Elysium

by Diane Scott Lewis

  Amélie stood, scraping back the chair. Redcap raised his hands in a gesture meant to calm her, but Amélie backed away, needing space, to think. She bumped into the long-faced girl who held a plate of oily fish. The girl glared at the advancing man.

  Amélie staggered across the terrace toward the opposite side, which overlooked the foot of a hill. What do you want? she longed to shout. Tell me your purpose!

  The man shook his head, speaking to the girl in Greek, and continued to walk toward Amélie. Amélie stared out into the darkness beyond the lantern’s reach. Her breath rasped in her throat.

  Redcap stepped within a few feet of her. He again put up his hands. “No, no, I do not harm,” he whispered in his bad Italian. “I help.”

  Amélie bristled with anger, her distrust so long gnawing inside her. Her head grew dizzy. Redcap reached out for her and she jerked back, anxious for further explanation. Her heel felt nothing and she toppled off the terrace.

  Sprawled on her hands and knees on the stony earth, she moaned. Amélie scrambled to her feet and brushed off pebbles and mud. She hiked up her soaked skirt and faced the hill that thrust up in the blackness. Instinct pulled her and she tripped up the slope.

  Footsteps rushed behind her. Firm hands grabbed her shoulders.

  She stifled a scream and twisted away.

  “Per favore, sia calmo,” a soft Italian voice urged in her ear. “You are all right now, I promise. Be so good to come with me, this way.”

  This man smelled of spice, not fish and damp wool. Amélie still stiffened.

  The man tugged her forward, the direction she’d already intended. “I have come to help...sent to find you. Were you not treated kindly? I scolded those Greek cretins at the taverna. Did they scare you?”

  Amélie sucked back oaths, but jerked her shoulders and elbows against his body. Her head thick and burning, frustration burst inside her. “Where are you taking me?” she hissed in Italian, thrilled to use her voice. They stumbled several feet up the slope in the murky night.

  “Do not worry, you are meant to go with me, Amélie.” The man’s small hands remained firm, dragging her along. “Appena un momento.”

  She coughed and wheezed. He’d used her name. She almost melted against him, but fear kept her rigid, cautious. Could she finally have reached her destination?

  The man halted, bracing her tight at his side. A metal gate creaked.

  “We’re here. I’ll just pull the cord. Everything will make sense.” His soft voice was encouraging. “My cousin waits for you with impatience.”

  His cousin…him? A bell rang in the distance. The man released her. Amélie found herself gripping iron bars. She rested her throbbing head against the cool metal. Another voice joined her escort’s, but they both sounded a thousand leagues away. When her legs buckled, she slumped to the ground.

  Chapter Forty

  What is history, but a fable agreed upon?—N.B.

  “Bring brandy, quickly.” Napoleon brushed damp hair from Amée’s forehead, feeling the heat on her skin. “What have these fools done to you? This is what comes from entrusting to strangers.” He sat near the massive hearth of this castle gatehouse, the fire crackling and snapping, Amée cuddled in his arms. Wrapped in a blanket, she continued to shiver, her wan face tinged pink with fever. He’d stripped her of her reeking clothes and slipped one of his shirts over her body.

  His cousin Ernesto handed him a pewter cup. Napoleon eased her up to prop her head on his shoulder. “Amée, try to drink this,” he whispered into her blond tresses that smelled of the sea. How his arms had ached to hold her, surprising him at the intensity of his feelings during these months of anxiety and hardship. Not that he was a stranger to the rigors of travel, the long march through a hostile landscape. He might be free, but the danger of exposure always clung to him.

  She groaned and her eyelids fluttered. He put the cup to her lips and she sipped, then coughed and pulled her head back. She opened her eyes and squinted as if he might be an illusion. “Let me sleep,” she murmured, burrowing down into the blanket. “I have places to travel in the morning.”

  Napoleon chuckled and kissed her hot forehead. “No, you’re safe now, my sweet.” Would either of them ever be safe? “No more traveling alone anymore. We’re together as before, to love one another.” He smiled. He meant that word—love. So elusive to him before, now not just an empty promise.

  She opened her eyes and studied him, the wary woodland creature. “Napoleon? Mon Dieu! At last.” She wriggled from her cocoon and flung her arms around him, sobbing into his shirt. Breath rasping, she leaned back and stroked her hand along his face. “I can’t believe…so long I’ve…You’ve grown a beard.”

  “What better disguise. Drink more brandy.” He raised the cup again and she sipped. Her sinuous body stirred baser emotions within him. After experiencing so much pleasure with her, this year of celibacy had been agonizing. He’d behaved his best, eschewing any female companionship, concentrating on the day-to-day machinations of escape. He caressed his fingers over her soft cheeks. “I want to put you to bed…to sleep.”

  Amée mumbled in protest, but he rose and carried her into the other room and tucked her beneath a heavy quilt in the four-poster bed. After a long kiss on her lips, Napoleon returned to the fire.

  “We won’t be able to stay here much longer, after the commotion at the taverna.” Ernesto stepped over and leaned against the stone mantel. “I’ll see if the others are prepared to set sail earlier than we planned.”

  “Always be prepared for the unexpected,” Napoleon called after him as Ernesto strode from the room. In his thirties, totally trustworthy, the swarthy young man—a relation from his father’s side—had proved invaluable.

  Napoleon sighed and settled back in the chair. He stroked the silky beard he still thought strange each time he glanced into a mirror. His muscles relaxed at this stage accomplished, but he tensed again when he thought of what lay ahead. So much yet to do. A man needed a purpose in life…and a woman to love, who loved him. Power and riches all faded in the battle for self-preservation. “That’s what keeps life interesting,” he said into the warm flames, “the hunt, the parry, the unexpected, the ultimate victory over your opponents.”

  * * * *

  Amélie awoke to a sun-drenched morning. A warm breeze wafted through the open window above her. She sat up, stretched her limbs, and looked out. A vineyard and farmland spread beyond this modest villa, or Dammuso, as they called it here.

  Half woozy with fever, she’d been bundled up three days ago and bounced on a small fishing boat to this island of Pantelleria, south of Sicily. Napoleon told her they needed to keep moving, especially if the situation grew uncomfortable where they were.

  “Amée, rise up, you sleepy one, the coffee is getting cold.” Napoleon entered the room with a smile that drew her own. He had lost more weight in all this maneuvering, the stress of the escape. He sat on the bed, tracing a finger under her chin.

  “Why don’t you come back to bed?” She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him. The beard she’d yet to resign herself to tickled her lips. He tasted like the strong coffee they brewed here.

  Napoleon reached over and closed the window shutters. He shrugged off his dressing gown, lifted the covers, and slipped in nude beside her.

  She pressed her naked body along the length of his.

  “We’ll leave on a major sail soon.” He stroked his hand over her breast, tingling her nipple. “I’m used to such changes. It brings back my days on the battlefield, rushing from one place to another, planning my strategy.” He kissed her deeply.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you…the moving about I mean.” She laughed, nestling into him and the cotton sheets. His eyes hazy with desire quickened her breathing.

  “I’m enjoying having you with me again.” He rubbed his st
omach and pelvis against hers.

  “I intend to keep you that way.” She quivered inside and caressed his chest. She’d have to be clever and alluring to accomplish this.

  “I would like to be settled somewhere. We plan to travel to New Orleans, live incognito for a time, see what my enemies are doing to search for me—if Robeaud is found out. One of my exiled generals—prevented from accompanying me to Saint Helena, Charles Lallemand—has done much preparation for me there.” He kissed her throat.

  “New Orleans sounds exciting.” She struggled not to show her worries over his safety. She’d prefer someplace isolated, a private island.

  “We could get married under this disguise, if that wouldn’t trouble you. Then our children would have a semblance of legitimacy.”

  “I would be honored to be your wife. Names don’t matter.” She brushed her fingers over his whiskers, basking in his radiant smile. She wasn’t so naïve to believe he’d stay satisfied in obscurity. “How long could you live as someone other than yourself?”

  He chuckled and kissed her ear. “We’ll follow the safest route for now. In my heart, I will always be Napoleon. Nothing can change that.”

  “What will you do in America?” Amélie stretched beneath him, their skin hot in contact. She longed to be like a cat, without worries, contented in the sun.

  “I’ll ponder the great thinkers of history, Goethe…I met him once, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, and add my own ideas. Maybe study theology. Look for ways through the sciences to improve life. There are many things I’ve wanted to explore in depth—industry, commerce—but never had time. Do you realize that a canal in Suez would open up trade? I was there. I saw it.” His expression turned thoughtful. “I’ll stay in touch with people who will see that my son receives the proper care. Someday, I may be able to reveal myself. Time will tell. My son as a young man, beyond the treachery of the Austrians, will meet his father once more.”

  “He’ll be very proud.” Amélie sighed as he continued to caress her, his fingers probing. She dismissed the sadness that he may never see his son again. She’d give him more sons, arrange a life they’d savor. “I’ll search for interesting herbs in America. Make my tinctures and potions for the deprived women of New Orleans.” She didn’t mention her writing on sex. Was her manuscript ever published in Paris? Each day she gathered more details for another book.

  Napoleon kissed both her nipples. “Most important, you and I will pleasure ourselves to the utmost.”

  Amélie moaned as their bodies slid together in a perfect fit. She arched her back and would face anything with him beside her.

  The end of her journey shimmered into the beginning.

  About the Author:

  Diane Parkinson grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, joined the navy at nineteen, and has written and edited freelance since high school. She married in Greece and raised two sons in Puerto Rico, California, Guam, and Virginia. She writes book reviews for the Historical Novels Review and worked at The Wild Rose Press from 2007 to 2010 as a historical editor. Diane served as president of the Riverside Writers from 2007 to 2008. Her debut novel, The False Light—adventure and romance in eighteenth-century England—was released in April 2010.

  She writes as Diane Scott Lewis and lives with her husband and dachshund in Locust Grove, VA.

  Visit her online at:

  http://www.dianescottlewis.com

  Also by Diane Scott Lewis:

  The False Light

  by Diane Scott Lewis

  eBook ISBN: 9781770650596

  Print ISBN: 9781770650657

  Romance Historical

  Novel of 124,316 words

  Forced away from France by her devious guardian on the eve of the French Revolution, Countess Lisbette Jonquiere must deliver an important package to further the royalist cause. In England, she discovers the package is full of blank papers, the address is false, and she’s penniless. Stranded in a Cornish village, Lisbette toils in a bawdy tavern and falls in love with a man who lives under the shadow of his missing wife.

  Immersed in poverty, Lisbette realizes what sparked the revolution in her homeland. Her past catches up to her when desperate men hunt her down: they demand the money her deceased father embezzled from the revolutionaries. Lisbette learns the truth of her father’s death, and her lover’s involvement in his wife’s murder.

  Once again, Lisbette faces the threat of losing everything.

  Also from Eternal Press:

  White Heart, Lakota Spirit

  by Ginger Simpson

  eBook ISBN: 9781615722501

  Print ISBN: 9781615722518

  Romance Historical

  Short Novel of 58,000 words

  Caught between the world of red and white, how will Grace Cummings choose?

  A normal morning turns to disaster when a small war party attacks Grace Cummings’ family and slaughters everyone but her. She returns to the Lakota camp filled with hatred, anger and fear, but through the help of another white woman in camp, learns the Lakota way.

  When white soldiers invade the camp and presume to rescue Grace, she must decide where her heart lies.