Лорен Уиллиг - The Garden Intrigue

He was rhyming again. He hadn’t been before. For a little while, he had been speaking almost normally. He donned rhyme like armor, keeping her at bay. She could have told him he didn’t need to. She flirted without thinking. That was armor, too.

She knew better than to let herself be lulled by the shepherd’s song. “Come live with me and be my love.” She had believed those words once; she had followed them into an early marriage. With the arrogance of youth, she had ignored the nymph’s reply: “The flowers do fade, and wanton fields / To wayward winter reckoning yields; / A honey tongue, a heart of gall, / Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.”

“I had thought to ask Mr. Fulton for help,” Emma said quickly. “The inventor. He created the panorama a few years ago. You must have seen it. Everyone did.”

“Saw it? I wrote a poem about it! ‘An Ode to the Experience of Art in the Round.’ It was much admired in certain circles.”

“I’m sure it was.” With relief, Emma seized on the excuse offered her by the presence of her sedan chair in the courtyard, the bearers ready and waiting. There were still places in Paris where it was easier to take a chair than a carriage. “We do have much to discuss, but, as you see, my chair is already waiting.”

With the ease of long practice, she climbed into her own personal chair, reciting an address to the chairman as she did. She felt the familiar lurch of the chair as they rose to their feet.

Mr. Whittlesby’s face appeared in the chair window. “You go to Madame Hortense?” he asked.

“Yes, to tell her the good news about the masque.” Emma patted her reticule. Paper crinkled beneath her fingers. “And to bring her this.”

Emma nodded to the chairmen and they set the chair into motion, stepping in perfect pace on the uneven cobbles.

“Until tomorrow, Mr. Whittlesby!” she called out through the window.

From the corner of her eye, she could see him standing there still, his open shirt inadequate protection against the chill of an unseasonably cool May day.

When Emma was shown into Hortense’s boudoir, the others were already deep in conversation, a china pot of coffee on the table between them, two cups half full and a third glaringly empty.

Jane Wooliston smiled at Emma over her coffee cup. “Only fifteen minutes late this time. You’re improving.”

Hortense Bonaparte made a face at Jane. “Don’t be unkind!” Rising, she embraced Emma, the differences in their height reversed from when they had first known each other, when Hortense was eleven and Emma fourteen. Now Hortense was the taller of the two, a grown woman and a mother. But she still had the same sweet nature that had endeared her to everyone at Mme. Campan’s. “I’m sure there was an extenuating circumstance. Such as…”

“A stampede of bears across the Champs-Élysées?” suggested Jane. “Typhoons? Hurricanes?”

Emma plumped down with a thump on the yellow silk settee. “A hurricane, indeed! Hurricane Augustus, you mean. Someone”—she looked hard at Jane—“unleashed a poet on me.”

“ ‘Unleashed’ is such a strong term,” said Jane.

“No one ever tells me anything,” complained Hortense, to no one in particular.

It was meant jokingly, but Emma felt a twinge of guilt all the same. If she thought her own position was fraught, Hortense’s was far worse. Bad enough being the First Consul’s stepdaughter, but she was made doubly a Bonaparte by her marriage to Napoleon’s younger brother, Louis. As the family rose in prominence, those who surrounded them were increasingly likely to be toadies, informers, or both. There were few these days whom Hortense could call friend and believe it.

Emma angled herself towards Hortense. “Trust me, you aren’t missing much of anything. You know Augustus Whittlesby, don’t you?”

“The poet?” Hortense perked up. She turned to Jane. “Isn’t he in love with you?”

“Perpetually,” said Emma, before Jane could jump in.

“Poetically,” countered Jane repressively. “It isn’t at all the same thing.”

“Yes, yes, we’ve had this discussion,” said Emma. And Augustus Whittlesby had been so very terrified when he had thought she might be flirting with him. Emma pushed that thought away; it wasn’t a particularly flattering recollection. “What did you tell him about me?” she demanded. “You didn’t say anything about my predilection for his pantaloons, did you?”

“Oh, my,” said Jane, raising one brow. “One afternoon in his company and you’re already away with the alliteration.”

“Don’t change the subject,” said Emma severely. “The poor man is terrified that I intend to seduce him.”

“Do you?” asked Hortense with interest. The intense scrutiny of a jealous husband left her little opportunity to seduce anyone, but she took a generous interest in her friends.

“No! Absolutely not. I’m just using him for his help with my masque.” She wasn’t quite sure when, but somehow, it had become her masque, hers, quite hers. Maybe it had something to do with the pirates.

“So you are writing it!” Hortense put down her cup with a delicate clink. “Maman will be so pleased. She was terrified she might have to ask Caroline to help instead, and you know how Caroline is.” She made an admirable effort to sound cheerful, but there was no mistaking the strain beneath it.

“And Whittlesby,” said Jane. “Is he…helpful?”

“Stop that! And, yes,” Emma admitted. “He is. Or at least he might be. We’ll see. If you don’t stop smirking, I’ll send him back to writing odes for you.” She turned to Hortense. “You will be my heroine, won’t you?”

Hortense took a deep interest in the contents of her coffee cup. “You know I want to be…but it might not be possible.”

“There won’t be much to…Oh.” Emma stared at Hortense’s hand, where it rested gently on her stomach as her friend’s words took on new meaning. “Are you…I mean—”

Hortense nodded. “Yes.”

“But that doesn’t mean you can’t perform.” Women tended to go about in society up until the very last moment, a pregnancy no bar to one’s usual social whirl. The masque was in less than a month. “You won’t even be showing.”

Hortense shook her head, not meeting Emma’s eyes. “Louis wouldn’t like it.”

Emma and Jane exchanged a look. It was no secret that Hortense’s marriage was a sham, her husband delighting in all manner of petty persecutions.

It was a hideous situation. Hortense had never wanted to marry Louis, nor Louis Hortense, but if he wanted a dynasty, Bonaparte needed heirs, and Hortense and Louis were to provide them.

Emma’s heart ached for her friend.

And, just a little bit, for herself. She certainly didn’t envy Hortense her situation, but she did envy her the curve of her hand across her belly, the child sleeping in the nursery, the press of small arms around her neck.

They had been planning to try for a child, she and Paul, towards the end. After all the years of confusion, of separation and reconciliation, they were going to be a family. They had gone so far as to commission a cradle.

But Paul had died. And so had gone not only that hard-won sweetness, but all their other plans with him, all the children and hopes that might have been, leaving her to a cold and barren bed and an empty nursery. It hurt, sometimes, seeing her friends with their children, seeing Hortense, so many years younger than she, with one in the nursery and another on the way. Bonaparte’s sister Caroline, bane of Mme. Campan’s academy, had three.

Oh, she wouldn’t trade. She wouldn’t take Hortense’s Louis or Caroline’s Murat. But it would be nice, so very nice, to have a pair of plump little arms around her neck instead of the cold press of gems, the downy scent of a child’s head instead of perfume.

“When are you due?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful, and fearing that she had failed as badly as her friend.

“In the autumn,” said Hortense. She twisted in her seat to look at Jane. “Will you take my part for me? I’d rather you than Caroline.”

“Won’t your mother mind?” said Jane. “She intended the part for you.”

Hortense tried to make a joke of it. “She would also rather anyone than Caroline. Please? It would be a pleasure for me to have you there.”

What she didn’t say, although the others both understood, was that she wanted allies, people outside the Bonaparte clan and the narrow circle of the court. Both Jane and Emma, aliens as they were, were safe. They had no ambitions to be satisfied, no ulterior motives to be pursued at Hortense’s expense.

There was a pause, and then Jane said, “I’ll hold the part in trust for you. In case you change your mind. The same costumes will fit us both.”

Hortense only shook her head.

“Shall we go shopping next week?” Emma jumped in. “Surely, a new baby is an excellent excuse to treat yourself to a few new hats.”

“You are a dear. But that’s not where the baby is!” Hortense’s eyes brightened and for a moment she looked almost like her old self. Her face fell. “I can’t. I have to be at Saint-Cloud. My stepfather has an important announcement to make.”

“Oh?” Emma said, without interest.

“You’ll hear about it soon enough. Maman has a surprise for you, too, but she wants to tell you herself, so it will have to wait until Malmaison.” Hortense broke off at a barely heard sound, craning her neck towards the door.

It opened slowly, not Louis eavesdropping, nor one of his minions, but Louis-Charles’ nursemaid, who dropped a curtsy, and said, in a low voice, “Madame…”

Hortense was out of her chair before the word was finished.

Emma and Jane followed suit, placing their cups on the tray as they rose.

“Forgive me,” Hortense said, her attention already elsewhere, in the nursery with her child. “Louis-Charles…”

“Of course,” said Jane gracefully.

“Malmaison, then,” said Emma. “I’ll bring sweets for Louis-Charles. Oh, and I nearly forgot! Stupid me!”

Opening her bag, she delved into her reticule, wondering, as she always did, how objects managed to hide in a bag no bigger than a man’s fist.

Hortense signaled to the nursemaid to wait just a moment. “You did bring it, then?”

Emma held out the crumpled piece of paper. “A little the worse for wear, I’m afraid.”

“Even so,” said Hortense, with heartfelt gratitude. “Thank you. What are a few creases with so much at stake?”

“It was a recipe for cough syrup,” said Jane.

Augustus paused next to a statue that appeared to have misplaced its arms. They had met at the Musée Napoléon, the public art gallery housed in the former Louvre Palace. The vast marble halls provided an excellent place for an assignation. A series of antique statues, looted from Italy during Bonaparte’s last campaign, stood silent sentry to their conversation.

Jane’s chaperone, Miss Gwen, provided more practical protection. Ostensibly engaged in examining the art, she prowled in a continuous circle around them, poking at the statuary with her parasol, glowering at all comers, and generally providing distraction.

“Cough syrup,” said Augustus. “Cough syrup?”

His revelation that Emma Delagardie was smuggling documents to Hortense de Beauharnais Bonaparte hadn’t gone exactly as expected.

“Cough syrup,” confirmed Jane. “Made of wild cherry bark, lemon, and honey.”

Kitted out in bonnet, gloves, and pelisse, the Pink Carnation was the very image of a demure young lady scarcely out of the schoolroom, her hair swept back smoothly beneath her bonnet, her gloved hands devoid of rings or bracelets. The fichu at her throat hid the locket that she wore on a ribbon around her neck, but Augustus didn’t need to see it to know that it was there. No telltale signet rings for the Pink Carnation; her seal was inscribed in the back of her locket, a delicate tracery on a lady’s trinket.

Augustus admired her acumen, but omniscience was a bit much, even for the legendary Pink Carnation.

Cough syrup? How could she divine that simply from his description of a crumpled piece of paper?

“This is a new talent for you,” he teased, feeling like a lovelorn adolescent as he trotted along beside her. Next, he would be offering to help her carry her hymnal, or begging her to stand up with him at the next country assembly. Ridiculous enough in an adolescent, worse in a grown man. “Walking through locked doors, seeing through solid walls, reading closed correspondence. Am I to congratulate you on the acquisition of a crystal ball?”