Put that way, it sounded pretty damn improbable. Improbable? Try impossible.
From inside the theatre, thunder rumbled.
Chapter 32
All the world may not be young
Nor truth on every sailor’s tongue,
But this tongue, this truth, these I trust
Because my heart says I must.
“For I shall bring you crimson leaves.”
On the stage, Kort was doing a credible, if not an inspired job as Americanus. From her tower, all that could be seen of Cytherea was her long blond wig as Kort declaimed to her the list of wonders that awaited her in the new world.
“And rippling wheat in golden sheaves.”
It wasn’t Kort’s fault that he sounded like he was reading off a ship’s inventory—which, when one came down to it, was rather what he was. Not everyone could take those words and make of them what Augustus had, imbuing them with magic far beyond their basic form. He had taken them and turned them from an inventory into an incantation.
Just as he had now. Emma’s fingers tightened on her fan, so hard she could feel the delicate wood slats begin to crack beneath the strain. Crowns of daisies and beds of violets. Warm fires on cold days. Apprentices skidding on the frozen Thames. Like Americanus’s leaves and berries, they were humble and homey items, a far cry from the usual enticements of jewels and money, position and power.
Emma ached for that simple hearth as she never had for diamonds or status.
On the stage, Kort held up his hands to Cytherea, bearing in them a bowl laden with crimson fruit. “A cache of berries, red and sweet…”
Like pomegranate seeds. In the myth, the fruit lured Persephone to Hades. In their masque, Americanus dangled them in front of Cytherea to entice her to the new world, that new world that was Emma’s old world, so familiar and rich and well loved.
If she went with Augustus, it would be only to the other side of the Channel. There was no threat of strange diseases or Indian attack or any of the other fears that might have bedeviled her ancestors going from the Old World to the New.
No, the only risk was to her heart.
Mme. de Rémusat’s shrill voice broke into Emma’s thoughts. She twisted in her seat to look back at Emma. “How wonderfully rustic!” she gushed. “Is that what they all wear back where you’re from?”
It took Emma a moment to realize that she was referring to Kort, all tricked out in buckskins and ragged shirt. To Emma, the ensemble looked palpably like the costume it was. The closest Kort had ever come to the frontier was Albany.
“Oh, all the time,” said Emma. “I used to sew my own skirts from skins. It was the scraping them that was so tedious.”
Mme. de Rémusat’s mouth pursed. “There’s no need to make fun,” she said, and settled back in a huff.
Next to her, Mme. Junot cast Emma a quick grin. Part of the Bonapartes’ old Corsican connection, Mme. Junot felt that Mme. de Rémusat put on airs.
“Is silence too much to ask?” demanded the Emperor loudly.
The chorus on stage abruptly stopped singing.
“Not you!” barked the Emperor.
The chorus resumed, somewhat raggedly, having lost their note in the interim. Talma, veteran of the Comédie-Française, buried his head in his hands. In her tower, Jane continued to look ethereal and lovely, the only one unperturbed.
Emma could only be grateful that the Emperor’s interruption hadn’t occurred during Miss Gwen’s pirate chorus. There was no telling what might have happened.
Bristling, Mme. de Rémusat sent an “I told you so” look over her shoulder at Emma. All too aware of the Emperor sitting two rows ahead, Emma found herself in the annoying position of being unable to point out that she had started it.
Good heavens, they were all behaving like five-year-olds.
This, thought Emma, sinking down in her seat in the back of the imperial box, was what she had to look forward to if she stayed in Paris. The Emperor and his wife sat in the front, with cousin Robert in the place of honor at the Emperor’s right. It helped to be the envoy of a foreign power, even a not so very powerful power. Behind them, in a phalanx armored in feathers and jewels, sat Mme. Bonaparte’s ladies-in-waiting. The Emperor’s aides, less privileged, were left to crouch on stools along the sides, casting glances at the ladies and occasionally the stage. Guards—once consular guards, now imperial—ranged themselves at the entrance to the box, controlling access to the Emperor.
At the back sat Emma. The Emperor was cross with her, she knew, for refusing Mme. Bonaparte’s offer. As the American envoy’s niece, however, and the author of the masque, she couldn’t be entirely slighted. So here she sat, at the back of the box, simultaneously honored and chastised, her silk skirt neatly arrayed around her legs, her hands folded demurely in her lap, and her mind in turmoil.
Emma cast a longing look at the back of Hortense’s head. Imperial princess that she now was, Hortense was seated on Mme. Bonaparte’s left, too far away to whisper or gossip or drag outside for a hurried consultation.
But what would she say to her if she could say it? I think I’m in love with an English spy? Who also happens to be a truly awful poet? And he’s going to leave within the next few days and he wants me to go with him and I don’t know what to do.
Yes, that was going to go over well.
What would Hortense say? Emma realized that she didn’t know anymore. Her old friend, the one who had helped pack her belongings for her flurried flight with Paul, had cares and worries and divided loyalties she could only begin to understand. She would never doubt Hortense’s friendship or her love, but what would she say if Emma told her she was in love with a man sworn to bring down her stepfather’s empire?
From long ago, as clearly as though she were sitting next to her, Emma could hear her best friend’s voice.
But it’s not that simple, Emma argued with the phantom Hortense in her head. We’re older now. She was sure there were other considerations, if only she could remember what they were. Family? Hers was thousands of miles away, estranged long ago. Friends, then. Adele, careless and restless. Hortense, ever more a part of Bonaparte’s new imperial circle.
Carmagnac? Carmagnac practically ran itself, the fields drained, all of Paul’s reforms accomplished.
Emma could feel her excuses running through her fingers like straw. She frowned at the back of Mme. de Rémusat’s head. When she broke it down into its component parts, this life she had built for herself in France proved a surprisingly ephemeral thing. Cousin Robert was due to return to America; Mr. Fulton was going to England. Her structure of friends and acquaintances was collapsed around her as neatly and noiselessly as a Gypsy tent.
Which left her, then, with that one, crucial question:
On the stage, Americanus had retired for the night, and the pirates were beginning to creep around Cytherea’s tower. Emma found herself envying Cytherea, not for her beauty, but for the fact that her decisions were made for her. Carried off by pirates, rescued by the hero, she never had to wrestle with her heart or her conscience.
