The Garden Intrigue pc-9

by Лорен Уиллиг

  “Yes, but none who can affect an American accent quite so convincingly.” Emma linked her arm through his. “Do I have to have a reason for wanting to prolong the visit of my favorite cousin?”

  “I can just see the headlines now,” Kort grumbled, and Emma knew she had won. ‘American Merchant Makes Fool of Self in French Farce.’ And that will just be the offstage part.”

  “Just think of all the adoring maidens flinging themselves at your feet. No one can resist an actor.” Emma cunningly played her ace. She pointed down the gallery, past a strapping Apollo garbed in the latest in fig-leaf fashion. “Speaking of which, there’s your leading lady, should you choose to take the part.”

  Kort squinted. “The purple horror?”

  Emma thumped him in the side with her reticule. “No, silliness. The other one. The pretty one.”

  Almost as though on cue, Jane emerged from behind the outstretched arm of the statue, a symphony in lilac linen. There was a man with her, a man garbed in tight, knit pantaloons and a shirt that billowed out at the waist and sleeves. His eyes met Emma’s over Jane’s shoulder, and Emma felt an absurd flutter of excitement, as though he were a lover rather than a collaborator, as though their assignations had involved something more than ink.

  All nonsense, of course. Nonsense and tight breeches. Emma forced herself to attend to her cousin, turning her head deliberately away from the poet.

  “I met her, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, at the rout at the Hotel de Balcourt last week.”

  Kort looked blank.

  “The house with all the Egyptian bits in it,” Emma translated. She fluttered her lashes at Kort. “See? Aren’t you glad you’ve decided to take the part?”

  “I hadn’t said I would,” Kort corrected. With studied casualness, he added, “As it happens, I’m going to be at Malmaison anyway. Uncle Robert secured an invitation for me.”

  “Oh.” That took the wind out of her sails. So much for impressing her cousin with her French connections when he was able to obtain the same coveted invitation by other means. “Well, then! You have even less excuse not to play my leading man. I’ll expect you in rehearsals next week. Once we’ve written it,” she added, as an afterthought.

  “Unless you decide not to,” said Kort hopefully.

  Emma struck him playfully on the arm. “Don’t even think it. Resistance is futile. I will have you in those tights.” Something else struck her. “Wasn’t your business meant to be concluded by then?”

  Kort flexed his hands in his tan gloves, manipulating the muscles to make his knuckles crack. “There have been unexpected complications,” he said shortly.

  “Ah,” said Emma knowingly. Not that she actually knew anything about conducting business, but it was always best to assume the pretense. “You’ll have to book a later passage, won’t you?”

  Kort looked down at her, shifting slightly from foot to foot. “Emma…”

  “Yes?” Was that an apology she heard coming?

  Kort stepped abruptly back, his boot heel connecting with a sharp sound against the marble floor. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Come along. Don’t you want to reintroduce me to your friends?”

  Before Emma could argue that it did matter, that whatever he had to say, she wanted to hear it, he had started forward, tugging her along behind him, like…like a poodle on a leash, she thought indignantly. Just like back at Belvedere. Her flat-heeled slippers skidded against the marble floor as she scrambled to keep up.

  “Emma,” said Jane, her voice rich with amusement. “What a surprise to see you here. And your charming cousin as well.”

  Kort executed an old-fashioned bow. “Ladies.”

  Jane stepped forward and extended a hand to Kort. “I hear you are to be my hero.”

  “On the stage, at least,” Kort said. His eyes slid towards Miss Gwen. Miss Gwen nodded regally, giving Kort permission to take Jane’s hand.

  “Hero?” managed Whittlesby, in a mangled voice.

  “In our masque!” Emma’s voice came out too loud and too high, waking the echoes in the corners of the room. “Isn’t it above all things wonderful? Kort has agreed to take the role.”

  “But…” Mr. Whittlesby was still looking at Jane, not at her. “Miss Wooliston?”

  Jane gently retrieved her hand from Kort’s. She gestured to Emma, her smile never wavering. “Our ever persuasive Madame Delagardie has induced me to tread the boards. Provided, that is,” she added, with mock reproach, “that you write us something fit to act in.” She turned back to Kort. “What do you say, Mr. Livingston? Shall we leave them to their artistic musings? I fear we are sadly in the way.”

  Kort offered his arm with flattering alacrity. “I wouldn’t want to be the man to stand in the way of genius.”

  “Lovely.” It was very neatly done. Within a space of a moment, Jane was leading Kort away. Emma could hear her voice floating back, oddly distorted by the echoing space. “Have you had much experience on the stage, Mr. Livingston?”

  Jane would never wink; it wasn’t her way. The look she cast Emma over her shoulder, however, might as well have been a wink. It had the same effect. As Miss Gwen stalked along behind her charge, Emma realized, with growing horror, exactly what her friend had done.

  She had left Emma alone with Mr. Whittlesby.

  On purpose.

  And it wasn’t so they could discuss the masque.

  It wasn’t fair, Emma thought passionately. She didn’t try to shove off her unwanted admirers on Jane or embarrass her friend by pointedly obvious efforts to throw her together with the object of her affections.

  Of course, that was only because Jane was too circumspect to ever admit to having an object of affection. But the point still remained: Emma’s hands were clean, even if only by default.

  Did Mr. Whittlesby realize? He would have to be an idiot not to.

  An idiot…or a man in love. He was, Emma realized, not looking at her at all. He was still watching Jane, his eyes following her as she led Kort along the marble hall, as her hand gestured elegantly at this painting or that statue.

  Of course he didn’t realize. Emma didn’t register for him at all, did she? At least, not that way.

  The thought oughtn’t to be that lowering—she did only admire him for his breeches, after all—but it was. It clung to the back of her throat like lye, base and corrosive.

  “She never told me,” he said, more to himself than Emma. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “Perhaps she didn’t have the chance,” said Emma soothingly.

  Whittlesby didn’t want to be soothed. He turned on her like the Grand Inquisitor. “Was it your idea that Miss Wooliston be in the masque?”

  “No.” Emma realized she had sounded just as brusque as he had, and made a hasty effort at amends. It wouldn’t do to sound as though she hadn’t wanted Jane; she would never want anyone to think that. “Hortense suggested it—Madame Bonaparte, that is. She was to play the lead but now that— Let’s just say that circumstances have rendered it unlikely. She might still, though.”

  Oh, good. Now she didn’t sound brusque. She just sounded like the village idiot.

  Mustering her wits, she said, “Either way, I’m sure it will go splendidly. How can it not with my imagination and your pen? Everyone will be shouting for encores!”

  She looked expectantly at him, but Mr. Whittlesby was not inclined to match her cheerful tone. “How long have you known?”

  “Since Friday.”

  “Friday?”

  “I should have thought you would be glad to have Miss Wooliston in our cast,” said Emma, nettled past tact. “It will save you the bother of following her from place to place.”

  Well, that got his attention. But not in a good way. From the look he gave her, one would have thought he had just caught her going through his jacket pockets. If he ever wore a jacket, that is. The billowy linen shirt left little to the imagination.

  Emma colored. That was always the problem with fair skin
—the slightest hint of embarrassment and there it came, out like a rash. But, really, there was no reason to be made to feel as though she were somehow rooting about in his private affairs. He had made his feelings for Jane entirely public.

  Twenty-two cantos of public.

  “You’re never going to win her that way,” said Emma officiously.

  Whittlesby’s face was a study in outrage. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You ought,” said Emma frankly. “All those cantos, all those readings, and all of them for nothing! It’s been very tedious.”

  “No one asked you to subject yourself to my work,” said Whittlesby loftily. “They were not intended for you.”

  “Please don’t misunderstand me,” said Emma. “I don’t mean to malign your poetry. It’s simply that as a technique for courtship, it leaves something to be desired. I know they say poetry is the way to a woman’s heart, but it didn’t work for Petrarch, either.”

  “Has it occurred to you, madam, that I might write verse for the sake of verse? That the creation of poetry might in itself be the object of desire rather than the fallible human form that inspires it?”

  Yes, but Jane had a very lovely form, and she had several years yet before it started to be fallible. Oh, the joys of being twenty-two and in little need of corsets!

  “That is nicely said,” said Emma approvingly. “For your sake, I hope it’s true.”

  “My intentions,” Whittlesby said with dignity, “are as pure as my poetry.”

  “It isn’t your intentions that are the problem, but your methods. Twenty-two cantos? There are far better ways to get a lady’s attention.”

  “Are you offering to play Cyrano?” There was a decidedly dangerous glint in Mr. Whittlesby’s eye. “Don’t confuse me with your Mr. Marston. Not all men are in his mold.”

  “You mean, direct?” Emma wasn’t quite sure why she was defending Marston, other than that, at this particular moment, she would have negated anything Whittlesby said, up to and including green being the color of grass and the sky being up rather than down.

  “Direct,” Whittlesby repeated. “That’s one way of putting it. Direct to your door?”

  Emma flushed. “At least he made clear what he wanted.”

  Whittlesby’s eyes narrowed on her face, taking on a speculative expression. “And what might that be?”

  “Didn’t you know?” said Emma, with a forced laugh. “My diamonds. Pity for him they’re paste.”

  She didn’t want to talk about Marston with Augustus Whittlesby. She didn’t want to talk about Marston at all.

  Behind Whittlesby’s shoulder, a young man was hovering, dressed richly in a deep green jacket with a waistcoat in stripes of pink and green.

  “Oh, look,” she babbled, waving enthusiastically, “there’s dear Monsieur—”

  What was his name? There had been so many people come to Paris recently, so many members of the old aristocratic families returned from exile in England and elsewhere. It was impossible to keep them all straight.

  “De Lilly?” Whittlesby frowned over his shoulder at the young man.

  “Yes?” At the sound of his name, the young man hastened forward. It hadn’t been meant as an invitation, but he took it as such. He bowed enthusiastically over Emma’s hand. “Madame Delagardie! It is a pleasure.”

  At least someone thought so. Emma tried to send a meaningful look at Mr. Whittlesby, but Mr. Whittlesby wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention.

  De Lilly was probably roughly her own age, but he seemed like a boy, all pink-cheeked and eager to please. He made Emma feel ancient.

  “Do you know Mr. Whittlesby?” Emma asked de Lilly, mostly to needle the poet. She missed her fan. It was so much less effective gesticulating without one.

  De Lilly glanced sideways at Mr. Whittlesby and went pink about the cheekbones. “Mr. Whittlesby and I are somewhat acquainted.”

  Emma looked inquisitively at Mr. Whittlesby, but the poet had assumed his most otherworldly expression.

  “The muses lead many to my door,” he intoned.

  De Lilly dropped his gaze to his boot tops, looking sheepish and very, very young. “Mr. Whittlesby was kind enough to undertake a small commission for me.”

  Emma glanced archly at the poet. “Service à la Cyrano?”

  Mr. Whittlesby sniffed. “If you insist on calling it that. I prefer to think of it as wooing for the romantically impaired.”

  De Lilly went an even deeper red.

  Oh, the poor thing. Emma felt guilty for having pushed the topic. If only her mouth wouldn’t run ahead of her brain! There was nothing more painful than puppy love. Emma wondered who he might be in love with. There were so many candidates.

  “It’s always useful to have a poet about,” she said to the young man. “Everyone is hiring them these days.”

  “Er, yes.” He dragged his eyes up from his boots, clearly eager to change the topic. “Have you heard the news?”

  “News?” Emma lifted a hand in response as her friend Adele de Treville waved at her from across the room. “Oh, do you mean that story about Mademoiselle George and the tenor? Or was it a flautist? I’ve heard it was vastly exaggerated, especially the bit about his being tossed into the Seine naked.”

  M. de Lilly shook his head vigorously. “Oh, no. It wasn’t the Seine, it was the fishpond at Saint-Cloud.” There was a strange snorting sound from Mr. Whittlesby’s general direction. M. de Lilly glanced cautiously in his direction before going on. “But that’s not what I meant. Didn’t you hear?”

  “Hear what?” asked Emma. If it was better than the flautist in the fish pond, it was bound to be good.

  De Lilly drew himself up. “The senate has voted.”

  As an attempted grand pronouncement, it fell rather flat.

  “How nice for them,” said Emma. Didn’t they do that sort of thing rather frequently? “On what?”

  Both men stared at her, united, for the moment, in mutual disbelief.

  Mr. Whittlesby cleared his throat, shocked out of his offended silence. “Do you read anything except the fashion papers, Madame Delagardie?”

  “Of course. I read Le Moniteur every day.” More like every month, but who was counting. She batted her lashes up at the poet. “How else would I know what my friends are doing?”

  Bursting with his news, de Lilly ignored their byplay. “The senate voted,” he said loudly, “and Bonaparte accepted.”

  His words were ostensibly directed at Emma, but his eyes were on Whittlesby.

  “Should you like me to compose an ode for the occasion?” drawled Whittlesby, just as Emma demanded, “Accepted what?”

  De Lilly turned to her, his eyes bright with excitement. “It’s official! Bonaparte is Emperor of the French!”

  Chapter 12

  What matter kings or princes bold?

  Or belted earls with titles old?

  All is mere pomp, none can display

  The zeal that spurs me on my way.

  —Emma Delagardie and Augustus Whittlesby, Americanus: A Masque in Three Parts

  What in the devil was de Lilly playing at?

  Augustus tried to signal his young colleague, but it was no use. Ignorant pup, thought Augustus, too busy capering for a lady’s attention to weigh the risks. Fuming inwardly, Augustus pretended insouciance and mentally began composing a memo to Wickham, listing the various reasons why Horace de Lilly was unsuitable for assignment in the field.

  Whatever reaction de Lilly had hoped to elicit, he didn’t get it. Mme. Delagardie blinked. And blinked again. “Emperor? As in…Emperor?”

  Avoiding Augustus’s eye, Horace de Lilly nodded vigorously, focusing all his attention on Mme. Delagardie. “I hear you’re to be a lady-in-waiting, Madame Delagardie.”

  “A—”

  “Lady-in-waiting. It’s a great honor,” said de Lilly earnestly.

  Mme. Delagardie didn’t look honored. She just looked stunned.

  “My mother was a lady-in-waiting to t
he former Queen,” de Lilly said importantly, before hastily correcting himself. “I mean, the widow Capet. You’ll probably have an apartment in the palace. And another at Saint-Cloud.”

  “Lucky me,” said Mme. Delagardie, with something like her usual frivolity. “What a pity I have a home already.”

  Horace looked mildly horrified. “But it’s not about that,” he said. “It’s so you can be at court. It’s—oh, you’re joking, aren’t you, Madame Delagardie?”

  “Mmm,” said Madame Delagardie.

  “Darling!” Adele de Treville breezed past in a wave of perfume and burgundy silk. Like Mme. Delagardie, she was a widow about town, intimately connected with the Bonapartes and their circle. “I’ve been waving and waving to you from the other side of the room, but you’ve been too busy with this handsome thing to pay me any notice.”

  She batted her lashes at Horace de Lilly, who shifted from foot to foot in half pleasure, half embarrassment.

  “Do you know Monsieur de Lilly?” Mme. Delagardie said, but it came out by rote, without her usual sparkle.

  “Of course, I do.” Mme. de Treville sent a perfunctory smolder in de Lilly’s direction before turning back to Mme. Delagardie. “You’ve heard? We’re to be ladies-in-waiting together. Once Mme. Bonaparte asks us,” she added, as an afterthought. “Won’t it be splendid? Quite like old times. Although we do have nicer dresses now and Mme. Campan doesn’t supervise our gentlemen callers.” She looked up at de Lilly from under her lashes. “You will call on us, won’t you?”

  “I couldn’t imagine anything I’d like better!” de Lilly declared gallantly.

  For a man supposedly dedicated to the cause of restoring the Bourbon monarchy, de Lilly appeared to be adapting rather well to the new regime. Augustus looked lofty and poetical and kept an eye on his colleague. The sort of incompetence de Lilly had betrayed might merely be incompetence—or something more sinister.

  Assessing the younger man blushing under Mme. de Treville’s attentions, Augustus was inclined to go with the former. It wasn’t because of the blush—a man could blush and still be a villain—but because de Lilly had been promised the return of his family’s estates should the Bourbon monarchy be restored to the throne. Bonaparte, while he had invited back the various émigré aristocrats, had made no such promises regarding their property, save for a few special instances.