Лорен Уиллиг - The Garden Intrigue

Emma threaded her arm through the inventor’s. She didn’t look at Augustus. Not once. He might have been invisible. “If you wouldn’t mind… ?”

“No, not at all.” Mr. Fulton visibly squared his shoulders. “Just show me where you’ve put it.”

Her back was to him. She was moving already, moving away, as if he weren’t there at all. He could hear her say to Fulton, in her society voice, “You’re so kind. It’s the lightning bit.…”

Augustus watched her walk away, the words all jammed up in his throat. She had handled it very neatly, in her own Emma way. If he ran after her now, there would be explanations to be made, a reproachful look in the direction of Fulton, a “But, Augustus, Mr. Fulton has offered to share his valuable time,” all civilized and pleasant, papering over what had just occurred as though it had never happened, just as she had papered over the kiss the night before. Pretend it wasn’t there, pretend it had never happened, pretend everything was light and easy and just fine.

He had thought he knew her, but he had been just as taken in as everyone else in the end, hadn’t he? Fooled by a frivolous exterior and an easygoing air. The pain in her voice etched into his memory like acid. Paul died. He had seen, in her haunted eyes too large for her face, the ghosts of all those children that never were, the domesticity that was not. Augustus wanted to wrap his arms around her and press the pain away, as if one embrace could cancel out another. He wanted to tuck her head under his chin and pretend he had never seen that, or the exasperation on her face as she said, That’s what normal, grown-up people do, Augustus. They grow up.

He had thought he had grown up. He had been pressed into Wickham’s service nearly as young as Emma had been a bride.

Well, all right, not quite as young, but still at an age when most other chaps were still bedeviling their tutors or betting on who could balance a chamber pot on the spire of the chapel. He had thought himself very noble.

A decade later, what did he have to show?

He had told himself that Jane was the answer to the question. But when he had imagined Jane, it was always poetry and moonlight, always set pieces, like something out of an opera. It was impossible to take the image and turn it into flesh, to make the fire crackle, to conjure the scent of food on the table. He couldn’t envision Jane’s hair unbound. It was all pasteboard, like the scenery in the theatre, the mere semblance and substitute of life.

If he loved and lovely hopelessly, he never had to make room for messy realities. He never had to genuinely care.

In the relentless sunshine, the summerhouse seemed to shimmer. The glare from the windows hurt his eyes. Augustus could only be glad there was no mirror. He didn’t think he would like what he saw in it.

This was what Emma had seen, what she had seen and he hadn’t, shortsightedness and cowardice and, above all, selfishness, all slicked over with poetry.

All was fair in espionage and war.

He didn’t want to live like that anymore.

The door to the summerhouse stood open, and, inside, Fulton’s plans still lay on the table, momentarily forgotten. Someone would be back for them soon enough. Whatever Fulton’s feelings, Bonaparte had made it clear he considered his changes only a delay, not a denial. Augustus regarded the open door without enthusiasm. Whatever else, it would be a dereliction of duty not to see this through. One last mission. And then?

And then he would make it right with Emma. He wasn’t sure why, but the very thought of it made his spirits rise.

Augustus turned and slipped into the summerhouse.

Augustus would say she was running away.

Emma could hear her own voice saying things like It’s the lightning bit, and then, in response to something else, I can’t figure out how to attach it to the thunder. I’m deathly afraid of burning the building down. I should hate to be the one responsible for destroying the Emperor’s theatre, and then Mr. Fulton’s voice in reply, uttering words that pattered against her ears like pebbles on a windowpane, just a distant clatter from somewhere far outside. She could feel the grass beneath her slippers, her skirt slapping against her legs, the sun on her head as Augustus and the summerhouse receded farther and farther into the distance.

Running away, indeed!

What business was it of Augustus’s whether she married her cousin or moved to America or set up house in the outer Hebrides? What concern was it of his whether she slept with Georges Marston or half the imperial guard? As for this business of her playing with people and ideas—well, that was simply absurd. If he asked any of her friends from Mme. Campan’s, they could tell him that. To be fair, most of them she saw only for quick, whispered gossips at parties, or for casual chatter over chocolate, but at least she had friends.

This idea that she couldn’t commit to anything was pure nonsense. She had committed to Paul, hadn’t she? Nine years ago, on a whim, whispered a nasty little voice at the back of her head. And she had gone running as soon as the going had gotten rough.

Well, yes, but she had gone back to him. They had been trying to make it work that last time. She had made compromises, she had learned, she had tried, really tried. Yes, for all of four months. But that hadn’t been within her control, the fact that they had only four months. It wasn’t her fault that Paul had died.

The familiar refrain grated on her ears. Not my fault, not my fault, not my fault. She had been saying it for so long, and, yet, what did it really mean? Her fault, his fault, Fate’s fault, the outcome was the same. It was going on four years now. Soon Paul would have been dead longer than they had been together, and they had been together only for a fraction of the time they had officially been together.

Fine, so perhaps she had been using Paul as an excuse. And perhaps Augustus had a bit of a point when it came to Marston—or a lot of a point. But that didn’t mean she shirked her duties or hid from obligation or whatever else it was that he was trying to accuse her of. After all, there was Carmagnac, thought Emma, brightening. Always Carmagnac.

Only there wasn’t, really. For all that she took credit for it, all she had done was complete Paul’s plans in the most minimal possible of ways. She might have used her friendship with Mr. Fulton to improve upon those plans a bit, but it had still been Paul’s work, not hers. It had taken very little effort to take Mr. Fulton’s sketches and dispatch them to Paul’s old steward at Carmagnac. She dispensed funds when asked and went down once a year to survey the fields and think Profound Thoughts about the life that hadn’t been, but that was the extent of her involvement in Carmagnac. She could get along very well without Carmagnac, and Carmagnac could get along very well without her.

What had she done that was hers? Hers and not someone else’s? When had she taken a step that was entirely of her own choosing and, having stepped it, stayed with it?

“Madame Delagardie?”

She couldn’t even commit to a conversation. Mr. Fulton was looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to say something.

Emma shook her head ruefully. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fulton,” she said. “I didn’t catch a word of that.”

“It will be easier to show you,” he said kindly, absolving her of inattention. His lip curled. “Apparently my powers of description leave something to be desired.”

Emma attempted to make up for her lapse with an excess of sympathy. “I am sorry your venture proved unfruitful.”

Fulton grimaced. “So am I. It’s been months in the planning, months of back and forth, a full demonstration in Boulogne, and now…He’s angry because I didn’t bring a full-size model with me! That silly little river behind the house isn’t deep enough.”

“It was deep enough for the steamship, wasn’t it?” Until Achille sank it. Only to be expected of a son of Caroline.

Fulton dismissed that. “Yes, but this isn’t a steamship. It’s a—well, it is what it is.” His face set in hard lines. “I’ve had enough of France anyway. I had a much better time of it in England. They, at least, knew how to appreciate the power of innovation. They didn’t string a man along from committee to committee and then tell him he has to add an extra torpedo.”

“I can see how that might be rather wearying.” Emma had no idea what he was on about, but the venting seemed to be doing him good.

“If Bonaparte doesn’t like my Nautilus as it is, I’m sure I can find someone else who will.”

“Of course,” said Emma soothingly. “I’m sure it’s a brilliant machine. But what is it?”

“It’s a submarine,” he said abruptly, and pushed open the door of the theatre. “A ship that sails under the water.”

Wasn’t the point of ships to stay above the water? A little thing about not drowning? Emma shook that aside. “Whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll be able to reach some accommodation with the Emperor.”

“Or not,” said Fulton. He straightened his shoulders and ostentatiously examined his surroundings, deliberately putting an end to the discussion. “Now, where have you put the wave machine?”