Northcott Abbey’s state drawing room was a splendid eighteenth-century confection with an ornately plastered ceiling picked out in shades of pale pink, cream, and gilt. The walls were of pale blue and decorated with swirling cascades of carved shells and billowing ribbons of cream and pink; a matching pale blue silk covered the numerous scattered fauteuils, bergers en gondola, and settees, their curved, delicately carved arms and legs adorned with more gilt.
So vast was the space that it seemed to swallow the four people assembled there: the Dowager Lady Seaton, her houseguests Lucien and Alexandrine Bonaparte, and Northcott’s steward, Samuel Atwater, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable at having been pressed into service to make an even six for dinner in such exalted company.
The resemblance between the Senator (as he liked to be called) and the Emperor Napoléon in his younger, slimmer days was as startling as Emma’s sketch had suggested. His wife, Alexandrine, was a Frenchwoman in her late thirties with a wide face, auburn hair, and a long nose. She was not unattractive, but neither was she a great beauty. This was a second marriage for both, a true love match that was said to have caused the final rift between the Bonaparte brothers when Lucien refused Napoléon’s demands that he divorce his aging, common-born wife and accept a dynastic marriage.
Standing together now side by side, both vaguely smiling but obviously ill at ease, they looked much like any ordinary, slightly dowdy couple more concerned with the happiness of their numerous offspring than with shifting strategic alliances and the movements of armies. But Sebastian had learned long ago that appearances could be deceptive.
“Lady Devlin,” exclaimed Lady Seaton, coming forward to greet her new guests with both hands outstretched. “And my lord.” Beside Hero’s tall, Junoesque proportions, Grace Seaton appeared tiny, almost childlike. But she performed the necessary social niceties with admirable aplomb, as if it were an everyday thing, introducing the brother of her nation’s greatest enemy to the daughter of the man who’d vowed to see the Bonaparte clan’s numerous upstart regimes destroyed.
“This is delightful,” said the Senator in heavily accented English, his smiling gaze fixed on Hero. “Your father is Lord Jarvis, yes? The Regent’s cousin?”
“He is, yes,” said Hero, settling on the tapestry-covered sofa indicated by their hostess. “Although his kinship to the King is not close.”
“Yet you remind me so much of our dear brother’s wife, Catharina of Württemberg,” said Alexandrine, with a friendly smile. “I believe she is your Regent’s niece, yes?”
A moment’s awkward silence followed her words, for it was a fact seldom mentioned in English drawing rooms that the granddaughter of an English princess had married the Beast’s brother Jér?me. The match was a dynastic alliance, of course, with the young couple then being made King and Queen of Westphalia. But by all reports Catharina was utterly besotted with her husband. Unfortunately, Jér?me was blatantly and repeatedly unfaithful to his long-suffering wife.
“She is, yes,” said Hero. “But my own kinship to the Queen of Westphalia is very distant indeed.”
“Tell me,” said the Senator, adjusting his tails as he took a chair near Hero, “what news do you hear of the war?”
“Only what we read in the papers, I’m afraid,” she said.
“It seems every day brings news of more fighting somewhere,” said Lady Seaton. “It must be an agony for those with sons, brothers, or fathers in either army.”
Sebastian spared a glance for the estate’s steward, who sat following the conversation yet contributing nothing to it himself. He had quietly arranged to be interviewed by Hero the following Monday. But beyond that, he seldom spoke. Atwater obviously believed it was not his place to put himself forward in any way. And Sebastian found himself wondering if Atwater’s beautiful, wealthy cousin felt the same way. Or not?
“It’s interesting Napoléon has pulled some of his men out of Spain,” Hero was saying.
“Yes, and Vitoria was the result.” Lucien Bonaparte flopped back in his chair. “Napoléon was a fool to entrust the defense of Spain to our brother Joseph. He knew Wellington was planning a major offensive. But what does Joseph do? Does he devote himself to drawing up a battle plan? No! He spends his days screwing women.”
Alexandrine Bonaparte’s eyes widened in alarm as her husband pressed on. “It’s a family affliction, I’m afraid. Although none are quite as bad as my sister Pauline. She once spent five days in bed with a lover. Imagine, five days! I’ve heard she even—”
Sebastian choked on his wine, while Lady Seaton cleared her throat and said rather loudly, “I understand you have a new baby, Lady Devlin.”
“Yes; Simon,” said Hero, valiantly trying to turn her own choking laugh into a cough. “He’s six months old.”