At some point she had reached out and taken his hand again, and he clung to it like a drowning man as he went on. ‘One dayCelestine and I boarded a ship and came to England, to Kent, to the people who became my adoptive parents. She died here, of the influenza. They were very good to me, though, and made me into an English gentleman, as far as they were able. I learned when I was seventeen or so – along with a great deal else – that Madame Severin, who was from Martinique like me, was my mother’s close schoolfriend and distant cousin, and took me into her home – in the first instance – to oblige her dear cousin. This lady, my real mother, was by then married to a French viscount, prominent in the highest society under Louis XVI, and had other children with him. Legitimate children. I’ve never met them; I don’t suppose I ever will. The two cousins were in correspondence, all along, though that became difficult, of course, because of the upheavals and the war.’
He could see her face, a little, in the light of the single candle in the room, and he could tell that she wanted to say that he had told her nothing yet of which he need be in the least ashamed or frightened. She had no idea.
He ploughed on before he lost his courage. ‘They had to tell me who she was, in the end, for my own protection. Who her husband was. Her second husband, I should explain – her first was executed during the Terror, and she narrowly escaped that fate. She was imprisoned, though I did not know it at the time, in the greatest privation and danger. Her fate was sealed, or so it seemed. But her situation changed greatly for the better when she was released, after Robespierre fell. She lived a precarious sort of a life for a while, and then met a man – a rising general, a young upstart, younger than her – and became his mistress, then a little while later his wife. These were terrible times, you know, such as we can scarcely imagine, and she did what she had to in order to survive. She always has.’
Allegra was still holding his hand. Perhaps he was grippingher so tightly she could not free herself even if she wanted to. He made a conscious effort to relax his clasp, and was pathetically grateful when she still did not pull away. That was something. Everything.
‘Your mother is married to one of Bonaparte’s generals?’ she asked resolutely, though he could see that she was shaken and attempting bravely to conceal it from him. ‘Well, I can see why you need to keep that hidden, in such times of war and enmity, but it is hardly…’
‘Oh, no,’ he said bleakly. ‘If it were only that.’ He couldn’t seem to bring himself to tell her everything, and yet now that he had come so far, he must. What a coward he was, when it came to it. ‘I went to meet her, three years ago, for the first time, you understand. The only time, because I don’t suppose I’ll ever see her again. A momentous occasion, during the brief peace, but still in secret, for fear my existence, if it became known, would endanger her afresh, and her children, and me, of course. I went to her chateau near Paris, in disguise. She gave me this ring as a keepsake…’
He dragged it out from where it lay around his neck, on the substantial golden chain he’d bought for it. He rarely took it off, except when he was sparring – it could be damaged or lost – but now he did, and put it in her hand. Heavy, solid, consequential. Warm from his skin. It had a crest on it, in the form of a seal, though he knew she would not recognise it. He could never risk using it for its original purpose, of course. She examined it for a while, and then gave it back to him.
‘She cried, Allegra, when I met her – I daresay I did too, though I was not aware of it at the time – and told me of her forbidden love with my father, though I don’t know if that part of it was true, or just a tale she spun to protect me from some more sordid truth. She’s very beautiful, even now – everyone says sheis, and they’re right, though they criticise her teeth; you’ll have heard that too, probably. I didn’t notice them, myself. She told me I have her eyes, and that at least is true. The colour, you may have observed, is unusual. I worry about that sometimes. That someone who knew her before the Revolution will see me, and wonder. Probably that’s foolish, though, for who would ever think to link me with her, given her situation, and mine?’ He was rambling; he couldn’t seem to stop himself, to come to the bloody point.
She put out her other hand, and wrapped his restless ones in both of hers, and held them steady. ‘Max…’ she said again, warm, reassuring, real, and at his side, at least for now. ‘Max, I am beginning to suspect something that I cannot credit unless you say it aloud in plain words I could not possibly misinterpret. Max, my dear, who is she?’
He told her.
41
Max could barely believe he’d said it aloud for the first time in his life, in this dark room.
His mother. Marie-Joseph-Rose Tascher de La Pagerie, later Madame la Vicomtesse de Beauharnais, and now Josephine Bonaparte, Empress of France. Napoleon’s wife.
The thought was so huge and terrifying that, even after knowing it for eight years, he had only ever taken a grip on it before now by letting it into his mind when he was alone and undisturbed. It really was a tiger staring through the bars of a cage at him and growling with unavoidable menace. He simply couldn’t walk about the streets of London, hearing people of all ranks talking about the wars, vilifying his stepfather, gossiping about his mother’s supposed lovers, about her failure to give Bonaparte a legitimate child, with this poisonous knowledge knocking about loose in his head. He was afraid people would somehow see it written on his face. In those damn distinctive, betraying eyes…Josephine’sbastardson.
It wasn’t as though there’d never been any suspicion cast on her during her turbulent life. Her first husband, whom Max wasexcessively glad he’d never met, had gone to Martinique once with the express purpose of finding out his estranged wife’s disreputable secrets, presumably so that he could use them to torment her and cast her off. Alexandre de Beauharnais, who was a man who’d deserved a good punch or two in the face if any man ever had, seemed to know Rose had something to conceal – perhaps she’d let a word or two slip in an incautious moment early in their marriage, before she’d fully taken his measure and learned to guard her tongue or suffer the consequences. The vicomte had rampaged about the island cajoling, bribing and threatening violence. Violence to slaves, to make them talk; what an exemplary gentleman. It had caused a huge uproar, his adoptive mother had told him – she’d had letters about it – but nobody had revealed a thing to the furious Frenchman. Thank God.
Madame Severin had not known, and Max too could not tell, whether people had kept the scandalous truth hidden out of stubbornness, out of loyalty – to his mother, to Celestine, or even to his mysterious father – or whether they’d never known it in the first place. Rose’s family must have done – her mother, her father – but of course they of all people would never, never tell.
Now De Beauharnais was dead by guillotine, and good riddance. But his mother’s present husband was a far more dangerous man, and would not be so easily put off if he heard so much as a whisper of rumour. And he of all people had the resources to learn the truth, if he had to imprison and torture hundreds to do it. He would not merely threaten, he would act, and who could doubt that he was entirely without scruples? It was said now that he too would be glad of an excuse to rid himself of the wife who had not given him an heir. Max was that excuse in human form.
There must be French émigrés in London, plenty of them,who’d known Josephine as Madame de Beauharnais, before the Terror. Men and women who’d seen those distinctive eyes and might recognise them if they saw them in another face, might wonder how such a strange resemblance had come about, especially in a man with Caribbean origins just like her. Her reputation was such, he knew, that people would be all too willing to believe scandal of her. And that was without worrying about her husband’s spies, who must be everywhere.Everyonehad seen portraits of her, and read descriptions of her fading beauty.
It had been bad enough eight years ago when they’d first told him. General Bonaparte had already invaded Italy and Egypt – his was the name on everyone’s lips, the young upstart military genius who was turning the world upside-down. But in late 1799, when Max was still struggling to come to terms with all that, Bonaparte had overthrown the Directory government and become first consul – king in all but name. Then two years ago he’d taken the final step and crowned himself Emperor, and Rose – whom he called Josephine – Empress. He was Britain’s great enemy, the most hated and admired man in Europe, and she was always at his side. She was easily the most famous woman in the world. Who could compete?
It was too much. It made his head spin and his stomach lurch. Max shied away from it, and sought desperately for something else to push away the intrusive thought and the inevitable sense of overwhelming panic it brought in its wake. Anything. He was a drowning man and he needed a spar to cling to.
Allegra, Allegra… Might she save him, or was it true that nobody could? But, tempting though it was to imagine a future with her, a life together, hecouldnotput her at such risk.
As far as he was aware, there was no one else in England now living who knew who he was, and he must do all he could to keep it that way. He had never dared even to think before that he couldtake the terrible risk of sharing any part of his burden, for the sake of his life, and his mother’s too, and even possibly the lives of the half-siblings he had never met and never would meet, Hortense and Eugène.
He hadn’t needed the Severins to spell it out for him, because it was so obvious. If the violently despotic ruler of half the known world ever discovered that his wife had given birth tohimandkeptitsecretalltheseyears,her life at his side would be over. Exile and disgrace would be the best she could hope for, and death fast or slow the worst. There were no limits to his power or his cruelty. And if the British government ever discovered who he was, God knows what they’d do with him, but it wouldn’t be anything pleasant. At the very least, he’d be paraded around like an animal in a menagerie or a circus, under close guard.
But that wasn’t even the end of it. If Bonaparte’s supporters in England – there must be many, in secret, biding their time – got to him first, they’d kill him without blinking, just to rid their idol of an embarrassment. Though Max himself wouldn’t want to be the person who’d tell him the news, even if it was accompanied by the fact that the inconvenient bastard child was dead now. The Emperor was a man who slaughtered his wife’s pets when she gave them too much attention. He destroyed bloodyplantsshe liked in displays of insane rage if he was displeased with her, as apparently he often was these days.
In sober truth, there was barely a person with a sword or pistol or guillotine, on the continent of Europe and far beyond, who wouldn’t wish Max dead and take steps to make him so, once they knew the extraordinary truth.
So, that was it. Now she knew everything. There was no going back from this.
42
Allegra became aware that she was staring at Max with her mouth open. She closed it, but she still couldn’t look away. Their eyes were locked and his face showed a number of warring emotions. In the name of heaven, it was no wonder. ‘She is…’ she said weakly. ‘Your mother is…’ She couldn’t seem to get any further, with the sentence or with the thought. It was too overwhelming, too dangerous to put into words and make real.
‘Yes. I know it sounds insane. Incredible. But I swear it’s true. Allegra – my dearest, my love – it’s not something I’d be likely to invent.’
Once she would have been astonished and delighted to hear him say that he loved her. A part of her still was, but this… ‘I suppose not.’
