Josephine's Garden Read online

  ‘Change the horses as many times as needs be!’

  Rose worried the jewels at her neck, rubbing the pearls between her finger and thumb as the carriage bounced along. She felt frantic, unnerved. It was a journey of ten days at this pace. It terrified her that Joseph would reach her husband first. Her only hope was to pass his brothers in the night.

  They chose the Burgundy road because it was the most direct route to Lyon and she knew Bonaparte would travel quickly; that was his great advantage in everything he did. What would she say to him? The forest of Fontainebleau was oppressive to her spirits as they passed through mile after mile of dark shadows and falling leaves. It was more than a year since she had seen him last and so much had been revealed. Did he despise her now? Was there any of his love left for her?

  Hortense threw herself from one position to another, unable to find comfort. ‘Maman, I’m hungry.’

  Rose regretted having to put her daughter through this chase. What young woman wants to be confined like this? They had barely paused to eat or drink, let alone for matters of bodily comfort. Rose had made them use a chamber-pot rather than risk the time lost. It was no easy thing in a racing carriage. She was fortunate that her daughter was so mild and sweet in her disposition, so loving of her mother that she was willing to endure this torture. For Rose was too afraid to meet Bonaparte alone.

  Their day of travel turned into night. Rose drew the curtains rather than look out at the darkness. Hortense rested her head on her mother’s lap and Rose stroked her fine hair.

  Rose woke sometime around dawn. She drew the curtains back and squinted as the first rays beamed through the haze. She blinked. Here the countryside was soft, with rippling fields of wheat and gentle slopes lined with rows of vines. The carriage wheel hit a rut in the road and Rose swore. The jolt woke Hortense. She yawned and stretched. ‘Maman, look!’

  Rose turned to the window. She saw the handsome face of Joseph in a carriage passing them in the opposite direction. She felt her mouth drop open. The two locked eyes. He too was astonished to see her. Behind Joseph sat both Louis and Lucien. Bonaparte’s brothers.

  The moment seemed in slow motion. But then the two carriages swept past one another and they were gone. Why had Joseph turned back to Paris?

  Rose longed to thump on the roof and draw the driver’s attention, but she dared not slow him down. Had Joseph already met Bonaparte on the road? Perhaps he was following close behind. Was she to see him soon?

  But an hour passed and then two with no sign of Bonaparte. The wait was agony. They drew into Lyon and she burst from the carriage.

  ‘What news of Bonaparte?’ she demanded. ‘Find me news of him!’

  Rose stood shivering outside the coach-house, ignoring the puzzled looks of the post riders. If anybody recognised her from her miniatures sold at every tabac in the country they did not say.

  When the driver returned his face was grim. ‘He has taken another route from Lyon to Paris. We have missed him.’

  Rose crumpled to her knees.

  It was night when Rose returned to their house in Rue de la Victoire to find that Bonaparte had arrived home the day before her.

  ‘Let me see him,’ she cried, pushing aside his secretary, Bourrienne. She had been told the whole of Bonaparte’s hateful family had already called on him. Rose pictured their sharpened tongues, dipped in poison, flicking over wet lips.

  ‘He was enraged that you were not here to meet him,’ Bourrienne told her. ‘I’m afraid it did not cast you in a good light.’

  This was worse than she had imagined. ‘Does he speak of divorce?’ she breathed. ‘Does he believe their lies?’

  ‘Lies, Madame?’ Bourrienne raised a sardonic eyebrow.

  She ignored him. And then cried out in shock. Eugene had stepped into the room. ‘My son?’ She almost didn’t recognise him. ‘No one told me you were with Bonaparte!’ She clung to him, kissing him all over his face, on his bristling young moustache and hard new jaw.

  ‘Maman, I am not a child anymore!’

  She drew back. It was true. Her son now towered above her. His limbs were long and his back strong. He had left for Egypt as a boy, but returned with the height of a man.

  Hortense heard her brother’s voice and ran to tackle him. Rose laughed. She felt her children’s arms around her. It was the three of them together against the world. They laughed and hugged and held one another up.

  ‘Maman, the rumours,’ began Eugene. ‘I do not believe them.’

  She hushed him. ‘Do not concern yourselves. I will speak with Bonaparte. All will be well.’ She attempted a weak smile. Eugene looked doubtful.

  ‘You don’t know how much joy it brings me to see you,’ Rose said. She gripped her son’s hand, afraid to let it go.

  Hours later, Rose collapsed at the door of her husband’s chamber, exhausted. She was beginning to truly fear that she had lost him. Through the night she had begged and pleaded for him to open the door. She demanded he listen to her side of the story. She had burst into frustrated tears. She pounded on the wood until her knuckles bled. She accused him of finding excuses to be rid of her. He did not know how she had suffered without word from him. What had they said about her? She demanded to know the evidence. Throughout it all, Bonaparte did not make a sound.

  She had been ungrateful, she knew that now. She had behaved like a spoiled, silly girl. Maybe Bonaparte was right—her association with Thérésa and her sort had ruined her. They were selfish, thinking only of their own pleasure, caring nothing for duty to others.

  Rose fell back against the door and looked along the wood-panelled walls of the stairwell. She remembered Bonaparte playing with her children. How he would chase Hortense through the rooms, hiding behind doors, and how she would laugh and squeal when she found him. With Eugene he would read the tales of Charlemagne in the evenings by the fire, Eugene’s face alight with imaginings. And where was she? Dreaming of how she could escape to be with her lover. She had found this house so dark and oppressive after their return from Italy. She had stalked through its rooms, passing the windows like a caged cat. Now she knew she had wasted that precious time with Bonaparte. She should have learned to love him back.

  It was nearing dawn and Rose drew her feet up beneath her, shivering. She rested her ear against the door, head bowed, feeling her tears slide down the length of her nose. Her tears were silent ones, not meant for show. Behind the door, Rose thought she heard breathing. She touched the door with her fingertips. Was her husband leaning against the door just inches from her? ‘Bonaparte,’ she whispered. ‘Bonaparte, I love you.’ For the first time since her marriage, Rose understood herself to mean it.

  ‘Come, Maman, you cannot stay here like this.’

  Rose looked up at the strange new face of her boy. It was hard for her to see him growing more and more to look like Alexandre, but at least his eyes were gentle and not filled with disdain. She let him draw her up to her feet. Hortense was with him. Both had risen from their beds to come to her aid. She was the most fortunate mother in the world and the realisation made her cry once more. She did not deserve these children.

  ‘Don’t cry, Maman, we hate to see you cry,’ Hortense said, crying herself. Rose let them lead her towards her own chamber.

  ‘What a pitiful group you make,’ Bonaparte said softly.

  Rose turned, trembling. She felt the strength of her children’s arms holding her upright.

  Her husband was standing in the doorway, fully dressed and crumpled. His eyes were red. She held her breath.

  He shook his head sadly. ‘You three hold my heart. There is no one in the world I love more than this small family.’ Hortense ran to him and he wrapped an arm around her, but his eyes were on Rose. ‘What am I without you?’

  Rose snuggled down under the covers and pushed her bottom against her husband’s groin. Bonaparte encircled her with his arms, drawing her tight against him. Rose had never felt so warm. She wiggled her naked bottom once again, and Bonap
arte chuckled softly. He squeezed her.

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ she cried. ‘I am deliriously happy.’ She wormed around and threw herself on top of him. ‘Never leave me again.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare,’ he said, reaching down to cup her buttocks in his hands.

  Neither one of them had mentioned the other’s infidelities. A mutual forgetting. The morning had passed with gentle lovemaking, teasing and dozing, their bodies entwined. Behind the heavy curtains, Rose knew, the sun was rising towards noon. But she didn’t want to get out of bed. Here they had found something new, a love she never thought she would have with Bonaparte. The feelings surprised her.

  She raised her hips and slid him deep inside her. Bonaparte groaned and arched his back. She stayed like that, unmoving, until he kneaded her buttocks. And then she rocked.

  ‘My God, I have missed you,’ Bonaparte gasped, and shuddered. She felt the pulse of him inside her.

  She lay down on his chest, listening to his heart beat strong and fast. Bonaparte stroked her hair.

  ‘I cannot wait to show you Malmaison,’ she whispered. ‘It is the most beautiful house, and I have filled it with all the things you will love.’

  Bonaparte grunted. ‘This house that Barras has bought for you.’ She felt a stab of shock at the mention of Barras. ‘He lent me the deposit only.’

  But she had not forgotten the promise Barras had extracted. She knew at some future moment he would ask her to betray her husband. Rose kissed the soft skin of his neck to distract him. ‘Are you jealous?’ She tickled his ribs.

  He slapped her hand away and she drew back, stung.

  ‘Barras came to see me yesterday. He counselled that I should not risk the instability of divorce.’

  Rose could not breathe. She dared not move. Her entire body stiffened. He had admitted the word into their carefully woven sanctuary. Divorce.

  ‘He reminded me how useful you are to serving my political advantage. The people love you.’

  Rose hated the sudden coldness of his tone. And she realised that he now had the power to wound her.

  ‘And that you may still provide me with an heir.’

  Rose waited, motionless. ‘I concluded that Barras must think you can still be of some use to him, that he can get to me through you.’ Rose rolled away and into the cold stain of semen behind her. Had he read her mind? How could he know this? Did Bonaparte believe she would betray him to Barras?

  ‘I do not trust him, I never have. He thinks he owns me.’

  Rose panicked. He means to cut me loose. He does not trust me.

  Bonaparte pulled her close and whispered in her ear. ‘I think it is time for a new leader of France.’

  Rose clung to him.

  ‘Barras and the Directoire must go.’

  Rose felt her heart jolt back into life. She remembered to breathe, drawing in deeply through her nostrils. A coup d’etat. It would solve everything. If Bonaparte were to be the ruler of France, Barras would have no hold over her. She closed her eyes, listening to the pounding of her heart. ‘My darling, you are the wisest man in all the world,’ she murmured.

  They held each other then, breathing in perfect unison.

  Outside there was a commotion on the stairs. Bonaparte did not stir, did not leave her side. He did not respond to the knocking on his chamber door.

  She heard voices through the door. ‘He is hours late! We had arranged to meet the lawyers. They have drawn up the conditions of divorce.’

  ‘I will not abandon you,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘My Josephine.’

  The Bonaparte brothers broke through the door.

  And Josephine raised the sheet above her lips to hide her smile.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Winter 1800

  ‘Do you love it?’ Josephine asked. Her lip was caught beneath her teeth, her eyebrows drawn together.

  Bonaparte said nothing. He had followed her through the entrance hall barely noticing the obsidian statues of centaurs and cupids and the plinths holding ancient Grecian urns. She had showed him through the small oval dining room that she had decorated with mirrors and chandeliers to increase its grandeur, and through to his salon, heavy with gilt mahogany chairs with bright red upholstery. Still Bonaparte said nothing. A golden eagle, wings spread, presided from the curtained ceiling. It is a room fit for a conference of war, a general’s room, she thought. A salon fit for France’s new First Consul.

  Bonaparte had staged a quick and bloodless coup. Barras was exiled from Paris and Josephine knew he would despise them both now. He would call in the loan he gave her to buy Malmaison. Her ties to him were severed as completely as an axe takes the head from a chicken. If Bonaparte did not fall in love with this humble château just as she had done, then she would lose it.

  ‘I detest those,’ he said eventually, pointing to the war homages she had commissioned to remind him of his conquests. ‘Taunay has drawn me fatigued and lying like a defeated dog!’

  But Bonaparte lingered before the painting by Girodet—a poetic image of his fallen generals being welcomed into the gates of paradise. Josephine grew solemn regarding the painting. Girodet had depicted General Hoche among the dead soldiers. He had died three years before, fighting the Austrians on the Rhine frontier. How long ago her desperate love affair with Hoche now seemed. How different her life might have been had he chosen her over his wife.

  At length, Bonaparte grunted. ‘This can stay.’

  Josephine closed her eyes, thankful that Bonaparte seemed pleased with something at least.

  ‘You must see your library,’ she pleaded, and immediately hated the desperation in her tone. They passed beneath the faux tent wall and through to a wood-panelled room. She watched him sweep his gaze over the parquet floor, the tapestry rug, the bookshelves lining the walls—and all the rare volumes she had procured. His gaze danced over his magnificent desk with carvings of winged sphinxes on each leg and up to the domed, plastered ceilings painted with the gods Apollo and Minerva.

  He stepped forward and spun the globe that rested on a plinth. It squeaked faintly as it turned.

  ‘And the best feature of all—let me show you.’ Josephine drew back the glass door of his bookcase. Bonaparte joined her. She pushed the false wall of books and it swung inwards, revealing a winding stairwell.

  She saw his eyebrow twitch.

  Her eyes sparkled. ‘Go on, see where it leads.’

  She thought she saw a smirk at the corner of her husband’s mouth.

  Josephine followed him up the spiral staircase. The room they entered was draped in golden fabric. Josephine watched warily as Bonaparte surveyed his chamber. Would he like it? She had been so sure at first. What man would not want a secret passageway to his boudoir? But perhaps her choice of furnishings was tasteless, she fretted. Perhaps he did not want to be reminded of his Egyptian campaign. The bed, upholstered in a sunny yellow and shrouded with golden drapes like a desert tent, or so she imagined, now seemed an awful caricature.

  ‘When you tire of business as our First Consul, I will be waiting here for you,’ she said coyly, but her heart was hammering and her mouth was dry. Her flattery tasted brittle. She had lost her usual confidence and he would sense her weakness. She wanted this too much.

  Bonaparte stood silently in the middle of the room, his hand resting lightly on a matching yellow chair.

  ‘The garden has such promise,’ she said brightly, crossing to the window that bathed the room in pale winter sun. ‘We could stage plays and amusements—wouldn’t that be wonderful?’ She hoped he would love this garden. From this vantage she saw the remains of a folly, a Grecian temple on the edge of a pond. When Bonaparte came to stand behind her she worried what he was thinking. Was he thinking it was nothing compared to the gardens at Versailles? Would he want to move their household to some palace where she would have no influence at all?

  In the distance, Eugene was walking with Hortense along a path to the lake and her heart caught in her throat at the sight
of her children. ‘We could be a family here,’ she whispered.

  Bonaparte hovered his lips behind her ear and his breath raised goosebumps along her neck. She had dabbed scent on her pulse, lily of the valley, the scent of new beginnings. She waited for him to speak. On the grassy slopes below, a rabbit sprinted for a hedgerow.

  His lips touched the curve of her shoulder. ‘We will be happy here,’ he murmured against her skin, ‘when we start our own family.’

  Josephine closed her eyes, surrendering beneath his firm grip as he spun her around to the wall and kneeled before her, bunching up her muslin dress and plunging his face between her legs, licking her to wetness. She came quickly. He had always loved that about her. When he entered her, the wall of the château rubbed hard against her back.

  It sealed the deal, she hoped. Malmaison was hers.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Winter 1800

  Anne ambled along at the pace of a toddler with the sticky hand of her child firmly in hers and her new baby strapped in a sling across her chest. Abraham was a tearaway. He would test his legs whenever he had the chance. She couldn’t trust him to stay in reach when they wandered in these gardens of the Trianon, even in winter when the trees and bushes were bare and she could see further into their thickets. Abraham was a born adventurer. She feared if she dropped his hand he would scamper off and be lost forever in these vast gardens at Versailles.

  The house staff thought it was strange of her to take her newborn out of the house. She should have let a nanny carry him, or leave him bound and swaddled with a wet nurse. A wet nurse! Her mother would have chided her for it. Fancy wasting all that good milk God had provided her. Instead she carried him about her chest in a sling like her mother would have done while sweeping the floors or chasing her brothers and sisters. Félix had encouraged her to rest after the birth of their second son, but she could not abide idleness. Did he think she should be a lady that sat about at the pianoforte or the harp? She snorted at the ridiculous thought. ‘I have a well-paid position now,’ he reminded her. ‘A position of respect.’ He did not understand that she could not change who she was so easily.