“Amélie?” Her door creaked open after this soft question, and her father stepped in. Near lunch time, he should have been in the kitchen.
She swept the paper behind her. “I’m sorry if I held you up, Papa. I’ll wash and fetch my apron.”
“Never mind that. I want to have a word with you, if I may?” His uneasy countenance bothered her.
“Won’t you be late for preparing the court meal?” She resisted the urge to drop her quilt over her writing, afraid to smear the ink.
“No one feels like eating.” He sat in her spindly chair, his hands on his knees, which almost bumped the edge of her bed. “Amélie, it’s come to my attention…As I’ve mentioned before, I do think it’s prudent if you saw less of the emperor.”
“In the beginning you didn’t seem to mind.” Her empty stomach bubbled. Amélie could never explain her feelings of illicit love to her father. “I won’t desert him. Too many have deserted him already.”
“Things have changed.” Perrault furrowed his brow, his knuckles white as he gripped his bony kneecaps. “In ways I might have predicted if I’d paid better notice. I duped myself into thinking you were still a little girl who couldn’t—”
“Papa, you aren’t listening to the servants’ gossip, are you?” Amélie averted her gaze for an instant. She lifted her hair from her neck, her nape growing hot.
“No, but the Countess de Montholon came to me…and she believes matters have escalated.” He didn’t look at her as he said this, fidgeting in the chair.
“You would listen to her? A woman of her sort.” Amélie clenched her quilt, unable to hide her disgust. How dare this courtesan continue to interfere.
“Now, ma fille, you’re condemning the countess with idle gossip. Just as you yourself wish not to be condemned.”
She saw his point, but wished she didn’t. “What lies has she told you?”
“I intend to know the truth.” Perrault twitched his mouth, speaking slowly. “The countess says there’s a more intimate side to your relationship, and it also appears that way to me.”
“The emperor and I are the greatest of friends.” Amélie regretted lying to her father. She didn’t know how she’d handle her parent’s shame if she and Napoleon developed a relationship. She plucked at a loose thread on her dress. “Everyone is just envious, as you yourself once said. You’ve always denounced any gossip, and I appreciated you for it.”
“Yes, I have, but if this has gone further than it should, as your father I must guide you in the proper manner.” Glancing away again, he drummed his fingers on his thigh. “I’m only thinking of you.”
“Everyone says they’re only thinking of me.” Amélie threw this out, anger replacing guilt. Napoleon’s offer to send her away, off the island, apart from him. She smiled at her father. “Pardon, but can’t you treat me as a person responsible for myself?”
“Amélie, you’re just like your mother. Very stubborn. I know we’re far removed here, but society’s rules still matter. If you...ever wish to confide about...anything...” Perrault grimaced, the chair creaking with his movement. “I’ve kept quiet, for the most part, on your ‘friendship,’ because it made you both happy, but if things alter, as your father I must—“
“Nothing has changed, and it does make us happy.” Amélie doubted he really wanted a confession, not that one was forthcoming. How many “rules” did she intend to defy, and would Napoleon wish her to? “I understand your concerns, but they’re unfounded.”
“Remember, you’re a moral young lady from a decent family. I expect you to behave so.” He rose, his manner stiff, obviously not convinced of her innocence. She’d counted on her father’s natural reserve and profound loyalty to the emperor to allow her to continue, still she didn’t relish having to hurt him.
“Please, don’t worry, Papa. You gave me a good education. Now trust me to be wise enough to…to manage.” Could she manage, without the experience, the information that would give her confidence?
“I’ve had my word with you.” Her father coughed into his hand. His face looked thinner, his cheekbones pronounced.
“You’re working too hard.” Amélie stared at him with concern. “I’ll make you some carrot soup for your cough.”
Perrault gave a dismissive wave and left her chamber.
Matters have escalated? She would speak to Napoleon about the countess’s meddling, as long as, despite his denial, Albine wasn’t weaving him into her own web.
She jerked the paper back onto her lap. Somehow she’d gather the details she needed for this task, even if she had to interview prostitutes in Jamestown—a daring idea that intrigued her. The Countess de Montholon would be a fount of information. Was it proper etiquette for a prospective mistress to ask a former one for advice? With a groan, she’d never ask that harlot anything. Especially details about an alleged intimacy with their emperor.
As she dipped her quill back into the ink, Amélie sighed at her weakness when all she desired was seeing Napoleon. She ran her fingers over her lips, remembering his kiss. A kiss he pretended never happened, as if by accident the island breeze had swept them together on the cliffs. So near the edge, she staggered to maintain her balance.
Chapter Nineteen
The human heart is an abyss that deceives all calculations—N.B.
Amélie re-entered the main house at eight o’clock that evening. The place felt eerily quiet, gloomy, and forbidding—she suppressed a shiver. She found Marchand in the duty chamber.
“You’re in luck. The Bertrands have returned to Hutt’s Gate.” The valet joined her in the dining room with a candle, his curly brown hair in disarray. “The Count de Montholon is still in the emperor’s rooms, but I’ll ask him a food inventory question, and coax him into the preparation area. Then you sneak in.”
“The count took over that function quick enough, Cipriani not even buried. More ways to dominate the household. Napoleon would never bar me from seeing him.” Amélie took a deep breath to soften her stridency. “Why does he even put up with those people?”
“After Waterloo…His Majesty appreciated any officer who showed sympathy and devotion.”
She pitied her emperor’s desperation. “Even if that devotion might not be genuine?”
Marchand indicated that she wait in the shadows near the drawing room arch. He knocked on the study door and was confronted by Montholon’s prissy scowl. “Excuse me, Count de Montholon, but I need to ask something concerning some missing food items. I realize it is late, but His Majesty will be upset if this isn’t solved.”
Amélie watched them walk toward the back of the house. She darted to the study door, then opened and closed it softly behind her.
The study was empty, the fire smoldering in the grate. Light spilled from Napoleon’s open bedchamber door.
Amélie tiptoed toward that chamber, where a candelabra burned on the night table, but the narrow camp bed with green taffeta curtains wasn’t occupied. A worn sofa, chair, and chest of drawers crowded around the bed. An elaborate silver washstand was one of two items to suggest an emperor resided here. Sparkling in a shadowy corner, the silver ewer perched on golden swans was supported by a tripod stand. A gold dressing case sat nearby.
The door to the adjoining bathroom was ajar, and this room too had a faint light. At that entrance, she stood to the side without looking in and debated whether or not to disturb him. She whispered his name into the humid space.
“Amée? Is that you?”
She leaned against the door frame; her pulse quickened. “Yes.”
“Come in, come in at once.” At least he sounded in good spirits.
She crept into the narrow room, not sure what to expect. Steam swirled around her, as if the island mists had drifted over flames and seeped in. As she passed an ornate Chinese screen, she caught a glimpse of him in his bathtub. Sh
e gasped and turned her back.
“I didn’t realize you were—”
“Don’t be concerned, ma chère,” he replied in a sedate tone. “Come and sit down.”
Napoleon sometimes received his court while taking a bath and apparently thought nothing of it. Amélie moved behind the screen, behaving like a novice who hadn’t the nerve of his rumored mistress. “I probably should wait in the study until you’ve completed your toilette.”
“Nonsense, stay there. Talk to me.” Now he sounded lonely and depressed. “Why haven’t you been to see me?”
“I’ve tried to see you since yesterday, but the Count de Montholon refused to let me in.” The steam dampened her hair about her cheeks.
“Ah, he is very vigilant, that one. I will have a word with him. My mind has been elsewhere, but if I’d known...” His tone was dreamy, as though he’d been drinking. Napoleon wasn’t a heavy imbiber and no one had ever seen him drunk.
“I’m deeply sorry about your friend Cipriani. If there’s anything I can do?” Her sympathizing shaded her discomfort. To be treated as mature she must behave as such. She heard him ripple in the water, a movement of hand.
“What could anyone do for the poor man? This island has murdered him.”
“I’d have been the first to offer condolences, if not for the Count and Countess de Montholon.” She bumped the silk screen with her bottom, and stepped away. “They treat me with scorn.”
“The Montholons worry that you take my interests away from them. I’m tired of them, and they fear it. That’s why Las Cases left. He wanted my complete attention, and suffered their animosity.” Napoleon still spoke in a torpid manner. “None of them understand I have to be at the center, the same as when I was in power.”
Now she strived to be his closest confidant. “The Montholons don’t have your best interests at heart.” She sounded petty, and added, “Monsieur Cipriani always did.” Even if he did try to lure her to Jamestown once.
“Bien sûr. Wait there, I’m coming out.” He sloshed from the tub.
Amélie stared at the mildewed wall in front of her. Her back to the screen, she made an effort to relax her shoulders. She closed her eyes for a moment.
“You can open your eyes now, Amée. I’m fairly decent.” Napoleon stood beside her clad in his dressing gown, his warm smile melting her. His hair damp, he looked fresh-faced if tired around the eyes.
“I wasn’t troubled.” She smiled and wiped a moist tendril of hair from her temple. “You should stop taking your baths so hot. It dries and irritates the skin, as I’ve noticed washing dishes. I’ll give Marchand some olive oil to put in your water.”
“One physician did warn me that hot baths were ‘weakening.’ Still, I ignored him, but I’ll consider your advice.” Clasping her wrist, he walked her into his bedroom.
Amélie waited for him to continue into the study, but instead he left her and went to the gray-painted fireplace beyond the sofa. The wind rattled down through the chimney, a lonely sound Napoleon must listen to every night before he tried to sleep.
“Have you seen this, Amée?” he asked, as if she’d had free access to his bedroom. He fingered a silver alarm clock that hung on one side of the mantel. “This belonged to Frederick the Great, a man I admired. I took it as a souvenir after the battle of Potsdam.”
Amélie stepped behind him, pondering her ability to charm over the nervous quivers in her stomach. She touched his shoulder. “Shall we…sit in here? I can stoke up the fire.”
“This is my Consular watch.” Napoleon pointed to a gold watch, engraved with the letter B, suspended from a chain of plaited hair on the other side of the mantel. Amélie felt a twinge in her chest; the blond plait had to be Marie Louise’s.
“Here is my family.” He turned and swept out his hand, but didn’t smile.
On the chamber’s yellow cloth walls hung portraits shrouded in shadow. The elegant Josephine in a miniature; Marie Louise with the infant King of Rome; and the child by himself, a few years older, riding a lamb. Marie Louise had bulbous fish eyes and thick lips. The fair, plump-cheeked child filled Amélie with sadness over Napoleon’s loss.
“Is that your mother?” She indicated a portrait of an older woman with vivid eyes and a well-formed mouth that matched his.
“Madame Letezia Buonaparte. A mother is a man’s whole education.” He smiled, his tone reverent. “She offered to come here, but I forbade it. The long voyage would be too rough on her and I want no one in my family to see my abasement.”
Napoleon frowned and stalked into the study. Embarrassed by the relief she felt at leaving his bedchamber—hardly a femme fatale—she followed, mulling over ways to wipe Marie Louise or anyone else from his heart.
* * * *
At his sideboard, Napoleon poured two glasses of brandy, and handed her one. One drink and he’d dismiss her. Her hair so attractively…He sipped the strong contents, a burn across his tongue and down his throat. When in power he’d disdained the effects of liquor, intent on a clear head, but tonight he welcomed the insouciant feeling.
“It has been one tragedy after another this year.” He stared into the shadowed corners of the room. The wind keened around the building. Raindrops started to plunk on the roof and he pictured the sunny vineyards of France.
“Yes…though not all tragedy.” Amélie clicked her teeth on the rim of her glass, taking a sip. The rain slapped down harder, and she looked up. “Have you ever noticed that during the storms here, there’s never any lightning or thunder?”
“Just more proof we live in a bizarre place.” He occupied the center of this masquerade, the reason they all suffered from it. Now his compatriot’s demise threatened his plans. “Cipriani’s death doesn’t seem like an act of God. He was with me on Elba. I can never replace such a devoted companion. He brought me all the information I needed from France—the news of Josephine’s death. No one else had the decency to inform me.” His throat tightened.
“He had unswerving loyalty for you.” Amélie took another sip of brandy and coughed. “I know he worked as your spy here. Was he involved in the Sandy Bay—”
“No talk of that. You must preserve my peace of mind.” He paced over to the study fireplace where the fire smoldered its last, swirling the brandy in his snifter.
“How will his death affect your…escape?” Amélie hurried and placed two logs on the ashes and stirred the sparks until they caught again.
“Grand Dieu, you never listen.” Napoleon gazed down at her blond head as sizzling wood replaced the smell of smoke. “‘But I must not hope to see Paris again. You see, I am ready to go down to my grave.’ That’s from Zaire.”
“Voltaire’s words, too sad.” Amélie stood and squeezed his hand. “If this escape plan doesn’t work out, you shouldn’t think of it as your only hope for happiness.”
Napoleon raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, to quiet her. “You have cheered me.” Her skin tasted sweet, her gaze on him tender if probing. He released her and opened the music box on top of the mantel. The jingle of tinny sounds joined the fire’s crackling. “This is a Viennese waltz. Don’t you think it pretty?”
“No, I prefer French or Italian music.” Amélie’s face fell and she turned from him. Napoleon purposely hurt her by reminding her of Marie Louise. If he angered her, that kept her at a safe distance. He grappled with the urge to pull her back.
He forced his thoughts elsewhere, swirling like the liquid he finished in his glass. “Ah, if I were in Paris again. I aspired to make her the grandest city in the world.”
Amélie’s fawn eyes watched him move leisurely to the tune of the waltz. He tried to envision the majestic balls at the palaces he once occupied. The array of dignitaries and visiting royalty, kowtowing to him. The past glittering as he languished in a dismal present.
“Then I’d never have k
nown you, or you me.” Her tense words dragged him back into their confined world. Her presence the one beam of light.
He smiled at her earnest face. “Never have known you? Je ne comprends pas.”
“I meant you and I would never have met, if you were still in Paris.”
“Fate has decided otherwise.” He put down his glass. The music box fell silent.
“Teach me how to waltz.” She finished her drink, spilling a few drops over her bottom lip, which she licked away. The gesture unsettled him. He should send her back to her quarters, but didn’t want to. His need for her welled up in him unbidden.
“Dancing isn’t one of my strong points.” Napoleon took the glass from her and set it aside. He put his arms around her soft body and waltzed slowly around the room. “You should have been born a princess. You’re far more regal than most I’ve met.”
“Too much protocol. I’d be married off against my will to some sloppy prince from a forgotten province.” She sounded breathless, her breath too warm on his neck. She stumbled in her steps. “I’m happy to be who I am. I don’t need royalty to prove my worth.”
“Sage words.” Napoleon’s irritation flared and he held her tighter. “I suppose I need this title the British won’t recognize to prove mine?”
“No, not at all. You were voted our emperor. You’re the only legitimate monarch in Europe.” She trembled in his arms, her breasts pressed against his chest.
“You discourage all my suggestions, however. You don’t want to be a princess, or return to Europe and marry one of my officers. Tell me, what is your secret desire, Amée?” His skin tingled. He knew the answer. Why did he want her to say it, to assuage his own ego? They stopped dancing. Rain continued to smack the roof.
“To be respected as a vital person...and to stay here with you.” Amélie’s voice quavered.
“Those two things won’t go hand in hand.” He kissed her forehead, avoiding her tender expression. “I want more for you. You deserve more. Your father hasn’t chosen this sloppy old prince in his forgotten province, nor should you.”
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