Page 109

Paris. De Brissac had said Paris. She had come. Now Talleyrand would tell her where.

Louise crossed the threshold. The usher asked her name.

Then, in his bass voice, he announced: "Mademoiselle Louise Bonaparte."

Spoken aloud beneath the ceilings of the Tuileries, the name sounded larger than it had inside a carriage with only her father to hear it. For one beat she wondered if she had presumed too much, claimed too much. Her fingers brushed the paper inside her coat. Napoleon had written it in his own hand and signed his name beneath it.

She entered the room, bracing herself to meet the villain from a storybook. Talleyrand instead appeared immaculate. His coat fit without a crease, and silver touched his hair.

He smiled at her like a sophisticated uncle who brought bribes instead of gifts. Her fingers tingled, and she pressed them against the dagger under her skirts. Before he could blink those hooded eyes, she could have the fair skin of his neck pierced.

Louise scanned the reception room. A secretary wrote at a side desk. A footman guarded the door. And in the farthest corner, a second man lounged on a chaise. Wiry and ugly, he had the eyes of a vulture.

She left the dagger where it was. She would not leave this room alive if she attempted murder, and worse, Rodrick would remain wherever Talleyrand had put him. Instead of acting rashly, her spy would've buried his emotions.

"Mademoiselle Louise," Talleyrand drawled. "I have been expecting you. Somewhat earlier, I confess, but then you have been busy. How you single-handedly saved General Bonaparte and escorted him to Malmaison was… how should I put it? Inspired."

Louise's jaw locked. General Bonaparte. He had stripped her father of an empire in two words, then praised her for delivering him safely to the château, where Talleyrand had helped ensure he stayed. Napoleon had reached Malmaison alive, yes, but with the National Guard surrounding the property. Talleyrand had taken the government's reins and turned a country house into her father's prison. Now he stood before Louise, behaving as though the arrangement deserved congratulations.

"The Seventh Regiment escorted his Imperial Majesty to Malmaison. I only happened to be with them at the time."

He tilted his head and studied her for a beat, then gestured toward the window. "Come, dear, there is something I wish you to see."

Her feet sounded too loud as she crossed the room. Patience, Louise. He held all the cards. Talleyrand waited until she reached his side, then turned toward the view with the leisure of a man who had nowhere else to be. Beyond the glass panes stretched a formal garden. In a silvery pond, four swans moved in indifferent arcs across the water.

"You danced at Covent Garden for some years, did you not? I seem to remember that you and your little coterie were christened the Swans of Paris. Society does so enjoy naming beautiful things."

She crossed her arms. Society enjoyed many things. Few of them were any good.

"Those particular birds were sent to your father. A gift from the city of Amiens, after the peace back in 1802. Napoleon placed them here himself. It pleased him. Cities sent him symbols of devotion. Men sent him their lives. For fifteen years, France gave him everything it possessed—"

"They gave him everything because they were loyal to him," she said through gritted teeth. She could still hear the voices from the journey back from Brussels, the cries growing louder once they crossed into France—Vive l'Empereur! Vive Napoléon!

"They still are."

"Indeed." He appeared to consider this. "Fouché—are you convinced now?"

The man in the corner shifted. So this was Fouché, her father's former Minister of Police. Heat climbed Louise's throat. He and Talleyrand had helped bring her father down, then stepped neatly across the wreckage to the other side. And she had to remain in this room with them, listening to their civil voices and breathing the same air.

"She has Napoleon's gaze. Most remarkable," Fouché said, his oily smile making her skin prickle.

"Monsieur," she said, turning back to Talleyrand. "I did not come here to speak of swans."

"Nor did I, Mademoiselle." Talleyrand glanced toward the pond. "I am speaking of what men do with them. Attractive creatures, swans. They do not choose where they are placed, and yet entire nations have a habit of arranging themselves around them."

Indeed. England, Autun's letters, Brussels—one careful placement after another, each presented to her as duty, necessity, her father's will. She had spent too much of her life mistaking this man's arrangements for choices she had made herself. Her fingers had curled so tightly into her palms that the seams of her gloves bit into her skin, and she forced them open before Talleyrand could see how badly she wanted to strike him.

"I am done being arranged by you. You robbed me of a father, and the years I lost can never be returned. But you have someone else that belongs to me." Her breath caught high in her chest, but she held his gaze. "I want Rodrick de Montfort back."

Talleyrand inclined his head. "And I want so many things. Prosperity. Peace. A France that survives this particular century without tearing itself apart. We must all, I'm afraid, learn to want within reason."

Louise's jaw settled. Appeals would only amuse him. "I have the letter. The one in which you ordered me to kill the Duke of Wellington. Your handwriting. Your instructions. Your signature."

Talleyrand's eyes rested on her face for a beat too long.

"My dear, if that billet doux were to become public, the least flattering thing anyone would say about me is that I am consistent." He moved to his desk and settled into the armchair. "Men in my position are not sustained by reputation. We are sustained by indispensability. That letter would not make me less indispensable. It would merely confirm what everyone already believes. Men like me receive no blind loyalty. They have to work twice as hard backstage, while people like Napoleon and you can shine on stage."

"I have spent my life on stages, Monsieur. At least when a dancer falls, the audience knows who made the mistake. Men backstage have the luxury of dropping the scenery on someone's head and calling themselves indispensable."