The Josephine B. Trilogy (52 page)

“Your footman put your bags in there this afternoon.” I nodded toward the wardrobe.

“What about the dog?” Buonaparte asked, returning in his night-clothes. He was wearing a cotton nightcap with a silly-looking tassel on it.

“The dog stays.” Fortuné was in his usual place at the foot of the bed.

“I will not sleep with a
dog.
”

“Very well, then, you will sleep on the settee.” I blew out the lantern.

Buonaparte stumbled toward the bed in the dark. I heard Fortuné growl. Then I heard Buonaparte curse loudly in the Italian tongue.

I sat up, my heart pounding. Fortuné was snarling. “What happened!”

“That dog should be shot!” Buonaparte held up his hand. In the moonlight I could see something dark on it.

“
Mon Dieu!
Is that blood? Did he bite your hand?”

“My leg.”

Agathe came running into the room, holding a lantern. Buonaparte’s leg was covered with blood. Buonaparte pressed a bedsheet to it to stop the bleeding.

Fortuné was cowering under a chair, baring his fangs.

“A basin of hot water and some bandages,” I told Agathe, grabbing Fortuné by the scruff of the neck and shutting the snarling little thing in the wardrobe.

Gontier came to the door, his ruffled nightcap falling into his eyes. “Go for a surgeon,” I told him.

“No surgeon will be necessary,” Buonaparte said.

“Don’t attempt to be a hero over this, Buonaparte,” I said. “There is nothing to be gained by it.”

“Do you think heroism is something that can be put on, like a cloak!” He turned to Gontier. “I am master of this house now, and I am telling you, do
not
go for the surgeon. I’ve spent too much time on the battlefield attending to my own wounds to be coddled like a tailor by some ignorant youth.” He took one of the bandages Agathe had brought and dipped it into the steaming water. “If your girl could bring some salt?”

“Her name is Agathe. Ask her yourself.”

Buonaparte glared at me. “Are we to spend the rest of our lives quarrelling?”

“I believe so.” I nodded to Agathe. “If you could fetch the salt? And the cognac,” I added.

Buonaparte cleaned and dressed his wound, securing it with two stitches of strong silk which he put in himself, gritting his teeth against the pain. I persuaded him to lie with his leg propped up on a pillow.

“You may go now,” I told Agathe and Gontier, who were standing at the foot of the bed, trampling the flowers. “Take Fortuné with you.”

“I’m to be woken at six,” Buonaparte instructed Agathe.

“That’s only a few hours from now,” I said.

“I have taken too much time already.”

Agathe and Gontier withdrew, taking away the lanterns and a stillsnarling Fortuné.

By the light of a single candle I poured two snifters of cognac. I handed one to Buonaparte. He put his hand up in refusal. “I must keep my wits about me,” he said.

I sat down on the bed, took a sip of the cognac, sighed. I had wanted a father for my children, security—now it seemed so much more complex.

“You doubt the wisdom of what you’ve done,” he said.

What I’ve done. Yes. “Must you forever be telling me my thoughts?” I was being churlish, I knew. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It has not been a romantic evening.” Suddenly I felt tears pressing. Is one allowed to go back, begin again? Can mistakes be undone?

Buonaparte pulled at a pillow.

“Allow me,” I said. I put down my glass and adjusted the pillow behind him. He put his hand on my wrist. “There is something I haven’t told you.”

“Please, no.” It was too late for confessions. I pulled my hand away.

“A fortuneteller told me that a widow would be my angel, my lucky star.”

I thought of the fortune I’d been foretold.
You will be Queen.

“You scoff,” he said.

“I’m no angel,” I said. I lay down beside him.

“You think the woman I love does not exist. You don’t believe in Josephine.”

His grey eyes were so intense. I looked away.

“Do you believe in
me?
” he asked.

I regarded his profile by the light of the candle. He had a haunted look. What was it that fired him, drove him? It would never give him peace, I knew.

“Are you cold?” He pulled the covering sheet over me.

“Yes,” I said. I stilled his hand against my breast.

He seemed unsure what he should do. I felt unsure, myself. Should I blow out the candle? Take off my gown? I felt my age, his youth.

“I have read that if the tip of a woman’s breast is touched in a certain way, that she will go mad with pleasure,” he said. He sounded like a schoolboy, reciting a lesson. “I amuse you?” he asked, observing my smile.

“You have a scientific mind,” I said.

He cupped my breast in his hand, examined it. “Your breast is a perfect example of its kind—round, firm.”

“Buonaparte!” A warmth had come into my heart.

I leaned over him. His breath on my face was sweet.

“Truly, you—” He stopped, unable to speak.

I touched a tear that was running down his cheek. It tasted of the sea. “Yes,” I said. “I do believe in you.”

Dawn.

The sun has tinted the sky the most delicate shade of pink. It reminds me of the mornings of my youth. I listen for the animals stirring, the cock, the cow.

Buonaparte, his leg wrapped in a bandage, is asleep. I listen to the sound of his breathing.

I am married. Again.

My husband is not the man I dreamt of as a girl, not my
grand amour
—and certainly not the king the fortuneteller had foretold. Only Buonaparte—strange little Napoleone. Now Napoleon.

And I? Who am
I?

He calls me Josephine. He says I’m an angel, a saint, his good-luck
star. I know I’m no angel, but in truth I have begun to like this Josephine he sees. She is intelligent; she amuses; she is pleasing. She is grace and charm and heart. Unlike Rose: scared, haunted and needy. Unlike Rose with her sad life.

I slip off my wedding ring, a simple gold band. Inside, I see an inscription. I hold it to the light: To Destiny.

Chronology