Лорен Уиллиг - The Garden Intrigue

“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?”

All his sallies won him nothing more than a smile, and a perfunctory one at that. Augustus felt reprimanded, without being quite sure why.

“No such arts were required,” Jane said crisply. “I know because I saw it.”

Augustus frowned. “How?”

“Hortense and Emma and I meet weekly for coffee after Emma’s Friday salon.” When Augustus only stared at her, Jane added gently, “I was there. I saw Emma hand Hortense the papers. I saw the contents. It was a recipe for cough syrup, nothing more.”

“How do you know it was the same paper?”

“Emma had only the one in her reticule. There wasn’t room for more.” Jane was clearly prepared to leave it at that.

“Only one that you saw,” said Augustus. “There’s more than one way to transmit a message.”

The bodice was an old and time-honored means of transporting illicit correspondence.

Given the depth of Mme. Delagardie’s décolletage, it would have had to be a very short note. Her bodice hadn’t plunged to the magnificent depths of Napoleon’s sister Pauline, but it had been low enough and transparent enough to make the inclusion of a sizable epistle unlikely.

There were always garters.…

For some reason, it felt wrong to be contemplating Mme. Delagardie’s garters, at least in front of Jane. It shouldn’t have been. His interest in Mme. Delagardie’s garters, Augustus reminded himself, was purely professional. It wasn’t as though he were trying to imagine the contour of her thighs or the texture of her skin, the fine sheen of gold hair, or the slim curve of a calf. No. Not at all. It was entirely about papers, the conveying thereof.

Illicit papers.

Not illicit thoughts.

“There might have been another note,” Augustus said shortly. “It might have been a ruse.”

“Or simply cough syrup,” said Jane practically. “Louis-Charles has been plagued by a terrible cough all spring. Emma’s mother swears by a concoction of herbs and honey. Hortense asked Emma for the recipe. It was as simple as that.”

Simple, in Augustus’s experience, was a dangerous term. Look at Jane herself, the picture of innocent insipidity. The Ministry of Police had made that mistake; Augustus didn’t intend to.