Лорен Уиллиг - The Garden Intrigue

He had got it wrong. Jane wasn’t Cytherea, goddess of love and beauty; she was Cynthia, goddess of the moon, chaste and untouchable. The tower wasn’t his invention; it was her choice.

Or, maybe, she just didn’t want him.

Metaphor was no consolation. He could pile up classical allusions, one on top of the other, but none could hide the simple fact that Jane had known what he was saying and had deliberately ducked and dodged. She didn’t want his declarations of love.

She’s not like that, said Emma. I don’t want you hurt.

He could smell the sickly sweet scent of Emma’s pity clinging to his skin like rot. She had known and he hadn’t. She had known exactly what was going to happen. Had she and Jane discussed it over their coffees with Hortense Bonaparte? Had they laughed over his ridiculous pretensions?

No, they wouldn’t have laughed. Jane would have simply deflected all questions with a smile and a change of subject.

Jane had paused in whatever she was saying. She was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to reply.

“I’m sorry,” said Augustus roughly. “Can you repeat that? I’m afraid I missed the end of it.”

She smiled approvingly, thanking him for what he hadn’t said. “Mr. Livingston’s primary interest seems to be the munitions factory, but, as far as I’ve been able to tell, he hasn’t conducted any business on its behalf during this visit. Instead, there’s talk of a new business venture.”

Augustus forced himself to frame the right words. He felt like one of those chickens that continued to careen around the barnyard long after the fatal blow had been administered, too stupid to realize it was dead. “What sort of business venture?”

“That’s still unclear. It appears to involve Mr. Fulton.”

“Fulton?” The name drifted towards him from a very long way away, like flotsam on the river. “The inventor?”

“The very one.” Jane’s gaze sharpened on Augustus. “Do you know anything?”

“Madame Delagardie commissioned Fulton to make a wave machine for the masque.”

Like a swimmer breaking the surface of the water, dragging in his first, gasping breath, Augustus felt his fogged brain begin to clear. There was something there…some connection.

“Wait,” he said sharply.

De Lilly had sworn the device, whatever it was, was to be tested at Malmaison this weekend. Emma had been commissioned to produce not a play but a masque, a theatrical form notorious for its reliance on mechanical effects.

What better way to hide an incriminating device than among others? In a theatre? The backstage was clogged with ropes and pulleys and all manner of strange contrivances.

“The theatre,” he said. “They’re hiding it in the theatre.”

Jane was instantly alert. “Are you sure?”

“No,” he said bluntly. “But I can find out. Do you know where I can find a crowbar?”

“The tools are over there.” Jane indicated a small building half hidden by a stand of trees.

Naturally. Naturally, Jane would know exactly where the tools were kept, even though this was her first visit to Malmaison, as it was his.

He used to find her omniscience endearing; right now, it struck him as more than a little eerie.

There was something chilling about that sort of superhuman competence.

He wasn’t being fair, he knew. His colleague looked entirely the same as she had half an hour ago, the same dress, the same Kashmir shawl, the same smooth wings of hair disappearing beneath the brim of her bonnet, but he couldn’t see her in the same way. The eyes that had been coolly amused were just cool, the lips that he had praised for their firmness were firmly closed against him. Her poise, her posture, the pearly tint of her skin, all seemed as off-putting as they had once been engaging.

“You should be able to persuade one of the gardeners to assist you,” she said.

“I’m sure I can contrive to manage,” said Augustus. His voice sounded strange and flat to his ears.

The sun had dropped below the horizon, and the wind had risen. Through the shaking branches, he could see the windows of the great house blaze into light, one by one, as the servants lit the lamps, throwing the dark outside into even greater relief. The theatre was invisible from where they stood, hidden on the far side of the house.

Augustus wondered if Emma had given up and gone away or found someone else to open her box for her.

How long had they been standing on the bridge? It might have been anywhere from fifteen minutes to half an hour. It felt like years.

He wasn’t sure which would be worse, to creep in through the dark like a thief, hiding his chagrin in the shadows, or to find Emma still there, pity and understanding written all over her face.

Jane had said it. They had a job to do. It didn’t matter what Emma thought of him. He just needed the contents of that thrice-damned crate.

“I should be getting back,” he said brusquely.

Jane put out a hand to stop him as he strode across the bridge. He didn’t stop, but he slowed, looking back over his shoulder. She was a pale blur in the shadow of the trees, insubstantial in the twilight.

A poet’s dream, nothing more.

“I just want you to know,” she said, and her voice sounded less certain than he had ever heard it. For a moment, in the wavering dusk, she sounded almost her age. “I do have the highest esteem for you as a colleague.”

He hadn’t thought he could feel any worse than he already did, but there it was.

“Thank you,” said Augustus shortly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a box to break.”

Jane didn’t ask what he was talking about. He didn’t volunteer. Why bother? She probably knew already.

With exquisite pain, he recalled other conversations, other meetings, all those times he thought he was subtly paying homage. All those times he thought Jane was, in her own quiet way, sending his coded confirmation.

Instead, all the while, she had just been doing her best to keep him from declaring himself.

Had she realized? Had she known before? It must have been fairly obvious if Emma felt the need to comment on it.

I don’t want you hurt.

Too late.

The theatre was dark. Augustus pushed open the door, his eyes adjusting with little difficulty from the window-lit dusk to the gloom of the interior. Outside, he could hear the crickets chirping and the odd hoot of an owl anticipating his evening’s forays. Inside, all was still, rank upon rank of seats facing blankly forward, a phantom audience for a phantom show.

The theatre wasn’t entirely empty. A narrow sliver of light fell across the stage, emanating from somewhere in the wings.

Augustus made his way quietly down the aisle between the seats, carpet muffling his steps, shadows masking his movements. The light broadened as he approached, angling into a doorway. He paused in the doorway, taking in the scene.

The crate was open. The lid was propped up against one side. Straw littered the floor. Three lanterns had been lit, set out in a semicircle on the floor. There were bits of metal and tubing scattered about, like a child’s toys left out after play.

In the middle of it sat Emma, her legs tucked up underneath her as she consulted a grimy scrap of paper, muttering to herself as she reached for a piece of metal tubing, thought better of it, and put it back again.

“But if that goes here…”

She had shoved her hair back behind her ears, heedless of the fashionable bandeau that was supposed to be serving that function, causing chunks of hair to bump up at odd angles. There was a smudge of dirt or grease on one cheek and straw clinging to her dress.

“Right,” she said to herself. “It must be that other tube.…”

She scooted herself forward, adding more straw to the collection on her hem, jiggered herself up on her knees, and leaned all the way over, stretching out as far as she could to reach an errant piece of tubing that had strayed to the end of the circle. Her fingers wriggled towards the tube.

And there she froze.

She was, Augustus realized, staring at his boots. Her gaze traveled up past the tassels of his boots, to his thighs, and up to his shirt.

“Oh,” she said, and did a very quick scramble back, hand by hand, to her original position, popping up flushed and disheveled in something closer to a sitting position. “Hello! You’ve come back.”

Augustus kicked the door shut behind him. “You were right,” he said.

“I found someone to help me with the lid,” said Emma.

She heaved herself up off the floor, tripping on the end of her own skirt and trying not to careen into a pile of packing straw. Lifting her hands to shove her hair back behind her ears, Emma found that her bandeau had twisted itself halfway around, listing drunkenly to the side, with her hair all bunched up underneath. There was something grimy on the back of her hand, and, oh, Lord, was that straw on her skirt?

Emma backed out of the circle of lantern light, trusting to the dark to hide her burning cheeks and disheveled appearance. Not that it mattered. It was only Augustus, after all. Still, one didn’t like to be seen looking like a complete slattern—even if one was.