Epilogue

1797

He spied the girl from across the room, and he watched her over the rim of his wine cup as she started toward him, a bit of a provocative sway in her step. She was coming for him, of course. The pretty ones always did, and this one was rather pretty for one of her kind, fair, with blooming cheeks and a shy smile that showed good, white teeth. Too thin, though, he thought, and it was a pity the bloom would soon be gone.

He lowered his cup and reached across the table to pick up the hand he'd just been dealt. Nothing worth having. Well, he'd won enough, and he wanted to be gone, in any case. She moved behind him, and he felt her press against him as she leaned over to refill his cup.

"Merci, Mademoiselle," he said, turning to favor her with a smile.

"Monsieur," she smiled back, and her little hand lay upon his shoulder for a moment, and as she removed it, her fingertips moved over his hair, brushed the back of his neck. She leaned against the back of his chair.

"Don't waste your time, mon cher," said his friend, Pasquier, looking up from his own hand, with which he was obviously well pleased, confirming Emmanuel's opinion that it was time to fold. "Capitaine Dagnier will not be tempted." He rolled his eyes. "Capitaine Dagnier is in love."

"I'm finished, gentlemen," Emmanuel said with a smile, laying down his cards, and gulping down the last of his wine. Rising from his chair he nodded slightly to the girl. "I bid you a good night, mademoiselle."

"Ahh, you see?" sighed Pasquier, reaching around the table to seize her hand and pull her towards him. "Come to me, cher, I have something nice for you, would you like to see?"

Pasquier was not a bad fellow. There was no one Emmanuel would rather have at his side in a fight, but Emmanuel could see he was drunk, and he could see, too, the flicker of distress that crossed the girl's face, as Pasquier pulled her onto his lap. She looked very young.

Emmanuel felt in his coat for his purse. It was satisfyingly heavy. Commissioned to purchase remounts for his troupe, he hand done so handsomely, and had actually managed to turn a profit on the sale of the cavalry's discards. He always could make a horse dance, and even better, he could make it look easy, and so he would say to the buyer, "See how well schooled he is! A lady's horse! A perfectly docile mount for any officer who wants to cut a fine figure! Give me a hundred. Put him on grass, let him get back his wind, and you sell him on for three!"

He fished out a coin for the wine, and gave it to the girl, and then pressed a gold piece into her palm.

"You look tired, mademoiselle," he said with a smile, "You should go to bed early tonight, hm?"

The expression on Pasquier's face when she bounced up out of his lap alone was worth the price, Emmanuel thought, amused.

"Monsieur, I think I can sleep until next Wednesday for this," said the girl, looking at him from beneath lowered lashes.  "Merci." She curtsied awkwardly and turned away.

"Bastard," grumbled Pasquier.

"You're drunk, Pasquier," Emmanuel said, "You'd have wasted your money. I have done you a service." He tossed down a few more coins. "You should get some sleep as well, my friend. There may not be too many more opportunities to rest in a warm, dry bed this winter."

"True," said Pasquier, raising his cup to his friend. "And some beds are warmer than others, eh?" he winked. "Give your—I mean my—best to Mademoiselle Montbrisson!"

"Shut up, Pasquier. I'll be back to take some more of your money tomorrow. Gentlemen," he gave a short bow to officers at the table, and took his leave.

There would indeed be no comfortable winter quarter for Emmanuel's regiment, the 4th Hussars. They would be returning to Italy to join the army under Bonaparte and Massena. With significant victories at Bassano and Arcola in the autumn, the inevitable capitulation of the Austrian army was near to hand.

Leaving the inn, he turned up the collar of his greatcoat against the chill. He had a bit of a walk ahead of him. He was grateful for the warmth, and knew that he was better clad than many in this army. Even Bonaparte himself, when Emmanuel had seen him, had appeared quite pitiful and shabby.

 "Soldiers! You are badly clothed and badly fed," the general had told his men. "The government owes you much, and can give you nothing. I wish to lead you into the most fertile plains in all the world. Rich provinces, large towns will be in your power. It is up to you to conquer them."

It is up to you.  If Emmanuel was better dressed than most, if he had gold in his purse, it was all his own doing. It had been up to him to keep himself alive on the streets of Paris during the worst days of the Revolution and he had done better than to just survive. He had thrived.

Napoleone Buonaparte had been six years ahead of Emmanuel at Ecole Militaire de Paris, the son of a dispossessed Corsican family, relegated to the school of artillery, while the sons of the elite, like himself, were trained for the cavalry. At just twenty, Emmanuel was a newly made captain, in command of his own troupe, but Bonaparte was a general at twenty-six. Where you began no longer would determine where you might end up. In the new republic of France, men of ability would profit and rise, and Emmanuel did intend to rise.

There were a number of reasons for his ambitions, not the least of which resided within the walls of the finest house on the finest street in this provincial border town. Her father was a very rich man, even richer now than before the revolution, owing to the fact of his ownership of two iron foundries, which naturally, were keeping very busy casting guns and shot for the war. Monsieur Montbrisson did not think a captain of cavalry to be suitably fine for his only daughter. What sort of man would be good enough, Emmanuel wondered. A count? A marquis? Wouldn't he be surprised to know? Well, perhaps someday he would know. Emmanuel knew his father was dead; a traitor or a hero, history would decide in the end, but Emmanuel carried no stain. He was still the heir and he did not think it impossible that he might one day reclaim his lands, if not his titles. Comtesse d'Agniers, Marquise de Muzillac or plain Madame Dagnier, she would carry his name, whatever it might be. She would be his.

It was late, and the house was completely dark, hunkering forbiddingly behind its high stone wall and spike-topped iron gates. Undeterred, and with a facility born of quite a bit of practice in recent weeks, Emmanuel quickly scaled the gate, and dropping lightly down on the other side, fished in his greatcoat pocket for the scrap of sausage that Montbrisson's mastiff would be expecting. In a moment, the dog appeared out of the gloom, whining joyfully and swinging his heavy tail from side to side, pushing his massive wrinkled head against Emmanuel's hand.

"Good boy." He gave the animal an obliging scratch between the eyes. "Here you go!" he tossed the sausage into the shrubbery, and while the mastiff bounded off in search of his treat, slipped around to the back of the house.

Montbrisson had generously appointed his rear garden with a sturdy grape arbor just beneath his daughter's bedroom window, and there was, as well, an ancient pear tree that handily offered its gnarled branches at a just such a height to pick up where the arbor fell short. It was easier than climbing a ladder.

The draperies were drawn, but candlelight glowed from within. He tapped lightly on the leaded glass.

A moment more and he was inside, and he had her in his arms. The room was warm and her body even warmer as she unbuttoned his greatcoat and pressed herself against him, Her nightgown was of lightest, softest wool, luxurious beneath his hands as he pulled her close and kissed her eager mouth.

She was as tall as he was, and if she had not been barefoot, and he not wearing riding boots, she'd have been taller. She was as leggy as a colt, and he loved the way her tight, round little bottom was at the perfect height for him to cup in his hands. Naked, her splendid body atop those long, slender legs made him think of a beautiful long-stemmed rose.

She was moving backward, and he followed her, devouring her sweet mouth with his hungry kisses. Her hands were in his hair, loosening the ribbons. His cocked hat bounced across the floor.

She backed all the way to her bed, and perching on its edge, pushed the greatcoat from his shoulders.

"Oh! What is this!" she exclaimed, spying his new epaulets. Taken from a dead Austrian colonel at Montenotte, they were of excellent quality, the bullion fringes heavy with real gold. That had been months ago, but now, finally, he had the right to wear them.

"Who put these on?" she demanded, and when he leaned in to capture her mouth in another kiss, she held him off.

"A girl," he teased, shrugging his shoulders.

"What girl?" She smacked his chest with the back of her hand. "Pah! You put them on yourself! I've never seen anything so badly done! All crooked and loose and with black thread!" She laughed, twining her arms around his neck.  "A girl! You can't make me jealous, you know. It is foolish to even try."

"Mm…why foolish?" he mumbled, dipping his head to nuzzle the hollow of her throat.

"Because I know how wild you are for me, Capitaine Dagnier!" she seized the front of his coat in her two hands, and pulled him down onto the bed. In an instant she had pushed him onto his back, and she was straddling him, laughing, her eyes gleaming, her thick, waving black hair like a storm cloud surrounding her face.

God, he was wild for her. He was madly, desperately in love. He would marry her tonight, but he had no home, no place to keep her, and too much pride to leave her with her father once he had made her his wife. But soon…

He sucked in his breath as he watched her pull the nightgown over her head. She was so beautiful, the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, elegantly slender, and sweetly curved, with skin as smooth and golden as honey.

She was loosening the buttons of his coat. "I want this off!" she said. "It offends me."

He smiled. "I thought you said you weren't jealous."

She rolled her eyes at him. "There is no girl, Emmanuel," she said firmly.

He laughed and let her have her way with him, enjoying the view as she struggled to remove his clothing. When she had him stripped to the waist he pulled her down for a kiss, relishing the feel of her lush breasts squashed against his chest, the silk of her skin under his hands, the way she surrendered so sweetly to the gentle penetrations of his tongue.  Already he was painfully hard; he shifted his hips to press into her soft weight, and her little moan of pleasure as she rubbed herself against him in turn only increased his agony.

"Boots," she whispered against his mouth, sliding off of him. He groaned, and sat up to struggle with his boots, no easy thing without a servant, as exactingly cut and snugly made as they were. It was practically a matter of honor, though, for a Hussar to show a good leg, shabby though the rest of his outfit might be.

"Too many clothes," she declared with finality, and having liberated him at last from breeches and stockings, she lay back, reclining voluptuously on the brocaded coverlet and held her arms out to him.

His long hair fell forward as her moved over her; it fell on her shoulders, her breasts, mingling with hers, an inky cascade tumbling into a pool of midnight black. His body on hers was milk white against the honey gold. How beautiful we are together, he thought. She and I.

She pushed her hands into his hair, ran her fingers over the fine bones of his face. "I love you," she whispered. "I don't want you to go."

He kissed her softly. "I don't want to leave you, beloved."

"I'm afraid, Emmanuel. I'm afraid that you will die!"

"No! No!" he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her eyes, tasting the brimming tears. "No, you mustn't be afraid of that! I should have been dead a hundred times already, but look at me, without a scratch!" he laughed. "Pasquier says I can't be killed. I think that's the only reason he is my friend. He wants to hide behind me!"

He kissed her mouth again, thrilling to her ardent response as her lips parted and his tongue slipped inside her mouth to tease and turn against hers, all slippery warmth and heated breath. She was all fire, and his body melted into hers. There was such urgency in their coupling, such need. He knew that part of the excitement was in the sinning, in the taste of the forbidden. He should not be here, in her father's house, should never have taken her, had no right to claim her love. But she had wanted him as much as he wanted her, Each time they came together his mind and his body did battle, for he knew that he must withdraw, cast out of heaven at the very moment when every fiber of him was screaming for that sweetest of consummations.

She rose against him now, gasping as the sword of his desire entered her. He saw her bite her lip to keep from crying out, and she watched him as he rocked into her, sinking to the hilt. She drove him wild the way she watched him; he thought it wicked and wanton that she never closed her eyes. Her beautiful eyes, green-gold and clear as glass, incredibly, miraculously, so like his own.

"I love you," he murmured, "I will always come back to you. I will love you forever, Margarethe!"

The End

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