The Passion of the Purple Plumeria Read Online Free Page B

guttered in the room. “Not so bright!”
    The voice was the barest whisper, yet still recognizably female. Recognizably female and almost recognizable. Gwen knew that voice from somewhere—she was sure of it. She slouched closer, pressing her ear to the side of the shutters. The overhang of the balcony above shrouded her in shadow, the railing shielding her from the gaze of curious passersby below.
    “No one followed me,” said Talleyrand soothingly.
    Ha. That’s what he thought. Gwen nobly forbore to preen. There was no point in gloating until she knew what there was to gloat about. He might be meeting a mistress. But if so, why such subterfuge? Talleyrand’s many affairs were fair game; he made no move to hide them.
    She would give him one thing: The man recognized his bastards. Not every man could say as much.
    “You’re back sooner than I would have thought,” he said. There was an edge of censure in his voice. Gwen heard the shuffle-thump of his passage across the room, the sound of a drink being poured.
    “Not from dereliction of duty.” The female’s voice was stronger now, her French lightly accented with a hint of the south. Italian. Not the coarse Corsican of Bonaparte’s cronies, but pure Tuscan, the accent of Dante and the Medicis. And of the opera.
    Gwen crept closer. Through the shutters, she saw the lady ease back her hood, revealing a rich mass of auburn hair, elaborately arranged. “I have not forgot our bargain.”
    Talleyrand’s voice was dry. “I should be very surprised if you had. Have you secured our prize so swiftly?”
    “His Supreme Majesty was not so easily wooed.”
    The lady turned, giving Gwen a clear view of her profile, a profile that appeared on countless prints and snuffboxes throughout London, the handsome features of the famed Italian soprano Aurelia Fiorila.
    There was just one problem. Fiorila was meant to be in England, recuperating from a nasty bout of something or other.
    Yet here she was, as large as life, meeting with Talleyrand in the back room of a none-too-prosperous inn. “The Sultan was much put off by Brune’s clumsy handling.”
    Brune. The man had recently returned from a stint as envoy to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. A sultan with a noted taste for opera. And opera singers.
    It was an open secret that Bonaparte sought to seduce Selim III away from his alliance with Britain. Bonaparte had bullied the Pope into crowning him emperor not four months past, but the Sultan, entwined in old alliances with England and with Russia, balked at recognizing the imperial title. It was a thorn in Bonaparte’s increasingly rotund flesh. His choice of ambassador, however, had only widened the breach. Brune had been sent back with a flea in his ear.
    It shouldn’t have surprised Gwen that Talleyrand had taken matters into his own hands; Talleyrand was a wily old fox. What did surprise her was that Aurelia Fiorila was the means of doing so.
    Gwen heard the snap of a snuffbox lid. “Sending Brune,” said Talleyrand, “was not my decision. I trust you were able to sing the Sultan into sweeter temper?”
    Fiorila’s voice, the voice that had seduced audience after audience at Covent Garden, was ruefully amused. “Even my voice, sir, has not such power as that.” Talleyrand must have made some move, because she added hastily, “I did gain audience with the Sultan. He told me what he will require to meet your desire. He says he will consider no treaties without a token of France’s good intentions.”
    “I should have thought,” said Talleyrand, a courtier to his bones, “that the presence of a beautiful lady would have been token enough.”
    Fiorila’s voice was pensive. “The Sultan has beautiful women enough in his harem, sir. He requires no more.”
    “Not even one with a voice such as yours?”
    Fiorila’s voice sharpened. “I have no desire to sing from a cage. That was never in our bargain.”
    That was rather sweetly naïve of her, thought Gwen. She