They cut around the far side of the house from the theatre, along an alley of trees leading towards Mme. Bonaparte’s famous roses and the nondescript, octagonal façade of the summerhouse. Some of the roses, the earlier sorts, had already unfurled their petals to the sun. The leaves were stiff and glossy. There were rare and exotic varieties, Emma knew, smuggled in from all around the world, whisked into France in direct contravention of the blockades. The authorities knew to turn a blind eye when it came to Mme. Bonaparte’s garden.
Emma knew she ought to know more about it, to be able to appreciate the distinctions of this rose versus that, but her knowledge of horticulture was limited to “Ooh, aren’t the pink ones lovely!” A connoisseur might appreciate the niceties of specific species; Emma had only a jumbled impression of color and the heavy, heady scent of roses, all the more intense in the hazy heat of the day.
The low buzz of the bees was broken only by the sound of voices from the summerhouse, too low to be distinguishable, just loud enough to jar the peace of the garden. Emma could hear the earnest tones of Mr. Fulton’s voice, followed by the Emperor’s sharp bark, then another voice, softer, interceding. It must be very hot in there, with that many people crammed inside around the small table.
A bee bumbled past, drunk with pollen.
Emma looked at Augustus, who wasn’t looking at her. “All right,” she said. “We’re here now.”
Augustus clasped his hands behind his back. He paced towards the summerhouse, head bent, body angled forward, pausing for what felt like a very long while. The silence stretched between them, broken only by the staccato rhythm of voices from the summerhouse and the low hum of bees among the roses.
Emma’s skirt brushed against a rosebush, catching on thorns. She yanked it free again, making the flowers shake. The bee buzzed angrily and zigzagged away.
She knew how it felt.
The day was humid, despite the hot sunshine. Drops of sweat dripped down beneath her bodice, catching between her breasts. There would be a storm soon, if she wasn’t much mistaken. She could feel it in the prickling of the skin below her gloves, in the frizzled hairs at the nape of her neck.
“Do you have something to say,” Emma burst out, “or would you rather just stand there?”
For a moment, she thought Augustus might choose the latter. Then he turned abruptly on one heel. “Are you marrying your cousin?”
Emma gawped at him, the minor irritants of sweat and skin forgotten. “What?”
“Livingston,” Augustus said flatly. “The younger one. Are you marrying him?”
“It would be very hard for me to marry the older one,” said Emma sharply, “given that he’s been quite happily married since 1770.”
Augustus gave her a look. “That’s not an answer.”
“I’m not sure you deserve one.” Emma clawed at the itch on her arm, thwarted by her own gloved fingers. She squinted at Augustus, the sun full in her eyes. “I thought you were dying of a mysterious disease—or at least on the verge of fleeing the country. Instead, you drag me all the way out here to ask that?”
Augustus was dark against the sun. “Horace de Lilly told me you refused the Empress’s offer of a position in her household. Is it true?”
Emma raised a hand to shield her eyes. “What is this? Let’s interrogate Emma?” She was hot and itchy and irritable and unaccountably aggravated at Augustus, for reasons she didn’t quite understand and didn’t want to. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
He looked like Cotton Mather ready to cast out a sinner. “Because you’re going back to America.”
“Don’t worry,” said Emma flippantly. “I’m not going anywhere until after the masque is done. It won’t affect you.”
“So you are—” Augustus stumbled a step back, his expression a study in confusion. “I didn’t think—I didn’t imagine you would really—”
“Ever go anywhere?”
That was her, everyone’s friend, Mme. Delagardie, always there, always available, excellent for confidences, fine to kiss when one was disappointed in love, but have a life or a love of her own? Not likely.
“You didn’t imagine I would really what? Marry? I may not be your vision of Cytherea, but that doesn’t mean that no one wants to scale my tower.”
Lies, all lies, but she was too angry to care.
Augustus’s mouth opened and closed. Twenty-two cantos and she had rendered him speechless. “I never said that. I never meant—”
“You never mean anything,” retorted Emma. “That’s just the problem. Words, words, words, all sound and fury signifying nothing. Heaven help you if you ever had to shout for help. You wouldn’t be able to put it in less than five cantos. You’d be drowned before you got out the cry.”
Augustus ignored her ramblings. “Does he love you?” he asked in a low voice.
“Who?” She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to draw this out, but she did. Revenge, perhaps. Revenge for dragging her out here, for making her worry, for peppering her with inconsequentialities, for pretending he cared who loved her and who didn’t. What did it matter? He wasn’t offering to take up the torch himself.
“Livingston.” Augustus took a step forward. “Does he love you?”
Oh, Lord, why was she doing this? Emma pressed her eyes together so she wouldn’t have to look at him. The sun made strange patterns against the lids.
“As a cousin. He loves me as a cousin. That’s all. I’m not marrying him. I’m not going to America.” She forced out the words, tasting dust on her tongue, at the back of her throat. “Everything is exactly as it was.”
Augustus drew in a deep breath, a long, rumbling breath that was a paragraph all of its own. “I’m glad,” he said softly.
Was she meant to be glad he was glad? Emma felt her stomach clench with hurt and loss and confusion, all mixed together like cheap punch, the sort that burned the back of your throat and gave you a headache the following morning.
“I’m so glad my life has been arranged for your convenience,” she said tartly.
Augustus looked at her, relief written plainly across his face. “You’ve become one of my closest friends. Hell, you are my closest friend. I would have hated to lose you.”
Emma couldn’t find it in her to respond. She knew he meant what he was saying, and meant it with all the fullness of his heart, but it scraped at the raw edges of her emotions. He pronounced it as though it were an honor to be bestowed upon her, the Order of the Most Excellent Friend, as though his feelings were all that mattered, his friendship, his loss. What about hers? What if she had wanted to marry Kort? Was his friendship alone meant to be compensation enough?
She should be glad, she knew, glad he cared, glad he counted her a friend, glad he didn’t want her to go away, but, instead, she was tired and frustrated and dangerously out of sorts.
Now that he had her life arranged to his satisfaction, Augustus was free to indulge his curiosity, “If you’re not leaving, why not join Madame Bonaparte?”
Emma didn’t want to talk about it. If she were being honest, she didn’t want to talk to him. She shrugged. “I didn’t feel like it.”
Augustus raised a brow. “You didn’t feel like it.”
“If Madame Bonaparte was satisfied with my reasons, what is it to you? I wasn’t aware that I owed you an account of my actions.”
Oblivious and undaunted, Augustus studied her face with the sort of curiosity usually reserved by naturalists for their specimens. “If you’re not marrying your cousin and you’re not joining Madame Bonaparte’s household— what are you doing?”
Emma’s lips pressed together. “I am taking a lover and moving to Italy, where I intend to join a traveling commedia dell’arte troupe. All right?”
Her voice veered dangerously high on the last word. She needed to leave. She needed to leave now, before she said something ridiculous or, even worse, started crying for no reason at all other than the sun and her aching head and the drops of sweat like slow torture, dripping, dripping, dripping between her skin and her chemise, making her itch and ache and want to stomp on something.
She turned on her heel, prepared to stomp back to the house, when Augustus said something that stopped her in her tracks.
“You’re running away,” he said.
