He closed the door but, to her surprise, did not cross to her. His face wore an uncharacteristic gravity that made her wonder if he had received orders to rejoin the navy. Forgetting all restraint, she rushed to him and threw her arms around his neck.
Instead of kissing her, Jerome gently pushed her away. “No, Elisa. We must talk.”
Betsy’s stomach cramped with dread as she returned to the sofa and sat down. Jerome came to stand before her with his hands behind his back.
“Your father remains troubled by the speed of our courtship and has asked Commodore Barney to assist him in effecting a separation. Barney called on me this morning to say that he thinks it prudent for me to accompany him on a tour of other American cities.”
“Who cares what Commodore Barney thinks? He is nothing to do with us. Besides, you yourself have pointed out how little time we have.”
Lowering his head, Jerome said, “I am sorry, but I find myself compelled to comply with his request.”
Betsy pressed a hand to her forehead. “I do not understand. What power does Barney have over you?”
Jerome drew a deep breath as if preparing to say something difficult. Then he met Betsy’s eyes and shrugged her question away. “For one thing, I must see Monsieur Pichon and ask him to advance me funds.”
“Is that all? Washington is only a day’s journey from Baltimore. Surely, you need not be gone more than three days.”
He rubbed his upper lip before saying, “I am sorry, Elisa, but our separation must be longer than that. Your father insists.”
Recalling the ardor with which Jerome had recently promised to wait for her, Betsy wondered why he had agreed to this separation so tamely. Could it be that his love for her had withered as quickly as it had bloomed?
Distressed, she rose and crossed to the front windows, which were swagged with lengths of green and gold silk. Looking out on the front lawn, she remembered seeing Jerome come up the drive the night they first met—so dashing that Betsy had been certain Odette’s long-ago prophecy was about to come true. Now the hope that had flared so brightly that evening burned to ashes and fell around her feet.
“Are you angry?” Jerome asked, coming up behind her.
“No, but I wonder if you have ceased to care for me. If you have, I wish you would tell me so at once.”
“Oh, Elisa, how can you think such a thing?” Betsy felt him gently lift her cascading curls and move them to rest upon her right shoulder. Then he ran his fingertips down the left side of her neck and across her collarbone to her shoulder. She sighed and tilted her head in response. The image of him putting his hands upon her breasts seized Betsy’s imagination and made her weak with longing.
Jerome took her in his arms and kissed her, much more passionately than before. Although Betsy knew she should push him away, her body cried out for him and her emotions greeted the embrace as proof of his love, even though her skeptical mind knew that it was not necessarily so.
When he finally released her, Betsy was breathless. She took a step backward and found herself against the windowsill. “How long will you be gone?”
“A month, perhaps a little more.”
“A month! But we have known each other only a month, and in that brief time, you have repeatedly declared your desire to marry quickly. Now you speak of a month’s parting as though it were of no import. How can I know that you will even return? Is not Pichon likely to force you back to your post?”
Grasping her hand, Jerome raised it to his lips. “Ne t’inquiètes pas, ma chérie. I have orders from my brother that supersede any authority the chargé d’affaires may have.”
“Then you leave on a mission for your brother and not because of what Barney said.”
Jerome tilted his head to one side as though weighing his next statement. “Not entirely. We must win your father’s consent, and if a time apart can do that, it is well worth the pain of separation. This proposed excursion is but a temporary absence meant to test our ardor. Let us yield to their demands. Then when I return, your father will see that I am worthy of you.”
Betsy gazed deeply into his eyes, fearing that he was hiding something. How could she be sure that this was not just a ruse to break his promises to her? On the other hand, if he did have to accomplish a mission for Napoleon, surely he would have to keep the details secret. If only she could know the true reason for this journey.
“Of course, you should go if you feel you must,” she said in as cool a voice as she could manage. “If you return, then we will determine if there is a reason to continue our acquaintance.”
Jerome winced. “Have no fear that I will forget you, Elisa, or ever cease to love you. Perhaps when I return, you will be willing at last to entrust me with your happiness.”
“Perhaps.”
“Will you allow me to write to you?”
“Yes, if you gain permission from my father.”
Jerome kissed her hand one last time. “Thank you.”
He departed then, leaving Betsy dazed and wondering if she would ever see him again.
TWO DAYS LATER, Jerome left for Philadelphia. Betsy found that the ease with which he had agreed to the trip made her doubt his affection, so she warned herself not to assume that his offer of marriage still stood. Instead, she resolved to look for another path to happiness.
The afternoon following his departure, Betsy sat sewing with her mother and pondering how to protect herself if Jerome should prove fickle. Perhaps there was a way to convince her father to let her tour Europe despite the war between England and France, so she could meet other highborn suitors. As she considered the problem, two women from church came to call. Sixty-four-year-old Frances Purviance had stooped posture and arthritis-ruined fingers. Her companion, Janet Johnston Inglis, was a round-faced, bashful nineteen-year-old who had recently married their pastor. Betsy marveled that anyone her age could sacrifice her youth to a life of church work and studiously proper conversation.
Dorcas greeted the pair warmly, and the women began to describe a new charitable endeavor to help the widows of Baltimore seamen. Listening to them, Betsy kept her eyes on her sewing so they could not see her boredom. Later over tea, Mrs. Purviance recommended that Dorcas try a new medication—Samuel Lee’s Bilious Pills—and Betsy pressed her lips together to keep from saying something sarcastic. If the conversation followed its usual course, it would soon move on to talk of babies and colic remedies. God forbid that women should discuss a book or a political idea. How she hated the infinite tedium of Baltimore’s domestic life.
THE FIRST LETTER from Jerome arrived within a week. He had addressed it formally to Ma chère mademoiselle Patterson and then described his journey by stagecoach in detail. He had decided to use the trip as an opportunity to educate himself about her country, so he asked Commodore Barney to show him sites like Independence and Congress halls.
I wish that Napoleon, who is such an ardent disciple of republicanism, could see these sacred buildings where your country was born. The chance to visit such shrines to liberty is the one thing that makes our separation tolerable. The memory of your exquisite beauty and admirable character fills my every waking hour. I beg that when I see you again, you will finally accept my hand in marriage.
Betsy raced through the letter and then reread it slowly to analyze each nuance. As much as she wanted to be persuaded by Jerome’s words, their eloquence felt false. Her own emotions were in such turmoil that she knew she would be incapable of writing anything so glib.
You dare not trust him, warned the skeptic in her, nurtured since childhood on La Rochefoucauld’s cynical writings. It is time to put this episode behind you and pursue a new course. Perhaps she had been too hasty in disparaging every potential suitor in America. Surely Maryland, Virginia, or New York contained at least one young man sophisticated enough to offer the cultured life she dreamed of living.
She refolded the letter, stored it in a casket that she kept in her bedroom, and forbade herself from running upstairs to
reread it more than once a day.
AWARE THAT BALTIMORE was gossiping about the absence of her suitor, Betsy determined to act as though nothing was amiss. When the Pattersons were invited to a ball at Belvidere, the fashionable mansion of Colonel John Howard Eager, Betsy put on her second-best gown—unable to endure the white gown that had elicited Jerome’s admiration—carefully styled her hair, and put on rouge borrowed surreptitiously from Henriette.
As the carriage drew up to the columned portico of the mansion, Betsy admonished herself to affect a liveliness she did not feel. She greeted her hosts in the front reception hall, noting silently that Colonel Howard had dressed more comfortably this evening in a suit that fit his present girth. Then, as she strolled through the hall, she went out of her way to greet even casual acquaintances, and she dropped witticisms at every opportunity. When asked about Jerome, Betsy shrugged with feigned nonchalance. “I believe he is touring the Atlantic seaboard. Perhaps he is on a mission for the First Consul.”
To those who pressed the issue, she laughed. “My, how people love to make matches where none exist. Lieutenant Bonaparte was invited frequently to our home because my parents knew that he must miss his own large family.”
She danced that night with more than a dozen partners, and while the whirl of activity may have dispelled the rumors that she was pining for Jerome, it did little to dull the pain in her breast. Not a man in the ballroom had an appearance as pleasing as Jerome’s tousled black curls and laughing eyes. When her partners appeared before her in fashionably cut suits of dark green and brown, she pictured the elaborately braided uniforms that hugged Jerome’s broad shoulders and narrow waist. While the young men of Baltimore talked about commerce and hunting, she recalled stories of evenings at the Paris opera followed by gay midnight suppers. And with the slurred accent of Maryland in her ears, she longed for the melodious sounds of Jerome’s voice in their French conversations.
By the time she arrived home, Betsy was exhausted by the pretense that she was still the lively Belle of Baltimore. Throwing herself onto her bed, she wept over the arid desert in which she felt herself trapped.
JEROME WROTE BETSY every day, continuing to swear that he loved her and was eager to see her again. He also described the people he and Barney met and the places they visited; Jerome believed that a person should always see the major sights of interest when visiting a new country. As she read each missive, Betsy could hear his voice in her mind, and she found herself sniffing the paper for a hint of his cologne. Every new letter eroded her resolve to end the relationship.
After two weeks in Philadelphia, Commodore Barney took Jerome to Washington, D.C., where he met the Smiths and Nancy Spear. “Their kindness and warmth—and the beauty of your aunts—has made me miss you even more.”
While in the capital, Jerome also saw Monsieur Pichon, who urged him to return to duty. Jerome described the meeting as a joke, yet Betsy worried that the diplomat would have his way and part her from Jerome. As uncertain as she was about their future, she did not want the impersonal forces of the French government to make such a decision for her.
ONE MORNING AFTER Betsy had sat up far into the night rereading Jerome’s letters, she woke from a dream in which Jerome had crept into her room and begun kissing her, first on her mouth, then down the length of her body, drawing down her chemise as he progressed.
Waking to find herself alone, Betsy pounded the mattress and curled up on her side. Her body felt so swollen with desire that she thought she would go mad. No other gentleman had ever excited such feelings within her. She longed for Jerome to come take possession of her quickly and, if necessary, with masterful persuasion if that was what was required to banish her terrible indecision.
Betsy brought her fist to her mouth and bit the knuckle of her index finger until the pain diminished her arousal. Then she sat up and gazed at the letters strewn across the nightstand. Jerome’s repeated declarations of love echoed in her mind.
On top of the letters was the red leather volume of La Rochefoucauld’s Maxims. The night before, she had looked through it to settle her mind and found the saying, “In great matters we should not try so much to create opportunities as to utilize those that offer themselves.” At the time, she had taken it as a sign that she should marry Jerome despite her father’s objections. Now she snatched up the book and threw it across the room so it hit the far wall.
A minute later, a knock on the door was followed by her mother’s entrance. Dorcas was still in her wrapper but her hair was already tucked in a cap. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, Mother, I am fine.”
Dorcas’s glance flicked from the copy of the Maxims on the floor to the correspondence scattered on the bedside table to Betsy’s woeful expression. She picked up the book and sat on the edge of the bed. “I am worried about you. You hardly eat, and your temper is fitful. Do you miss Lieutenant Bonaparte so very much?”
Feeling like a child caught with a telltale smear of jam across her cheek, Betsy nodded.
“But he has written you every day. Have his letters grown cold? Do you fear that his attachment has waned?”
“No, his letters express as much devoted affection as I could wish. I worry—” Betsy fell silent as emotion constricted her throat. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself enough to say, “I have known him such a short time. I wonder if I can really be certain of his character.”
Her mother reached over to smooth the sleep-tangled curls from her daughter’s forehead. “It is impossible to know your husband completely before you enter into marriage. Even the best of men have failings that they hide from public view.”
Looking up swiftly, Betsy wondered if that was an oblique reference to her father’s infidelities. “Please be frank. What do you think of Lieutenant Bonaparte?”
Dorcas smiled. “He is a warm-hearted, generous young man who perhaps lacks the uncompromising discipline you are accustomed to in your father. Yet I think his character and station in life make him a more congenial prospect for you than a sober businessman would be.”
Impulsively, Betsy hugged her mother and spoke softly into her ear, “He has led such a worldly life. I am afraid the very qualities that make him so attractive to me also make him, well, perhaps not steady enough to marry.”
Dorcas pulled back and cupped a hand under Betsy’s chin. “Lieutenant Bonaparte loves you deeply, I am certain, and that might be enough to mature his character. But I think you may be correct in judging that he is weaker than you in some respects. You must decide whether your love for him is strong enough to try to help him overcome his weaknesses and forgive him when he fails. None of us is perfect, Betsy. You will do better if you understand that from the start.”
“Mother, I do love him. I want to marry him more than I have ever wanted anything.”
“I thought as much.” Rising, Dorcas kissed the top of Betsy’s head. “I will tell your father that you have decided on this match.”
After her mother left the room, Betsy dressed with a lighter heart than she had known in weeks. As soon as she ate breakfast, she would write to Jerome in Washington and assure him that she eagerly awaited his return.
VI
AFEW days later Betsy sat in the nursery teaching Caroline embroidery when a maid came to find her. “Miss, you have a visitor in the drawing room.”
“All right.” Bending over her sister, Betsy said, “Caro, keep working on this until I return. I want to see how much you can accomplish.”
“I will.” Caroline frowned and tried to insert her needle at exactly the right spot in the linen.
Betsy stopped in her room to check her appearance. Then, as she descended the stairs, she heard the rare sound of her mother laughing below. Entering the drawing room, Betsy stopped short at the sight of Jerome sitting beside Dorcas on the sofa.
“Lieutenant Bonaparte! When did you return?”
He rose, and for a moment they gazed at each other with the sofa forming a barrier between them. The
n Jerome said, “Last night. When I received your letter, I wanted to come right away, but Monsieur Pichon insisted that I wait until we had met with President Jefferson.” He laughed. “Not wanting to cause a diplomatic incident, I dined with him on Wednesday and traveled all day yesterday.”
Dorcas Patterson stood. “I think you two must want to be alone.”
She left the room and closed the door behind her. Then Jerome asked, “Elisa, is it true, what you wrote in your letter? That you are eager to see me again?”
“Yes,” Betsy answered simply.
Jerome hurried around the sofa to stand before her but made no move to embrace. “Dare I hope that this means you have decided to accept me?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her with surprising gentleness, then held her close. “My beloved Elisa, I was beginning to fear that I would never know this happiness. Do you truly still care for me?”
The irrepressible laughter of unexpected joy bubbled out of her, and she allowed herself to defy maidenly decorum by declaring, “I love you.”
Jerome led Betsy to the sofa, pulled her onto his lap and kissed her again and again. After several minutes, he slipped his hand beneath her fichu and caressed her left breast. His touch awakened the memory of her passionate dreams. Although Betsy wanted to give herself to him then and there, she gripped his lapels and said, “Jerome, we dare not.”
“Forgive me, my love.” He inclined his head until their foreheads touched. “You are the most captivating woman I have ever met, and I find it difficult to control myself.”
Feeling the same frustration, Betsy moaned and nearly gave in to her desire, but Jerome kissed her lightly and took her hands in his. “Be patient. I will speak with your father this afternoon. If he consents, then I shall apply for a license tomorrow and we will be married as soon as possible.”
Betsy felt far from certain that her father would agree. Leaning her head on Jerome’s shoulder, she asked, “What shall we do if he says no?”
The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte Page 8
