The Garden Intrigue (31 page)

For whatever that troth was worth.

Emma felt, suddenly, entirely irritated with it all. With the birdsong, with the moon, with the false promise of the flowers, which bloomed for a season and then withered away. And with poets, like Augustus, who rolled it all up in verse and dangled it like a lure in front of unsuspecting maidens. Not that she had been a maiden for a very long time. But the principle remained the same.

“—to your cousin and that Fulton,” Georges was saying pettishly, “but neither of them would listen. But you can do it.”

Emma shifted against the cold stone. “Do what? Speak to them on your behalf?”

There was something dark and unpleasant in Georges’ countenance. “No. We’re past that. There isn’t enough time.” He laughed a nasty laugh.
“It’s their loss. If they’d cut me in, they might have had a share. But you can do it. You know where he keeps them.”

“Keeps what?”

“The plans,” said Marston insistently. “The plans. I have a buyer lined up. He’ll pay dearly for them.”

Emma blinked up at him. “You want me to steal Mr. Fulton’s plans?”

“Not steal,” Marston hedged. “Borrow. Do you realize how much they’re willing to pay? I’ll be set for life. I mean, we’ll be set for life. It’s for us, my darling. For our future.”

Emma gaped at him. “You are joking.”

Marston dropped to his knees in front of her. “Would I joke about this much money? I mean, about our future? They want those plans. Badly.” His hands were crushing hers; she could feel her bones protesting the pressure. “Which means I want those plans. Badly.”

“Georges—” Emma tried to extricate her hands.

“They trust you. They’ll tell you where it is.” He levered himself up, looming over her. Emma could feel the sharp edge of the plinth biting into the backs of her legs as she strained backwards. “I know he has them. I saw them with him in the carriage. He’ll tell you.”

His hands were on her shoulders, crushing, insistent.

“One small thing, Emma,” he urged. “Just this one small thing.”

“Oh, dear,” someone drawled loudly, loudly enough that Marston cursed and let go. “Do I wander unwelcome into Eros’s amorous domain?”

Y
es, you bloody well do,” snarled Georges.

Augustus lounged in the doorway, picking at the lace on his cuffs as though the entire matter were one of extreme indifference to him. Emma felt her chest contract with a dangerous combination of relief and confusion and irritation.

“No,” she said firmly, and stepped around Georges. “Colonel Marston was just going. Weren’t you, Georges?”

Augustus’s eyes narrowed at her use of Georges’ first name, but he didn’t let it spoil his act. Gazing vaguely into the air, he declaimed, “Far be it from a humble votary of the muses to disturb the worship of Venus, but that the pressing concerns of Thespis demand Madame Delagardie’s prompt and immediate assistance.”

Georges cracked his knuckles. “I’ll tell you what you can do with your thespian.…”

Emma felt an absurd bubble of laughter rising in her throat. Naturally, Georges would think it had to with a prostitute. “Not a thespian, Georges. Thespis. The muse of the theatre.”

Augustus looked pained. “Dear lady, much as it pains me to contradict one so fair, I must not, I cannot, be silent when the honor of the magnificent muses rests upon the witness of my humble tongue. Thespis, although a prime mover in the origin of our art, was a mere mortal, an actor. The muses with whom the playwright pleads are Thalia, the queen of comedy, and Melpomene, the dark lord of tragedy, spring and winter, the Persephone and Hades of our theatrical scheme.”

He paused, either because he had said his piece, or because he had run out of breath.

Emma jumped in before Georges decided to end the agony by throttling him. “Mr. Whittlesby requires my help with the masque,” she translated.

“With the burning urgency of a thousand suns,” Augustus assured her solemnly. His eyes met hers. He quirked an eyebrow in unspoken question. Beneath the vapid mask, she could see the concern in his eyes.

Emma shook her head slightly, although what he was asking and what she was answering, she wasn’t quite sure. Part of her wanted to take him by his artfully disarranged collar and shake him. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have to come barging in, being all heroic and concerned, just when she most wanted to resent him?

Georges was brooding over his own wrongs. “If that’s the case, why didn’t he just say so?” He turned imperiously to Emma, dismissing Augustus with a shrug of the shoulder. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

Emma touched her fingers to Georges’ sleeve, tilting her head coquettishly up towards him, ignoring Augustus for all she was worth. He wasn’t the only one who could play a role.

“I’m afraid it can’t,” she said with false regret. “One would hate to have the Emperor disappointed in our entertainment, don’t you agree?”

No one could argue with the Emperor. It was the trump card to trump all trump cards.

Georges looked at the hand resting on his sleeve, eyes narrowed. Emma wished she were wearing gloves; she felt strangely vulnerable without them, her fingers bare and very pale in the cold, making her rings loose on her fingers.

His other hand closed over hers, tightly. Not so tight as to be punitive, but tight enough to send a message. Emma could feel Augustus shift on the balls of his feet.

“Another time, then.” Georges raised his hand to her lips, deliberately reversing her hand so that his lips touched her palm. “Think about what I told you.”

Turning on his heel, he strode towards the door, only to go sprawling in a most undignified fashion as his shin connected with Augustus’s calf. He let out a bellow of shock and rage as he stumbled, arms flailing, catching himself just before he crashed into Mme. Bonaparte’s French windows.

“Oh, dear,” said Augustus, the malicious glint in his eye belying his vague tone. “Was I in your way?”

Georges didn’t bother to answer. Favoring Augustus with a look of extreme dislike, he wrenched open the door to the hall. He looked back over his shoulder at Emma.

“Remember,” he said, and was gone.

He didn’t slam the door. It might have been less disconcerting if he had.

Bother, bother, bother.

“You shouldn’t have made him angry,” she said shortly, watching Georges’ distorted form in the glass as he made an abrupt turn towards the billiards room, ostentatiously favoring his left leg.

Behind him, in reflection, she could see Augustus, his white shirt misty pale against dark panels.

Instead of responding, he asked, “Are you all right?”

That was all.
Are you all right?
But something about the way he said it, his voice low and serious, his eyes intent on hers in the glass, tore right through to the depths of her composure. There was no doubting the genuineness of his concern. Conversely, that almost made it worse. It would be
easier to brush off if there were no caring there, if she could dismiss him as just another acquaintance, another chance meeting, another accidental kiss.

To know that someone did care, really cared, but just didn’t care enough…That was worst of all.

Emma took a deep breath, tucking up the ragged ends of her pride. “Perfectly all right,” she said tartly, turning away from the glass.

It was almost a shock to see him in the flesh rather than in reflection, startlingly, corporeally real. Too real. She knew the texture of his cheek, the shape of his scalp, the scent of his skin, so close and yet so far.

“It was very kind of you to intervene,” she said primly. “But there was no need.”

“That’s not the way it looked to me.”

“Georges wouldn’t hurt me. He just wants what he wants.” She added pettishly, “There was no need to come charging in like that. Now he’ll only seek me out and we’ll have to have the whole tiresome conversation all over again.”

Augustus folded his arms over his chest, looking as forbidding as a man in a ruffled shirt could look. “And what if you were in the way of what he wanted?”

“He would be too loath to get blood on his uniform to do anything violent,” Emma said lightly. “Really, Augustus, there’s no need to worry. I can take care of myself.”

“You’re a third of his size.”

Emma self-consciously straightened her spine. “There’s no need to harp on my height.”

Just because Jane was tall…Emma banished the unworthy thought. This wasn’t a competition.

If it was, she wouldn’t win.

Augustus scowled. “It’s not about height; it’s bulk. He could squash you with one hand.”

“Give me some credit,” she said. “It would take two hands at least. Though I be small, I be fierce. How
does
that line go?”

“
Though she be but little, she is fierce
.” He looked over his shoulder, frowning, more serious than she had ever seen him. “This isn’t a joke, Emma.”

Emma’s eyes stung. With fatigue, that was all. “No,” she said quietly. “It’s not. Nor is it any of your concern.”

He stood entirely still, the stillness of a dark pond on a dark night, uncanny in its silence, strange things moving beneath the surface. “
You
are my concern,” he said in a low voice.

Fine words, and she was sure he meant them, too.

As a friend.

“Don’t worry,” said Emma flippantly. “If Georges murders me and drops my body in the river, I’m sure you can find another collaborator.”

He stared at her as though trying to divine whether she meant it. She could see his fingers curl into his palms. It was a good thing his nails were short, or they would leave marks. “That’s not what I meant.”

If he wasn’t going to explain, she wasn’t going to ask. She held his gaze until he broke. He turned abruptly away, swinging towards the glass doors through which Georges had exited.

“How did you ever come to take up with that cretin?” he demanded.

Half a dozen excuses bubbled to Emma’s tongue, the same ones she had trotted out before in half a dozen imaginary conversations. It had been a difficult time.…She hadn’t been happy.…

What was she doing? Emma pulled herself to an abrupt halt. What right had he to ask? Or to judge. It was none of his concern. She was under no obligation to explain herself to him or anyone else.

Emma folded her arms across her chest and glowered. “Have you never taken to bed someone you regretted later?”

Augustus gawped at her.

She could practically see the wheels in his head turning. His stance relaxed. He said, with a quirk of the lips, “Fair point.”

It would have felt more like a victory if she hadn’t wondered exactly who he might be thinking of, if Emma would know her, and, if so, what the circumstances had been.

If Georges was none of his business, that was none of hers.

“Please,” he said softly. “Let’s not argue.”

Emma regarded him warily.

“Truce?” he urged.

Emma held out a hand. “Truce.”

He wasn’t wearing gloves either. His hand engulfed hers. She could feel the calluses on his thumb worn by a pen and other calluses on his palm, made by something else entirely.

She made to draw her hand back, but instead of releasing it, he looked down at her, his expression thoughtful. “May I ask you something else?”

Despite herself, Emma’s pulse picked up. The play, the theatre, the kiss.
Nothing at all
, she could imagine herself saying,
it was nothing at all. Unless you…

“Provided it’s nothing to do with multiplication tables,” she said flippantly.

Augustus’s hand tightened and then let go. “What is it that Marston wants from you?”

“What?” It was so far from what she had been expecting that it took her a moment to comprehend the words. “Georges?”

She had the small satisfaction of seeing Augustus scowl at the name. “Yes,” he said. “That.”

“
That
,” said Emma, tucking her hands under her arms, “was a fascinating exercise in venality and wishful thinking.”

Wishful thinking. Emma resisted a hysterical urge to laugh. She knew a thing or two about that. What a fool she was, what an addlepated fool. Kort was right; she shouldn’t be allowed out on her own.

“I heard a bit of it,” said Augustus cautiously. “Something about…plans?”

Emma shrugged, wishing she had had the forethought to wear a shawl. She was cold again, colder than she had been before. She assumed Mme. Bonaparte wouldn’t mind if she made it an early night and sought the solace
of her own quilt. “Georges wanted a share in a business venture between my cousin and Mr. Fulton. They turned him down.”

Augustus cocked an eyebrow. “So he wants you to steal their plans?”

Emma wafted a hand. “That’s Georges for you, always out for the easy sou. Shall we go in?”

Augustus made no move towards the door. He looked at her, his brows drawing together. “Be careful, Emma,” he said abruptly. “This— You don’t—”

He broke off, broodingly. He had never looked more like the poet he pretended to be.

“Goodness, Augustus,” said Emma, “there’s no need to look like that. No matter who Georges thinks he’s found to pay for it, I can’t imagine it’s worth that much. Even if it works, it will take ages and lots of investment before it can be profitable.”

Augustus’s dark eyes were intent on her face. “It? You know what it is?”

“Well, yes.” Why was he looking like that? Did he really think Georges would murder her out of frustrated greed? “It’s not exactly a secret.”

“Isn’t it?”

“They’ve kept it relatively quiet,” said Emma, “but that’s just because they were waiting until Mr. Fulton built a proper model. But everyone will know about it by tomorrow. They’re doing a demonstration on the river.”

“A demonstration?” Augustus looked dazed. “A public demonstration?”

“For the Emperor,” said Emma. “He wanted to see it—or Mr. Fulton wanted him to see it. I think he was hoping the Emperor might invest. Mr. Fulton, I mean.”