The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

Chapter Thirteen

Lord Richard Selwick regarded the assemblage in the Yellow Salon of the Tuilleries Palace with a yawn. Not terribly much, it seemed, had changed in his two weeks’ absence. Richard resisted the urge to tug at his carefully arranged neckcloth; the room was uncomfortably warm with the heat of too many bodies and too many candles. Scantily clad women drifted from cluster to cluster like moths flitting from lamp to lamp—only, Richard noted with some amusement, unlike the insects, the ladies stayed as far away as possible from the telling light of the flames. Josephine, herself older than she liked to admit, had draped the candle sconces and mirrors in gauze, but even the gentle light betrayed cheeks layered with rouge.

A burst of raucous laughter sounded from across the room. Over the curled and turbaned heads of the crowd, Richard trained his quizzing glass on the source of the sound. Ah, Marston. Between his long, curly sideburns, Marston’s face was flushed with heat and drink. He had one arm propped against the mantelpiece; the other was gesticulating with a snifter of brandy to an appreciative audience composed of Murat and a couple of other chaps in military attire hung with far more medals than their age made likely. Richard considered wandering over to investigate, but decided he needn’t push his way through the crush of perfumed bodies just yet. From the sound of the guffaws wafting from the fireplace, Marston was telling jokes, not deep secrets.

Richard let his quizzing glass trail about the room. The usual gossip, the usual flirtations, the usual crowd of underdressed women and overdressed men. It was enough to make one understand why the French were always moaning on and on about ennui.

“Who are those provincials with Balcourt?” Vivant Denon elbowed Richard in his ribs. “The two young ones are not ill-favored, but those clothes!”

Denon, who had headed the scholars in Egypt, and was at present in charge of setting up Bonaparte’s new museum in the Louvre Palace, had very decided ideas about aesthetics. Especially regarding women. Denon’s own elegantly attired mistress, Mme de Kremy, was just two yards away, occasionally sending steamy looks in Denon’s direction. At least Richard hoped they had been intended for Denon; Mme de Kremy was not at all the sort of woman he preferred.

As for the sort of woman Richard preferred . . . Following Denon’s gaze, Richard sighted Amy Balcourt, one gloved hand lightly resting on her brother’s arm. Richard’s ennui evaporated in an instant. With some amusement, Richard noted that Amy fidgeted like a horse at the start of the Derby, straining to see around her brother into the crowded salon. Balcourt had paused in the doorway to exchange pleasantries with Laure Junot, and Amy was not weathering the delay well. As Richard watched, Jane, standing behind Amy with Miss Gwen, leaned forward and whispered something in Amy’s ear, to which Amy responded with a quick, rueful smile. Richard started to smile back at her, even though the look had not been intended for him.

“They should hand all young women from the provinces a fashion plate and march them to the dressmaker before they let them into the Tuilleries!” Denon was saying.

“These have the handicap of being from England,” Richard commented dryly.

“Ah, that explains it!” Denon stared unabashedly at Amy and Jane. “Those heavy fabrics, those boxy styles, they are so sadly English. As charity to them, we ought to send a boatload of dressmakers across the Channel.”

Richard wouldn’t have called Amy’s form boxy. True, Amy’s dress didn’t hug her body like those of the Frenchwomen, who wore their filmy dresses with only a single slip, dampened to make the fabric cling to their legs (more than one woman had caught her death of cold by doing so in winter, but Frenchwomen seemed to agree that style was worth the risk of death). Instead, Amy’s dress fell gracefully from its high waist, lightly skimming her hips, merely hinting at the feminine form beneath. Next to the plain white lawn worn by the other women, the satin of Amy’s dress glimmered in the candlelight like snow seen by moonlight.

“Put them in French clothes and they will still be Englishwomen,” Richard commented admiringly.

Misunderstanding, Denon shook his head. “So sad.”

Balcourt had finished introducing his sister to Mme Junot and was beginning to make his way through the crowd towards Josephine Bonaparte, who sat like a queen in state towards the back of the room. As Denon went on about the sad state of fashion on the other side of the Channel, using the purple ostrich feathers stuck in the tight gray knot of Miss Gwen’s hair as a prime example, Richard entertained himself by observing Amy. It couldn’t hurt just to watch her.

All of her reactions passed across her face with the colorful variety of a sky at sunset. Amy’s face flared with interest as her brother introduced her to Mme Campan, one of Marie Antoinette’s former ladies-in-waiting. As Georges Marston folded into an elaborate bow, she blinked incredulously at his gold-embroidered, peacock-blue coat, and giggled something to Jane under cover of her fan that made serene Jane’s eyes water with suppressed laughter. Amy’s lip gave a perceptible curl of distaste as she made her curtsy to Joseph Fouché and Gaston Delaroche, who brooded in the lighthearted assembly like two ravens amidst a gathering of doves. And then Amy’s eyes lighted on Richard.

She tripped over the hem of her dress.

It was just a small stumble, not enough for anyone else to mark, but enough for Richard to be oddly pleased. Well, one did like to have one’s presence noted. Amy quickly regained her balance and continued walking with her head tilted to prevent Richard from entering her line of vision. So she didn’t intend to acknowledge the acquaintance, did she?

Denon elbowed Richard. “You know these Englishwomen, no?”

“No. I mean, yes, I do know them. We shared the boat over from Dover two days ago. One is Balcourt’s sister, the other his cousin, and the dragon with the purple plumage is their chaperone.”

“Une femme formidable!” breathed Denon, eyeing Miss Gwen’s plumage with considerable alarm. “I feel for you, my friend. These English—their women are lacking of all the social graces. They do not realize that the flirtation, it is an art! The boredom you must have endured upon that ship!”

“Not at all. You do these ladies an injustice.” Just because Amy bore him a grudge didn’t mean he had to be uncivil. “Miss Balcourt—the small, dark-haired one—is surprisingly well read. She has some very original observations about the relations between the Greeks and the Egyptians.”

Denon squinted at Amy’s back through his quizzing glass. “Ah, a—how do you call them?—a bluestocking?”

“She’s certainly not a bluestocking.” Richard contemplated Amy’s dark curls before adding, very, very softly, “I’m not sure what to call her.”

“An Original, perhaps?” Denon was peering through his quizzing glass at Amy with an intensity that had his mistress’s fan fluttering indignantly.

“An Original.” Richard couldn’t repress a smile as he remembered Amy’s comments on metaphorical cannibalism and the French Revolution. “Assuredly.”

On the other side of the room, waiting among the crush of people paying their respects to Mme Bonaparte, Jane whispered to her assuredly Original cousin, “How long do you intend to keep your head at that angle?”

“Is he still looking at me?”

“No.” If it was possible to whisper with asperity, Jane did so. “You’re being ridiculous, Amy!”

“I don’t want to have to talk to him. He annoys me.”

“And if you pretend not to see him, you don’t have to talk to him?”

“Exactly!”

“Girls! It is not polite to whisper!” whispered Miss Gwen.

Amy rolled her eyes at Jane behind her fan.

Resisting the urge to lift one gloved hand to massage her sore neck, Amy lurked behind her fan and contemplated the progress of the search for the Purple Gentian. Or, rather, the lack of progress. Since their arrival, she had eavesdropped on ten conversations with great stealth and skill. As a result, she now knew exactly how deeply M. Murat was in debt to his tailor, where to find the best kid gloves in Paris, and that a Mme Rochefort, whomever that might be, was supposedly engaging in illicit amorous relations with her footman, or maybe her groom (the woman in the large, green-silk turban telling the story hadn’t been entirely clear on that point). Unless the energetic Mme Rochefort somehow knew the identity of the Purple Gentian and could be blackmailed, Amy really didn’t see how any of this information could be the slightest bit useful.

As for the Gentian himself . . . Amy had dismissed most of the guests as far too French. Unless the Gentian were merely aping the Scarlet Pimpernel, the Gentian’s very name was an indication of his nationality. So far she had met only two men of English extraction. One, a Mr. Whittlesby, with hair and sleeves both flowing in romantic disorder, had taken one look at Jane, flung himself prostrate at her blue slippers, and composed an on-the-spot ode to “the pulchritudinous princess of the azure toes.” It didn’t scan. Mercifully, Miss Gwen stepped hard on the poet’s hand, cutting him off with a squeak in the middle of his second stanza. True, it could all be a disguise, but . . . Amy frowned behind her fan.

Her second candidate, Mr. Georges Marston, was, like his name, only half English, and his bright regimentals were as off-putting in their own way as Mr. Whittlesby’s rumpled white linen. But there was a certain bold gleam to Mr. Marston’s blue eyes that might bespeak a man of action hidden under all that gold braid.

A hand with plump white fingers reached out and tugged Amy’s fan down to below nose level. “Mme Bonaparte, it would please me very much to present to you my sister, Mlle Aimée de Balcourt,” Edouard was saying in French.

Amy sank into a deep court curtsy. Mme Bonaparte half rose from her chair and nodded in acknowledgment. She smiled very sweetly at Amy and said in French, “I knew your dear mother before the Revolution. She was such a dear, lovely woman! Why, when she discovered that I loved roses, she sent me some cuttings I’d been longing to add to my garden. You shall have to come someday to see my little garden at Malmaison, which wouldn’t be nearly so nice as it is but for your darling mama.”

Mme Bonaparte spoke French with a lilting Creole accent that settled on its hearers with the benevolent warmth of island sunshine. Under her diamond diadem, her large hazel eyes gleamed with kindness. Amy had seen drawings of Bonaparte’s wife, and puzzled over her reputation as a beauty. Face-to-face, Amy realized that her beauty resided not so much in regularity of feature, but in the serene goodwill that she seemed to exude as easily as breathing. Amy longed to curl up at her feet like a small child and beg for tales of her parents. But she couldn’t sacrifice all of her plans for a moment of nostalgia. If Mme Bonaparte—and thus all of the court—knew that she spoke French, half of her utility to the Purple Gentian would be lost.

So Amy forced a puzzled look onto her face and said in very bad, broken, schoolgirl French, “Remembering the French I am not. The esteemed lady is speaking the English maybe?”

An expression of mild distress crossed Mme Bonaparte’s pleasant face. From the corner of her eye, Amy could see Edouard turning bright red with horror and frustration. “I beg your pardon for my sister, your excellence,” he began hurriedly, but a pretty blond girl leaned over the back of Mme Bonaparte’s chair and said, “There’s no need for apologies, M. de Balcourt!” Switching to English as poor as Amy’s French, she said carefully, “Mama desire to tell to you zat she was ’aving zee acquaintance of your mama.”

Edouard, looking for all the world as though he wished the polished parquet floor to part and swallow him up, performed hasty introductions, presenting the blond girl as Hortense de Beauharnais Bonaparte, Mme Bonaparte’s daughter by her first marriage, now married herself to Napoleon’s younger brother Louis. When Miss Gwen stamped heavily on Edouard’s foot, he finally introduced Miss Gwen and Jane as well.

“I must to you beg pardon for my English abominable!” Hortense said with a self-deprecating wave of her fan. “My stepfather, ’ee was not liking of my tutor, so I ’ave lacked for lessons.”

“Your English isn’t bad at all,” Jane reassured her. “It’s much better than my French, I assure you.”

“Yes, you do yourself far too little credit!” While Edouard waxed lyrical in showering the First Consul’s stepdaughter with compliments on her linguistic abilities, Amy found herself seized by the most brilliant of plans. A plan that would secure her access to the palace on a regular basis. . . .

“I would be happy to teach you English!” she blurted out.

Hortense looked so delighted and grateful that Amy almost felt guilty for her subterfuge. Almost.

“Would you vraiment?”

“Of course, she will!” Edouard’s face bore the expression of a man who has sighted the promised land after an uncomfortable session with brimstone and pitchforks down below. His sudden squeeze of Amy’s hand informed her that she was back in her brother’s good graces. “The Balcourts are always happy to be of service to the First Consul and his family! When would you like her to begin?”

Had Edouard always been such a deplorable toady?

With some mutual expressions of gratitude, much bad English from Hortense, and some even worse French from Amy, they settled upon the following afternoon for the first lesson. Edouard bowed himself out of the presence of the Bonaparte ladies to chat with some acquaintances, and Amy was about to do likewise, minus the bowing and the acquaintances, when someone cleared his throat behind her. Amy instantly knew just whose throat the sound had issued from. A strong, sun-browned throat she had once seen tantalizingly displayed by an opened collar and loosened cravat. The skin on her arms prickled and her neck ached with the pressure of not turning to look. Oh, blast the man, couldn’t he have even left her a moment to gloat over her good fortune?

“Richard!” On Hortense’s lips, the name was soft and exotic, Reeshard. She demanded of him in French, “When did you return?”

Richard bowed over Mme Bonaparte’s hand before kissing her daughter’s. “I returned Monday night.”

“And you have not called until now! Cad! Is he not a beast, Mama, to have deprived us of his company for so long? Eugene will be disappointed to have missed you—he is off at the theater tonight.”

Amy was about to back quietly away, when Hortense laid one gloved hand gently on Amy’s arm. “There is a lovely countrywoman of yours to whom I would like to introduce you!” Beaming, Hortense tilted her head in Amy’s direction, and drew Amy forward. Amy tried not to balk visibly under Lord Richard’s knowing eye. “Mlle Balcourt, I would like to you make zee acquaintance of Lord Reeshard Selweeck.”

“We’ve already met,” said Amy hastily.

“You ’ave?” Obviously intrigued, Hortense looked up inquiringly at Richard from under her eyelashes.

“Don’t matchmake, Hortense; it’s a beastly habit,” Richard advised in French. In English, he said to Amy, “If Hortense will spare you, I would like to introduce you to Vivant Denon, the director of the Egyptian expedition. Er—of the secondary part of the Egyptian expedition, that is. The scholarly bit.”

“I caught your meaning, my lord. You don’t have to belabor it.” Amy narrowed her eyes at Richard over the lace fringe of her fan. Fans were truly wonderfully useful items. Amy wished she could carry one all the time. “Why?”

“Amy!” Miss Gwen’s feathers shook reprovingly.

Richard ignored Amy’s rudeness. “Because I thought you would enjoy discussing the classics with him.”

“I would think my absurd efforts would have little to recommend them to scholars so widely traveled,” riposted Amy, snapping her fan closed.

Lord Richard’s green eyes glinted with amusement. “Oh, I wouldn’t say all of your ideas are absurd,” he said lightly. “Just some of them.”

“Josephine!” A stentorian bellow shook the candles in their sconces.

Unconsciously, Amy grabbed Richard’s arm, looking about anxiously for the source of the roar. About the room, people went on chatting as before.

“Steady there.” Richard patted the delicate hand clutching the material of his coat. “It’s just the First Consul.”

Snatching her hand away as though his coat were made of live coals, Amy snapped, “You would know.”

“Josephine!” The dreadful noise repeated itself, cutting off any further remarks. Out of an adjoining room charged a blur of red velvet, closely followed by the scurrying form of a young man. Amy sidestepped just in time, swaying on her slippers to avoid toppling into Lord Richard.

The red velvet came to an abrupt stop beside Mme Bonaparte’s chair. “Oh. Visitors.”

Once still, the red velvet resolved into a man of slightly less than medium height, clad in a long red velvet coat with breeches that must once have been white, but which now bore assorted stains that proclaimed as clearly as a menu what the wearer had eaten for supper.

“I do wish you wouldn’t shout so, Bonaparte.” Mme Bonaparte lifted one white hand and touched him gently on the cheek.

Bonaparte grabbed her hand and planted a resounding kiss on the palm. “How else am I to make myself heard?” Affectionately tweaking one of her curls, he demanded, “Well? Who is it tonight?”

“We have some visitors from England, sir,” his stepdaughter responded. “I should like to present . . .” Hortense began listing their names. Bonaparte stood, legs slightly apart, eyes hooded with apparent boredom, and one arm thrust into the opposite side of his jacket, as though in a sling.

Bonaparte inclined his head, looked down at his wife, and demanded, “Are we done yet?”

Thwap!

Everyone within earshot jumped at the sound of Miss Gwen’s reticule connecting with Bonaparte’s arm. “Sir! Take that hand out of your jacket! It is rude and it ruins your posture. A man of your diminutive stature needs to stand up straight.”

Something suspiciously like a chuckle emerged from Lord Richard’s lips, but when Amy glanced sharply up at him, his expression was studiedly bland.

A dangerous hush fell over the room. Flirtations in the far corners of the room were abandoned. Business deals were dropped. The non-English speakers among the assemblage tugged at the sleeves of those who had the language, and instant translations began to be whispered about the room—suitably embellished, of course.

“It’s an assassination attempt!” a woman next to Amy cried dramatically, swooning back into the arms of an officer who looked as though he didn’t quite know what to do with her, but would really be happiest just dropping her.

“No, it’s not, it’s just Miss Gwen,” Amy tried to explain.

Meanwhile, Miss Gwen was advancing on Bonaparte, backing him up so that he was nearly sitting on Josephine’s lap. “While we are speaking, sir, this habit you have of barging into other people’s countries without invitation—it is most rude. I will not have it! You should apologize to the Italians and the Dutch at the first opportunity!”

“Mais zee Italians, zey invited me!” Bonaparte exclaimed indignantly.

Miss Gwen cast Bonaparte the severe look of a governess listening to substandard excuses from a wayward child. “That may well be,” she pronounced in a tone that implied she thought it highly unlikely. “But your behavior upon entering their country was inexcusable! If you were to be invited to someone’s home for a weekend, sirrah, would you reorganize their domestic arrangements and seize the artwork from their walls? Would you countenance any guest who behaved so? I thought not.”

Amy wondered if Bonaparte could declare war on Miss Gwen alone without breaking his peace with England. “So much for the Peace of Amiens!” she started to whisper to Jane, but Jane was no longer beside her.

Amy wondered if Jane had wandered away while she was sparring with Lord Richard. She thought, vaguely, that Jane had still been about when Lord Richard had intruded onto the scene, but after that her attention had been so filled by the presence of Lord Richard that she couldn’t swear with any certainty to anything else at all. Amy slanted her eyes to the right, seeking a furtive glimpse of a strong arm in a superfine coat. Instead, Amy found herself eyeing a puffed sleeve. No longer furtive, Amy twisted to look at the spot that Lord Richard had been occupying beside her before the hullabaloo with Miss Gwen erupted.

Lord Richard Selwick had evaporated.

Amy tried to peer around the room, but the fascinated circle of bodies around Bonaparte and Miss Gwen was several people deep, and it seemed that Bonaparte had a penchant for employing very tall officers; Amy found herself staring straight into several gold-bedecked uniform coats. She would need a stepladder to see over them! Worming her way out of the crowd, Amy stepped on seven different toes, smelled fifteen different perfumes at close range, got tangled up with one ornamental sword, and almost tumbled over as she finally broke free.

Beyond the human wall, the rest of the room appeared deserted. To Amy’s right, a woman had a man backed into the corner and was running a finger suggestively down his cheek. Some people have no shame, thought Amy. On the other side of the room . . . Wait a minute! Amy’s eyes scooted back to the first corner.

That wasn’t..? Was it? It was!

Being caressed in plain view of anyone who cared to look, in Mme Bonaparte’s salon, was none other than that infamous turncoat, Lord Richard Selwick.