The Secret History of the Pink Carnation pc-1

by Lauren Willig

  Richard bowed over Mme Bonaparte’s hand before kissing her daughter’s. “I returned Monday night.”

  “And you have not called until now! Cad! Is he not a beast, Mama, to have deprived us of his company for so long? Eugene will be disappointed to have missed you—he is off at the theater tonight.”

  Amy was about to back quietly away, when Hortense laid one gloved hand gently on Amy’s arm. “There is a lovely countrywoman of yours to whom I would like to introduce you!” Beaming, Hortense tilted her head in Amy’s direction, and drew Amy forward. Amy tried not to balk visibly under Lord Richard’s knowing eye. “Mlle Balcourt, I would like to you make zee acquaintance of Lord Reeshard Selweeck.”

  “We’ve already met,” said Amy hastily.

  “You ’ave?” Obviously intrigued, Hortense looked up inquiringly at Richard from under her eyelashes.

  “Don’t matchmake, Hortense; it’s a beastly habit,” Richard advised in French. In English, he said to Amy, “If Hortense will spare you, I would like to introduce you to Vivant Denon, the director of the Egyptian expedition. Er—of the secondary part of the Egyptian expedition, that is. The scholarly bit.”

  “I caught your meaning, my lord. You don’t have to belabor it.” Amy narrowed her eyes at Richard over the lace fringe of her fan. Fans were truly wonderfully useful items. Amy wished she could carry one all the time. “Why?”

  “Amy!” Miss Gwen’s feathers shook reprovingly.

  Richard ignored Amy’s rudeness. “Because I thought you would enjoy discussing the classics with him.”

  “I would think my absurd efforts would have little to recommend them to scholars so widely traveled,” riposted Amy, snapping her fan closed.

  Lord Richard’s green eyes glinted with amusement. “Oh, I wouldn’t say all of your ideas are absurd,” he said lightly. “Just some of them.”

  “Josephine!” A stentorian bellow shook the candles in their sconces.

  Unconsciously, Amy grabbed Richard’s arm, looking about anxiously for the source of the roar. About the room, people went on chatting as before.

  “Steady there.” Richard patted the delicate hand clutching the material of his coat. “It’s just the First Consul.”

  Snatching her hand away as though his coat were made of live coals, Amy snapped, “You would know.”

  “Josephine!” The dreadful noise repeated itself, cutting off any further remarks. Out of an adjoining room charged a blur of red velvet, closely followed by the scurrying form of a young man. Amy sidestepped just in time, swaying on her slippers to avoid toppling into Lord Richard.

  The red velvet came to an abrupt stop beside Mme Bonaparte’s chair. “Oh. Visitors.”

  Once still, the red velvet resolved into a man of slightly less than medium height, clad in a long red velvet coat with breeches that must once have been white, but which now bore assorted stains that proclaimed as clearly as a menu what the wearer had eaten for supper.

  “I do wish you wouldn’t shout so, Bonaparte.” Mme Bonaparte lifted one white hand and touched him gently on the cheek.

  Bonaparte grabbed her hand and planted a resounding kiss on the palm. “How else am I to make myself heard?” Affectionately tweaking one of her curls, he demanded, “Well? Who is it tonight?”

  “We have some visitors from England, sir,” his stepdaughter responded. “I should like to present . . .” Hortense began listing their names. Bonaparte stood, legs slightly apart, eyes hooded with apparent boredom, and one arm thrust into the opposite side of his jacket, as though in a sling.

  Bonaparte inclined his head, looked down at his wife, and demanded, “Are we done yet?”

  Thwap!

  Everyone within earshot jumped at the sound of Miss Gwen’s reticule connecting with Bonaparte’s arm. “Sir! Take that hand out of your jacket! It is rude and it ruins your posture. A man of your diminutive stature needs to stand up straight.”

  Something suspiciously like a chuckle emerged from Lord Richard’s lips, but when Amy glanced sharply up at him, his expression was studiedly bland.

  A dangerous hush fell over the room. Flirtations in the far corners of the room were abandoned. Business deals were dropped. The non-English speakers among the assemblage tugged at the sleeves of those who had the language, and instant translations began to be whispered about the room—suitably embellished, of course.

  “It’s an assassination attempt!” a woman next to Amy cried dramatically, swooning back into the arms of an officer who looked as though he didn’t quite know what to do with her, but would really be happiest just dropping her.

  “No, it’s not, it’s just Miss Gwen,” Amy tried to explain.

  Meanwhile, Miss Gwen was advancing on Bonaparte, backing him up so that he was nearly sitting on Josephine’s lap. “While we are speaking, sir, this habit you have of barging into other people’s countries without invitation—it is most rude. I will not have it! You should apologize to the Italians and the Dutch at the first opportunity!”

  “Mais zee Italians, zey invited me!” Bonaparte exclaimed indignantly.

  Miss Gwen cast Bonaparte the severe look of a governess listening to substandard excuses from a wayward child. “That may well be,” she pronounced in a tone that implied she thought it highly unlikely. “But your behavior upon entering their country was inexcusable! If you were to be invited to someone’s home for a weekend, sirrah, would you reorganize their domestic arrangements and seize the artwork from their walls? Would you countenance any guest who behaved so? I thought not.”

  Amy wondered if Bonaparte could declare war on Miss Gwen alone without breaking his peace with England. “So much for the Peace of Amiens!” she started to whisper to Jane, but Jane was no longer beside her.

  Amy wondered if Jane had wandered away while she was sparring with Lord Richard. She thought, vaguely, that Jane had still been about when Lord Richard had intruded onto the scene, but after that her attention had been so filled by the presence of Lord Richard that she couldn’t swear with any certainty to anything else at all. Amy slanted her eyes to the right, seeking a furtive glimpse of a strong arm in a superfine coat. Instead, Amy found herself eyeing a puffed sleeve. No longer furtive, Amy twisted to look at the spot that Lord Richard had been occupying beside her before the hullabaloo with Miss Gwen erupted.

  Lord Richard Selwick had evaporated.

  Amy tried to peer around the room, but the fascinated circle of bodies around Bonaparte and Miss Gwen was several people deep, and it seemed that Bonaparte had a penchant for employing very tall officers; Amy found herself staring straight into several gold-bedecked uniform coats. She would need a stepladder to see over them! Worming her way out of the crowd, Amy stepped on seven different toes, smelled fifteen different perfumes at close range, got tangled up with one ornamental sword, and almost tumbled over as she finally broke free.

  Beyond the human wall, the rest of the room appeared deserted. To Amy’s right, a woman had a man backed into the corner and was running a finger suggestively down his cheek. Some people have no shame, thought Amy. On the other side of the room . . . Wait a minute! Amy’s eyes scooted back to the first corner.

  That wasn’t..? Was it? It was!

  Being caressed in plain view of anyone who cared to look, in Mme Bonaparte’s salon, was none other than that infamous turncoat, Lord Richard Selwick.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Good heavens, was that woman actually licking Lord Richard’s ear?

  Transfixed, Amy backed up a couple of steps on her soft slippers. A candle sconce was placed just above their heads, so Amy could view the scene and its actors with hideous clarity. The woman wore a white lawn gown so diaphanous that the light went right through it, revealing the decided absence of any slip at all, wetted or otherwise. Her dark hair fell in smooth curls from a circlet of pearls high on top of her head, one particularly long curl calling attention to the fact that the woman’s dress had practically no bodice, unless one were willing to count a brief scrap of
lace bristling two inches above the high waist. She was incredibly, undeniably beautiful.

  Amy hated her on sight.

  Edouard had pointed the woman out to her earlier. Amy racked her memory as the woman slid one hand into the shining golden waves of Richard’s hair. Pauline! That was it. Bonaparte’s younger sister, Pauline Leclerc. Her affairs were as legendary as her beauty, and she was said to have bedded half the men in Paris. Amy, of course, wasn’t supposed to know such things, but she had read the gossip sheets assiduously for years. When it came to the French, the English papers had few qualms about reporting scandal at its most scandalous, without even the protective veil of a euphemism.

  Watching Pauline twine herself sensuously around Lord Richard like Laocoön and the snakes, Amy smoothed down the opaque material of her skirt, aware for the first time that her own frock had been designed by a rural modiste in Shropshire, working off fashion papers several months old. Amy’s hand went up to her own very modest scooped neckline, toying with the charm that hung in the hollow of her throat. Next to Pauline’s diamonds, the little gold locket on a silk ribbon around her neck must look a trumpery affair, a child’s trinket. Amy suddenly felt very young and very gauche, a little girl spying on an adult party.

  Well, I wouldn’t want to be like that anyway, Amy told herself firmly. And it was just typical that Lord Richard would be dallying with such a crass strumpet! Two people with no morals. They served each other right.

  But how could he?

  “Amy.” Someone was plucking at her sleeve. “Amy.”

  “Oh, Jane! I was looking for you. Did you see that?” Amy packed as much outrage as possible into a whisper as she pointed at the couple caught in the candlelight. Her very finger shook with indignation.

  Jane looked from Richard and Pauline to Amy. Her cousin was biting her lower lip so hard it was a wonder she hadn’t drawn blood, and her arms were crossed firmly across her chest as though she were hugging herself for comfort.

  “He doesn’t look like he’s enjoying her attentions,” observed Jane. “Amy, Edouard—”

  “Then why doesn’t he just move?” hissed Amy.

  “Perhaps because she has him backed against the wall? Amy, you must—”

  “That’s no excuse!”

  “Amy, Edouard is engaged in an extremely suspect conversation and I think you ought to go listen at once!” Jane whispered in one long breath, before her cousin could interrupt yet again.

  “If he really didn’t—what?” Amy’s glower disappeared as she swirled to face Jane. “Wait, what?”

  “Edouard and Marston,” Jane whispered urgently. “They slipped out while everyone was distracted by Miss Gwen.”

  Amy’s entire body snapped to attention. “Well, what are you waiting for? Why are we wasting time talking about—ugh! Take me to them, Jane. We can’t waste a moment!” Amy dashed for the door.

  Jane permitted herself only the very slightest rolling of the eyes before following her cousin.

  Had Amy waited a moment longer, she would have seen Richard reach up to pluck the woman’s twining hand from his hair.

  “You’re wasting your wiles on me, Pauline. I’m not interested.”

  The First Consul’s sister pouted and reached her arms around Richard’s waist. “That is what you always say. Can’t I . . . persuade you to say something else?” One hand slipped into the waistband of his breeches.

  “No,” said Richard bluntly.

  Taking Pauline by the waist, he moved her aside and edged out of the corner she had backed him into. “Go and find someone more receptive to play with,” he advised amiably. Pauline wasn’t really a bad sort, and it was always mildly flattering to see someone so determined to have him in her bed. But Richard just wasn’t interested. Pauline had made the rounds of the court far too many times for his taste. Richard strode purposefully towards the doorway—he had seen Balcourt and Marston exit that way. The two of them were certainly up to something, and Richard wanted to know what.

  “But you are such a challenge!” Pauline called after him.

  “And you are too bloody persistent,” muttered Richard, as he smiled and waggled his fingers. Pauline, already off in search of more accommodating company, failed to hear. Which was probably for the best, since the last thing Richard wanted to do was irritate Bonaparte’s favorite sister badly enough to cause a rift with her brother. Hell, even if Pauline did appeal to him, the force of her charms would undoubtedly be outweighed by the risk of Bonaparte’s displeasure.

  How long ago had Balcourt left the salon? Five minutes? Ten? It was hard to tell time when one was pressed up against the wall and being forcibly caressed. Unfortunately, it was more than enough time for Balcourt and Marston to have effectively disappeared. The problem with the Tuilleries was that the deuced rooms were still all en filade, one room opening out onto another. Hallways, decided Richard, were architecture’s gift to espionage. You could actually wander down a hallway, listening at door after door, instead of having to walk through rooms hoping you had taken the right direction, and hoping you didn’t accidentally walk in on the very conversation you had hoped to spy on.

  Pacing irritably through a deserted salon, Richard slowed as he came to the next door. He eased it open a crack, peeking through the narrow gap. No sound of voices, but that didn’t necessarily mean no one was there. No scent of that obnoxiously strong cologne Balcourt favored. Richard took that as a more reliable guide and flung the door the rest of the way open.

  Ah, the door at the far end of the room was ajar! Of course, it could have been left ajar by a servant, or a guest seeking the water closet, or any other number of innocent persons unrelated to Balcourt or Marston, but it was the closest thing to a lead Richard had. He tiptoed his way silently through the long gallery, past rows of armless deities, and peered through the crack in the door. . . .

  Only to encounter a nicely rounded female backside draped in white satin.

  Once Richard’s eyes fixed upon that object, it would have been hard for a disinterested observer—had there been one—to determine whether he was so much peering as leering through the crack in the door. There was no doubt to whom the nether regions in question belonged. The thin fabric molded itself obligingly to Amy’s body as she leaned over, her ear against the keyhole of the door on the other side of the narrow room.

  Her ear against the keyhole?

  What was Amy doing with her ear against the keyhole? Never mind that the activity showed off certain parts of her anatomy to good effect. . . . Richard plucked his mind out of the gutter and coerced it back into reasonable patterns of thought.

  Not only was her derriere distracting, but, by Jove, she had stolen his spot! He should have been the one in that antechamber. He should have been the one with his ear pressed against the door. Blast it all, what business did a mere chit of a girl from the country have usurping his keyhole?

  Richard’s lips thinned into a grim line.

  Utterly unaware that she was causing such consternation, Amy pressed her ear against the convenient gap afforded by a keyhole. Thank goodness these locks had been designed for large keys! Amy could hear every word said, unmuffled by the wood of the door. Unfortunately, not terribly much had been said so far. Edouard had babbled—there was really no other word for it—on and on about the high favor in which he was held by the consular family. Amy rolled her eyes and made faces indicating boredom and disgust at Jane.

  Had Edouard dragged Marston off in private just so he could gloat at him? Yet Jane had been so sure their conversation was suspect, and Jane wasn’t one to succumb to fancy. . . . Amy’s neck was beginning to ache from tilting her head at an unnatural angle and the ornate brass ornamentation of the keyhole pricked against her ear. Had it not been for that wounded man in the ballroom, Amy would have been convinced that her brother was merely one of the more boring men in creation and left it at that. But there was that wounded man. . . . Maybe Edouard was speaking in code? No. The sound of booted feet pacing impatie
ntly up and down the parquet floor in the next room seemed to indicate that Marston found Edouard’s monologue equally irritating. That, Amy decided, indicated a certain amount of good sense on Marston’s part.

  Of all the men she had met that evening, Marston was the most likely candidate to be the Purple Gentian.

  The steady rhythm of Marston’s steps came to an abrupt stop. So did Edouard’s monologue.

  “Enough pleasantries. Have you squealed, Balcourt?”

  Edouard’s voice was oddly muffled as he gasped, “No! How could you think—no, never!”

  “Good.” The word was nearly obscured by a thud, as though someone had dropped something heavy.

  The Purple Gentian. He must be the Purple Gentian. Amy was too excited for complete sentences; her thoughts exploded in ragged fragments.

  “Tonight then?” Edouard asked breathlessly.

  Tonight! Tonight! Amy mouthed excitedly to Jane. But where? She pressed her ear harder to the crack in the door.

  “Might as well,” drawled Marston. “No sense waiting.”

  “You could drive back with us and we could say we were retiring to my study for some port and cards and—”

  “I know where to find you, Balcourt.”

  “Um, right.” Edouard subsided.

  “Though I must say”—Amy heard the boots begin to click again—“I wouldn’t mind sharing a carriage with that sister of yours.”

  What?

  Oh, blast, the footsteps were rapidly nearing the door. There was no time to dwell on that last, highly interesting comment, or await its sequel. Amy abandoned her keyhole and made anxious waving motions at Jane. The two of them scurried for cover behind a pair of rickety gilded chairs. Amy felt a bit like a child trying to hide behind its own hands. If the men brought a candle with them, the chairs would do little to hide them. Amy squeezed back more firmly into her corner. If caught, they would just have to brazen it out. They could say that they’d gone looking for Edouard because Miss Gwen was making a scene—that would distract Edouard in a hurry!—and if he asked what they were doing crawling about on the floor, well, Amy could always pretend she’d lost a hairpin. It would never occur to Edouard that she’d been wearing her hair down. And if that didn’t work, for plan B. . .