The Second Empress (21 page)

Marlbrook the Prince of Commanders

Is gone to war in Flanders, His fame is

Like Alexander’s …

“Dinner at seven o’clock,” he says, as if he’s never been in anything but a merry mood.

In the privacy of our adjoining chambers, he is similarly cheerful. “A chessboard,” he exclaims when he enters my room, though I notice that he doesn’t offer me a game. He gives me a slow, meaningful smile and says, “Undress.”

C
HAPTER
14

PAULINE BORGHESE

Aix-la-Chapelle May 1810

H
E
’
S
BORED
? H
IS BRIDE ISN’T ENTERTAINING ENOUGH
for him? I can’t believe it!” Paul puts down my brother’s letter, and I continue to feign shock. “But how could this be? She’s a Hapsburg princess. The blood of a thousand generations flows in her veins. Surely that’s enough for the emperor of France.”

“Shall I read you the rest now?” Paul asks dryly.

“Continue.” I lie back against my wide, silk cushions and wonder that more wealthy continentals don’t bring their own furnishings to these spas. What’s the point in coming to take the waters of Grannus if you’re going recline on stone benches and wooden chairs?

Paul glances at two blond women floating in the thermal baths, and when they both stare back, I feel a sudden irritation. I’m here to find a cure for crippling pain, and he can’t keep his eyes on the letter.

Then he begins:

I miss speaking with you, Paoletta. There is no other here with whom I can have an intelligent discussion about Arrian’s account of Alexander the Great’s campaigns, and their obvious implications to this empire
.

The countryside becomes more tedious every day, and the farther we roam from Paris, the more eager I am to return. There’s not a roadside inn anywhere in France this empress would refuse to eat in. If we could visit them all, she would consider it a successful journey
.

Write to me. I don’t care that you’re taking the waters of Grannus. It’s no excuse for silence
.

—
Napoleon

Paul returns the letter to me and picks up Goethe’s
The Sorrows of Young Werther
. But before he can begin, I see the muscles along his jaw tighten, and follow his gaze. Captain de Canouville is striding toward us in his swimming costume, and
my God
. He smiles widely, and every woman in Aix-la-Chapelle is watching him. But I’m the one he settles down next to.

“Steam, water, the baking heat—how is it that none of this affects Your Highness? I swear, there is no vision on earth so beautiful as you.” He kisses my lips, and I badly want to pull him on top of me. It’s such a shame they allow children into these baths.

Paul fans himself with his book. It
is
hotter than Egypt in here. “Would Your Highness like to take a break for lunch?” he asks. “You’ve had nothing but soup for three days.”

Because I’ve been shaking and vomiting. Last night I did not fall to sleep until four in the morning. “Oh, who can eat food in this place?” I say lightly. “Do you think I’m a German, heartily eating my way through the Low Countries?” He frowns, but I turn to de Canouville. “I’ve had a letter,” I explain. “My brother is bored. Apparently
the womb
does nothing but eat.”

“The entire world at his feet, and he chooses an Austrian. Where are they?” he asks.

“Breda,” Paul says.

“
Breda
?”

This is where Charles II lived in exile. It’s a godforsaken place.

“And he wanted us to join him,” I marvel. “Caroline, of course, found a way out of it. Pregnant,” I scoff.

Paul looks at me curiously, but it’s de Canouville who says, “She isn’t pregnant?”

“I should hope not. She already looks like a sow.”

“She
lied
to the emperor?” Paul asks.

“He isn’t God,” de Canouville sneers.

“That’s treason,” Paul warns darkly.

“And what? Her Highness is going to turn me in?”

Both men look to me, and I wish I had never brought the subject up. “Yes, my sister lied. Yes, it’s all treason.” I lean back against the pillows, and the cramping in my stomach is suddenly intense. “Why don’t we take a walk?”

Immediately de Canouville sits up.

But Paul hesitates. “Your Highness, we’ve been here for three weeks, and you haven’t made it farther than these baths. Do you think—”

“I’m fine,” I say shortly.

“You’re wasting away,” he persists. He thinks these spas aren’t good for my health. “How many more days can we sit here like this?”

“As many as it takes to recover,” I answer.

We don’t leave Aix-la-Chapelle for another two months.

“I
KNOW YOUR
brother is angry, but
this
?” De Canouville paces my suite, back and forth, until it makes me sick to look at him. “He can’t be serious.”

Napoleon has removed our brother Louis from the throne of Holland for disobedience, and if I don’t return to Fontainebleau at once, he has promised to see to it that I will lose my title as the Princess Borghese.

“He won’t do it,” de Canouville swears. “He’s back from his honeymoon and bored with life. It’s a bluff.”

“And how do you know?” I stand at my window and look out over the gold and turquoise baths. I know he misses me and needs me, and
now he’s proven it. “Was it a bluff when only seventeen of the thirty cardinals appeared for his wedding and he swore to humiliate them in front of Rome?”

De Canouville loses some of his color. It was a slight no ruler could bear. Thirteen empty seats at the most important wedding in Europe. So the next week Napoleon summoned them all to the Tuileries, where he kept them waiting for more than two hours. When he finally arrived, it was to tell them that he didn’t have time to speak and that their carriages could be found outside. But as the cardinals reached the open courtyard, their horses were gone. An innocent accident, of course. A foolish groomsman’s mistake. By the time the cardinals were able to leave, it was seven at night.

He’s grown tired of disobedience.

“This time my brother isn’t bluffing,” I say.

C
HAPTER
15

PAUL MOREAU

Aix-la-Chapelle

“
Just make a hole in the ceiling above my bath and have your servants pour the milk through when I am ready. It’s a slight inconvenience to you, I know, but think of the consequences to my health
.”

—PAULINE TO HER BROTHER-IN-LAW JEAN-LOUIS LECLERC

T
HE SERVANTS ARE IN A MAD FRENZY OF PACKING, GATHERING
silk dressing gowns by the handful and shoving them into any available trunk. Embroidered shawls, muslin gowns, gauze dresses—all must be ready by this afternoon.

“The shoes,” de Canouville announces, as he watches the commotion from the door of Pauline’s chamber. “I count at least four pairs of slippers by the chaise.”

Pauline comes from behind and wraps her arms around his chest. “They couldn’t be any lazier, could they?”

“They’ve been working since six this morning,” I say shortly.

“And what exactly are
you
doing?” de Canouville demands. He turns to face Pauline. “I will never understand why your chamberlain must be here every morning. Let alone why he’s allowed a room next
to your suite. We ought to be more judicious in who we allow into our circle, Pauline.”

All the servants stop packing. They look from me to de Canouville.

“Paul is a friend,” she warns. “And you will treat him as such.”

I meet Pauline’s gaze, and de Canouville catches her wink at me.
That’s right. I am more than a replaceable bedroom amusement
. “Paul, would you see to it that all of this is taken care of?” she asks.

“Certainly, Your Highness.”

I lift a trunk of books and step around de Canouville, who is blocking the door. His face is comically distraught, and I press my lips together to keep myself from laughing.

I carry the trunk outside, where the sun is beating down on the whitewashed courtyard and a dozen men are tying boxes onto coaches. If I
were
Pauline’s lover, I wouldn’t be so interested in who she’s associating with. I’d be much more curious about the twelve carriages she needs for a trip to Aix-la-Chapelle, and where the money will continue to come from for such things. Someday Camillo Borghese will find a woman who loves him, and he’ll look to petition the pope for a divorce. He won’t care that Pauline is the emperor’s sister, and if the pope still feels the same way as he does now about Napoleon, she will lose everything. The Borghese jewels, the Italian villas, her apartments in the Palazzo Borghese, and the title of
Principessa
will no longer be hers.