“Everything we’ve done together?” Emma hugged her knees. “You mean when you were pretending to be a poet in need of employment? When you were lying to me about your motives? When you were using me to get into Malmaison?”
“It’s not like that,” Augustus said. He dashed his hair out of his eyes. “I mean, it was like that. In the beginning. But not since I’ve got to know you. Not since you’ve come to mean so much to me.”
Emma lifted her chin, contempt dripping from her voice, as much for herself as for him. “You don’t need to lie to me. I’ll keep your secret for you.”
Augustus blinked as though she had slapped him. “This isn’t about that. I wouldn’t—”
He caught himself, by which Emma inferred that, indeed, he would, and probably had. The thought made her feel vaguely queasy. How many other women had he romanced for the sake of the information they might bring him? How many lonely widows had he kissed into adoring silence?
“Everything I said about you is true. Our time together, in your book room—working together—I’ve never felt— Oh, Christ. I’m making a muck of this.”
Augustus leaned forward, his eyes earnest on her face.
A lie, Emma reminded herself, just like everything else. Men could lie with their eyes as well as their lips, and Augustus was an expert at both.
“You feel like home to me,” he said. “I’ve never been happier than I’ve been with you. You have a way of making everything—well, better. Brighter.”
“But not bright enough to see through you,” Emma said brittlely.
Fulton’s plans lay discarded on the coverlet, reminding her forcibly of her almost-lover’s real objectives. Not love, but politics and policy and the great games of nations.
“Emma,” he said, and the sound of her name on his lips made something curl up and whimper inside her. “No matter what else, I think you’re wonderful.”
With that and ten sous, she could buy a ride down the Seine.
“Georges thinks I’m wonderful, too,” said Emma woodenly. “When he wants something from me.”
Augustus drew back. “Don’t compare me to Marston.”
“Why not?” asked Emma harshly. “I fail to see any difference.”
Why was she even still here? Eve must have been equally intrigued by that blasted serpent. And Augustus— Augustus didn’t even have an apple to offer her. Only his regard, and now she knew what that was worth.
She scrambled off the bed, being careful to steer clear of Augustus in the process. The sight of the tousled sheets made her feel obscurely soiled. Used. Did he really think she would believe him, after that? Did he think she was that gullible, that easily led? That starved for the pretense of affection?
The answer to all of which, of course, was yes.
Folding her arms across her chest, Emma looked down at him. “These plans of yours might be quite important, indeed, for both of you to think I’m wonderful in one week.”
Augustus’s head lifted, suddenly alert. “Marston knows about the plans?”
“Oh, yes,” said Emma airily, shaking out her dress with more than necessary force. “He wants them, too. He told me it’s so he can fund our future together. I seem to be very much in demand these days. Such a pity it’s all about Mr. Fulton’s submarine.”
“His what?”
Somehow, that was the last straw. Emma suppressed a wild urge to laugh. “You didn’t even know. All this and you didn’t even know what it was for.” He looked at her and she said, “It’s a submarine. A boat that sails under the water.”
There. She hoped he was happy.
No, actually, she hoped he was very unhappy.
He didn’t look it, though. He was a million miles away, his eyes unfocused, his mind turning. “A boat that sails under the water,” he repeated.
She should have been immune to betrayal by now, but something about it made her stomach twist. She didn’t exist for him anymore, she could tell. His mind was entirely on the information, the information he had bought of her so carelessly and so cruelly.
He slapped the coverlet with the flat of his hand. “That’s what it is. That’s how they were planning to get rid of the ships guarding the Channel. They send a boat under the water, where no one can see it. It’s brilliant.”
Emma pasted on her most brittle social smile. “So delighted to have been of assistance. Good day.”
“Wait!” Augustus grabbed for her hand. Emma jerked out of reach. “Emma, please, try to understand. This is larger than you or me.”
Yes, she imagined the completed submarine probably was.
“There are lives at stake,” he said. “You know Bonaparte. You’ve seen where his ambition has led him. He won’t stop. He’s marched over half of Europe, laying it to waste. He’s looted Italy for its treasures. He’s made himself Emperor. England is the last defense against his ambitions.”
His words brought with them an unsettling echo of her conversation with Hortense. It caught Emma off guard, it made her doubt—but just for a moment.
She looked at him coldly. “What do I care for England?”
“If England falls,” said Augustus, catching her gaze and holding it, “what next? How would you feel to see your own New York overrun by French soldiers, your family tossed from their home, your property confiscated, and your government reordered? Bonaparte must be stopped.”
He spoke with such absolute confidence that, for a moment, Emma could almost see it. She could see Bonaparte on the patio of Belvedere, the Consular guard lolling about the cookhouse, Caroline greedily sorting through her mother’s jewelry, lifting grandmother’s brooch to watch it sparkle in the sunlight, then tossing it aside as a trumpery thing, hardly worth looting.
Absurd, of course. Bonaparte was a friend to America. At least, for the moment. Emma felt a vague and unjustifiable sense of unease. But that was just what Augustus wanted, wasn’t it? To shift the blame onto someone else.
“Because the cause is honorable,” said Emma slowly, “or because you believe it to be so, does that mean the means are justified?”
Augustus lifted his eyes to hers. “I thought so once. Sometimes, though, the cost is just too high.”
Emma’s eyes slid past him, to the tousled bed, where, only half an hour before, they had dropped, entangled.
“But you paid it anyway,” she said.
She could see his Adam’s apple move up and down as he swallowed. “I had no choice. What would you have me do?”
You could have chosen me, she wanted to say, idiotically, illogically. You didn’t have to lie to me. You didn’t have to use me.
At least, she told herself, averting her eyes from the bed, at least she had found out before they brought matters to fruition. Better to know before she made herself truly vulnerable by going to bed with him.
Who was she fooling? Emma would have laughed if she could, but she was afraid the bitterness of it might burn her, bubbling up like acid, eating through her chest. She was already vulnerable. She might not have slept with him, but she had opened herself to him in every other way. She had confided in him, shared with him, trusted him.
How naïve she had been! And how very foolish she was. Even now, wanting to believe him, wanting to exonerate him.
All lies.
“Give me a chance to redeem myself,” he said hoarsely. “Please, Emma.”
Emma looked down at him. He was still seated on the edge of the bed, his hands pressing hard into the mattress on either side of him, leaving impressions like wounds, Fulton’s plans crumpled and abandoned on the coverlet behind him. Such flimsy things to cause so much bother.
“I won’t betray you,” she said. “But don’t expect me to talk to you.”
Her legs felt like lead as she turned and moved towards the door, concentrating on every step, every movement. Her body felt unfamiliar to her; the walls and floor were out of proportion; everything was awkward and strange.
