Charles…”
“Of course,” said Jane gracefully.
“Malmaison, then,” said Emma. “I’ll bring sweets for Louis-Charles. Oh, and I nearly forgot! Stupid me!”
Opening her bag, she delved into her reticule, wondering, as she always did, how objects managed to hide in a bag no bigger than a man’s fist.
Hortense signaled to the nursemaid to wait just a moment. “You did bring it, then?”
Emma held out the crumpled piece of paper. “A little the worse for wear, I’m afraid.”
“Even so,” said Hortense, with heartfelt gratitude. “Thank you. What are a few creases with so much at stake?”
Chapter 10
If words you doubt and vows despise,
How win I favor in your eyes?
My actions shall unspeaking speak,
Proclaim my love from peak to peak.
“It was a recipe for cough syrup,” said Jane.
Augustus paused next to a statue that appeared to have misplaced its arms. They had met at the Musée Napoléon, the public art gallery housed in the former Louvre Palace. The vast marble halls provided an excellent place for an assignation. A series of antique statues, looted from Italy during Bonaparte’s last campaign, stood silent sentry to their conversation.
Jane’s chaperone, Miss Gwen, provided more practical protection. Ostensibly engaged in examining the art, she prowled in a continuous circle around them, poking at the statuary with her parasol, glowering at all comers, and generally providing distraction.
“Cough syrup,” said Augustus. “Cough syrup?”
His revelation that Emma Delagardie was smuggling documents to Hortense de Beauharnais Bonaparte hadn’t gone exactly as expected.
“Cough syrup,” confirmed Jane. “Made of wild cherry bark, lemon, and honey.”
Kitted out in bonnet, gloves, and pelisse, the Pink Carnation was the very image of a demure young lady scarcely out of the schoolroom, her hair swept back smoothly beneath her bonnet, her gloved hands devoid of rings or bracelets. The fichu at her throat hid the locket that she wore on a ribbon around her neck, but Augustus didn’t need to see it to know that it was there. No telltale signet rings for the Pink Carnation; her seal was inscribed in the back of her locket, a delicate tracery on a lady’s trinket.
Augustus admired her acumen, but omniscience was a bit much, even for the legendary Pink Carnation.
Cough syrup? How could she divine that simply from his description of a crumpled piece of paper?
“This is a new talent for you,” he teased, feeling like a lovelorn adolescent as he trotted along beside her. Next, he would be offering to help her carry her hymnal, or begging her to stand up with him at the next country assembly. Ridiculous enough in an adolescent, worse in a grown man. “Walking through locked doors, seeing through solid walls, reading closed correspondence. Am I to congratulate you on the acquisition of a crystal ball?”
All his sallies won him nothing more than a smile, and a perfunctory one at that. Augustus felt reprimanded, without being quite sure why.
“No such arts were required,” Jane said crisply. “I know because I saw it.”
Augustus frowned. “How?”
“Hortense and Emma and I meet weekly for coffee after Emma’s Friday salon.” When Augustus only stared at her, Jane added gently, “I was there. I saw Emma hand Hortense the papers. I saw the contents. It was a recipe for cough syrup, nothing more.”
“How do you know it was the same paper?”
“Emma had only the one in her reticule. There wasn’t room for more.” Jane was clearly prepared to leave it at that.
“Only one that you saw,” said Augustus. “There’s more than one way to transmit a message.”
The bodice was an old and time-honored means of transporting illicit correspondence.
Given the depth of Mme. Delagardie’s décolletage, it would have had to be a very short note. Her bodice hadn’t plunged to the magnificent depths of Napoleon’s sister Pauline, but it had been low enough and transparent enough to make the inclusion of a sizable epistle unlikely.
There were always garters.…
For some reason, it felt wrong to be contemplating Mme. Delagardie’s garters, at least in front of Jane. It shouldn’t have been. His interest in Mme. Delagardie’s garters, Augustus reminded himself, was purely professional. It wasn’t as though he were trying to imagine the contour of her thighs or the texture of her skin, the fine sheen of gold hair, or the slim curve of a calf. No. Not at all. It was entirely about papers, the conveying thereof.
Illicit papers.
Not illicit thoughts.
“There might have been another note,” Augustus said shortly. “It might have been a ruse.”
“Or simply cough syrup,” said Jane practically. “Louis-Charles has been plagued by a terrible cough all spring. Emma’s mother swears by a concoction of herbs and honey. Hortense asked Emma for the recipe. It was as simple as that.”
Simple, in Augustus’s experience, was a dangerous term. Look at Jane herself, the picture of innocent insipidity. The Ministry of Police had made that mistake; Augustus didn’t intend to.
“Things that seem simple often aren’t. The message might have been in code.”
“A new code based on housewifery?” Jane arched her brows. “The idea has merit. One might substitute troop movements for the annihilation of moths or an influx of bullion for boiling with honey.”
Augustus sensed a certain amount of sarcasm there.
“How is that any more absurd than a code based on frivolities?” He saw Jane stiffen and hastily moved to turn the mockery on himself. “Better anything than poetry.”
The brim of her bonnet hid her face as she strolled past a row of statues, forcing him to trot along behind. “It would be a rather clever idea,” she said. “No one ever pays any attention to domestic affairs. I just don’t believe it to be applicable in this instance.”
Augustus swallowed a hasty “Why not?” stopping himself just before the words were uttered.
Mme. Delagardie was her friend, that was why not.
How long had it been since he had called someone friend without reservation or hidden intentions? Espionage was a damnable business, not least for the effect it wrought on one’s human relations, sapping trust, betraying confidences, turning friendship into a mockery and love to a ruse.
He thought of Horace de Lilly, so cavalierly spilling confidences. He had had no qualms about disabusing Horace, but what about Jane? He hated to tarnish whatever illusions she had managed to retain. This was a dirty business, no matter how one looked at it.
On the other hand, illusions could kill.
Gently, Augustus said, “Your loyalty does you credit.”
“It’s not loyalty, it’s common sense.” Jane cast him a look from beneath her bonnet, her gray eyes meeting his without fear or reservation. “Do you really believe I would allow personal affection to blind me to a danger?”
Augustus looked at Jane, her cool gray eyes at odds with the youthful smoothness of her skin, the pale pink flush of her cheeks.
Yes, he wanted to say. Yes, and it might not be a bad thing. There were times when it might be well to allow
