by Jane Feather
“To rescue the Emperor Napoleon from Elba,” Dominic told her, chuckling. “A venture worthy of your talents, sprite.”
And when we have done that? thought Genevieve as her heart thrilled to the challenge and the excitement of the unknown, and her spirit, held for so long in captivity, soared into unbounded freedom. It didn’t really matter what came next, did it? For the present, there was Danseuse, and Europe, and a partnership with the privateer—a partnership of love and lust and adventure.
Chapter Nineteen
“I have a monstrous spot on my nose!” Genevieve wailed, peering at the offending feature in the swing mirror on her dresser. “I cannot possibly seduce the so English Mr. Cholmondeley when I look like Falstaff after a particularly roisterous night.”
Dominic could not help his appreciative chuckle. “Cholmondeley is so thoroughly in your toils, my dear girl, that I do not imagine he would notice if you had developed a carbuncle.” Coming over to her, he tilted her chin up to the candlelight, observing, “It is not exactly monstrous, but a little shiny, I grant you.”
“Hot water,” Silas proclaimed from Dominic’s dressing room. “If mademoiselle … madame, I mean … would hold her head over a bowl of hot water, it will steam the poison out.”
“Really?” Genevieve turned on the dresser stool to regard the sailor with interest. “You do know the most amazing things, Silas.”
Silas grunted and said, “I’ll bring some from the kitchen. You’ll find the flounce on the green silk mended. Just be careful when you step into it next time and leave your shoes off.” On this admonition, he left the bedchamber.
“I wish this deception would permit a lady’s maid,” sighed Genevieve. “Silas is quite wonderful, but … well, it is a little unusual to be looked after by an old sailor. And he’s such a bully.”
“I do not find him so,” said Dominic, taking a strand of opalescent pearls from the opened cask on the dresser and fastening them around her neck.
“No, because he does not bully you,” she retorted, lifting the strand with one finger, examining their deep creamy luster, an appreciative smile in her eyes. “He does not tell you not to tear your coats or wear your kid slippers in the rain or scold you when you get your gloves dirty.”
Dominic laughed. “Poor sprite. It is a trial, I know, but we will not brush through this charade if anyone other than my own people are allowed to approach too close, and this bedchamber is about as close as anyone could come.”
“Yes, I know.” She stood up, slight and dainty in a delicate silk underdress that molded her form in preparation for the bronze satin that would skim her figure, caught beneath her breasts to fall to her ankles, just touching the indentation of waist, the curve of hip. She slid him a look brimming with mischief as she reached for the gown lying ready on the bed. “Can you imagine the reactions of the Grand Duchess Catherine or the Princess Sophia or Lady Kavanaugh at the idea of Madame Delacroix being waited upon by a pirate, one who doesn’t even notice when madame is in nothing but her drawers and chemise?”
“It is something that does not bear thinking of,” Dominic said fervently, taking the dress from her and dropping it over her head. “However, since that scandalous aspect is but the tip of the iceberg in this particular deception, I do not think it need cause us too many qualms.” Turning her, he deftly fastened the hooks at the back of the gown, smoothing the material over her hips with a little pat.
“No, indeed.” For an instant, she leaned back against him, and his hands, responding, curved over the firm roundness of her buttocks. “I do not think that the members of this Congress of Vienna, so full of self-importance as they carve up Napoleon’s Europe, would take kindly to the knowledge that they had clasped to their bosoms a pair of piratical adventurers, who pretended to be a respectably married couple—unimpeachable French aristocrats with a lineage to equal the Bourbons—emerging from exile now that the monster Napoleon has received his just deserts.” Genevieve laughed with pure glee. “Not that their self-importance seems to be justified. Did you hear what the Prince de Ligne said? That ‘this Congress does not make progress, it dances.’ ”
“Yes, and the man’s quite right,” Dominic said with a laugh. “The Emperor Franz is having much more success turning Vienna into the world’s social capital with his balls and banquets and concerts than poor Metternich, for all his wiles, is having with his diplomatic shenanigans. But talking of the monster Napoleon …” He dropped a kiss on her spotted nose. “Did you discover anything in your assignation with the Grand Duke Sergei this afternoon?”
“That Talleyrand, Metternich, and Fouché do not believe that, for all his protestations, Bonaparte’s ambitions are satisfied with the government and defense of a couple of small islands in the Mediterranean. And they should know, should they not?”
“If anyone does,” Dominic agreed. “They have known him longer and better than anyone.”
“Also, that there has been talk in the Congress of deporting him to the Azores, or maybe St. Helena,” she continued. “There is a fear that Elba is too close, that if he attempts a return, there will be many on the continent to welcome him.”
Dominic frowned. “If that information reaches Bonaparte, he will be all the more anxious to make an escape. I think we are going to have to make our move soon.”
“Here you are, mademoiselle … madame, I mean.” Silas marched in and plunked a steaming bowl on the dresser. “Hold some of that hot water against your nose.”
Genevieve dipped the corner of a handkerchief into the bowl and pressed the burning cloth against the spot. “You do not have to call me ‘madame,’ Silas, since you and I know that it is not true.”
Silas harrumphed. “Don’t want to make any slips in public, so might as well get accustomed.”
She shrugged. Silas had a point since he, apart from themselves, was the only one to know that Madame Delacroix was, in fact, still Mademoiselle Genevieve Latour. Even the handpicked group of his sailors running the house in Vienna, which Dominic had hired as their base while they infiltrated European society at the Congress, believed that the union between their commander and Latour’s daughter had been solemnized.
“Tonight, you must wring out of Cholmondeley some information about the intelligence networks operating in the Italian ports,” Dominic said casually. “I am certain Bonaparte has his own counterespionage system to combat the French at Leghorn. Once we know how it works, we should be able to use it ourselves.”
“I will do what I can.” Genevieve hoped that the handkerchief and hot water would provide sufficient explanation for her suddenly muffled tone. However many times she told herself that her role in their plan was perfectly straightforward, and quite the most expeditious method they had at their disposal to achieve their goal, it still hurt somehow that Dominic could treat so lightly the idea of her intimacy with those from whom they needed information. True, she had made the suggestion that the best way to get beneath a man’s guard was with soft words between the sheets, but Dominic had agreed after only the barest hesitation.
He found out which of the delegates would have the most useful information and left it to Genevieve to coax, flatter and promise her way into their intimate confidence. He never questioned her as to how she garnered her intelligence, never asked about the clandestine meetings she had with her eager suitors, never raised an eyebrow if she told him she would be returning late from an evening engagement. But Silas was always waiting, stealthy and silent in the shadows, to accompany her home from her assignations, and Dominic was always at home, wide awake, sipping brandy in the salon, when she returned. But all he ever wanted to know was what kernels of information she had managed to extract in her evening’s work.
She abandoned the handkerchief and hot water and examined the blemish in the mirror. As Silas had foreseen, the spot had popped, and a little powder would effectively conceal the slight redness that remained. It was foolish to have these pangs—as if there were anything of romance or commitment about their relatio
nship. It was as it had always been, as she had told him she wanted it—each enjoying each other in a loving partnership of adventure until it ceased to be good for one or both of them. Then they would part, amicably and without regret. Why had it been so easy to say those words that afternoon in Rampart Street, and now, an ocean away, was it so hard to accept them as truth? Dominic had told her, after that wonderfully staged abduction, that he was giving her the opportunity to find her own destiny, that he would help her in whatever ways she needed once their mission was completed, or even before if she chose to leave him. She was as much a free agent as he was, and the nagging thought that perhaps she did not wish to be a free agent was one that had to be quashed vigorously.
“If you are ready, Genevieve?” Dominic broke into her reverie, fastening the clasp of the silk evening cloak that Silas had placed over his shoulders.
“Yes … yes, I am quite ready.” With an effort, she made her voice sound as cheerful as it had sounded a few minutes earlier. “It would never do to keep the Duke of Wellington waiting, would it?”
“I rather suspect that you would be forgiven such a solecism,” Dominic replied with a dry little smile. “That august gentleman is no more immune to your charms than anyone else.” He held her cloak for her and ran one finger up the groove of her neck, bared by the coiffure that drew the silver-gold hair into a coronet on top of her head.
Genevieve shivered deliciously. The back of her neck was extraordinarily sensitive, as Dominic well knew. “The duke, as far as I can observe, does not appear to be immune to any member of my sex,” she responded lightly, preceding him through the door.
“True enough,” Dominic agreed, following her down the stairs, “but he is quite particular about his flirts, and you appear to be one of them.”
“A married woman is always a safe flirt,” she said. “He told me so himself. They do not expect too much, and they tend to be discreet.” She stepped through the front door onto the quiet Domgasse where the house stood in the shadow of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and into the waiting carriage, Dominic’s hand at her elbow.
“I have to confess, my dear Genevieve, that your capacity for discretion astounds me,” he remarked, sitting opposite her on the blue-leather squab seat.
Genevieve shot him a sharp look, but in the darkness of the closed vehicle it was impossible to read his expression. “I was under the impression that discretion was the only rule, if not the only virtue, in this society.”
“Indeed it is,” he concurred, looking through the window as they turned onto the busy Wollzeile and passed the majestic Gothic structure of the Stephansdom dominating Vienna’s exclusive inner city. “I just did not realize how quickly and easily you would learn to curb such an impulsive, inquisitive nature.”
“Am I supposed to be complimented?” she inquired sweetly.
At that, he turned and smiled at her in the dark. “Yes, sprite, you are. You are a worthy accomplice in adventure.”
The carriage drew to a halt outside the Wellesley mansion. The house blazed with light, the pavement crowded with linkboys running from carriage to the awning-covered flag way, lighting the path of the illustrious guests, jewel encrusted, satin gowned and velvet cloaked.
“Monsieur and Madame Delacroix,” the liveried flunky intoned at the head of the grand staircase leading down to the thronged ballroom.
“Madame Delacroix, as ravishing as ever.” Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, bowed low over Genevieve’s hand, his long nose almost brushing her fingers. “So good of you to honor us with your company.”
“The honor is all mine, Your Grace,” Genevieve replied with impeccable formality, although she could not help responding to the roguish gleam in the duke’s eyes. “Lady Margaret.” She turned to acknowledge her hostess, the duke’s sister, and the two women exchanged a few words of polite small talk until Margaret Wellesley made an announcement that shivered Genevieve to her toes.
“The Duke and Duchess of Angoulême have arrived in Vienna, my dear Madame Delacroix,” Margaret said, smiling warmly. “You will be glad to talk over old times, I am sure.”
Everyone would expect that the Duchess of Angoulême, the only surviving child of Marie Antoinette, who had been exchanged by her revolutionary captors for a handful of captive generals before being married off to her cousin, would know the Delacroix from the days of penniless wandering in exile through the courts of Europe. Now that the Bourbons were returned to the throne of France, it would be assumed that old friends in exile would have much to ask and offer each other.
“It may seem strange, Lady Margaret, but I do not think our paths have ever before crossed,” Genevieve managed to say, glancing over her shoulder at Dominic. “Are you acquainted with Her Royal Highness, Dominic?”
“A brief meeting in Saxe Coburg, some years ago,” the privateer lied smoothly. “I do not imagine the duchess will remember the occasion.” He bowed over his hostess’s hand and then easily removed himself and Genevieve from the awkward proximity.
“Should we keep out of their way?” Genevieve whispered, distractedly acknowledging the bows and smiles of greeting from all sides.
“Most certainly not,” Dominic told her. “That would simply serve to draw attention to us. You know your background, do you not?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about. Just stick to your story—no one will gainsay you if you show no hesitation … Ah, Monsieur Fouché, good evening.”
Fouché, as crafty a schemer now as he had been at any point during Napoleon’s ascendancy and his own rise to power on the tail of the emperor, bowed and smiled at Madame Delacroix who inclined her head, narrowed those tawny eyes and directed a most ravishing smile in his direction.
“May I procure you a glass of warm negus, madame?” he asked. “It is a wretchedly cold night.”
“Yes, it is indeed, monsieur. I should be most grateful.” Abandoning Dominic, she laid her hand on the crimson brocade arm of the diplomat and went off with him, mindful of Dominic’s instructions to learn what she could of the spy networks on the Italian coast facing the island of Elba.
Fouché listened to the apparently artless prattle of his attractive companion, smiled, responded, and was not fooled. “What exactly is it you wish to find out from me, my dear madame?” he asked, breaking into her little prepared speech with undisguised amusement.
Genevieve looked up into the shrewd foxy eyes, read both the amusement and the very clear interest they contained. No one knew the extent of the double game played by Fouché, but it was suspected that while he participated in the discussions at the Congress, he remained loyal to Napoleon. Whether the loyalty took concrete form was the question. If it did, then his help would be invaluable, but if it did not, then they would lose everything by revealing themselves. It was not a risk she could afford to take—not without Dominic’s permission, at least.
“I am fascinated by the emperor,” she said with a convincing assumption of candor and a guilty little laugh. “I was hoping you would tell me all about his life in exile.”
“Why should you imagine, my dear, that I know of his life?” Fouché asked gently, taking a pinch of snuff and watching her through hooded eyes.
“Because I cannot imagine that you would not,” she countered, settling for directness and realizing instantly that she had been right to do so.
Fouché chuckled. “You are quite correct, madame. I correspond regularly with the former emperor.” He laid the slightest stress on “former,” thus administering an implicit rebuke for her own unqualified use of the title.
“You keep him informed of matters of interest?” she hazarded, sipping her negus with apparent casualness.
“Matters of interest and relevance,” he said, continuing to watch her.
Genevieve nodded. “I should imagine much of relevance to his life is discussed at the Congress.”
“Your imagination cannot be faulted, madame.”
“Madame Delacroix
, I have been looking everywhere for you.” Charles Cholmondeley broke into their tête-à-tête, a smile wreathing the amiable and deceptively vacuous coutenance. “You promised me the boulanger, if you recall.”
“How could I forget the promise to such an accomplished partner, sir,” Genevieve replied deftly. “Monsieur Fouché, I did enjoy our talk, but you will excuse me?”
“Not with pleasure, madame,” he responded with a conspiratorial twinkle. “But I will endure my disappointment as best I may.”
He watched her go off with the Englishman and then went in search of Delacroix. That gentleman played his cards remarkably close to his chest, but that was a quality both shared and respected by Fouché. If, as he suspected, the Delacroix couple were playing a devious game, then he would do well to discover what he could.
“You have not, I trust, forgotten our little wager,” Cholmondeley breathed into his partner’s ear as they proceeded down the set.
Genevieve flicked him an up-from-under smile that spoke volumes, and its recipient beamed complacently. “Where and when do you wish to play, sir?” she inquired softly.
“Tonight.” His fingers squeezed hers. “Will you come to my lodgings?”
“Shame on you, sir,” she chided, tapping his hand with the ivory sticks of her fan. “What a suggestion to make to a married lady.”
The Englishman looked around the room and encountered the turquoise eyes of the husband in question. But they seemed to look straight through him and showed no apparent interest in Madame Delacroix. It was as Cholmondeley guessed. The Frenchman was quite happy to look the other way as long as nothing was forced upon his notice. It was a perfectly usual arrangement, and he presumably had his own little adventures that did not disturb his wife.
“What stakes do you choose, madame?” He looked down at his diminutive partner, deciding to ignore her earlier remark, which he correctly assumed to have been playfully flirtatious.
Genevieve frowned. She knew well what stakes Cholmondeley had in mind. The best of three games of piquet, and if she were the loser he would expect her to follow through on the promises that so far she had managed not to fulfill. The difficulty was that she did not know how good a player he was. With the others, she had been able to observe their play beforehand. But Cholmondeley had worked with Mariotti, the French consul at Leghorn, a man everyone knew to be one of the allied spies doing their best to prevent communications between Elba and the continent. Only by knowing how that system operated could they circumvent it, communicate with Napoleon, and form a plan of campaign.