Stormfire (80 page)

"But I still don't understand why he should bother with me. I'm just one more penniless expatriate."

Raoul
d'Amauri squeezed her hand. "You recall the best of the old days,
chérie.
Napoleon wants to diminish the difference between the
ancien
and
nouveau
regimes. Peace abroad is his fondest hope, but peace at home is vital." He tapped her nose. "You, my delicious gamine, represent stability—of all things."

The barronne touched her son's shoulder.
"Raoul,
I believe the First Consul is seated."

The crowd parted as they were announced. The Amauris were referred to as Colonel and Madame, but Catherine's titles were droned out and she felt like an insect on a pin. The First Counsul stood at the end of the opening path across the gleaming floor. A slight man with sharp features, his short-cropped, ruddy-brown hair was Caesarean. Even at a distance, his force was compelling, but she was drawn more strongly by curiosity to see the man whose ambition had cost the lives of so many, the life of her child among them.

Sheathed in white
peau de soie,
the severity of its cut softened by a low ermine bodice and a starry nebula of diamonds scattered through her midnight hair, Catherine, with the Amauris just behind her, approached the low dais.

She gave Napoleon stare for stare, all the while pitying the woman at his side. Though Josephine was still beautiful, years of private dissolution had subtly tarnished her glow. Without looking, Catherine knew she would have tiny lines about the eyes and her public smile would be a trifle forced. Napoleon must have scrutinized many women under his wife's nose with just this same lack of subtlety. Her curtsy held a hint of abruptness Napoleon did not miss. He put out his hand and protocol bade her take it as she rose.

"It would appear the fabled Helen is returned home,
Comtesse.
Welcome to France."

"Thank you, General, but I do not flatter myself that Italy and Egypt were conquered on my account."

His gray eyes flickered momentarily, then hooded like an eagle's. "I think perhaps Troy was lowered to dust for less. Will you do me the honor of opening the ball with me,
Comtesse?"

Her lashes flicked up in the surprise he had intended. Refusal was impossible. "You honor me too much, sir." Her smile did not reach her eyes.

Turning his cloak collar high against the cold river damp from the Seine, Sean looked up from the
quai
of the
île de la Fraternité
at the brightly lit Hotel Suilly he had just left. Despite the night's winter chill, the windows of
Eugène de
Valmy's rooms on the second story were open and male laughter and the clink of glasses could be heard. On their way to dinner at Valmy's,
Raoul
had laughingly warned him the officers present would be some of the best and wildest of the highly competitive, cliquish artillery and hussar cadres. Besides Doctor Fourquet from the
République
and Captain
Eugène de
Valmy and Captain
Emile
Javet from Raoul's artillery cadre, Sean had met Brigadier General Emmanuel
de
Grouchy and Mtgor General Joachim Murat. All were heroes of the Italian and Egyptian campaigns; Murat and Grouchy were military legends. Murat was married to Napoleon's sister, Caroline.

Only two women were present: one, a succulent blonde named Charlotte, who wore nothing but pantalettes and camisole and a cerise velvet ribbon around her neck; the other,
Irenée,
a stunning Ethiopian Javet had brought back from the Egyptian campaign. Disdaining rich food, she stood with a hand resting on Javet's shoulder as he dined, as if he were a pet. She was strangely suited to the room, its precise, formal patterns of walls and drapery accentuating the barbarity of her hip cloth and beads.

Amauri, seeing the direction of Culhane's attention, gave a nod to Javet. After dinner, as the men lounged about with Charlotte draped across Murat's lap, Javet snapped his fingers and pointed to Sean. With the smoothness of oil,
Irenée
began to dance with a sinuous, raw eroticism. The hip cloth hid little of the smooth muscled body quickening its rhythm into a shivering, insistent demand. As she moved closer to him, Sean heard soft clattering of ivory and gold necklaces against dark-nippled breasts, smelled musky, peppery perfume. With a swift movement, she flicked off the hip cloth, as
Raoul
whispered, "Take her! You're the guest of honor!"

Green eyes looked into the black's tawny ones. "You are as beautiful as dusk on the Nile, mademoiselle, and as unforgettable. Another time, perhaps." Noting Amauri and his friends were incredulous, and Javet and Murat contemptuous, the Irishman shortly took his leave.

For a while, Sean wandered along the Seine watching mist curl around the bridges. Only a few lights streaked the black, lacquered surface of the winding river. Out of old habit from his
École
days, he ended up at Madeleine Rochet's door on the lie's shore .side and stood watching the glow from the windows above the street, wondering if they were still her lights. Finally, he let the knocker fall. The Indo-Chinese girl who answered the door seemed part of the mist, all subtle modeling and liquid silence as she bowed in jonquil silk, black hair dropping straight like a waterfall. Black almond eyes looked up expressionlessly at him. "Honored Sir?"

"My name is Sean Culhane. I wish to see Madame Rochet."

The satin head inclined. "My mistress will be delighted to see you, monsieur. Please enter." She closed the door behind him. "Please follow me."

The girl led him upstairs. He watched the
soft
movements of small buttocks under silk. Slightly smaller than Kit and about the same height, she had the same fluid grace and, under the mandarin collar and soft, fine hair, he knew she would have a delicate nape.

"Madame, Monsieur est
arrivé.
"

Madeleine Rochet rose from the divan and threw down her book. "Sean! I hoped you'd come!"

She came into his arms, warm and familiar, and Sean kissed her. "You
knew
I'd come."

"How could any woman be sure of you? I heard you were in Paris, of course. The castaway story is still circulating. Everyone's dying to meet you."

"You mean, have a look at me."

Her black bangs cut severely across her ivory face, Madeleine's carmine lips curved across white teeth. "Why not? Romance in Paris is not so common as one might think."

"Anyone who thinks freezing in an open boat in the North Atlantic is romantic should try it."

She touched his face. "I'm sorry,
ehéri.
It was terrible for you; I can see that." She kissed him quickly again, and pulled him to the couch as the Indo-Chinese took his cloak. "Come. Sit. Put up your feet and let me take your boots.
Mei
Lih, bring cognac and absinthe."

"When did you take up absinthe?"

Kohled eyes coolly met his. "On my thirtieth birthday. On my fortieth, I shall try opium. To grow old is boring unless one is either very selfish or very unselfish. I'm selfish." Madeleine used her long, curving lashes, like her fingers, forcefully, without coyness, as punctuations to her husky French. In her black silk Chinese wrapper, she was still beautiful, like good architecture, with a long throat and a hard, pure profile, thin-lipped and high-boned.

Mei
Lih brought the liquors and they drank together, Sean the dark amber, and Madeleine the cloudy topaz. In some ways, Madeleine had never changed from the
thirteèn-year-old
peasant girl who had been seduced by a young infantryman in the Royal Army. Madeleine had been the mistress of many aristocrats since, but no one was more fiercely Republican than she.

After the first cognac, Sean made no protest when
Mei
Lih pulled off his boots, only settled his long body more comfortably into the cushions and felt the liquor simmer in his belly. "I wasn't sure you still lived here; old Saint Louis hasn't yet become the exclusive area you predicted.
Mei
Lih could easily open the door to an unwelcome visitor."

"Mei
Lih," Madeleine murmured.

The girl dexterously slid a small gun from one yellow sleeve and discreetly returned it.

Sean grinned. "I'm properly chastised. I should have known you wouldn't grow careless." His eyes met hers. "Or talkative, when a man doesn't want to talk."

She smiled. "I don't need to ask questions. I lived through the Terror." She touched the scar at the corner of his lower lip. "Will you let me make love to you tonight?"

"There are deeper scars, Leine," he answered quietly. "The English had me in prison for a time."

"Ça va.
I have some, too. They don't show so much as those of the poor devils who come back from these wars. My own son, Leandre, was killed at
Rivoli."

"I'm sorry, Leine. I didn't know . . ."

"I had a son? No. No one did. It seemed important to keep him a secret once. He was sixteen; Hercule's boy. He ran away from his Zurich school to join the army in Italy." She put her absinthe down, then placed her hands on either side of Sean's face. "I've not yet learned to need absinthe. I need to make love to you. Can you understand that?"