston took an interest. As for Kort, she’d rather he think her dim than debauched.

Marston took a step forward. “One has one’s duty,” he said, his voice low and seductive. “But that doesn’t mean one cannot also take one’s pleasure.”

“Pleasure in a duty well done?” Emma prevaricated, backing into Kort, who gave a muffled grunt of pain as she stepped down heavily on his foot. “I’m sure that must be vastly gratifying. Oh, dear, I am sorry. Did I just mangle your toes?”

“I believe they’re mostly intact,” he said, in a slightly strangled voice. “Good Lord, Emma, did you attach spikes to the bottom of your sandals?”