The Garden Intrigue

by Lauren Willig

  “With the burning urgency of a thousand suns,” Augustus assured her solemnly. His eyes met hers. He quirked an eyebrow in unspoken question. Beneath the vapid mask, she could see the concern in his eyes.

  Emma shook her head slightly, although what he was asking and what she was answering, she wasn’t quite sure. Part of her wanted to take him by his artfully disarranged collar and shake him. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have to come barging in, being all heroic and concerned, just when she most wanted to resent him?

  Georges was brooding over his own wrongs. “If that’s the case, why didn’t he just say so?” He turned imperiously to Emma, dismissing Augustus with a shrug of the shoulder. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

  Emma touched her fingers to Georges’ sleeve, tilting her head coquettishly up towards him, ignoring Augustus for all she was worth. He wasn’t the only one who could play a role.

  “I’m afraid it can’t,” she said with false regret. “One would hate to have the Emperor disappointed in our entertainment, don’t you agree?”

  No one could argue with the Emperor. It was the trump card to trump all trump cards.

  Georges looked at the hand resting on his sleeve, eyes narrowed. Emma wished she were wearing gloves; she felt strangely vulnerable without them, her fingers bare and very pale in the cold, making her rings loose on her fingers.

  His other hand closed over hers, tightly. Not so tight as to be punitive, but tight enough to send a message. Emma could feel Augustus shift on the balls of his feet.

  “Another time, then.” Georges raised his hand to her lips, deliberately reversing her hand so that his lips touched her palm. “Think about what I told you.”

  Turning on his heel, he strode towards the door, only to go sprawling in a most undignified fashion as his shin connected with Augustus’s calf. He let out a bellow of shock and rage as he stumbled, arms flailing, catching himself just before he crashed into Mme. Bonaparte’s French windows.

  “Oh, dear,” said Augustus, the malicious glint in his eye belying his vague tone. “Was I in your way?”

  Georges didn’t bother to answer. Favoring Augustus with a look of extreme dislike, he wrenched open the door to the hall. He looked back over his shoulder at Emma.

  “Remember,” he said, and was gone.

  He didn’t slam the door. It might have been less disconcerting if he had.

  Bother, bother, bother.

  “You shouldn’t have made him angry,” she said shortly, watching Georges’ distorted form in the glass as he made an abrupt turn towards the billiards room, ostentatiously favoring his left leg.

  Behind him, in reflection, she could see Augustus, his white shirt misty pale against dark panels.

  Instead of responding, he asked, “Are you all right?”

  That was all. Are you all right? But something about the way he said it, his voice low and serious, his eyes intent on hers in the glass, tore right through to the depths of her composure. There was no doubting the genuineness of his concern. Conversely, that almost made it worse. It would be easier to brush off if there were no caring there, if she could dismiss him as just another acquaintance, another chance meeting, another accidental kiss.

  To know that someone did care, really cared, but just didn’t care enough…That was worst of all.

  Emma took a deep breath, tucking up the ragged ends of her pride. “Perfectly all right,” she said tartly, turning away from the glass.

  It was almost a shock to see him in the flesh rather than in reflection, startlingly, corporeally real. Too real. She knew the texture of his cheek, the shape of his scalp, the scent of his skin, so close and yet so far.

  “It was very kind of you to intervene,” she said primly. “But there was no need.”

  “That’s not the way it looked to me.”

  “Georges wouldn’t hurt me. He just wants what he wants.” She added pettishly, “There was no need to come charging in like that. Now he’ll only seek me out and we’ll have to have the whole tiresome conversation all over again.”

  Augustus folded his arms over his chest, looking as forbidding as a man in a ruffled shirt could look. “And what if you were in the way of what he wanted?”

  “He would be too loath to get blood on his uniform to do anything violent,” Emma said lightly. “Really, Augustus, there’s no need to worry. I can take care of myself.”

  “You’re a third of his size.”

  Emma self-consciously straightened her spine. “There’s no need to harp on my height.”

  Just because Jane was tall…Emma banished the unworthy thought. This wasn’t a competition.

  If it was, she wouldn’t win.

  Augustus scowled. “It’s not about height; it’s bulk. He could squash you with one hand.”

  “Give me some credit,” she said. “It would take two hands at least. Though I be small, I be fierce. How does that line go?”

  “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” He looked over his shoulder, frowning, more serious than she had ever seen him. “This isn’t a joke, Emma.”

  Emma’s eyes stung. With fatigue, that was all. “No,” she said quietly. “It’s not. Nor is it any of your concern.”

  He stood entirely still, the stillness of a dark pond on a dark night, uncanny in its silence, strange things moving beneath the surface. “You are my concern,” he said in a low voice.

  Fine words, and she was sure he meant them, too.

  As a friend.

  “Don’t worry,” said Emma flippantly. “If Georges murders me and drops my body in the river, I’m sure you can find another collaborator.”

  He stared at her as though trying to divine whether she meant it. She could see his fingers curl into his palms. It was a good thing his nails were short, or they would leave marks. “That’s not what I meant.”

  If he wasn’t going to explain, she wasn’t going to ask. She held his gaze until he broke. He turned abruptly away, swinging towards the glass doors through which Georges had exited.

  “How did you ever come to take up with that cretin?” he demanded.

  Half a dozen excuses bubbled to Emma’s tongue, the same ones she had trotted out before in half a dozen imaginary conversations. It had been a difficult time.…She hadn’t been happy.…

  What was she doing? Emma pulled herself to an abrupt halt. What right had he to ask? Or to judge. It was none of his concern. She was under no obligation to explain herself to him or anyone else.

  Emma folded her arms across her chest and glowered. “Have you never taken to bed someone you regretted later?”

  Augustus gawped at her.

  She could practically see the wheels in his head turning. His stance relaxed. He said, with a quirk of the lips, “Fair point.”

  It would have felt more like a victory if she hadn’t wondered exactly who he might be thinking of, if Emma would know her, and, if so, what the circumstances had been.

  If Georges was none of his business, that was none of hers.

  “Please,” he said softly. “Let’s not argue.”

  Emma regarded him warily.

  “Truce?” he urged.

  Emma held out a hand. “Truce.”

  He wasn’t wearing gloves either. His hand engulfed hers. She could feel the calluses on his thumb worn by a pen and other calluses on his palm, made by something else entirely.

  She made to draw her hand back, but instead of releasing it, he looked down at her, his expression thoughtful. “May I ask you something else?”

  Despite herself, Emma’s pulse picked up. The play, the theatre, the kiss. Nothing at all, she could imagine herself saying, it was nothing at all. Unless you…

  “Provided it’s nothing to do with multiplication tables,” she said flippantly.

  Augustus’s hand tightened and then let go. “What is it that Marston wants from you?”

  “What?” It was so far from what she had been expecting that it took her a moment to comprehend the words. “Georges?”

/>   She had the small satisfaction of seeing Augustus scowl at the name. “Yes,” he said. “That.”

  “That,” said Emma, tucking her hands under her arms, “was a fascinating exercise in venality and wishful thinking.”

  Wishful thinking. Emma resisted a hysterical urge to laugh. She knew a thing or two about that. What a fool she was, what an addlepated fool. Kort was right; she shouldn’t be allowed out on her own.

  “I heard a bit of it,” said Augustus cautiously. “Something about…plans?”

  Emma shrugged, wishing she had had the forethought to wear a shawl. She was cold again, colder than she had been before. She assumed Mme. Bonaparte wouldn’t mind if she made it an early night and sought the solace of her own quilt. “Georges wanted a share in a business venture between my cousin and Mr. Fulton. They turned him down.”

  Augustus cocked an eyebrow. “So he wants you to steal their plans?”

  Emma wafted a hand. “That’s Georges for you, always out for the easy sou. Shall we go in?”

  Augustus made no move towards the door. He looked at her, his brows drawing together. “Be careful, Emma,” he said abruptly. “This— You don’t—”

  He broke off, broodingly. He had never looked more like the poet he pretended to be.

  “Goodness, Augustus,” said Emma, “there’s no need to look like that. No matter who Georges thinks he’s found to pay for it, I can’t imagine it’s worth that much. Even if it works, it will take ages and lots of investment before it can be profitable.”

  Augustus’s dark eyes were intent on her face. “It? You know what it is?”

  “Well, yes.” Why was he looking like that? Did he really think Georges would murder her out of frustrated greed? “It’s not exactly a secret.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “They’ve kept it relatively quiet,” said Emma, “but that’s just because they were waiting until Mr. Fulton built a proper model. But everyone will know about it by tomorrow. They’re doing a demonstration on the river.”

  “A demonstration?” Augustus looked dazed. “A public demonstration?”

  “For the Emperor,” said Emma. “He wanted to see it—or Mr. Fulton wanted him to see it. I think he was hoping the Emperor might invest. Mr. Fulton, I mean.”

  “Are we—are we talking about the same thing?”

  “The steamship,” said Emma matter-of-factly.

  “The—” Augustus blinked at her.

  She had heard so much about it that she had forgotten that he might not have.

  “A ship propelled by steam,” she translated. “The French call it a chariot d’eau mu par le feu. They’re holding a demonstration of it tomorrow.”

  Mr. Fulton had a lovely day for his steamship exhibition.

  The imperial couple had made an event of it. Servants had spread silk cloths to protect the ladies’ dresses from the turf. They lolled in little clusters along the bank, some reclining like Mme. Récamier, others with their legs tucked beneath them like children at a picnic, leaning forward to exclaim over a freshly picked flower or stretching to pluck a sweetmeat from the tray of a circling attendant.

  Mme. Bonaparte’s personal china service was spread in opulent array on a low table laden with all the delicacies a sophisticated palate might desire. Ladies picked delicately at candied chestnuts and hothouse peaches, munching sweetmeats and flinging bits of cake to the ducks on the river. The sunlight glittered off cut-crystal glasses dangling idly from the hands of young gallants as they pressed their suits with the prettier of Mme. Bonaparte’s ladies-in-waiting, all giggles and coy fans.

  Over it all, the imperial couple presided, seated on twin chairs. Augustus recognized the chairs from the gilded drawing room, incongruous in the rustic idyll in which they purported to participate. Many of the ladies, in keeping with the rural theme, had twined flowers in their hair, but Mme. Bonaparte wore a tiny gilt diadem, a token of the status she had yet to formally attain. She might be Empress by courtesy, but she hadn’t yet been crowned, a fact of which everyone was very much aware. A silk canopy held by four poles had been stretched above them to protect Mme. Bonaparte’s delicate complexion.

  In the place of honor beside Mme. Bonaparte sat Robert Livingston, with his nephew, still under the canopy but less favored, standing beside him. Likewise, Robert Fulton had a place beneath the canopy but no chair. He stood by the Emperor’s left hand.

  Augustus lounged on the grass, flirting idly with Mme. de Rémusat, and wondered what in the hell was going on.

  A demonstration, Horace de Lilly had said. Bonaparte’s secret weapon awaited only a demonstration. But this public demonstration, held for a full audience of giggling ladies-in-waiting and yawning courtiers, was nothing like what Augustus had imagined.

  Then why, if this wasn’t the device, had the flower of France’s admiralty been summoned from their various obligations to cluster behind Bonaparte’s chair?

  They were all there: Rear Admiral Decres, openly fidgeting; Vice Admiral Bruix, looking tired and ill but standing nonetheless; Admiral Latouche-Tréville, commander of the Mediterranean fleet, summoned summarily from Toulon, travel strained and weary; Vice Admiral Truguet, at the very verge of the group, being punished for his public stance in opposition to the imperial title; and, with them, but slightly behind, a protective cluster of aides and lesser commanders. France’s best—or at least its most prominent—naval minds stood beneath a silk canopy sipping champagne punch and waiting as Robert Livingston, at a sign from the Emperor, heaved himself to his feet and raised his champagne glass in the air.

  “My thanks,” he began, “to His Excellency the Emperor for making my stay in France such a pleasant and productive one.”

  The Emperor inclined his head curtly in reply, striving for imperial dignity, and missing.

  “Together,” said Livingston, “we have strengthened the bond between our countries and accomplished great things.”

  An appreciative murmur from the crowd. He referred, Augustus knew, to the purchase of New France, which he had brokered the year before, refilling Bonaparte’s anemic coffers and vastly increasing the size of the fledgling American republic.

  “My tenure here,” said Livingston, “is sadly at an end. But before I go, it pleases me to share with you the fruits of my latest endeavor—”

  At a gesture from Mme. Bonaparte, a lackey obediently moved towards the river to remove the shielding cover from whatever it was that rocked on makeshift moorings. The lackey yanked the cover off, revealing a boat about three feet long and two feet high, with a cylinder, instead of a sail, sticking out of the middle.

  “—the steamship!”

  There was an entirely inappropriate giggle from one of the blankets. Everyone twisted to look. The lady-in-waiting in question flushed and hastily moved away from the gallant who had been murmuring salacious nothings in her ear.

  “As I was saying,” said Livingston.

  Augustus let the words wash over him and looked about for Emma. He found her on one of the blankets, safely sandwiched between Mme. Junot and another one of her Mme. Campan’s comrades, picking at a candied chestnut. Her eyes met his and she looked away, biting with unnecessary vigor into her sweetmeat. Her lips puckered at the rush of cloying sweetness.

  Augustus held himself back, resisting the urge to go to her. He had made a right muck of it, hadn’t he? And he didn’t know what to say to set it right. He wanted things back the way they were, the way they had been before, when they had been comfortable and happy with each other. He wanted her fussing over him and arguing with him, popping up at his elbow to murmur idiosyncratic observations. He wanted—

  Augustus caught himself short, but not soon enough, not before the image of tousled hair and parted lips, the memory of her skin against his palm and her lips against his lips left him staggered and short of breath, as though he had been sprinting instead of standing. His chest felt tight and his head ached from the sun. The glare from the river offended his eyes, too bright, too bras
sy.

  “…partnership,” Livingston was saying, and Augustus squinted in their direction to see the younger Livingston standing at his uncle’s elbow, looking properly modest. “It takes over a week for goods to make their way from New York to Albany by ship. With Mr. Fulton’s steamship, we believe the same journey can be undertaken in under sixty hours.”

  “Or fewer!” chimed in Mr. Fulton.

  Goods? Sixty hours from New York to Albany instead of a week? This was all very exciting, Augustus was sure, but it wasn’t exactly the warship of his imagining. He might have believed that Horace de Lilly—young, overeager, still wet behind the ears—had misunderstood, but for the fact that the accumulated force of the admiralty was all gathered on the banks of the small stream.

  What was he missing? What was there about this boat that didn’t meet the eye?

  Something glittered at the corner of his vision, and Augustus felt his pulse pick up. Emma’s diamonds? No. Just Mme. de Treville raising a glass to her lips, sunlight scintillating off crystal.

  “It will be better, bigger, faster,” declaimed Robert Livingston. He raised his glass to the model ship bobbing at its makeshift moorings. “We have lived long, but I can only believe there are greater works still to come. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the face of our future—the steamship.”

  “The steamship.” Some of the assemblage obediently raised their glasses.

  The bulk of them kept on with their picnicking and their gossiping, deeming the progress of commerce far less interesting than who had disappeared with whom into the shrubbery last night and was it really true that the princess Borghese had already abandoned her husband and was on her way back to Paris, bringing an honor guard of new lovers, a dancing bear, and, quite possibly, the Pope.

  Even the admirals standing in phalanx around the chair of their Emperor looked bored. One or two seemed intrigued, on general principles, but it was an academic interest, not the focused attention of men whose careers might rest on the success or failure of this venture.

  “A pretty toy,” Augustus heard Truguet murmur to Decres.