“That made Lowe livid, countermanding those previous orders he’s tried so hard to impose on me.” Napoleon chuckled, but it sounded forced. “With Lowe in charge, this so-called freedom will only erupt in more problems and squabbles. I don’t want them to think they have any influence to change my habits at will.”
“If you won’t ride or take walks…what about your exercise?” She straightened books in the green-painted bookcase and swiped a cloth over the dust. The servants were reluctant to intrude on their privacy since they’d rarely gone out in the week since Mass. She relished acting as mistress of these once forbidden quarters, and especially mistress of this man, but his behavior disturbed her. “Why won’t you tell me what you’re really planning? Don’t I have a right to know?”
“Indeed, my sweet.” Napoleon stared out the shutter hole. “The orderly officer runs all over the grounds trying to catch sight of me. It keeps Lowe wondering if I’m still here. I hope it prevents him from savoring his meals and sleeping at night.” He stalked over and cupped her chin just as she reached his desk with her cloth. “I enjoy plenty of exercise, with you, in bed.”
“I’m grateful for that.” Amélie trembled under his touch. She leaned into him, his warmth. He evaded her questions, as always. She tried a seductive smile. “Don’t punish your health with stubbornness. What are those letters you’re hiding away?”
“They’re nothing…business. Maybe I’m punishing you for keeping that Clarice affair a secret, and those dirty little tales about Montholon again—but he’s out of our lives. His servant is fortunate to have left the island, or I’d have thrashed him for hurting you.” He traced his fingers over her cheekbones and jaw. She fought her sensual reaction, because he redirected her curiosity.
“What about you, not a word about these people sailing to join us?” She met his penetrating gaze. “You’ve been agitated since they’ve arrived.”
“You’re nagging again, too willful for your own good.” Napoleon kissed her lips and she felt that twinge of pleasure deep inside. “Often events must follow their course.”
She gasped when he kissed her, deeper. The heat rose to fog her concerns, but she pulled apart from him and shook off the effect. “Tell me of these events…please.”
Then the realization he might be dealing in illusion, dreaming of things beyond reason, struck her once more. Her mouth went dry. Was this another game to make his life on Saint Helena bearable?
“As I say, when it is appropriate, my love.” Napoleon clasped his hands behind his back and stepped away from her.
She hugged herself, wanting to hug him, to chase away his sorrows. He needed to remain satisfied here. She stared at the ugly, rumpled sofa where once an awestruck girl and overweight man discussed opera. “Do you know I think I fell in love with you the first time in this room?”
“The first time…doing what?” Now he sounded distracted.
She walked close and slipped her arms around him. “When you invited me in, the day after I had sung for you.”
“Ah, when you showed me your opera book, and refused to sit beside me until I insisted?” He broke into a sweet smile and embraced her.
“Yes, that auspicious occasion.” She pressed against him, feeling his heat along her body. A sudden urge overwhelmed her to draw him inside her to make certain he stayed near.
He laughed. “As I remember, you were a little petrified of me. What makes you recall that as love?” He smiled tenderly, despite his skepticism.
“Not petrified...intimidated, a bit.” She kissed his mouth, tasting the wine he’d shared with the others. The others. She wished to send them off the island. “I had a definite feeling that day. Something that exuded from you to me…my innermost self.”
“I understand. A feeling intangible, yet thoroughly tangible.” He eased back from her, his gaze almost sad. He traced his thumb along her lower lip. “You are a woman of many facets, though I hope I’ve discouraged you in your radical writing.” He walked away, not waiting for a reply.
Her arms drooped to her sides as she struggled to gage his changing moods.
Napoleon strode into the bedroom and she followed. She sat on the camp bed as he walked to his chest of drawers.
“That young and presumptuous idiot of a doctor says I, the once Emperor of the French, should work in the garden for exercise.” Napoleon jerked open a dresser drawer.
“I agree with him there.” She slipped off her shoes, and rubbed one foot over the other. “Antommarchi dislikes me and shows it. He thinks I’m beneath you, I suppose?”
“He wouldn’t dare say that to me. I’ll have a word with him. He’ll only be interested in me when I’ve stopped breathing.” Napoleon rummaged through the drawer’s contents. “I asked for a French doctor, but the Vatican told my uncle they want to weaken, not strengthen, my ties with France, so he was forced to appoint this ill-mannered Corsican.”
“Are you ashamed of your own countrymen?” Amélie inhaled the herbal scent from the grate, her spirits low because he harbored too many secrets.
“I was raised a Frenchman from the age of nine. Unfortunately, my enemies always point out that I’m a foreigner, a Corsican, even after I brought France to her greatest distinction. Our island does have a barbarous reputation.” Napoleon pulled out an old shirt and shook it.
“Now you give this island distinction.” She ran her hand along the mattress where they shared so many sensual nights. Was she strong enough to keep him slaked?
“True. Chateaubriand wrote that I cannot stir on this rock without the world feeling a shock from it.” He faced her, his gaze intense.
“I wish you would confide in me. I could offer advice, help you.” Her throat thickened and she took a slow breath. Even if his plotting was delusional, she yearned to be a part of it. She might entice his body, but his thoughts were too often his own.
Napoleon grabbed a large straw hat from a peg. “The Abbé and I are about to perform an experiment. He’s close to my height and build. We’re going to dress in drab gardener clothing and work in the garden, keeping our faces hidden. I want to see if the orderly officer will be fooled by our subterfuge.”
Napoleon enjoyed such gambles, so she said nothing about this caprice. She sympathized with his need to play these games to retain his sanity, yet this particular ruse added to her qualms.
Napoleon donned the shirt and planter’s hat, pulling it low, and walked out into the dining room. She returned to the study and peered out the shutter holes until two men in large straw hats entered the garden. Waiting a few minutes more, she turned to the desk.
Unable to stop herself, she probed the desk drawer’s tiny keyhole with a letter opener. She jiggled at the lock, the drawer groaned. Her guilt made her jump at each noise. After a last frustrated jerk, the lock clicked and the little drawer fell open. Amélie groped in and snatched out two folded letters.
* * * *
The letters stashed between the pages of a book on the cushion beside her, Amélie sat on the study sofa with Napoleon. With the cool evening breeze trapped outside the shutters, her dress already stuck under her arms. Her supper churned inside her.
“What do you discuss with this priest, whom you accused of having only a ‘small’ intelligence? What do you whisper about with your ill-mannered doctor?” she asked, forcing a nonchalance.
“Mostly boring political talk. The sad situation in Europe. What will be France’s destiny? They have an uncertain king who rules with half measures, a shadow government without force or talent. Their prince of the blood heads the opposition, so what troubles lay ahead?” He kissed her cheek and tugged her earlobe. “Now, let’s you and I speak of more pleasant topics.”
“No, I insist you tell me what you are scheming. Please don’t treat me as if I’m not important enough to know the truth.” She glared at him, yet quivered under his sc
rutiny. “I had hoped we’d share everything.”
“Still nagging, I see.” Napoleon sighed, his words soft. He pressed a knuckle to his upper lip. “I’m only thinking of your peace of mind.”
“I’m sorry to have done this.” Amélie slipped the letters out and raised them up, her fingers trembling. “You have a letter to your banker Laffitte, asking for funds to be deposited to a Monsieur Bonheur on the island of Corsica. A name that means ‘good luck.’ Then this other, to an account in Ireland. Ireland? I can’t help it if you’re angry over my—”
“You broke into my desk, Amée? I had no idea what a little spy you are.” Napoleon took the letters, his vivid gaze troubled. Laying them aside, he gripped her hands in his. He pressed them to his chest and his heartbeat reverberated through her flesh. “Those letters are only copies of what has already been mailed.”
Tears clouded her eyes. “I’m afraid for you.” Did he deal in delusion or reality? Either way, she was terrified of losing him. “Please, I beg you to tell me.”
“Oh, mon amour. If…if all goes right, there is something incredible about to take place.” He squeezed her hands so tight, she feared her bones might crack. “Now it awaits a particular ship arriving. Give me a few more days. I will be asking you to do something very difficult and undoubtedly dangerous.”
* * * *
Two mornings later, Amélie awoke alone in the camp bed. She jumped up and searched Napoleon’s interior quarters, but with her pulse skittering up her throat, she choked back a sob and knew he’d gone.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I find it ridiculous that a man should not be able to have more than one legitimate wife—N.B.
“Climb in, Signorina.” The Italian standing beside her grasped her arm. Amélie clutched her bundle and inched forward on the pier, stepping down into the boat. She tried not to stare at the tiny vessel’s other occupants. Huddled inside her cloak, the yellow bandanna wrapped tight around her head, she shivered in the cutting wind and mist.
“Sit over there,” the Italian said in his laconic voice. His pock-marked face held its usual implacable expression.
She crammed between two obese women who scowled at her presence. The stench of rotting fish off their bodies roiled her stomach. The Italian remained on the pier and spoke in a whisper to a skinny man who balanced at the bow holding a long pole. The younger man nodded and tipped his hat to the Italian. Then he dug the pole deep into the water and shoved off from the ramshackle pier.
The others around Amélie began to converse, gesturing with vigorous hands and bobbing heads. She might as well have been invisible—but wasn’t that the intention? Their local Italian strange to her ears, she only picked up a word here and there. At such an unfamiliar dialect she felt adrift, as if she’d be lost among these strangers, unable to communicate. A captive of hostile rabble dressed in shabby, peasant garb. She gripped the rough wood of the bench.
The boat undulated along the coastline and she cast a quick glance over her shoulder at the shore. The Italian stood there, arms crossed, watching.
“Don’t speak to anyone,” he had instructed. “No matter what happens. When you reach the next destination, someone will meet you.”
With the relentless rain of the past two days, she chafed damp and uncomfortable in her layers of clothing. Her feet squished in muddy shoes and her fingers were red and freezing. For comfort, she felt the belt around her waist under her corset, where she hid the pink topaz necklace, along with several coins. Shoulders hunched, she tried to blot out her anxiety, yet it seeped back in. What else could she do but think if forbidden to interact?
She swallowed a sigh. Each day she found it strange to no longer be on Saint Helena, or even her brother’s home in Lyon. The secretive fashion in which she’d traveled these last two weeks since leaving France stripped her raw.
The huge woman to her left jabbed her in the ribs for more room. Amélie winced and edged away, but had nowhere to go except the fleshy bulwark of her other seatmate. Two dusky men pulling on the oars laughed, their voices harsh on the gray water. She slumped over, hiding her face, resting her forehead on her knees.
An hour must have passed as the voices babbled around her. Amélie pretended to sleep, but never once reached that state of oblivion. Besides, if she dared let down her guard, they might rob her of what little she had, rip the precious necklace from her person. She was a meaningless entity to them—they cared nothing for her desperate quest.
Soon, another shoreline appeared on the horizon. Another tiny island in the Mediterranean. Amélie straightened up, aching for this journey to be over. She had no notion of where she sailed, or how long it took to get there. This ambivalence flustered her, but she understood the necessity.
Their vessel skimmed closer to the hump of land with the steady dipping of oars. The drizzle stopped. A pink-hued beach glistened in the sienna rays of a fading sun. The people around her raised their voices, shrill and excited. Amélie shrank away from them. The abrupt movement toppled her backwards onto the wet, slimy floor of the boat.
The oarsmen snickered again.
“Stupido!” one of the women said with a spitting gesture.
Amélie understood that well enough, but bit her tongue. She drew up her legs and wiped squishy fish parts from her hands.
As soon as the boat bumped against a weathered pier, her fellow travelers scrambled to disembark up a short ladder, rocking the tiny craft. Amélie stumbled after them. Now who was she to meet? The Italian had been easy to spot: the man with the red and black madras kerchief knotted at his throat. She’d received no such instructions for this leg of her journey. If the Italian had forgotten to inform her, it was too late now.
She stood on the humble quay, the wind whipping her hair, before trudging up the beach. She had no idea where she was. One more island with quaint whitewashed villages and swarthy inhabitants. Goats and sheep ambled on rocky slopes. The rich fragrance of lavender, lemon, and verbena permeated the air.
She strode past three barrels on the upper edge of the wharf. Her stomach growled in hunger. The Italian had assured her someone would be waiting.
“Kalispèra.” A dark, stocky man of at least fifty years spoke a foreign greeting as he leaned on a barrel.
Almost replying bonsoir, she sucked in the word. Not only warned to be silent, her explicit instructions were “no French at any time.”
She solemnly nodded and walked on, scanning the area.
The man fell in step behind her. Irritation, then fear prickled her skin.
“Please, despinis,” he whispered, crowding to her side and clasping her arm. “Are you the one?” His clothes stank of smoke and body odor.
She flinched, about to pull away. Then she scrutinized him, searching for any indication this stranger could be her contact.
“Yellow bandanna, gold hair, and brown eyes? Né, you must be. I have seen no one else like this. No one so pretty.” He spoke in heavily accented Italian.
His uncertainty troubled her. She nodded cautiously, anxious for relief.
“I am Il Greco.” His smile broad, he had remarkably good teeth in his leathery face. A thick black moustache, flecked with gray, obscured his top lip.
Amélie again nodded. The Greek. The last had been the Italian, and now the Greek. How many nationalities would she experience before reaching her journey’s end?
“Are you hungry?” The Greek still held her arm and they walked together, entering the ivory-cubed village near the water’s edge. Down a dirt road made slippery by the rain, they stepped into a tiny dwelling crammed with two tables and a counter.
Amélie scraped mud from her shoes before entering and shutting the door. Strings of garlic bulbs and red peppers hung from hooks on the plaster walls. Her stomach growled again at the delicious smells.
“What is your pleasure?” the sho
rt, round woman behind the counter asked. Her Italian bore a closer resemblance to what Amélie was accustomed to.
“Food for us, parakaló.” The man pointed to several items on the counter and beneath the glass casing.
Amélie dropped in a chair at a wobbly table, her bundle in her lap. Her escort sat opposite her. A dead fly lay in the dust on the window ledge.
“I have seen you around here? You are Greek, eh?” The proprietress slapped down two plates of sliced onions and tomatoes floating in pungent olive oil, a hunk of goat cheese, and a basket of brown bread.
“I come from many places, so who is to know?” The man leaned back in the chair and chuckled. He pushed up his cap brim. “Do not forget, we want the chicken too.”
Amélie sopped a piece of bread in the oil and nibbled, savoring the crisp and tart flavors.
“I bring it, lo prendero. No patience, eh? Too many Greeks on this island now.” The woman cast him a severe look, then waddled to the kitchen, returned, and placed a platter of boiled chicken in tomato sauce before them, followed by a bottle of wine. “This is vino Italiano...not that swill you call wine.” She pursed her lips in distaste. A dark down of hair shaded the upper one.
“What is wrong with Greeks? You don’t give us a chance.” He again laughed, his mouth wide open, bread crumbs trapped in his moustache. He turned to Amélie. “Eat, eat, you are too thin. A woman should be plump with a lot to hold on to.”
Amélie quivered at his rudeness. She had lost weight in the turmoil of these past months. She bit into the creamy cheese, tasted a piece of bland chicken, but barely sipped the fruity wine.
“I hope she is your daughter, because she is too young for you, signore impaziente.” The proprietress continued to glare at him and Amélie prayed for him to be silent.
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