Desirée turned her head coquettishly and twinkled at Bernadotte, as much for Victoire’s benefit as for his. “Say you will permit me to have new draperies for the ballroom. It would make all the difference, and it would not be as costly as repainting. It would not take much more than four days to accomplish and it would not make a mess of the place. It’s just fabric, Bernadotte, just velvet and damask. The whole room would be changed, don’t you see? It would be like the hall of victory on Olympus, where you would ride as Mars, or Apollo. Oh, please, my love. You do not want the Swedes to think you do not value them as you ought.”
“No, I don’t want that,” said Bernadotte, not looking at Victoire as he went on, his Gascon accent stronger than usual. “But it is very costly, the decorations you want, and we cannot easily afford them.” His smile was pained. “Velvet and damask may be fabric, Desirée, but they are more dear than fustian and muslin.”
Desirée was a clever woman and so she did not pout, but regarded Bernadotte in the manner of one who had been asked to endure serious hardships and was prepared to do so as noble self-sacrifice. “Very well, if it is not possible to have the new draperies, I must contrive other means to make this place appear properly a la mode. If it is what I must do,” she said softly, “then I will do it.”
“There are other decorations we can have that are not so costly and that will show all the regard for the Swedes they could want,” Bernadotte said, moving toward her.
She took a step back. “No, no, I can see how it is, and I must adapt myself to the realities of the world. We are not so favored that we can draw on endless funds. Never mind that Josephine puts us all to shame with her extravagance and her luxuries and her excesses; the rest of us cannot have such opportunities.” There was no disguising the malice she felt for Napoleon’s wife, nor the envy that consumed her. “It’s different for Josephine. She has the treasury of France for her pocketbook.”
“Desirée!” protested Bernadotte, who knew his wife too well to be shocked.
Victoire remained very still and hoped that Bernadotte and his wife would forget she was in the room. If there had been an opportunity for her to leave, she would have taken it. But no such opportunity presented itself, so she huddled down on the divan as far as she could and tried not to listen too much.
“Well, she has!” Desirée snapped. “Everyone knows it. She boasts of it. She claims that she is able to have whatever she wants because no one can refuse her, because that would the same as refusing the First Consul, and only madmen do that.” Her hands were on her hips and the languid air she affected had vanished entirely. “But do not worry, my husband, I will do as you tell me, and I’ll smile as best I can when we are compared to the entertainments offered by Josephine, for well I know that the comparison will not be flattering to us.”
While they argued, Victoire studied the man suspected of treason. It still made no sense to her. Bernadotte was the son of a tailor and perhaps the most proper man in Paris. He had spent eleven years in the ranks before being promoted to lieutenant; two years later, after his heroic assault on the woods turned the tide in the Battle of Fleurus, he was a Brigadier General. Yet he could never forget those lean years when he lived on a private’s meager pay; he could not understand the excesses Desirée took for granted.
When Napoleon made his bid for power, he approached Bernadotte. The general refused on the strength of his soldier’s oath. But he did agree to take no action against Napoleon’s followers unless directly ordered to do so. When the coup succeeded, his reluctance was an embarrassment, but Napoleon had been impressed by his integrity and soon restored him to command. Though perhaps in punishment for his earlier reluctance and an abortive effort to actually arrest Napoleon when he returned from Egypt, Bernadotte’s corps was given the undesirable duty of suppressing a revolt in the Vendee. Later, several members of his staff were caught in a plot to support another such uprising and only Desirée’s pleading had kept Napoleon from acting against him.
In Paris they lived as Desirée felt they should. Their house was larger and closer to the palace than those of Jerome or Joseph, Napoleon’s brothers. Desirée threw lavish parties that Bernadotte often left early. He had received many pensions and awards, and there were persistent rumors that much of Bernadotte’s wealth had come from rich citizens of the Vendee who were suspected of fomenting revolt, and bribed their way out of suspicion.
“Desirée, please,” Bernadotte answered firmly, though they both knew he was begging her to restrain herself.
“And everything we do from that point on will look makeshift and miserly, if we fail to make the right display now. We, my husband, you and I,” Desirée went on relentlessly, “will be watched with a jaundiced eye by the Swedes. They will know we did not receive them as they ought to be received, not for the reception we have announced.” She turned on her heel and was about to leave the room when she saw Victoire. At once her manner changed and she gave her visitor a bright smile. “Husbands are always the most exasperating creatures, aren’t they?” she asked.
“So I believe,” said Victoire carefully, trying to sit a little more comfortably so that she would not reveal her distress.
“They are always telling us what we may do and what we may not. It is very bad of them.” She tossed her head and looked back over her shoulder. “Bernadotte, you’ll have to give me some time with Madame Vernet. If you’re determined to place restrictions on me, than I will have to appeal to her good advice to make the best I may from what little you have permitted me to have.”
Bernadotte flung his hands in the air to signal his capitulation. “I would not ask this of you, my dear, if our resources were not already strained to the limits. Another festivity and we could face some very necessary economies.” He bowed slightly to Victoire, then kissed Desirée’s hand. “I have a meeting I must attend. It cannot wait. Pray excuse me; my time is not my own. I don’t know when I will be back; before midnight, I suspect.” He took one step back. “My love. Madame Vernet, your servant.” Then he was out the door.
“He’s a great dear when he is pleasantly disposed,” said Desirée as if speaking of a favorite pet. “But lately he has been gruff and unpleasant, which does not please me.” She stared at Victoire and then gave her attention to the ballroom, which lay just beyond this antechamber. “What am I to do, I ask you?”
“About what, Madame Bernadotte?” asked Victoire, taking care to maintain the correct social manner with her hostess.
“Ah, no such formality between us, I beg you,” Desirée urged prettily. “You must be Victoire and I must be Desirée. We officers’ wives belong to a society that has different rules than the rest of the world.”
“How kind,” murmured Victoire, wondering what it was that Desirée wanted of her; she remembered the undisguised contempt Desirée had shown when she and her husband had called at her home, and was more puzzled than ever at this abrupt change in manner.
“We must surely be like sisters,” declared Desirée. Whatever it was that Desirée wanted, thought Victoire, it was something very important to her, or she would never consider making such gestures toward her.
“What a great honor, Desirée,” she said carefully.
“Yes, it is,” said Desirée with strange naiveté. “But these are the fortunes of war and the fruits of victory, aren’t they?” There was something in her manner now, something sly and insinuating under the excessive sweetness of her conduct.
“If our victory is assured,” said Victoire, keenly alert. She could not help but feel she was in the company of a jungle cat, beautiful and sinuous and apparently indolent, who could eviscerate an unwary goat or cow or man in a single swipe of one daggered paw.
“Oh, you’re not one of those who still persist in warning Napoleon about hidden enemies, are you? If he had half the opponents some feel he must have, he would be in his grave ten times over and not preparing to be crowned emperor.
” She had taken a few steps into the ballroom, and she indicated the pale-green-and-gilt decor. “Look at this place! I am ashamed for you to see it, and yet my husband declares that I cannot have new draperies. How am I to entertain here with the room so dowdy?”
To Victoire’s eyes the ballroom was extravagantly decorated and of the first style, but she knew that she must not say so. “What were your plans for the draperies? What do you want to do with the room?” It was a safe enough inquiry, and one that would give her a little time to learn the answers Desirée sought.
“You see what they are now, all straw-colored? Against the muted greens, I suppose it would be well enough in the summer, but it is coming to winter.” Little as she wanted to remember, she had liked them well enough a year ago when she picked them out; now they looked tawdry to her. “It’s dreadful. So I have hit upon the notion of changing the draperies to a dull red and the valences in bronze, with bronze cords and the seats of all the chairs and divans done in the same color. I think it would be truly charming.”
“It would be quite remarkable,” said Victoire with sincerity, thinking that the ballroom would truly be spectacular with such decor; little as she trusted the purpose, she could not fault Desirée on her vision. “But your husband’s right: it would be very dear to have it done in so short a time.”
“He wants to disoblige me,” said Desirée. “He has decided that he must be the one to decide what will and won’t be done in this house, and he’s ruled that we will have nothing very new for the reception.” She began to pace around the room; it was large enough that this took her some little time. “He’s the one who wants to impress the Swedes. He’s the one who stands to gain from their favor. He is the one who—” She stamped her foot. “He expects me to smooth the way for him, but gives me no means to do it.”
“The First Consul does not require much grandeur,” said Victoire, knowing that Napoleon cared little for his own appearance, but also aware that he expected his court to reflect the glory he had brought to France. “If you were to change the valences, wouldn’t that be enough for your husband, and the Swedes, and you?”
“Of course not,” scoffed Desirée, the color mounting in her cheeks. “I will not say that Bernadotte lost his advancement because of his wife.” She strode back toward Victoire. “It’s bad enough he has been gone so much on these damned secret meetings of his, but he has left all of the work to me. All of it. But he will not let it be done properly.”
“Secret meetings. Is it with the Swedes, I wonder? What could the Swedes have to discuss secretly?” asked Victoire, doing her best to sound disingenuous. She supposed it was the Low Countries that concerned the Swedes—such meeting would be private.
Desirée made a moue of distaste. “Bernadotte can be so disobliging, who knows whom he meets? It’s probably someone like Pichegru, someone he knows will do him no credit. It would be the worse for him if it turns out that Pichegru is a traitor, for Napoleon would not forgive Bernadotte for supporting anyone seeking his downfall. And Bernadotte can be a Gascon fool. He does it to spite me, you know.” Her lovely eyes narrowed and were no longer very pretty. “He does it to be certain that I never forget I’m here under sufferance, because of that affair with Napoleon.”
“You were very young,” said Victoire, soothing her. “And Napoleon was more urgent then than he is now.”
“He was ardent and insistent. He was determined to have me.” It was difficult to determine if she took pride or shame in this admission; perhaps it was some of each. “He was the most dashing man I’d ever met, and the most heartless. He cared more for his desire than for me.” Her wordplay on her own name was bitter. She looked around the ballroom. “This and Bernadotte were the sop he gave me in return for everything he did to me.”
Victoire had rarely seen such humiliation as there was in the expression that passed over Desirée’s pretty features; she was troubled by it, and didn’t know how to respond. At last she shook her head and directed her gaze toward the ceiling. “It is unfortunate that so much love turned out so badly.”
For a moment Desirée looked as if she might weep, and then she changed and achieved a charming shrug. “It’s the way of the world, is it not?” She came up to Victoire’s side. “I’ll have the draperies, you know, and I’ll give the grandest entertainment that the Swedes have had since they arrived. There are seven days yet until the reception and ball. The drapers would have seven days, and the nights if that were necessary. They could transform everything in the ballroom, just as I want it. You’ll see. Everyone will say that this was the most elegant gathering other than the Coronation. Everyone.” Her smile widened. “Even Napoleon will say it.”
With a coldness growing in her bones, Victoire listened as Desirée went on about swags and sconces and wainscoting; all the while she wondered if Bernadotte or his wife was the one she was seeking.
* * *
“It’s too convenient,” said Vernet over supper that night. He had removed his tunic and donned his dressing-gown, a magnificent new garment of claret-colored velvet edged in quilted satin. As he sat facing Victoire across their dining table, he grinned at her and the lines of fatigue began to fade. “I was just thinking, as I watched you.”
“What were you just thinking?” she asked, more curious than flirtatious.
“That I feel like an eastern potentate.” His expression eased more and he settled more comfortably back into his chair. “Odette helped, with this sour-cherry duck. It seems Oriental to me.” He indicated the ruins of their meal.
“It was quite delicious,” agreed Victoire, who still had a little on her plate. “But what’s too convenient?”
“What?” Vernet inquired, puzzled.
“You said that it’s too convenient. I’d like to know what it is,” said Victoire, smiling as she had the last of her wine. “And why it’s convenient.”
“Oh, that,” said Vernet, retracing his mental steps. “I am finding it difficult to believe that Bernadotte is the villain Fouche thinks he is. He’s so obvious, and so very exposed. He was never so foolish in the field, to leave himself so vulnerable. I have found too much and found it too easily for me to believe that he is anything more than a handy dupe. I’ve explained my reservations to Fouche and Berthier, but I don’t know. Fouche wants to hold Bernadotte until the Coronation is over but the Swedes would raise a tremendous outcry if we so much as contemplated such a thing. It would be diplomatically distressing for everyone. That is another part of the puzzle: the damage of suspecting Bernadotte is very great, and very obvious.”
“Ah?” said Victoire, in order to encourage Vernet to continue.
“You have only to examine the circumstances and it becomes apparent that there are many reasons why nefarious persons might find it useful to direct suspicions on Bernadotte, not the least of which is the embarrassment it would bring to the Swedes, which could result in an international scandal.” He drank his wine in one long sip, then helped himself to one of the little rolled pastries Odette had made that afternoon. “Perhaps even forcing them into a formal alliance with England.”
“You and Berthier are in agreement about that?” asked Victoire, who recognized the concerns as ones she had heard many times from Berthier.
“Oh, yes. It’s Fouche who doesn’t believe in making the problem more complicated that it appears to be.” He shook his head. “He thinks that the Swedish presence is nothing more than a smoke screen.”
Victoire took time to think. “If there were one Swede, that might be reason enough to ignore the Swedish presence. But there is a whole embassy of them, a delegation for the Coronation, and they are directly connected to Bernadotte, his personal guests. I don’t think they can be dropped from the equation.” She braced her elbows on the table and folded her hands under her chin. “In fact, I think the Swedes might be crucial to the case regarding Bernadotte.” She paused to study the pattern of cut-work on the tab
lecloth. “Of course, there is Desirée, too. She is the other factor in Bernadotte’s life, isn’t she?” She did not look up.
“What did you make of her this afternoon?” Vernet asked.
“I don’t trust her.” For a few seconds she was silent. “She makes it very difficult to like her. It is easy to see that she enjoys making Bernadotte dance to her tune, and that she’s still, in some way I cannot define, tied to Napoleon.”
“You mean she loves him still,” said Vernet.
“No; in fact it may be the opposite. I think she may detest him quite profoundly.” She saw the startled expression in Vernet’s eyes, and did her best to explain. “I think to be made the object of his desire and determination when she was young was too ... overwhelming for her. And when he turned away, as he has from so many, and gave her to Bernadotte, I think she broke, somehow, like a bone in the leg, and never healed properly.” She stared into the candle flames. “It’s conjecture, but it is possible she would be pleased to have it appear that Bernadotte is Napoleon’s enemy, to have vengeance on him.”
“On Bernadotte?” asked Vernet, who was having some difficulty following her logic. “Why should she want to—”
“On Napoleon. She wants to wipe her feet on him, I think; on Napoleon.” She leaned back. “Gracious. I hadn’t realized until now how Desirée had troubled me, or why. I thought she was simply jealous, but I realize now it is more than that. Much more.”
“But you’re suggesting she might be capable of actual treason,” said Vernet, shaking his head.
“It could happen,” said Victoire cautiously. “Not as treason, precisely, but something more ... personal.”
“And you think that it has happened, is that it?” he inquired.
“I think,” she said, frowning with concentration, her gaze at a place distant from their dining room, “that if there is another group of spies we have failed to detect and apprehend—”
MV02 Death Wears a Crown Page 23
