The Queen's Fortune: A Novel of Desiree, Napoleon, and the Dynasty That Outlasted the Empire by Allison Pataki

Author:Allison Pataki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2020-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Paris

Fall 1799

I DONNED A MANSERVANT’S BREECHES AND overcoat, with a cap to cover my long hair, and we rode in a simple coach toward the barrier. The guard at the city wall barely looked at me, figuring me to be a young male attendant. He saluted my husband, dressed as a gentleman farmer, and we were permitted to quit the city with just a cursory review of our forged papers.

We rode in silence away from the capital, out to the wooded village of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, each forward step feeling as though I pulled further away from my heart, which had been yanked out and left behind in Paris. Oscar, I thought, more frantic each time I saw his round face in my mind, will you think your maman has abandoned you? We arrived in the early morning, as dawn was just beginning to purple the thick forests, revealing a modestly handsome home tucked back off the river amid a copse of linden trees. I slipped out of my cap, but there was nothing to do about the breeches and overcoat, especially on such a chilly morning.

“This is the home of Dumas. General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas,” Bernadotte explained to me. I was furious with my husband, but I listened with interest now. “Who is Dumas?” I asked. My voice was hoarse with fear and sleeplessness, a cold night of travel on a rutted forest road, and my arms ached for my baby.

“He’s an old, trusted friend. An army man, an officer who cares little for political intrigue and rivalry. He’s an outsider, like me. He will not betray our presence here.” Bernadotte put a hand on my arm, saying in a low, quiet voice: “Desiree, just…don’t…act surprised. His father was of the French nobility, but his mother was from the islands.”

I didn’t understand what Bernadotte meant, but I didn’t have time to ask, because just then a shadowed figure emerged at the door of the home. The man held a candelabra in the early-dawn light, a sleeping gown covering his tall frame. “Bernadotte?” His deep voice called into the dim morning as our coach slowed to a halt. “You are welcome here. Come, come.” He waved us toward the threshold of his home, and I guessed that our arrival had drawn him from bed.

I looked a bit closer at our host now that the man stood before us, suddenly understanding what my husband’s warning had meant: the man’s skin was a shade darker than any I’d ever seen. He appeared like one of the Caraïbes I had heard about, the enslaved islanders whom Josephine had described on her Caribbean plantation. He had side-whiskers and a muscular build—nearly as thick from front to back as he was from shoulder to shoulder. And yet Bernadotte had described this Dumas as an old friend and a fellow officer in the French army. What was this man’s story? I wondered.

“We are sorry to arrive at this hour,” my husband said as we entered a comfortable kitchen, the gray ash on the hearth showing that the cooking fires had not yet been lit for the day.

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