The Garden Intrigue

affection to supersede prudence, for emotion to trump logic. To entirely eschew human weakness was to become a thing apart. In short, Miss Gwen.

“No,” he said. “I don’t. At least,” he added hastily, “not in this instance. We are all of us prey to the human emotions.”

“That,” said Jane repressively, “sounds like the poet speaking.”

If it were the poet speaking, there would have been several more adverbs involved. “Not the poet,” said Augustus quietly. “The man.”

He needed only the littlest crook of the finger, the slightest softening of the lips. All he wanted was some indication, some sign that she had heard and understood, as a woman, not as an agent. It was a man who spoke to her, a man who had been too long alone, too long caught in this trap of his own devising, known to everyone, but known by no one, a stranger to his own mirror, a liar by his own pen. It would be nice to have just one person with whom one could be totally and entirely oneself, without subterfuge.

They could be ideally suited, if only she would just see it. She wouldn’t have to play the milksop for him any more than he would have to play the poet for her. They could speak in their own voices, share their worries, exchange strategies, turn to each other for comfort when a mission went awry.

Beneath that cool facade, his Pink Carnation had feelings like anyone else. She had to have.

Augustus glanced at Miss Gwen.

Well, like almost anyone else.

Jane turned away. Augustus found himself contemplating the nape of her neck. A very pleasing nape it was, pale and soft, feathered with silky strands of pale brown hair, but it was still a nape, first cousin to a back, and shorthand for dismissal.

“Men,” said Jane, “are fallible. We cannot afford to be.”

She had a point, as much as Augustus hated to admit it. They were agents first, individuals later. There was a time when Augustus had accepted that without question, without wanting to reverse that order. Now…now they had a job to do.

Fine. If she wanted to discuss business, they could discuss business. “In that case, there’s nothing for it but to face facts, even about those whom you call friend.”

“What facts do you have?” she asked.

Augustus glanced over his shoulder. Miss Gwen was still on sentry. Her presence was all that was required to keep the area clear.

He pretended interest in one of the paintings on the wall, although he couldn’t have said for sure whether it was secular or sacred, Italian or Dutch. “Diagrams,” he said. “Pictures of some sort of mechanism or device.”

“As in…” Jane let the words trail off. Neither of them were going to use the words in public, no matter how closely Miss Gwen stood guard.

“Yes. As in that device.” The one Horace de Lilly had come stampeding from Saint-Cloud to tell them about. “The diagram was on Delagardie’s desk. She disavowed it, but her handwriting was all over it. It was not,” he added, “a recipe for cough syrup.”

Jane appeared less perturbed than Augustus had expected. Her brow cleared. “Did the diagram involve a pair of canisters and a series of pipes?”

A vague enough description, but…“Yes,” said Augustus cautiously. “Something like that.”

“A hydraulic pump.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What you saw was a variant on a hydraulic pump. Emma’s husband was experimenting with the ideas implemented by the Montgolfier brothers. That was what you saw.”

Augustus might have felt better if he’d had the slightest idea what she was talking about. Montgolfier who? Someone to do with hydraulic pumps, apparently. This was as bad as the time Jane had started trying to explain to him about dephlogisticated air. Augustus’s inclinations had always been more literary than scientific. Human nature fascinated him; mechanical devices left him cold.

“Unless I’m much mistaken,” said Augustus, “Paul Delagardie died four years ago. You can’t mean to tell me that he’s engineering from beyond the grave. Also,” he added, warming to his theme, “why was Madame Delagardie’s writing all over it?”

He half expected Jane to make an excuse about Emma using the spare sheet as scrap paper. Instead, she said, “There’s no great mystery to that. Emma continued her husband’s work at Carmagnac.”

If Jane had known that, why in the hell hadn’t she told him that before?

Augustus puffed his chest out, fighting to retain some dignity. “Why didn’t she just say so, then?”

Jane tugged lightly at one of her earrings. “In her own way, Emma is a very private person.”

Ostrich feathers and diamonds so often betokened a shy and retiring nature. “Of course, she is,” said Augustus. And Pauline Bonaparte was secretly a celibate.

“Don’t let yourself be taken in by appearances,” said Jane seriously.

Augustus stared at her in disbelief. He had managed to stay alive through three changes of government, maintaining his alias in the face of all provocation, warding off the dangers posed by double agents and false friends. Twelve years he had been in Paris, straight through the worst of the Terror, and she was advising him?

He had the greatest possible respect for her, but…no.

Augustus opened his mouth—although to say what, he wasn’t quite sure—but, once again, the Pink Carnation beat him to the punch, nodding in the direction of the door to the gallery, to a small woman in green and gold being escorted by a man in various shades of brown. The sunlight through the long windows cast rainbows off her heavy gold earrings and the scalloped edges of her fashionable overdress.

“Ah,” said Jane calmly. “There’s Emma now.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“Hardly,” said Jane. “I invited them.” Without allowing time for that to sink in, she added, “You did say you wanted to speak about Emma.”

About, not to. Prepositions had been invented for a reason. When he had called for this meeting, he had envisioned it going rather differently.

But then, thought Augustus wryly, he had envisioned this all rather differently. A tête-à- téte, perhaps some wine, confidences given and exchanged, meaningful looks across the bosom of the Venus de Milo.

Jane was right. He had been playing the poet too long.

“The cousin has a controlling interest in a munitions factory,” Augustus said deliberately.

Finally, he had told her something she didn’t already know. For the first time that afternoon, he had Jane’s full attention. But not for him. Never for him.

“They claim he’s here on family business,” said Augustus, speaking rapidly, keeping his voice low. “Georges Marston seems to believe it’s something else. So do others I’ve spoken to. They think family matters are a smoke screen for business of a more businesslike kind.”

“Bonaparte’s device?”

“Perhaps. It would explain the timing of its testing.”

Someone had taken Livingston to a barber in the past few days; his hair was no longer clubbed back but cut short, in the modern fashion, combed forward over his brow. The coat was still brown, but it had been augmented with a crisp cravat, and the man’s boots looked like they might have finally seen more than a dirty rag for polish.

“See what you can do with the cousin,” Augustus said roughly.

He would have preferred they play it the other way around. He could speak man-to-man with Livingston, Jane could take coffee with Delagardie.

It wouldn’t work.

Jane couldn’t be trusted to be objective when it came to her Emma. As for Livingston, Jane would be able to get a good deal more out of him than Augustus ever could. The thought of Jane working her wiles on another man, quiet, ladylike wiles though they might be, made Augustus’s gut churn, but there was nothing else for it.

He had been a professional for too long to allow his private emotions to compromise a mission.

No matter how much he disliked it.