The Garden Intrigue

by Lauren Willig

  Emma lifted her chin, contempt dripping from her voice, as much for herself as for him. “You don’t need to lie to me. I’ll keep your secret for you.”

  Augustus blinked as though she had slapped him. “This isn’t about that. I wouldn’t—”

  He caught himself, by which Emma inferred that, indeed, he would, and probably had. The thought made her feel vaguely queasy. How many other women had he romanced for the sake of the information they might bring him? How many lonely widows had he kissed into adoring silence?

  “Everything I said about you is true. Our time together, in your book room—working together—I’ve never felt— Oh, Christ. I’m making a muck of this.”

  Augustus leaned forward, his eyes earnest on her face.

  A lie, Emma reminded herself, just like everything else. Men could lie with their eyes as well as their lips, and Augustus was an expert at both.

  “You feel like home to me,” he said. “I’ve never been happier than I’ve been with you. You have a way of making everything—well, better. Brighter.”

  “But not bright enough to see through you,” Emma said brittlely.

  Fulton’s plans lay discarded on the coverlet, reminding her forcibly of her almost-lover’s real objectives. Not love, but politics and policy and the great games of nations.

  “Emma,” he said, and the sound of her name on his lips made something curl up and whimper inside her. “No matter what else, I think you’re wonderful.”

  With that and ten sous, she could buy a ride down the Seine.

  “Georges thinks I’m wonderful, too,” said Emma woodenly. “When he wants something from me.”

  Augustus drew back. “Don’t compare me to Marston.”

  “Why not?” asked Emma harshly. “I fail to see any difference.”

  Why was she even still here? Eve must have been equally intrigued by that blasted serpent. And Augustus—Augustus didn’t even have an apple to offer her. Only his regard, and now she knew what that was worth.

  She scrambled off the bed, being careful to steer clear of Augustus in the process. The sight of the tousled sheets made her feel obscurely soiled. Used. Did he really think she would believe him, after that? Did he think she was that gullible, that easily led? That starved for the pretense of affection?

  The answer to all of which, of course, was yes.

  Folding her arms across her chest, Emma looked down at him. “These plans of yours might be quite important, indeed, for both of you to think I’m wonderful in one week.”

  Augustus’s head lifted, suddenly alert. “Marston knows about the plans?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Emma airily, shaking out her dress with more than necessary force. “He wants them, too. He told me it’s so he can fund our future together. I seem to be very much in demand these days. Such a pity it’s all about Mr. Fulton’s submarine.”

  “His what?”

  Somehow, that was the last straw. Emma suppressed a wild urge to laugh. “You didn’t even know. All this and you didn’t even know what it was for.” He looked at her and she said, “It’s a submarine. A boat that sails under the water.”

  There. She hoped he was happy.

  No, actually, she hoped he was very unhappy.

  He didn’t look it, though. He was a million miles away, his eyes unfocused, his mind turning. “A boat that sails under the water,” he repeated.

  She should have been immune to betrayal by now, but something about it made her stomach twist. She didn’t exist for him anymore, she could tell. His mind was entirely on the information, the information he had bought of her so carelessly and so cruelly.

  He slapped the coverlet with the flat of his hand. “That’s what it is. That’s how they were planning to get rid of the ships guarding the Channel. They send a boat under the water, where no one can see it. It’s brilliant.”

  Emma pasted on her most brittle social smile. “So delighted to have been of assistance. Good day.”

  “Wait!” Augustus grabbed for her hand. Emma jerked out of reach. “Emma, please, try to understand. This is larger than you or me.”

  Yes, she imagined the completed submarine probably was.

  “There are lives at stake,” he said. “You know Bonaparte. You’ve seen where his ambition has led him. He won’t stop. He’s marched over half of Europe, laying it to waste. He’s looted Italy for its treasures. He’s made himself Emperor. England is the last defense against his ambitions.”

  His words brought with them an unsettling echo of her conversation with Hortense. It caught Emma off guard, it made her doubt—but just for a moment.

  She looked at him coldly. “What do I care for England?”

  “If England falls,” said Augustus, catching her gaze and holding it, “what next? How would you feel to see your own New York overrun by French soldiers, your family tossed from their home, your property confiscated, and your government reordered? Bonaparte must be stopped.”

  He spoke with such absolute confidence that, for a moment, Emma could almost see it. She could see Bonaparte on the patio of Belvedere, the Consular guard lolling about the cookhouse, Caroline greedily sorting through her mother’s jewelry, lifting grandmother’s brooch to watch it sparkle in the sunlight, then tossing it aside as a trumpery thing, hardly worth looting.

  Absurd, of course. Bonaparte was a friend to America. At least, for the moment. Emma felt a vague and unjustifiable sense of unease. But that was just what Augustus wanted, wasn’t it? To shift the blame onto someone else.

  “Because the cause is honorable,” said Emma slowly, “or because you believe it to be so, does that mean the means are justified?”

  Augustus lifted his eyes to hers. “I thought so once. Sometimes, though, the cost is just too high.”

  Emma’s eyes slid past him, to the tousled bed, where, only half an hour before, they had dropped, entangled.

  “But you paid it anyway,” she said.

  She could see his Adam’s apple move up and down as he swallowed. “I had no choice. What would you have me do?”

  You could have chosen me, she wanted to say, idiotically, illogically. You didn’t have to lie to me. You didn’t have to use me.

  At least, she told herself, averting her eyes from the bed, at least she had found out before they brought matters to fruition. Better to know before she made herself truly vulnerable by going to bed with him.

  Who was she fooling? Emma would have laughed if she could, but she was afraid the bitterness of it might burn her, bubbling up like acid, eating through her chest. She was already vulnerable. She might not have slept with him, but she had opened herself to him in every other way. She had confided in him, shared with him, trusted him.

  How naïve she had been! And how very foolish she was. Even now, wanting to believe him, wanting to exonerate him.

  All lies.

  “Give me a chance to redeem myself,” he said hoarsely. “Please, Emma.”

  Emma looked down at him. He was still seated on the edge of the bed, his hands pressing hard into the mattress on either side of him, leaving impressions like wounds, Fulton’s plans crumpled and abandoned on the coverlet behind him. Such flimsy things to cause so much bother.

  “I won’t betray you,” she said. “But don’t expect me to talk to you.”

  Her legs felt like lead as she turned and moved towards the door, concentrating on every step, every movement. Her body felt unfamiliar to her; the walls and floor were out of proportion; everything was awkward and strange.

  The bed rustled. “Emma. Emma, wait.” She could hear the bed ropes creak as Augustus levered himself to his feet. “There’s something else I have to tell you.”

  Emma didn’t turn around. “There’s nothing else you can possibly have to say to me.”

  She twisted the knob of the door. The metal was warm beneath her fingers, worn smooth with use. Time did that, they said. It smoothed off rough edges and healed wounds. Or so they said. What they didn’t talk about were the scabs it left
behind.

  “Wait, please,” Augustus pleaded. “Just a moment. Is that too much to ask?”

  Emma didn’t wait to see if he would follow. She pulled open the door of the room. The hallway was empty, the rooms lining it deserted as their occupants frolicked in the sunshine.

  “Emma—” Augustus’s voice sounded very far away. He spoke in English in his urgency. “Emma, I think I might be in love with you.”

  “Too late,” she said, and sent the door swinging shut behind her.

  Chapter 30

  When plots we lay and plans we set,

  The more we feign, the leave we get;

  When first we practice to deceive,

  Our lies catch us in a tangled weave.

  —Emma Delagardie and Augustus Whittlesby,

  Americanus: A Masque in Three Parts

  Mr. Whittlesby?” It took several moments for Augustus to realize that someone was speaking to him, and still more for the source of the voice to register. Jane’s serene smile was beginning to look a little ragged around the edges as she said, “You had promised me a word about my lines.”

  “Of course, my pulchritudinous princess,” Augustus said mechanically. Emma was on the other side of the room, sharing a coffeepot with the soon to be former American envoy to France, the elder Mr. Livingston. She was not looking at Augustus. It had been nearly twenty hours since they had last spoken. Not that Augustus was counting. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

  “One would never be able to tell,” murmured Jane.

  “I beg your pardon.” Augustus fluttered his sleeves in the old style, but the move felt forced. “Affairs of verse have weighed heavily upon me.”

  Affairs, but not affairs of verse.

  Emma had kept her word; there had been no midnight raids on his bedroom by the Ministry of Police. She had kept her word in other ways as well. With the masque rapidly approaching, she had managed to ever so subtly pretend he didn’t exist. Oh, yes, she said the right things, made the right noises about being terribly excited about the performance and so very grateful to Mr. Whittlesby for his expert assistance with the script, but she said it in her society voice, glib and meaningless, as if he were merely the hired poet the world believed him to be.

  There was only an hour left until the masque. The primary members of the cast, with the exception of Jane, had already made their way to the theatre, to be outfitted and assume their roles each in their own individual style. Miss Gwen had last been seen marauding somewhere out back, a ragtag band of pirates trailing along behind her. Bonaparte was in his council chamber, closeted with the cream of the Admiralty, while the remainder of the party, those involved in neither playacting nor policy, partook of coffee and cakes in the drawing room prior to the evening’s promised spectacle. There was to be an alfresco supper served after the performance, supper and a fireworks display reputedly a secret but already known to everyone.

  The younger Mr. Livingston was already in the theatre, assuming his theatrical breeches, but the elder Mr. Livingston was partaking of coffee. Marston, Augustus noticed, was also hovering near, but never quite next to, Emma. Augustus scowled. It went unnoticed by either party. Emma had her gaze resolutely fixed on her cousin Robert, as he waxed lyrical about the benefits of the territory of Louisiana, the purchase he had negotiated with Bonaparte.

  Blast it all, no one was that fascinated by the Mississippi River.

  Jane shook out her script, wafting it underneath Augustus’s nose. “It’s this rhyme,” she said loudly. “It doesn’t quite scan.” In a softer voice, she added, “I have promising tidings.”

  “Of what?” murmured Augustus, rubbing his nose. “My dear lady, you have got the pronunciation wrong. If you simply change the stress on the last vowel, you will find it rhymes perfectly well.”

  “How inventive!” exclaimed Jane, then dropped her voice. “Our inventor. He is, it seems, dangerously disaffected with the current regime.” And then, more loudly, “But doesn’t that change the meaning of the word?”

  “Oh, fair one, have you not heard of the term poetic license?” Augustus bent his head over the script. Good God, they had written drivel, he and Emma. But what fun they had had doing it. Those long afternoons in her book room, laughing over a particularly ridiculous turn of phrase…Augustus yanked himself back to the present. “Will he defect?”

  “I grant you no license, Mr. Whittlesby, poetic or otherwise, save those accorded by good manners,” said Jane severely. “All it will take is a word in his ear. I heard him speaking to Emma yesterday.”

  Emma. Automatically, Augustus’s eyes sought her out. She was still seated by the elder Mr. Livingston, partaking of coffee from one of Mme. Bonaparte’s delicate china cups. She wore one of her extravagant costumes, white satin decorated with silver flowers embroidered around glittering diamond centers, but, for once, her demeanor failed to echo the sparkle of her costume. There was an unaccustomed fragility about her, in the delicate bones of her shoulders, in the hollows below her cheekbones.

  “Yesterday,” Augustus repeated. “Yesterday?”

  “Yes, in the theatre,” said Jane, frowning at him. Inattention was not acceptable. Jane preferred to say her piece only once. “He reiterated his concerns to Mr. Livingston this morning.”

  Yesterday. Augustus remembered Fulton’s mutinous expression as he stormed out of the summerhouse. If he hadn’t been so rattled by Emma, if he had stopped to consider the ramifications of that then…

  “Livingston,” added Jane, “counseled caution, at least until his official term as envoy is done. Mr. Fulton seemed disinclined to heed him.”

  If he had had his wits about him, would there have been any need to steal the plans?

  If he had spoken to Mr. Fulton then—subtly, cleverly—there would have been no need to steal the plans. There would have been no need to puzzle over them. There would have been no need to hide them beneath his coverlet. If the infernal plans hadn’t been beneath his coverlet…

  Emma would have needed to be told sooner or later, Augustus argued with himself. Given his imminent departure for England, the operative word was “sooner.”

  But did it have to be just then?

  His body was firmly of the opinion that it had been very poor timing, indeed.

  “I infer that,” said Jane, “from the fact the Mr. Fulton was already packing his baggage, even though the party does not end until tomorrow. When I saw him, he was tearing apart the summerhouse, looking for his plans.”

  Augustus straightened. “Looking for his plans?”

  Jane regarded him levelly. “They seem to have gone missing.”

  The careful construction wasn’t wasted on Augustus. He had just been scolded, in the most imperceptible of fashions.

  “No, they haven’t,” Augustus said grimly. They would have to find Fulton, find him and bring him over before he could make a scene. “But if you think he can be—”

  “Insupportable!” The door to the drawing room banged open. “Utterly insupportable!”

  Mr. Fulton was far from his usual dapper self. His curly hair was in disarray, his jacket misbuttoned.

  “You were saying?” murmured Jane.

  “Damn,” muttered Augustus.

  Fulton made a beeline for the older Mr. Livingston. “I wish to make a formal complaint,” he announced.

  With his jowls jowly and his coat pleasantly creased, Livingston looked like an affable country squire, but the warning look he gave Fulton belied his easygoing air. “Let’s just discuss this ourselves, shall we?” he said comfortingly. “Have a cup of coffee, Robert. Or would you prefer chocolate?”

  “I don’t want coffee, or chocolate. My plans.” The word came out as a lament, Hecuba crying for Troy. “My plans. They’re gone.”

  Emma sat silently, her head down over her coffee cup, her face hidden. Horace de Lilly paused in his game of cards. Marston drifted closer.

  “I call this a travesty,” said Fulton, refusing the chair Livingston of
fered him. “Our negotiations may have come to a standstill, but simply to appropriate the fruits of a man’s labor— Not that it should surprise anyone! The very art on the walls—”

  Livingston neatly cut him off before he could say anything that might cause an international incident. “Are you sure they’re gone, Robert?” he said soothingly. “Might you not have misplaced them?”

  “No,” said Fulton firmly. “I know where they were and they’re not there anymore.”

  Emma lifted her head. “I have them,” she said flatly.

  Both men turned to look at her in surprise.

  “You?” said Mr. Livingston.

  Emma set down her coffee cup with a distinct clink. She had missed the center of the saucer. Augustus could hear it rattling as it rocked back and forth.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Having made her decision, she wasn’t going to do it by halves. Her back straightened and her eyes fixed on her cousin, wide and blue and guileless. She didn’t look at Augustus, but Augustus knew she was aware of him, as he was of her.

  As Augustus watched, she went on, “I am so sorry, cousin Robert, Mr. Fulton. You must have left them backstage when you helped me with the wave machine. I stumbled upon them and put them away for you.” She made a self-deprecating face. “And then I forgot to give them to you. I feel so terribly foolish.”

  It wasn’t a brilliant performance. She was too stiff, too self-conscious, but Livingston and Fulton were too caught up in their relief over the safe return of the plans to notice. Did anyone else? Jane, certainly. Her eyes flickered from Augustus to Emma and back again, her expression assessing. But other than she…No. Augustus didn’t think so. They were safe. Because of Emma.

  “In that case…” said Mr. Livingston, obviously relieved. It was no small thing to have to accuse an emperor of appropriating other peoples’ property, even if he had and did. “Crisis averted, I believe, Robert?”