A warning glitter came into his eyes. “Oh, no,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t dream of insulting you.”
He had stressed the last word. Was he saying that he felt insulted by her remark? Ridiculous. He could not be so sensitive. She glanced at him through her lashes. “Rud—” she began.
“I am waiting,” he said, cutting her appeal short.
“I won’t do it!” she flared.
“No? And, I was so sure you did not want to miss the rescue of your idol, no matter the cost.”
“You can’t keep me from doing my part,” she said, though her voice was far from positive even to her own ears.
“I can’t keep you from trying, but I doubt you will want to rush in uninformed. You might jeopardize the emperor’s plans, so that more than a year’s planning would go for naught.”
He was right. What was more, he was going to get what he wanted, just as both he and she had known all along he must. She raised amber eyes filled with gold flecks of rage to his. “Damn you,” she said through clenched teeth, then took the step that would bring her up against him.
She placed her hands lightly on his chest, smoothing them upward beneath the heavy faille lapels of his coat. Going on tiptoe, she linked her fingers behind his head, drawing it down. His mouth tasted of wine and his clothing held the smell of warm linen and the freshness of the southeast trade winds that blew across the island. Faithful to her part of the bargain, Julia held nothing back. She moved her lips tantalizingly on his, allowing him unimpeded access to the curves of her body. His hands slid under the edges of her peignoir. She was drawn close, until she could feel the press of his shirt studs and watch fobs.
A trembling seemed to run through his strong frame, and suddenly, she was caught so tight her ribs ached in protest and her bare feet left the floor. She grew light-headed for want of air while her lips burned with the scorching pressure of his. Then, just as abruptly, she was set from him. Rud held her for the instant it took for her to regain her breath, and then he stepped away.
“As much as I would like to carry this to its logical conclusion, I am afraid we don’t have the time. We dine this evening with Sir Hudson Lowe.”
The change was so drastic, so unexpected, that it was a long moment before Julia could force her brain to follow what Rud was saying. She was suspended in disbelief that he had not accepted her sacrifice, and in a growing suspicion that he had never meant to do so. “Sir Hudson Lowe, the British governor?” she inquired at last.
“Precisely.”
“Why? For what purpose?” She clasped her hands together, striving to sound composed.
“He is Napoleon’s keeper, and from all accounts, a proud and petty man with a near mania concerning the safekeeping of his prisoner. He will expect us to pay our respects, especially as we are connected with the East India Company, which, you will remember, holds nominal control of the island. If we ignore him in favor of the emperor, we may find ourselves refused permission to approach Napoleon, since the request for an audience must be routed through the governor’s office.”
“You have made this request?”
“Yes, in due form to the governor’s secretary.”
“I suppose you gave a reason?”
Rud nodded. “The same as all other good British subjects who have visited the emperor during this way-stop in their travels in the past few years — a desire to lay eyes on the Corsican monster who terrorized dear old England for so long.”
“I see,” Julia said, a frown drawing her brows together. “That is what you meant by progress in freeing Napoleon?”
“It is. There has been no contact with the emperor, won’t be any until the day of the audience. The rest you know, have known since New Orleans. Nothing has changed. The success of all we have worked for in the last few months depends on tonight.”
“It will not be a pleasant evening,” Julia commented with a sigh.
“No. I don’t need to tell you, I think, that we must take care nothing is said to give the governor the idea that we have the slightest interest beyond mild curiosity in the man at Longwood.”
Julia sent him a sharp glance, then swung away, presenting him with a superb view of the slim, tapering lines of her back. “Perhaps, it would be safer if you went alone,” she suggested. “You can always tell them I have a headache.”
I wouldn’t think of it,” he replied, a sardonic tone in his voice that managed also to be understanding. “I depend upon you to charm the gentleman into forgetting his responsibility to the crown. He should be well and truly enslaved before the soup plates are removed.”
“Toward what end?” she queried, her voice wary at the unexpected compliment.
“None in particular. It will be best if Sir Hudson Lowe remembers us favorably should events not go as we plan.”
She turned quickly to face him, her eyes wide. “Has something gone wrong? Are you keeping something from me?”
“Not at all,” he answered, his blue gaze steady. “There is nothing like that. It’s just that it is better to leave as little as possible to chance.”
Despite his denial, Julia could not be easy in her mind. The difficulties of what they had set out to do loomed large now that they were on the island. The remoteness of Longwood, perched on a treeless plateau three and a half miles from Jamestown harbor, the strength of the garrison set to watch him, the presence of the commissioners of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, besides the British governor, all seemed insurmountable obstacles. The plan to drive in broad daylight with Napoleon sitting beside them down the single street the town possessed seemed suicidal.
At the dinner party, the sharp, almost wild eyes of Sir Hudson Lowe seemed to bore into Julia’s skull, trying to read her thoughts. He stared at her with unsmiling attention, his reddish-brown brows drawn together, whenever she spoke. Nothing she could do, no deep breaths, no calming thoughts she could muster, would control the flush on her cheekbones. At any other time, the knowledge that she looked her best in black velvet would have given her confidence, but not on this night. There was too much at stake.
A portion of her problem was the, fact that she was seated on the right hand of the British governor with no less a personage than the Russian commissioner, Count Alexander Antinovich Ramsey de Balmain, on her right. She knew without being told that the cultured, rather sleepy-looking nobleman was far more dangerous than Sir Hudson Lowe could ever be. Evidence of sharp intelligence and the intricate turnings of the mind of a diplomat shone in his dark, hypnotic eyes. Without difficulty, he followed his conversation with his partner, the wife of the commander of the army regiment stationed on the island, and still missed nothing of what was going on around him.
Also, at the table was Captain Asbury of the David and his lady, a middle-aged couple who had enlivened the tedium of the voyage from England, and Lady Lowe’s young stepdaughter, doubtless included as a balance for the Count de Balmain, who was a single man.
As guest of honor, due to his position as a relative of one of the most influential directors of the East India Company, Rud was placed on the right hand of his hostess with Charlotte, the quiet, almost invisible stepdaughter, beside him. Glancing now and then in that direction, Julia found buxom Lady Lowe an unusually animated woman. She reached out a number of times to touch Rud’s sleeve, her high laughter pealing over the table. When she was not speaking, she was motioning for the footman to fill her glass. Between Rud and the drink, the poor captain on her left received scarcely so much as a nod. It was Sir Hudson Lowe who finally signaled for the turn of the table, the English custom of switching conversational partners from right to left halfway through the meal, at the same time making an obvious gesture to the footman to ignore his wife’s signals for more wine. Lady Lowe, flushing beneath her rouge, looked ready to protest until Captain Asbury captured her attention with some comment.
Julia, sipping at the sour, watered-down liquid in her own glass, was unable to account for Lady Lowe’s predilection for it. The vintage
s served on the David were far superior. Her father had always contended that giving bad wine to guests was a sign of parsimony, lack of discernment, or both. Slanting a glance at the thin, gray face of the governor of St. Helena, Julia wondered what manner of wine he allowed his noble prisoner, a man who had been emperor of the country where wine was considered as life blood.
There was a small disruption at that moment. One of the governor’s secretaries, a subaltern in the gray and red of the Fifty-third Regiment, entered the room and placed a message on the table at their host’s elbow. Sir Hudson Lowe read it and nodded dismissal.
Turning to the company with eyes blazing, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you will be pleased to know that the prisoner is still held secure. General Bonaparte has partaken of a light dinner and retired to his bed for an early night.”
“My word, your excellency,” the captain’s wife exclaimed. “You must have a most efficient surveillance system.”
“Quite. You will have noticed the semaphore posts set up about the island? These stations are utilized to keep me constantly informed of the slightest movement of my prisoner. This note in my hand tells me, for instance, that the general did not sit down to dinner, but was served a meal on a tray in his study. A short while later, the candle in the adjoining bedchamber was extinguished.”
The captain’s lady shivered. “I would not like to be so closely watched.”
“The man’s feelings do not weigh with me, madam. He is extremely dangerous. He escaped once from an island prison and was only rounded up again at great cost, in both money and lives. It is my responsibility to see that this does not happen again, one I take with the utmost seriousness.”
“How the mighty have fallen,” the woman murmured.
“Thank God,” the governor said with a snort. “For my part, I say he can consider himself fortunate he is still alive. More than one ruler in recent years has suffered a crueler fate.”
The captain’s wife was silent, though more for the sake of good manners than from awe of the governor. Julia eyed the man at the head of the table with distaste. It had been rumored aboard ship that the troops assigned to guard the emperor had instructions to use any method they thought suitable to ascertain his presence within the old farmhouse known as Longwood, including peering in at the windows. The charge was almost certainly true, since there did not appear to be any other way the information in the message just delivered could have been obtained. She did not realize she had allowed the contempt she felt for such tactics to register on her expressive face until she caught the eyes of the Russian commissioner upon her. She was able to summon a vague smile without too much effort, but she was aware of the flicker of interest that made his gaze return to her again and again as the meal progressed.
It was with every appearance of reluctance that their hostess rose to lead the ladies from the dining room. “Don’t linger too long over the port, gentlemen,” she said, her arch smile growing a shade more caressing as it lingered on Rudyard Thorpe.
Julia, passing behind her husband’s chair, lifted a brow in ironic communication as he glanced her way. In return, she received a scowl.
The ladies, consoling themselves with coffee rather than strong wine, indulged in an hour of gossip and idle conversation. In exchange for news of the latest fads and swings in London fashion, the ladies of Plantation House regaled their guests with the scandals of the island, necessarily including many tidbits about the emperor. Lady Lowe contended that the great man was ill. It had been weeks, she said, since he had been seen outside the walls of Longwood — indeed, since any of the sentries could sweat to having laid eyes on him. He not only had not appeared at the dinner table with the others of his retinue this evening, he had not done so for some time. Blankets had been placed over the windows of his bedchamber and study to keep out the light and drafts of air, a suicidal practice in the August heat, though it effectively kept anyone from seeing into the rooms. The general had refused the services of the British physicians, Stokoe and Arnott, declaring them to be useless, much preferring to allow his body to heal itself. There was hepatitis in Jamestown, and now and then, a case of some tropic fever, but so far no one had any idea what ailed Bonaparte.
“For my part,” Lady Lowe confided, “I am by no means certain the general retires to bed when his candle is doused. He is only fifty, after all, and I understand that some of his best maneuvers were performed between sunset and dawn, both military and amorous. Haven’t the names of over a dozen of the most beautiful women in Europe been connected with him in the past decade? They say that Albine, the Countesse de Montholon, has been generous with her favors. Her daughter, born on the island, is named Napoleone. And then, for a time, there was the Balcombe chit — Betsy, she was called. He was quite taken with her, though she was barely out of the schoolroom. What her response was to the great warrior we may only guess, but she was in the habit of slipping through the lines of the sentries to visit him at odd hours. She was also allowed to ride his horses and even, on one occasion, to wear the famous mantle he wore at Marengo. If that isn’t preference, I don’t know what is!”
“Balcombe,” the captain’s wife mused. “I believe I know the family. There was a William Balcombe who, it was whispered, was the natural son of the mad old man at Windsor Castle.”
“Betsy Balcombe’s father, my dear,” Lady Howe said. “It is amazing to me that such a family could form an attachment for a man with so little breeding, but there it is. Betsy was coming and going at Longwood without so much as a by-your-leave, much less a permit. Hudson became suspicious and set a watch on the father, who was the purveyor of food and drink for the French. It was discovered that he was smuggling correspondence for the general, and that was that. They were sent back to England. I expect your ships passed in mid-ocean. That being the case, it would not be surprising if Napoleon was now taking up where he left off with the Count de Montholon’s accommodating wife.”
“I liked Betsy,” the stepdaughter offered. “She was always so gay and full of spirits. The men in the regiment could not resist her.”
“Oh, I don’t deny she was a great beauty, my dear Charlotte,” “Lady Lowe replied, “but I do say she would have been better for a bit more supervision. Whether she was the mistress of General Bonaparte or not, there can be little doubt that the taint of her years on St. Helena will follow her back to England. What kind of life can she have there with such notoriety attached to her name?”
Julia thought she detected a shading of wistful envy in the voice of the governor’s wife. Did she regret that she had never been exposed to the temptation to become Napoleon’s chére amie? With a shake of her head, she dismissed the thought as being unnecessarily feline. Still, she did not care for Sir Hudson Lowe’s blowsy and overblown wife. Her contempt only deepened when she saw Lady Lowe remove a vial from her reticule and furtively tip the liquid contents into her coffee cup.
The gentlemen rejoined them in good time. The talk was general, concerning the voyage, the political situation in England, the Irish question, and the latest developments in the propulsion of ships with steam power. Julia, sitting to one side, exchanged a few remarks with Lady Lowe’s stepdaughter, but otherwise remained in the background. Mindful of the importance of not saying the wrong thing here in the stronghold of the emperor’s enemies, she chose the prudent course, which was to say as little as possible.
“Madame Thorpe, permit me to welcome you to St. Helena.”
It was the Russian commissioner making his bow before her. Receiving her permission to take the chair next to her own, he continued. “It is always a pleasure to see a new face here in our enclosed society, especially such a charming one. Do you propose to tarry long?”
His manner was suave, his address polished. The Count de Balmain, in his dark, Slavic, and faintly mysterious fashion, was an attractive man. Smooth-shaven, he wore a tonic scented with bergamot. A white ribbon slashed the dark blue of his coat, and his chest glittered with orders and insigni
a.
Julia smiled. “Thank you. You are very kind, but my husband and I are en route to Rio de Janeiro. Our visit will last only as long as the David lingers in the harbor.”
“Ah?” he said, a thoughtful look crossing his feature. “It is possible that I, too, shall be returning to civilization soon.”
“To Russia?” she inquired.
“Eventually, one always returns to Mother Russia. Still, there is much of the world I have not seen. Rio de Janeiro, for instance.”
It would be nonsense to think that the man before her was suggesting that he would make such a trip for her sake. She suspected some hidden meaning to his words, but could conceive of no reason for it. “I — understand that it is a lovely place in a beautiful country,” she said with care.
He gave a slow nod, as if weighing her words. Casually, his gaze moved to the gold bee, worn this evening on a fine chain, so that it nestled between her breasts. “I realize, madame, that it is improper for me to comment on the ornament you are wearing, but it is quite unique. I don’t remember seeing its like before.”
“It belonged to my mother,” Julia said with a small shrug.
“Does it have some special significance, I wonder? For instance, is it a queen bee, or does it, perhaps, have a stinger in its tail?”
Julia swung her head sharply to stare at him. “What do you mean?” she demanded in a low voice.
But his dark eyes were hooded, unreadable. “Forgive me, Madame Thorpe. That was a small gaffe, was it not? My English sometimes trips me up, just when I think I have it perfectly. Such a barbarous language. Now, French is entirely civilized, is it not?”
The Count de Balmain, on the last sentence, had slipped into the tongue he named. Julia had no more than an instant to decide if he was merely making a point, or presenting her with some form of test. She inclined her head in a deliberately gracious gesture. “It has been called the language of diplomacy,” she answered, following his lead.
“It is spoken almost exclusively at St. Petersburg in Czar Alexander’s court. The Russian emperor is a great admirer of things French, and of Napoleon.”
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets) Page 21