Page 162 of The Boxing Baroness

The sound of her name in French always surprised her—it was so musical. In English, it was simple and plain, recalling rosy-cheeked milkmaids.

“It is beautiful here,” she said carefully. “But perhaps a little . . . harsh.”

“It is relentless,” he said, the adjective strangely fitting. His jaw tightened and anger livened his tired eyes. “The wind blows every day, all day. It is always damp, and the rot—” He stopped abruptly and flashed a forced smile. “But we will not speak of that.” His posture relaxed and he shifted on the settee, stifling a grimace of discomfort as he tried to find a position that suited him.

He turned to Sin, seemingly finished with their conversation.

“You are here because of O’Meara, eh? He is convinced I am being tormented. Ha! I am—but then so are we all who live here. I am deprived of civilized company, bored out of my wits, and fed with food unfit for hogs.” He shrugged. “But other than that, all is well.”

Sin asked him about particulars, encouraging him to speak French so that he might explain more fully. As her father chatted with her husband about his conditions, Marianne studied him closely, searching for signs of herself in this stranger.

She’d had almost six years to accustom herself to the fact that she—Marianne Simpson, raised in a circus—was the daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte.

And here she was, actually sitting beside him—Boney, the Nightmare of Europe, the Devil’s Favorite, the Corsican Fiend, and a hundred other names the world had invented to ridicule and hide their own fear of one average-sized man.

He was charming, but oddly stilted. And the deep lines around his mouth and eyes told her he was often in pain—perhaps even constantly. There had been crude jokes about his inability to sit his horse at Waterloo, and it was common knowledge that he was a victim of severe piles. He was not an old man, and yet he seemed worn, like a once-sharp blade that had been honed too often on a whetstone.

When he released her hand, he immediately settled it on his stomach, his fingers pressing and massaging his abdomen in such a way that indicated stories of his gastric pain had not been exaggerated.

More than all those physical discomforts, however, Marianne suspected that it was his diminished circumstances that chafed him most cruelly. The weight of his failure was an oppressive fog in the room. He had been the first Emperor of France in a millennium; now he was a prisoner reduced to shooting his neighbor’s goats and chickens.

And even that was denied him.

They shared excellent coffee and lackluster pastries and sandwiches, talking of the news of the outside world, which came slowly to the island.

Watching her husband and father talk to each other, perhaps even come to respect one another a little, touched her more deeply than she ever would have expected.

It was painfully clear that the general was much more comfortable with men—not unusual given the trajectory of his life. In spite of his frequent love affairs, she did not think he was a lothario. She doubted he chased women; rather they would have been drawn to him because of his power.

The time she’d spent with her mother last summer had been enlightening, and not always happily so.

Désirée had known of this upcoming journey and had taken pains to make sure Marianne was aware how little respect her father had for women in general, how he’d once been heard to denounce all females as nothing more than “machines for producing babies.”

“It was the way he was raised,” she’d said, her gaze apologetic.

It was not an unusual viewpoint among men, powerful or otherwise, but it was disheartening.

It also made her realize how fortunate she was in her choice of husband. Her daughters, if she were to be blessed with any, would grow up with a man who valued them for more than their ability to expand their family’s dynastic reach.

By the time they finished their coffee, Marianne could see the older man was fatigued.

She was trying to think of a politic way to suggest he rest before dinner, when Sin came to her rescue.

“Would you mind terribly if I took a walk with Marianne? We saw a lovely overlook on the drive up here and she expressed an interest in seeing it closer.”

“Of course, of course! Yes, you must see our views.” He gave a short bark of unamused laughter. “That is one thing of which there is no shortage.” He patted his stomach lightly. “I will leave you to explore at your leisure, if you don’t mind.” He took Marianne’s hand and kissed the back of it. “That way I will be fresh for dinner.”

He rang for a servant to show them out, and his eyes were already heavy-lidded before they left the room.

“Did you really see a place you wanted to go?” she asked as Sin led her out of the gloomy, dismal house.

“No. But I thought you could use a little time away and some fresh air. I did see a bench situated with a few of those odd trees beside it. We can sit for a while there.”

“The house is rather—”

“Dreadful?” he supplied. “Yes, it is. But I daresay most of the others are not much better. The damp, as he mentioned, is quite pervasive. And the house is necessarily dark to combat the oppressive heat.”

“I saw a rat beside the leg of the chaise longue.”