If she said yes to Mme. Bonaparte, she would have, in the space of one word, a place and a purpose. Mme. Delagardie would become lady-in-waiting to the Empress. Even Kort couldn’t sneer at that.
Kort and who else? Emma tried not to think about poets.
“We couldn’t possibly go on without you.” Mme. Bonaparte squeezed Emma’s hand languidly in her own. “You’re all but a daughter to me.”
She had married her own daughter off for her own advantage, consigning Hortense to a miserable marriage with a man who despised her.
The reminder acted on Emma like the proverbial bucket of cold water. She didn’t doubt Mme. Bonaparte meant it. But she also didn’t doubt Bonaparte had advised it, or that, while Mme. Bonaparte might be motivated by affection, there was also a sturdy dollop of policy behind it.
If she said yes, it meant an end to the autonomy she had earned for herself. It meant curtsying and attending and jumping into a carriage at an hour’s notice whenever the Emperor decided on one of his impromptu migrations. It meant guarding her back and watching her tongue and never being able to know whether any profession of friendship, any amorous overture, was for her own sake or that of her proximity to power.
If she were a daughter, Mme. Bonaparte wouldn’t hesitate to use her as she had her own. She would find herself married off for Bonaparte’s advantage, locked in a loveless marriage, forced to play go-between in the endless games between nations that had somehow supplanted their old and carefree games of prisoner’s base.
This would be a very different sort of prison, but still a prison.
“I can’t,” Emma blurted out. “I’m so sorry, Madame Bonaparte.”
“Can’t?” Mme. Bonaparte appeared genuinely confused. She had forgotten to shade the lamps in her usual manner. The too-bright light picked out the cracks in her rouge.
How embarrassed Uncle Monroe and cousin Robert would be by her, letting diplomacy fly to the winds like that. Two diplomats in the family and she couldn’t even muster a graceful refusal to an offer meant to shower her with honor.
Mme. Bonaparte should count herself lucky not to have Emma in her household.
Emma hastily gathered the remnants of her wits. “Please don’t think I’m not entirely sensible of the great honor you do me, Madame Bonaparte, and you do know that under most circumstances there is nothing I would rather have than the privilege of being near you, but I find myself incapable of accepting. Forgive me. Please.”
Mme. Bonaparte’s face cleared. Her lips curved in that enigmatic smile that had driven countless men wild. “Ah,” she said. “I understand.”
She did?
Mme. Bonaparte leaned forward, her eyes bright. “It’s that handsome cousin of yours.”
“Kort?” Emma had lost the thread of the conversation somewhere.
“Kort.” Mme. Bonaparte tried out the name. It sounded very strange in a French Creole lilt. Her nose wrinkled, but she brushed that small matter aside. “Whatever you call him, he is a fine figure of a man. And I imagine your parents will be so pleased.”
“They would be if we—I mean, that is…”
Mme. Bonaparte squeezed her arm. “I should have known we would lose you sooner or later.”
“But I’m not—” Emma broke off, stymied in the face of Mme. Bonaparte’s firm conviction. What could she say? Better to have Mme. Bonaparte think she was turning her down for Kort than that she was rejecting her in her own right. Hating herself for it, she hedged. “Nothing has been decided.”
So much for honest Emma.
“Of course not,” said Mme. Bonaparte knowingly. “All the same, when the time comes…You must let me be the first to congratulate you.” She looked sentimentally at Emma. “After all your troubles, it will be nice to see you settled.”
There was a lump in Emma’s throat that hadn’t been there before. She knew that charm came easily to Mme. Bonaparte, but even so, she was moved, both by the sentiment and the memories it invoked, of those difficult days when Emma had fled her marriage and taken shelter at Malmaison.
“Thank you,” Emma said feelingly. She wondered if she was making a terrible mistake. So many people would give their eyeteeth for an offer such as this. In her own way, Mme. Bonaparte did love her, Emma knew she did.
She also knew that Mme. Bonaparte’s affection, sincere though it might be, wasn’t enough to protect her if Bonaparte decided her marriage would serve his ends.
“My dear,” said Mme. Bonaparte, touching a finger lightly to her cheek. Lightly, so as not to further disarrange Emma’s rouge. “I just want to see you happy.”
“It’s not just for that that I owe you thanks,” said Emma, guilt lending her extra fervor. What would Mme. Bonaparte say when the promised betrothal to Kort never materialized? “But for all your many kindnesses to me over the years. No matter what happens, I would never want you to think me ungrateful or insensible of how much I owe you. You and Hortense and Eugene”—dimly, she was aware that she was babbling, and that, in this strange new world, such sentiments might be accounted lèse-majeste, but this was more important, this was her heart scrubbed raw—“you have been more than family to me and I will never, ever forget that.”
“How sweet,” said someone behind her.
Emma turned, slowly, to see Caroline Murat, all satin and feathers. The cloying sweetness of her smile only emphasized the acid beneath it.
Caroline. It would be.
The other woman strolled forward. “What a terribly charming sentiment, Madame Delagardie.”
Emma took a deep breath, hating herself for being caught in a moment of vulnerability before Caroline. Caroline, of all people.
Emma could feel Mme. Bonaparte stiffen, but her voice was pleasant as she said, “Good evening, Caroline. How nice of you to join us.”
“Madame.” Caroline Murat didn’t bother to hide the disdain she felt for her sister-in-law. She turned her critical gaze on Emma, taking in every aspect of Emma’s tousled appearance. “Your lip rouge is smudged. And is that
Hortense had tried to befriend Caroline when she first arrived at Mme. Campan’s. Caroline had never forgiven her for it. Emma was an enemy by extension. Caroline took her enmities very seriously. It must, Emma decided, be the Corsican in her. Vendetta was a concept that Caroline not only understood but cherished.
“I’ve been in the theatre,” said Emma defensively, “trying to sort through props.”
“Props,” repeated Caroline, looking pointedly at Emma’s smudged lip rouge. “Is that what you call them in the Americas?”
Caroline raised a gloved hand, ostensibly to toy with her cameo necklace, but really to better display her impressive figure. She looked pointedly at Emma’s comparative lack of endowment.
Yes, yes, Emma knew. Nature was kinder to some than to others. Georges had been quite clear on that front, during the period of their entanglement. Lithe, Paul had called her, with his happy facility for turning any phrase to advantage.
And then there was Augustus. She had no idea of Augustus’s thoughts on the topic or if he thought about it at all. Or if he would have fled if she hadn’t fled first.
“Yes, props,” said Emma, more sharply than she ought. “For the masque the First Consul commissioned.”
“You mean the Emperor,” Caroline said snippily, and might have said more but for the clatter of spurs against the parquet floor of the drawing room that led into the gallery.
The sound arrested Caroline’s attention. She listened for a moment, and then smiled, the slow, smug smile of the cat who got the cream. “As it happens, I’ve brought a prop of my own.”
Caroline crooked a finger imperiously at the doorway.
A man strode forward, slightly the worse for travel. His boots still bore the dust of the road, and his buttons lacked their usual sheen. But his teeth were as white as ever. He had them all bared in a smile as he crossed the room towards them.
