Chapter 24
Hold not a mirror to my heart;
The truth’s a very poisoned dart.
That same mote that you claim to spy,
Becomes a beam in thine own eye.
“Private?” Emma echoed.
Behind her, on the blanket, Hortense studiously pretended not to listen. She was not listening so hard, Emma could practically hear it.
Emma scowled at Augustus. “Surely, whatever it is, you can tell me here.”
“There are some things one prefers to discuss without an audience,” Augustus said circumspectly.
That was certainly informative.
“You plan to abandon poetry and set up as a mantua maker,” Emma extrapolated extravagantly. “No, no, wait, don’t tell me. You have a sudden desire to go prospecting for gold in the outer Antipodes, accompanied only by your faithful bearer, Calvin.”
“Calvin?” If she had hoped to annoy Augustus into an admission, the strategy failed. Her companion conducted a leisurely survey of the grounds, his gaze moving impartially over the revelers, some lounging on blankets, others, less daunted by the warmth of the sun, playing an impromptu game of tag.
“What would you prefer?” Emma grumbled. “Hobbes?”
“Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short?” Augustus raised a brow. “Why not? We have a fine exhibition of the state of nature here before us.”
One of Mme. Bonaparte’s younger ladies stumbled on the hem of her skirt, tumbling into the grasp of the gallant who had been chasing her. She squeaked as he squeezed her, and dealt him a resounding slap.
Oh. Emma grimaced. Maybe that hadn’t been tag.
“Hardly poor,” she said. There were enough jewels in evidence to fund a small revolution. “Or solitary.”
“You didn’t say anything about brutish.” Augustus regarded the assemblage with a jaded eye. “This lot won’t go in until the food runs out. We’ll have no privacy back here.”
As if in illustration, the guitar struck up again, discordantly. Oh, dear, Lieutenant Caradotte had gotten hold of it. He would insist on playing, despite being tone-deaf. Emma winced as he struck a chord that sounded like an offended feline on a bad day. There was a thud and a squawk as someone tried to wrestle the guitar away.
“Madame Delagardie!” Someone came jogging up. It was another of Bonaparte’s aides—no, not an aide anymore, but he had been three years ago during one of their endless summers at Malmaison. He was something important now, but Emma couldn’t remember what. To her, he would always be the aide whose pantaloons had split during a game of prisoner’s base. Sans Culottes, they had called him for weeks. “Come join us for blindman’s buff!”
Emma waved back, all too aware of Augustus’s hand on her other elbow. Privacy, he had said. Privacy for what? They had agreed there was nothing to talk about. It might be nothing more sinister than plans for the masque, an addendum to the script, a change of cast. There were a hundred and one innocent reasons he might want to speak to her.
“Later,” she called back to Sans Culottes. What
“See?” murmured Augustus. “You’re far too much in demand. I won’t have five minutes without someone dragging you away for a game or a gossip.”
“I’m not so much in demand as all that. We could speak here. There’s no place so private as among a crowd.”
A yard from them, Caradotte crashed onto the turf, triumphantly raising the guitar in both hands. “Nice try!” he yelled back.
“Doesn’t someone want to call him out?” a lady called out from her semi-prone position on a blanket.
“Lutes at ten paces!” shouted someone else.
Augustus didn’t need to say anything. His point had been made for him.
Emma sighed. “We could go to the theatre.”
The minute the words were out of her mouth, she knew she had made a mistake. They stared at each other for an awful, frozen moment. The last time they had been in the theatre together—well, the less of that, the better.
“The front of the theatre, I mean,” Emma babbled. “The large part with the stage in it.”
“Er, yes,” said Augustus, and Emma felt her cheeks going even redder. What was wrong with her? She had managed to conduct an entire affair with Georges with complete sangfroid, and an accidental kiss had her bumbling and babbling. “I did rather get that. Miss Gwen is rehearsing her pirates. Remember?”
“That’s right.” Emma seized on the distraction with relief. “What was it she called them? She said they were insufficiently fearsome.”
“I believe the exact phrase was
They grinned at one another, completely in accord.
Emma felt something catch at the back of her throat. She had missed him. She had missed this. Which was absurd, she knew. How could you miss someone when you hadn’t been apart?
“I never understood why they were in that wet paper parcel,” Emma said, her voice constricted. She cleared her throat. “It sounded like a very uncomfortable venue.”
“Perhaps they couldn’t afford a proper ship,” suggested Augustus. “They might be penurious pirates.”
“You’re alliterating again,” Emma pointed out. “You needn’t do that with me.”
They had been strolling rather aimlessly along the side of the house, but at that, Augustus paused. “No,” he said. “Not with you.”
There was a strange note in his voice. Emma let her own steps dawdle to a halt. She looked up at him quizzically. He was looking at her, none of the usual mockery in his face. There were twin furrows between his brows, and he suddenly seemed older than she had thought him to be.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
Whatever it was, he thought better of it. He shook his head, moving briskly along. “Where shall we go? The back of the house is occupied and the house itself is swamped with people.”
Oh, yes. Their mysterious talk. Despite her growing unease, Emma strove to keep her voice light. “I draw the line at the stables. And the gardeners are very protective of the greenhouses.”
Augustus didn’t look at her. “What about the rose garden?”
It wasn’t an unreasonable suggestion. Leaving aside the romantic connotations of roses, it was well away from both the revelers in the back and the pirates in the theatre. A long alley of trees led down one side, shading the area and separating the roses from the bustle of the drive. It was as private as they could hope to be, with only one small caveat.
“Is the Emperor working in the summerhouse?” Emma asked, as they turned their steps in that direction. “If he is, we might want to stay out of the way.”
“Summerhouse?”
She’d forgotten that Augustus didn’t know Malmaison. Sometimes, it felt as though he had always been there. “It’s at the end of the alley,” said Emma, “just past the roses. On fine days, the First Consul—I mean, the Emperor—brings his work out there. As long as the windows are closed, we should be all right, though.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Augustus, which might have meant anything from yes to no to maybe. Emma took it as yes.
Emma glanced at Augustus’s shuttered face, doubly screened by the long fall of curly hair. One thing was certain: She wasn’t getting anything out of him until he was good and ready to speak.
