The Garden Intrigue

by Lauren Willig

  None of it made any sense at all.

  He looked up to find her watching him. “Do you know,” she said slowly, “I’ve noticed something.”

  “What?”

  “For quite some time, you’ve forgotten to rhyme.”

  Augustus sucked in air through his nose, feeling as though he’d just been punched in the gut. Not just any sort of punch. A punch thrown with killing force. His stomach muscles tensed, his kidneys contracted, he could feel the cold prickle of sweat below his arms. His breath jammed in his throat as panic coursed through his body. The surprise of it had him gasping. She had walloped him good and he had never ever seen it coming.

  She stood in front of him still, looking small and harmless and innocent, all frills and rouge, lilac paint smeared around her eyes, one earring caught in her hair, twisted at an odd angle.

  Had all of it—the confidences about her youth, the feigned dismay, her friend’s interruption—been nothing more than a trap? If so, it was cleverer by far than anything Napoleon’s Ministry of Police had tossed at him before.

  Augustus blessed the training that enabled him to maintain a calm mask, even as his skin prickled with goose bumps, and his heart thrummed beneath his shirt.

  “Madame?” he said coolly, because he didn’t trust himself to say anything more.

  “It’s all an act, isn’t it?” Mme. Delagardie was examining him as though he were a butterfly on a naturalist’s table. “You’re much more sensible than you sound.”

  He had two choices. He could launch rapidly into a stream of inanities in an attempt to convince her that his seeming lucidity was an aberration. If she were the feather wit she appeared, that might have worked. But she wasn’t a feather wit, was she? She had certainly sussed him out neatly enough.

  Augustus chose to go with the second option.

  “And what if I am?” he said.

  Mme. Delagardie shook her head. “Nothing. I just wondered…why?”

  “People expect their poets to sound a certain way.” Augustus dropped his voice and shortened his vowels, reverting to his natural voice. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I satisfy their preconceptions. They commission poems. Everyone gets what they want.”

  Sometimes, a false admission worked better than a denial.

  Mme. Delagardie looked at him with curiosity, but without suspicion, her blue eyes as guileless as a child’s. “Don’t you mind it? The dissembling?”

  Step one: false admission. Step two: shift attention. Augustus took a shot in the dark.

  “Do you?” he shot back.

  “I don’t—I don’t know what you mean.” Her words were bold enough, but her hands betrayed her, fidgeting with the ruffle on her reticule.

  He had hit home. What was it Jane had said? In her own strange way, Emma is a very private person.

  Trust Jane to get it right. Again.

  Augustus folded his arms across his chest, squishing down the folds of excess fabric. He took in the kohl that darkened her lashes, the rouge that lent color to her cheeks, the powder that hid the circles beneath her eyes. “You play the merry widow very nicely. You manage to sound nearly as vapid as Madame de Treville. But it isn’t true, is it?”

  He had her on the defensive now, just where he wanted her, her attention focused on herself rather than on him.

  “It isn’t all an act,” she said defensively. “I can be quite silly at times. And I do like parties and shiny things.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Made of paste?”

  “I should never have told you that,” she muttered. She looked up at him. “Shall we make a deal? A bargain? For the duration of our collaboration?”

  Talk of deals made Augustus wary. “What kind of bargain?”

  She raised her chin. “No pretenses.”

  “None at all?” Augustus regarded her quizzically. “Even lovers keep secrets, Madame Delagardie.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” In a more moderate tone, she said, “All I meant was that we can speak sensibly to one another, rather than, oh, I don’t know, trying to maintain some sort of absurd role.”

  “In other words,” said Augustus slowly, “it will be easier to work together if I eschew some of the abverbs.”

  “Not all of them, but…yes.” She favored him with a whimsical smile, the sort of smile that made one want to smile back. She did have her own charm, the little Delagardie. “It will certainly save us time. We only have three weeks until the performance.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Augustus. “A performance fit for an emperor.”

  Mme. Delagardie wrinkled her nose. “I wish you wouldn’t say that. It might be rumor yet,” she added hopefully.

  “I thought,” said Augustus drily, “that we had agreed to speak sensibly to one another.”

  “I’m not sure I didn’t like you better in your silly guise,” said Mme. Delagardie darkly.

  “It’s too late now,” said Augustus. “The adverbs are out of the bag. Unless you’d like to pretend we never had this little conversation?”

  He was offering her the chance to eradicate all of it, including her careless confidences about the Bonaparte clan. That was the sort of thing that could be accounted treason these days. It took so little—a thoughtless word, an uncomplimentary comment about Bonaparte’s receding hairline—to bring one to the attention of the Ministry of Police. Was she really that naïve? Or was it simply that she considered herself protected?

  “No,” said Mme. Delagardie decidedly. “If we are to work together, we ought to deal plainly with each other. Oh, and there’s one more thing.”

  “Yes?” The falsely casual tone of her words sent all of Augustus’s instincts humming. He had learned to be wary of one more things.

  Mme. Delagardie held up both hands. “Don’t look like that! It’s nothing dreadful.” She took a deep breath and then blurted it out. “Hadn’t you best call me Emma?”

  Chapter 13

  From the mixed-up files of Augustus B. Whittlesby: a correspondence tentatively dated between May and June of 1804. From the absence of any address on the back of the paper, it seems likely that these notes would have been delivered by hand, on Mr. Whittlesby’s side by a variety of convenient urchins (see dirt smudges), and on Mme. Delagardie’s by a footman with a taste for some sort of pastry involving powdered sugar.

  A. Whittlesby to E. Delagardie

  Will I see you at Mme. Salpietre’s tonight? We can continue our discussion there.

  Cordially,

  A. Whittlesby

  E. Delagardie to A. Whittlesby

  You will call on me tomorrow afternoon, won’t you? I promise to supply the cakes if you bring a clean version of the first act. Mine is entirely scribbled over and interlined, and if even I can’t read it, how will our actors? I do like your idea of having our pirate king be a pirate queen instead. It will be just the role for Miss Meadows. She does like slashing about at people.

  On a note only somewhat related, if you won’t wear a jacket, at least fling on a cloak. I could see the goose pimples beneath your shirt last night at Mme. Salpietre’s salon. Admittedly, she stints on the coal, but even so. I should hate to lose my collaborator to something so pedestrian as a chill. Footpads, perhaps, or highwayman, or even a jealous husband, but a mere breeze? Decidedly passé.

  With warmest expressions of esteem,

  E. Delagardie

  A. Whittlesby to E. Delagardie

  Am I to deduce from this that you care? Your solicitude warms my frozen flesh.

  If Mme. Salpietre weren’t too cheap to light proper fires, there would have been no such problem.

  I shall be there tomorrow without fail. Bring out your cakes.

  Warmly yours,

  Augustus

  E. Delagardie to A. Whittlesby

  For a man who makes his living by words, you are remarkably stingy with them in correspondence. I would feel quite neglected if I didn’t know you had used up all your ink composing a soliloquy for Americanus.
r />   I am, however, quite obdurate on this matter of external garments. If the temperature would deign to rise…if the wind would cease to blow…if the sun would shine past midnight. You can come up with all the excuses you like. I understand that poets are particularly prone to consumption. I am convinced it is entirely on account of the wardrobe.

  I don’t want you dying on me, you absurd man. Who else would supply me with adverbs? In case you’ve forgotten, we still have two-thirds of a masque to write.

  If you appear without a cloak, I shall be forced to take you shopping for one.

  Unconvinced,

  Emma

  A. Whittlesby to E. Delagardie

  Have you never heard the adage of the pot and the kettle, my dear Mme. Preachiness? Having seen you last night in what can amount to no more than a whisper of gossamer and thistledown, I can only assume that you are deliberately courting consumption in order to establish your bona fides as a member of the poetic fraternity.

  By shopping…Is this an attempt to get me to carry your parcels again? I thought you had footmen for that.

  Augustus

  p.s. If it makes you feel better, I do own a perfectly serviceable cloak. If you require proof, I will even deign to wear it.

  E. Delagardie to A. Whittlesby

  Yes, it did make me feel better, even though you did look rather silly stalking through Saint-Germain on a sunny day all wrapped about in wool with only the top of your head showing. My footman thought you were there to rob the house and had to be soothed with a stiff brandy, even though we all faithfully assured him that highwaymen stalk highways, not private residences.

  Why do I suspect that on the next chilly night, you’ll be back to your shirtsleeves?

  I’ve had an idea about our masque. What do you think about having Americanus run off with the Pirate Queen instead? Cytherea, while lovely, seems a bit insipid. It would be a twist that no one would ever expect!

  Emma

  p.s. The package contains some of those currant cakes you like so much. Please eat them so I don’t.

  A. Whittlesby to E. Delagardie

  Not if the Pirate Queen is played by Miss Meadows. This is meant to be a comedy, not a tragedy.

  A. Whittlesby to E. Delagardie

  Please forgive the terse tone of my earlier missive. I wrote in haste and some horror. You were jesting, were you not? Let’s just say you were, for our mutual peace of mind and the good of mankind.

  Many thanks for the currant cakes. May I entice you to take some supper with me before the opera tonight? You need the feeding more than I do. Champagne, Mme. Delagardie, is not an adequate meal.

  Augustus

  E. Delagardie to A. Whittlesby

  Scold, scold, scold. I’ll mend my ways, my dear Mr. Whittlesby, when you mend yours. You’re quite wrong, you know. Champagne is a perfectly lovely supper and it doesn’t catch in your teeth when you’re trying to talk to people.

  Adele would be perfectly willing to play the Pirate Queen should you change your mind. She isn’t so keen on the poetry, but she’s quite eager to try her effect on the gentlemen in breeches. Her effect in breeches, that is. Not that the gentlemen wouldn’t be in breeches too. You know what I mean.

  All the arrangements have been made for Malmaison. We are to go up Wednesday along with the principles in the cast. Hortense has arranged for costumes, so all that will be left for us will be to make time for the final fittings in between rehearsals. The rest of the party arrive on Friday and the performance is to take place on Saturday night.

  Mr. Fulton faithfully promises to send us our wave maker by Wednesday afternoon so that Americanus might be beset by waves upon the treach’rous seas, or however it is we phrased it.

  My coach will call for you at eight on Wednesday.

  Yes, I do mean eight in the morning. There is one. I had no idea.

  In anticipation,

  Emma

  A. Whittlesby to E. Delagardie

  There is, I have heard, a little thing called sunrise, in which the sun reverses the process we all viewed the night before. You might assume such a thing as mythical as those beasts that guard the corners of the earth, but I have it on the finest authority, and have, indeed, from time to time, regarded it with my own eyes.

  While I am sure your Mme. de Treville would look very well in breeches, the entire premise behind the piece is the union of Americanus and France, in the person of Cytherea. What message does it send if Americanus runs off with a pirate queen instead? France’s feelings might be hurt. Hell hath no fury like a country scorned.

  Are you pleased with the script as it stands? (Or sits or lies?). Given the restraints, I’d say we’ve made quite a creditable job of it. I’ll say no more for fear of enraging the muses. We can gloat comfortably together in the privacy of your carriage tomorrow morning at that most uncomfortable hour.

  Eagerly,

  Augustus

  p.s. I’ll bring my cloak if you bring more currant cakes.

  Chapter 14

  Sussex, England

  May 2004

  Are you sure it’s okay?”

  “Huh?” I was still staring after Nigel Dempster. The stripes on his suit were too close together. A little like his eyes. Not like I was prejudiced or anything. It didn’t count as prejudice when it was true. “What?”

  Colin was not going to be happy when he heard that his sister’s snake of an ex was on the premises. Admittedly, Colin was already unhappy, but this was going to add a whole new level of awful to a week that was already shaping up to rival one of Dante’s inner circles of inferno. All we needed was a frozen lake and a few upside-down popes. And maybe some little demons with pitchforks.

  “About the computer,” said Cate. “That would be really great, if you’re sure it’s okay. There’s only one for the whole crew, and this sound guy keeps hogging it.”

  “Oh, right.” It had been only about five minutes since I had contrived my cunning plan to win over a member of the film crew with extra Internet access, but it felt much longer. Back then—before Dempster—I’d only been worried about people walking in on my shower and Colin going after Jeremy with a fish knife. This was just getting more fun by the moment.

  But none of it was Cate’s fault.

  “Of course, it’s fine,” I said, baring way too many teeth in an attempt to make amends for my abstraction. “Just don’t tell anyone else or we’ll have half the cast knocking down the door. Do you want to come with me now? I can show you where it is.”

  Cate fell into step beside me. “Thank you so much. I have a boyfriend at home, and this whole text thing—” Cate waved her phone in the air in illustration. “Well, it’s kind of limiting.”

  Listening to someone else’s relationship woes was preferable to trying to figure out how in the hell I was going to gently break to Colin that we had another crisis on our hands.

  Or telling him that I had only one month left to live—I mean, date.

  I made a sympathetic face at Cate. “How long have you been doing the transcontinental thing?”

  “Two weeks.” Cate regarded her mobile with disfavor. “It feels like longer.”

  “The whole time zone thing sucks, doesn’t it?” Colin and I had played that game when I was home in New York over Christmas.

  It’s funny I had no problem doing math when it involved historical dating, but apply it to time zones or the calculation of a tip and I was completely lost. Hence that two a.m. call that time. His two a.m., not mine. Unfortunately, Colin isn’t really a night owl. It was one of his few drawbacks as a boyfriend.

  Cate’s brown curls bobbed in affirmation. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” she said, and I couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not.

  My gut said not.

  My gut wasn’t a happy place. In one month, that would be me. Three months if I pushed it and stayed around for the summer. Our relationship would shrink to an hour at dinnertime—my dinnertime, his bedtime—and an amusing assortment of e-mail forw
ards, sent less for themselves and more as a placeholder, a shorthand for “Hi! I have nothing to say, but I’m thinking about you!”

  We would have less and less to say. Whatever they say about absence making the heart grow fonder, a relationship lies in the daily details, not the grand reunions. Right now, Colin and I were in the process of building up a foundation of shared memories.

  I don’t mean the major memories, the groundbreaking moments, but the little, everyday ones that, in their own weird way, last longer and mean more. When I thought about Colin, it wasn’t of our more dramatic encounters. I didn’t dwell on our almost kiss in a ruined monastery or his magnificent fury (okay, fine, so it was more like mid-level pissiness, but the other sounds better for posterity) at finding me going through his aunt’s papers. Instead, what I remembered was the solidness of his arm around me when I tripped on loose gravel in the pub parking lot, or the play of shadow on his face as he stood by the kitchen window, rinsing the dishes before loading them into the antiquated dishwasher.

  I liked that Colin, the domestic Colin. Our conversation was less and less about the big issues—politics, religion, the inherent inferiority of the Napoleonic regime—and more and more about whether it was a pub night or a home night, or the recurring debate about who left the lid off the toothpaste tube. (Hint: It wasn’t me.) I’d traded in my daydreams for domesticity. Maybe it sounds unromantic, but it had a solid feel to it. It was real.