To Emma, he said, “I’ll be right back.”
It was both a promise and a warning.
Marston’s lips parted in a wolfish grin. “Take your time.”
“Thank you, Kort!” Emma called after him. She waved. Kort frowned back, but went.
Marston stepped up beside her, lowering his head until his breath tickled her ear. “I had hoped to see you here.”
“How fortunate for you,” said Emma brightly, twisting away. One of her plumes brushed across Marston’s nose, making him sneeze. “Now that you have achieved your object, you can go home.”
Marston discreetly wiped the back of his hand across his nose. It was hard to look soulful when one’s eyes were tearing, but he made a valiant effort. “To empty lodgings?”
Or a well-filled brothel. Georges had never been particularly particular in his tastes. That, at the time, had been one of his attractions. Emma had wanted nothing more than to lose herself in the potent distraction of flesh on flesh, with none of the messy complications attendant on emotions, channeling all her grief and confusion into the mindless pursuit of physical pleasure. And who better for that than Marston? It had been a brief and potent madness, over nearly as quickly as it had begun.
Two years hadn’t changed him. He still wore his hair long, with long sideburns that curled down below his ears to his chin. There was a bit more braid on his uniform than there had been before, but it was still closely tailored to a form maintained by a rigorous regimen of regular exercise. His batman had rigged an ingenious contraption of weights and pulleys that went with him everywhere, counteracting the effects of overindulgence in food, wine, and women.
Whatever else one thought of Georges Marston, Emma admitted, he was indisputably a fine figure of a man. He exuded animal spirits and casual carnality. That had been part of it.
But, mostly, he had been as far as she could get from Paul, muscular where Paul had been wiry, fair where Paul had been dark, broad where Paul had been slender. Not even his best friends would have called Paul handsome. His charm had resided in his lively manner and the quick intelligence in his fine, dark eyes. He had been a dreamer, a talker, a charmer. He had certainly charmed her, straight out of Mme. Campan’s school for young ladies.
Even now, the memory tore at her, not with the horrible rending force it once had, but with a dull ache, like a scratch half healed.
Marston would never believe her if she told him that his attraction had been less on his own merits and more because he was Not-Paul. She had been so angry at Paul, so angry at him for dying just when it seemed they finally a chance.
Marston leaned closer, mistaking her absorption for interest. “It’s been a long time, Emma.”
So it had. “Two years,” she said, suddenly feeling very old and very tired. Ten years since she had left New York, eight years since she had eloped with Paul. None of her happily-ever-afters had turned out the way she had intended them. “What do you want, Georges?”
She shouldn’t have called him by his first name. Marston’s eyes brightened with triumph.
“The pleasure of your company, of course,” he said, reaching for her hand.
Emma drew her hand sharply away.
Marston’s eyes narrowed. “You found pleasure in my company once. Or do I need to remind you?”
“I also wore puce,” said Emma flippantly. “Tastes change.”
She had never been particularly to his taste; even at the time, she had been aware of that. He had made no secret of all the ways in which he found her wanting: too small, too thin, too flat, too plain-spoken. The affair, such as it was, had been an aberration on both their parts. On her side, purely physical. On his—well, Emma had a good guess as to what his motives had been, and they had had little to do with her personal charms.
Marston crowded forward. Emma found herself regarding the buttons on his jacket. Brass, polished to the sheen of gold. He had been hard on his valets, demanding a level of sartorial perfection that would have daunted the staff of a duke. Darns and patches were anathema to him; it was new or it wasn’t used at all. He had been appalled by the state of her dressing gowns, old and worn and comfortable.
Apparently, he was prepared to put that aside.
“We had some good times. Didn’t we?” His voice dropped to a husky murmur. Emma gathered she was meant to find it seductive.
Once, she even had.
“They’re paste,” she said.
Georges blinked. “What?”
“The diamonds,” Emma said patiently. “They’re paste. If you want to be kept, find someone else to keep you.”
Marston mustered a halfhearted guffaw. “You will have your little joke.”
Who was joking?
He followed along after her as she began to make her way through the crowded room, train looped over one wrist, nodding to acquaintances as she went.
He dodged around a dowager who had planted herself firmly in the middle of the room. “May I call on you?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Emma said honestly.
Marston’s hands descended on her shoulders, holding her still. His fingers slid beneath the silver trim of her dress, seeking out the vulnerable hollows between muscle and bone. “You’re still angry about Mimi, aren’t you?”
“Was that her name?” She had never bothered to find out.
She had been more grateful than angry. Finding her lover actively engaged beneath the skirts of a maid had jarred her awake, out of the strange, waking nightmare in which she had been trapped since Paul’s death. It had been the jolt she needed to get away from Marston and out of Paris. She had gone back, as she always did, to Malmaison, taking long walks through the sprawling parklands, as she tried to make sense of what her life had become and what she wanted to be. She had been fifteen when she eloped with Paul, too young to understand that marriage was not, in itself, a guarantee of future happiness. Just when they had finally come to terms, just when they had begun to understand each other, Paul had died. Emma had been left a widow at twenty, angry and confused, seeking easy consolation.
Marston had been easy, but he hadn’t been the consolation she needed. It hadn’t taken long for Emma to realize that. Mimi, or whatever her name was, had provided a much-needed excuse to break off an affair that Emma already knew to be a mistake.
“She was nothing to me,” Marston insisted, misunderstanding Emma’s comment. “Not like you.”
“How very lowering for her,” remarked Emma, and saw Marston’s lack of comprehension. He wouldn’t have thought of Mimi having feelings. She was just an object of convenience.
As he had been for Emma.
Despite herself, Emma felt a stirring of guilt. She had known what he was when she slept with him; she had gone to him because of it, seeking the distraction of the physical, without messy emotional ties. She had used him as much as he had used her, if not more. She owed him the courtesy of kindness, if nothing else.
Removing his hand from her shoulder, Emma pressed it briefly between both of hers. “I wish you all the best, Georges. Truly, I do. I hope you have all the success for which you could wish in Boulogne. Glories and triumphs and all that sort of thing.”
“The only reward I want is right here in Paris.” His eyes smoldered. “You.”
“I’m sorry, Georges.” Releasing his hand, Emma stepped back. “I’d get bored sitting on your mantelpiece.”
There it was again, that flicker of confusion. There had been a lot of that in the brief time they had been together. She had always known he thought her a little odd. She’d never done well with being seen and not heard.
“Mantelpiece?”
Emma shook her head. It wasn’t worth explaining. “Good-bye, Georges.”
This wasn’t what he expected. He took a step forward, crowding her back into the embrace of a garishly painted papier-mâché model of a mummy case. The mummy’s crossed arms bit into Emma’s back
