Becoming Josephine (40 page)

“
Oui
, consulesse.” She stopped fanning. “My husband is dead and I’ve discovered his fortune was a lie. My parents lost their plantation in the slave revolts. I find myself destitute. My son—Alexandre’s son—has had no proper schooling. I don’t know where to turn.”

“You are in need of money?”

The crease between her brows deepened. “I have no one else to turn to. I have heard of your generosity. . . .”

I took pleasure in helping those who deserved it, not those who had wronged me in every possible way. I stared at her in silence. I would enjoy telling her to seek help from a convent, as I had, to find her way.

Her bottom lip trembled. She looked down at her hands. “I know I don’t deserve your kindness.”

I placed my coffee cup on the table. I could not stand to see a woman in desperate need. The past was as much Alexandre’s doing as hers, and I had made my peace with him long ago.

I touched her arm. “I’ll call my financier and set up a meeting with you next week. We can discuss an appropriate sum. And perhaps a military post for your son.”

She heaved a sigh and her shoulders fell. Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“I cannot deny a fellow woman in need. Now, if you will excuse me, my next appointment is here.”

She gazed at me gratefully for an instant, then turned and rushed through the double doors.

I smiled. Her guilt would be payment enough.

My days became a routine dictated by Bonaparte.

“You will take appointments until four, then do as you wish and dress for dinner. We’ll meet at nine in your boudoir, unless there is a state affair, of course,” he said. “You may meet with your ladies or friends after we dine. And I expect you to be at your most dazzling.”

“I will ‘dazzle’ them, as you say, but do not complain when the bills arrive,” I said.

“Monsieur LeRoy is robbing me blind,” he growled.

“He’s a brilliant dressmaker. You remark at every gown he creates for me.”

He swatted my rear end. “The gowns would not be as becoming on anyone else.”

I followed the schedule exactly as he requested without complaint, though the days grew ever more packed. Our exhaustive work in the city left us longing for the peace of Malmaison. Many Fridays we raced to our haven with the children the moment the final meeting ended. On one such blissful weekend, we awoke Saturday morning to the sound of the barnyard cock. The scent of leaves and hay floated through the open window.

I shivered from the cool air and pulled the duvet up to my chin. “I’m meeting with the botanist today. We’re to find a place for a heated orangery and greenhouse. I’m considering an aviary as well.” I would re-create Martinique just beyond the noise of Paris, with flowers and exotic birds. My own land, my home. “What do you think?”

“Whatever you like.” He lay on his back, staring out at the cheery morning sky. “I have some documents to review, but let’s be a family this afternoon.”

In the afternoon hours we rode along the forest paths and played trictrac. Bonaparte and Eugène took turns reading poetry and Hortense and I played the harp and piano. I sighed in complete happiness when we had finished a supper of stewed pheasant, parsnips, and meringue, all grown and prepared from Malmaison’s farm.

The children excused themselves and Bonaparte and I moved to a sofa in his study. I lay beside him, entangling my limbs with his under a blanket. The wind whistled as it blew against the eaves of the house.

“The weather is changing,” I mused aloud. Flurrying snowflakes swirled in violent bursts before perching on grass and windowsills.

“Winter is almost upon us.”

I braided the fringe of the wool blanket, dreaming of a baby. I dared not broach the subject, though I knew it weighed as heavily on his mind. Months had passed since my last courses.

He broke the silence at last. “Eugène is a handsome young man.”

“Yes. Women admire him.”

“As they should. He’s an able soldier. Intelligent, well mannered, graceful. The stepson of a ruler.”

I tugged on the blanket to cover my arms. “I’m proud of who he has become.”

“And Hortense nears her nineteenth birthday,” he said. “It is time,
amore mio
.”

I sighed. I knew this day would come. “She has many suitors. They can’t resist her blond curls and sweet voice.”

“She’s angelic. A gifted singer and she tempers my bawdy tongue.”

I laughed. “She has a way of inspiring virtue.”

“Whom would you choose for her?”

“I want her to be happy.”

“I’d like to see at least one member of our family properly married. My siblings have chosen poorly.” His voice rose an octave as his anger grew. “It’s an embarrassment. If they had obeyed my orders—”

“I know, darling.” I stroked his cheek to calm him. “We don’t wish that for Hortense.”

We discussed a dozen names, speculated about their families and their ability to integrate into our own. How would Hortense feel about this one or that one?

“And my brother Louis?” he asked. “What do you think of him?”

I didn’t like him at all, though he was the least detestable of the Bonapartes. I couldn’t imagine giving my only daughter to him.

“I need an heir,” he said quietly.

I blushed. The child I had been unable to give him thus far.

At last, I said, “They will have children.” A flicker of hope welled inside me. An heir could be named if I did not become pregnant, if the child was my daughter’s instead. It would secure my marriage.

He clutched my hands and his determined eyes met mine. “Exactly.”

I wrestled with my emotions. Hortense would despair at a marriage to Louis. I hated to disappoint her, my only daughter. When I expressed my doubt to Bonaparte, he made his decision clear.

“It’s the perfect solution. I’ve made my decision.”

I could have argued his point, but I did not.

The following evening I told Hortense of her betrothal as we sewed by the fire.

“How can you suggest such a thing?” She threw down her pillow. “He is melancholy and anxious! You wouldn’t choose for me someone who fakes constrictions of the throat!”

I moved to a seat beside her. “He’s a bit eccentric, but not unhandsome. He would treat you well. I’m afraid, darling, that Bonaparte has decided. It’s the best thing for you and the family.”

Anger darkened her purple-blue eyes. “I don’t love him!”

“Love will come. I was reluctant to marry Bonaparte and now he’s the only man in the world for me.”

She dissolved into tears, defeated.

The wedding arrived on a bitter winter day. We held it at our former home on the rue de la Victoire. Mimi laid out the exquisite gown Monsieur LeRoy had created for Hortense. I fingered the lace detailing, the pearls expertly stitched onto the white satin bodice.

All would be well. Hortense would grow to admire Louis.

When the ceremony began, Hortense descended the stairs in a simple white sheath. Not the elaborate gown I had prepared for her—a symbol of her own sacrifice. Her eyes appeared puffy from crying.

A ripple of pain shot through me. “Oh, Hortense.” My throat ached against the dam of tears.

She ducked her head. “I am ready.”

She gave all for me, to ensure my position, to secure my marriage and our livelihood. She never spoke the words aloud, but I saw them in her eyes.

Later that evening, I wept bitterly into my pillow for her lost innocence, for my own selfishness and Bonaparte’s. My only daughter. What had I done?

Bonaparte’s support grew as he built schools and museums and, above all, created jobs. The strength of the franc grew under his new laws, and industry boomed. When speculation circulated that he might be named first consul for life, malaise stole over me and nightmares plagued my sleep. Though I enjoyed my position, I looked forward to our retirement to Malmaison, an end to the ceaseless functions and the constant threat of being overthrown, of danger. Worse still, my greatest fear resurfaced: A consul for life mirrored the duties of a king; Bonaparte would need an heir and I would be unable to oblige.

I rubbed my throbbing temples one evening at dinner.

“You haven’t touched a morsel.” Bonaparte forked a roasted potato into his mouth.

“I am uneasy.” He raised an eyebrow in question. “I feel it’s a grave mistake to accept such a position. Consul for life is no different than king. I fear your election will enrage Republicans and the Royalists alike. Please reconsider.” I took his hand and pressed it to my heart. “I am your lucky star. My intuition has never been wrong.”

He kissed my hand and then stabbed another potato. “It is out of my hands. The assembly votes tomorrow. I will give the people what they ask for. Who am I to deny them?”

My husband became first consul for life, as predicted, and I agonized over my barren womb. I didn’t eat and I grew thinner by the day. I sought the advice of Europe’s finest doctors but each one said the same.

“You suffered too much during the Revolution. Now, at your advanced age of thirty-eight . . .”

Mimi scolded me when I collapsed on the bed one afternoon, fatigued and distraught. “Have you forgotten where you come from, girl? These men in their fancy coats know nothing of a woman’s body or spirit.”