The Moonless Night Read Free Page B

was not always heavy; sometimes no one came for days in a row, but recently there had been many comings and goings, ever since Napoleon had escaped from Elba, but more especially since he had been defeated at Waterloo. Between June nineteenth and twenty-second, Sir George had not been home at all. As chief of Admiralty Intelligence, he had been greatly occupied to discover the movements of Napoleon, and more importantly, his plans.
    So efficient was Sir George’s operation that he knew within a hundred guineas how much property the lately deposed Emperor had amassed for his escape, including his stepdaughter Queen Hortense’s farewell gift of her diamond necklace, exchanged for his wedding ring. Gold, silverplate, books—all were inventoried. One could not but respect a man who worried about his books with his neck stretched so far out. He knew how many of his followers were with him at Rochefort—sixty-four, including Fouché and of course his loyal valet, Marchand. Knew as well that Rochefort, the most easily blockaded port in all of France, had been chosen by Fouché and Savary. With such friends, Boney had no need of enemies. He’d be dead by now if that pair had their way. The precise options open to Bonaparte were known, along with the persons who had proposed them, and the reasons why they had been rejected. Captain Philibert was for taking him to America in style and openly, but the safe conduct had not come through. Fat chance! Las Cases and his set were for smuggling him to America by means of a plan devised by Admiral Martin, a veteran Seadog . Slip him onto the frigate Bayadère , anchored in the Gironde, and hence across the sea to America. Yet another loyal follower, Besson, offered to run the English blockade and smuggle him to America with a cargo of cognac, hiding him in a cask if searched. But the Emperor—funny how one went on considering him an Emperor still—was too proud for that. His brother Joseph’s offer to pose as the Emperor at Aix while Napoleon made good his escape was likewise rejected. Faithful—he had a certain style, an integrity. He was not for saving himself at the cost of his friends and family.
    Returning to Paris with Louis XVIII already in power was out. The solution found, foolish as it sounded, was to come to England, the oldest and most hated of his enemies. Here, in this bastion of personal freedom, he hoped to go free, and he would be disappointed. Thought he would set himself up as an English squire as his brother had been permitted to do in Worcestershire. But Lucien and Napoleon were two very different articles. If one thought for a moment Liverpool and Eldon would allow it, an accident might be arranged, but there was no danger. The English government officials were as one in not wanting him. Not one bloody toe would he set on English soil. Plymouth Harbor—that’s as close as he would get to England’s shores, and it was too close for comfort!
    There was a tap at the door of Sir George FitzHugh’s oak-paneled office, and a tall young gentleman strolled in, nodded without smiling, and possessed himself of the stiffly uncomfortable settee lately used as Sir George’s bed. He threw one leg over the other, stretched his arms along the settee’s back and said in a bored voice, “Well, Fitz, let’s have it. You haven’t summoned me here…”
    “ Invited , my friend,” Fitz corrected.
    “True, the message was worded as an invitation, but somehow you know, when one of your demmed clerks pulls me by the elbow as I strut down Bond Street—I wish you would ask him not to pull at one’s jacket—and shouts ‘Urgent,’ one feels the invitation to be—ah, peremptory.”
    “Did he do so? Well I’m very sorry about the jacket, but the deuce of it is, it’s a bit of a rush affair this time.”
    The gentleman gazed at a mote of dust on his Hessians and frowned. Receiving no further intelligence from his informer, he finally raised his dark eyes. “Do go on,