The Second Empress (22 page)

As I secure the trunk of books to the back of the carriage, a shadow looms behind me. I turn, and the captain is standing too close to me, his thumb resting casually on the butt of his pistol. Two women stop to look in our direction, and the head groomsman watches us from the steps of the villa. He’ll vouch for me if anything happens. I turn back to the carriage, and de Canouville asks, “What do you think you are to her,
mulâtre
?”

I clench my fists into a ball.

“Why did she take you from Saint-Domingue?” de Canouville hisses. His mustache is slick with sweat, and the heat of Aix-la-Chapelle
does not agree with his coloring. He waits for me to answer, and the longer I’m silent, the redder he gets.

“No one
took
me from anywhere, captain.”

“I know what you are! Your father was a Frenchman who liked to bed African whores, and you—”

Before he can draw his pistol, I have pinned his arms behind his back and pressed his face against the carriage. “I am Her Highness’s chamberlain, and that is
all
. But if something should happen to me, if I should have an unfortunate accident on my horse or be shot while walking down the road, I can promise you this. The princess will not rest. She will find who did it, and there will be no mercy, not even if that man is you. If you’d like to take that chance—” I stand back. “Then go ahead and do it.”

Immediately, de Canouville reaches for his pistol. The women in the courtyard gasp, and I see the head groomsmen hurry inside. De Canouville looks around, first at the faces of the horrified servants, then finally at Pauline, who’s arrived on the shady steps of the villa. He lowers his gun, and his body is shaking. “I want you out of France.”

“I want many things, captain, but they don’t all come to pass.”

“What’s happening?” Pauline cries, running toward us. “What is this?” She looks at the two of us, and I realize I have never seen real fear on her face until now.

“A little misunderstanding.” De Canouville replaces the gun in its holster. “I thought he was stealing.”

“
Paul
?” She covers her chest with her hand and looks to me. “Are you all right?”

“Perfectly fine, Your Highness.”

“It was an innocent mistake,” de Canouville says, uneasily. “Anyone might have made it. Right?” He looks around him, but the faces of the servants are purposefully blank.

Pauline studies him for a moment. “Paul, I’d like to speak with you inside.”

As I pass de Canouville, I refuse to give him the satisfaction of a look. Let him believe what he wants about this conversation. I follow Pauline through the painted halls to her chamber. No room in the town of Aix-la-Chapelle can possibly be more lavish than this, with its soft Persian carpets and great curtained bed. I stand before her as she takes a seat on the divan. When I don’t say anything, she buries her head in her trembling hands.

“Your Highness—”

“Don’t try to comfort me! You know how sick I’ve been these last three months.”

It’s true. She has made herself sick with worry and jealousy.

“I
saw
you fighting.”

“He’s … de Canouville is not an honorable man. He is a man possessed. He can’t bear the thought of anyone else being with you.”

She lowers her hands. “
What
?”

“I was almost killed today,” I say slowly, “by a man who is willing to murder for your love. Your
exclusive
love. You may find that flattering, but I find it dangerous. And if you aren’t careful, someone will end up dead.”

T
HE RIDE BACK
to Fontainebleau is tense. I’m sharing the coach with de Canouville and Pauline, but she is punishing him with silence, and I have little to say. I watch her in the carriage, her black hair swept off her pale, thin face by a pearl and gemstone band, and I try to remember the girl in Saint-Domingue, who wore flowers instead of diamonds.

“Will someone please cover that?” she complains, indicating the window near de Canouville, which is letting in the full afternoon light.

He hurries to draw the curtain, then looks in her direction for approval. “Are you thirsty?” he asks, but she doesn’t answer. “Would you like something to drink?”

“You know what I would like? A man who can protect me,” she says heatedly. “Not someone who threatens the people I love.”

De Canouville looks at me in panic, and for the briefest of moments, I feel pity. He will never hold on to her. She will slip from his grasp, just as she slipped from the countless others who have gone before him. Talma, and Gréoux, and Blangini, and Forbin. She’ll grow restless and start spending time away. It’s true, she has been with de Canouville longer than some, but eventually she’ll grow tired of him.

And someday, if I am honest with myself, she’ll grow tired of me, too.

But loving this woman is my weakness. When she goes to sleep in her small pink bed, drawing up the lace covers and calling for Aubree, she’s impossible to resist. I’ve listened to her cry out against nameless phantoms in the middle of the night, those that come to her when she’s dreaming: the men who robbed her of her innocence in Corsica, masters who abused their positions in Marseilles. I’ve watched her weep into her pillow until the silk is damp with tears, then suddenly wake and ask me why her pillows are all wet. She is damaged and beautiful, vulnerable and fearsome, and I can understand de Canouville’s desperation to save her. But what he doesn’t know is that only one man has ever held her attention.

“I am deeply sorry, Your Highness. I apologize not only to you,” he says cleverly, “but to your chamberlain, Monsieur Moreau, as well.” He does an admirable job of looking earnest, yet when he raises his brows in supplication, Pauline looks away.

For the next two hours, the only sounds in the carriage are the horses’ hooves striking against the road. When we stop for lunch, de Canouville looks weary enough to cry. He leans against the wall of the roadside inn, and even the tempting smell of roasted lamb isn’t enough to lure him inside. As I approach the door, he reaches out his hand to hold me back. Only this time there is no menace in his eyes.

“What does she want?” he asks me.

I look through the open door at the slight figure of Pauline, and before it swings shut, I think to myself,
Something she’ll never have
. “Napoleon. So never speak against him. They are very … close.”

“What are you saying?” He narrows his eyes. “You want me to believe she’s infatuated with her brother? That may be what they do in Saint-Domingue—”

“It’s your life, captain. Gamble it away however you see fit.” I open the door, and the scents of roasted meat and wine make me ravenous.

The princess is sitting at a long mahogany table surrounded by ladies. When she sees that I am alone, she frowns. “Where’s de Canouville? He isn’t going to eat?”

The well-dressed courtiers look up at me. I tell them the truth. “He is pouting.”

Several women giggle, but Pauline looks toward the door. “It’s three hours to Fontainebleau!” She rises, and the women stare openmouthed as she goes to find him.

“She’s never done that,” I hear one of them whisper. Then another announces, “She likes this one.”

C
HAPTER
16

MARIE-LOUISE

Fontainebleau Palace July 1810

N
O WOMAN IN
F
RANCE HAS EVER BEEN HAPPIER TO PUT
her honeymoon behind her. I look up at the pale summer’s sky and want to weep with gratitude. The birds, the flowers, the freshly trimmed hedges around Fontainebleau’s lake … I link arms with Hortense, and the two of us breathe deeply of the lilacs and geraniums. Two months—
two
—traveling through an unending parade of forts and mills.

“You must be excited to see you-know-who,” she says.

It’s all I’ve thought about since returning. I’ve picked out which paths we’ll walk, and the milliner has fashioned him a collar that says
Le Chien de l’Impératrice
in gold.

“Not Sigi.” Hortense laughs. “The general.”

“Who?”

Hortense lowers her brows. In the bright afternoon light, her dark hair looks auburn, and though she isn’t a great beauty, she is fetching in her white muslin gown and lace parasol. “Your Majesty,” she begins, “don’t tell me you haven’t heard? Your father is sending Adam von Neipperg to Fontainebleau to deliver Sigi. You will have a visitor from home!”

I stop walking immediately and glance around us. The Grand
Parterre is filled with courtiers, strolling near the river or lounging on its banks. “How do you know this?”

“Everyone knows. Caroline told me this morning.” Hortense watches me carefully. Then a sudden understanding begins to dawn. “Was he—”

“A good friend,” I say swiftly. “That is all.”

We continue walking, and the men tip their hats to us as we pass.
Did Maria arrange for him to come? Or my father
? Suddenly I feel hot, though I’m dressed in the lightest possible gown with nothing at all covering my arms. Adam is coming with Sigi.
My
Adam is coming with Sigi!

“Your Majesty, are you feeling well? Your color is—” She studies me intently, then her voice grows serious. “If he is something more to you than a friend, Your Majesty, do not go to meet him. The emperor will know.”

“Let’s walk over there,” I suggest. Hortense follows me into a thicket of overgrown trees, away from prying eyes, and we sit together on the grass. “How would he know?” I ask quietly.

She leans forward. “They say he can anticipate his opponent’s move on the battlefield from hundreds of miles away. There are people at this court who believe he can read minds.”

“Do you believe that?” She has lived with him for fifteen years. Only his siblings know him better.

“No. I believe my husband when he says that Napoleon is a military genius. But Louis also says educated guesses brought his brother to the throne of France. He has
educated luck
. He deduces things by watching very carefully.”

“So if he saw me with Adam—”

“He will know. By the flush of your cheeks, or the motions of your hands—by any number of things you will not be able to control.”

“Then he must not see us.”

Hortense covers her mouth in horror. “Your Majesty, you don’t understand what he can do. My mother—he divorced her without
warning. For fourteen years she’d supported him faithfully, then one day …” She turns up her palms. “He had her painted out of Jacques-Louis David’s
Distribution des Aigles
, and her monogram was erased throughout the Tuileries Palace. He gifted her with Malmaison, her château twelve kilometers away from Paris. Then, as soon as you arrived, he sent her farther away.” Hortense shakes her head. “When he makes up his mind against someone …”

“Where has she gone?”

Hortense’s eyes fill with tears. “Did you know that Prince Frederick Louis of Mecklenburg-Strelitz asked for her hand in marriage, and she turned him down for fear of having to leave France? She has been writing Napoleon letters, begging to return, but they’re all sent back, unanswered.”