‘Yes.’ She licked her lips. ‘A palace, you say?’

Napoleon nodded.

‘And what happens when the campaign is over?’

‘I don’t know yet. Let’s see what happens. But I will make no promises.’>

‘No promises, then.’ She took his hand and kissed it. ‘Please, call me Pauline. And when can this . . . adventure begin?’

Napoleon felt his heart beating faster as he gestured towards the arched doorway on the far side of the room. The night suddenly seemed unbearably hot. ‘My bedchamber is over there. The choice is yours.’

Pauline rose from her chair, and staring down at Napoleon she reached up and pulled the pins from her hair, so that it cascaded down over her shoulders.Then she turned away and glided across the room towards the bedchamber.

Chapter 40

‘You have to admire their sense of humour.’ Napoleon smiled as he laid down the dispatch from Alexandria and reached across the bed to stroke her back. ‘Who would have thought the English were capable of it?’

‘Oh, yes, it’s very funny,’ Pauline snapped.‘I can hardly control the mad desire to laugh like a lunatic.’

‘Be fair, my little Cleopatra.’

‘Don’t call me that! That’s what the common soldiers call me. I won’t have it, not here in my bedroom.’

‘Very well, then, Pauline it is.’ Napoleon eased himself closer to her and kissed her bare shoulder as his fingers traced their way down the gentle groove in the flesh above her spine and crept towards the upward curve of her buttocks. But she did not respond with her usual animal purr to his touch, and he withdrew his hand.

‘What’s the matter?’

Pauline opened her eyes and stared at him. ‘What do you think? You contrive to send my husband on an errand back to Paris so that we can be together without complications.Then the wretched Royal Navy capture him, hear his tale, and politely return him to Egypt. Bastards! So what are we going to do? He’ll be back in Cairo any day.’

Napoleon sighed. Another problem to deal with. The very least of his problems, he reflected. Despite his best efforts to convince the fellahin that the French were determined to improve their lot, the natives were still ambushing patrols and murdering any stragglers, or any soldier who dared to venture out of barracks on his own.The collection of taxes was bringing in a fraction of what it should, and even though the task had been subcontracted to local tax officials the natives were adept at concealing their wealth and making any excuse to avoid paying their dues. The difficulty of winning over the local people was exacerbated by the behaviour of his own men. Despite the declared ideals of the revolution, the French soldiers were inclined to pay mere lip service to the high moral values that France was supposed to be spreading through this corner of the world.As soon as they were out of sight of their officers they were liable to loot the nearest village, and were not above raping any women who caught their eye. Napoleon had issued orders that any men found responsible for such deeds must be tried and shot at once. Already he had been obliged to sign two death warrants, and hoped that this would deter any more crimes.

‘Well?’ Pauline nudged him with her hip. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Do?’

‘About my husband!’

‘You must divorce him.There is no other way of dealing with it.’

‘Then I will have nothing. Can’t you send him away again? Somewhere dangerous . . .’

Napoleon propped himself up on an elbow and stared at her. ‘Lieutenant Fourès is a good officer. He doesn’t deserve such a fate. I will not send him to his death. Not even for you, Pauline.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re feeling guilty about what’s happened? I don’t believe it.’

Napleon shrugged. ‘I have done the man an injustice. I will not compound it with murder. So you must divorce him. I will see that the procedure is as swift as possible.Then I will move you into quarters next to mine, and settle an allowance on you.You will live well enough, Pauline.’

‘And when you tire of me? What then? I shall be alone, with no family, no honour.What do you imagine will become of me?’

‘Pauline, how could I grow tired of you?’ Napoleon reached over to her back again and continued his caresses where he had left off, running the tips of his fingers over her buttocks and letting them slide down into the cleavage. She shut her eyes and moaned, pushing back against his touch. He leaned over her, easing her auburn tresses aside so that he could kiss the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, yes . . . Like that.’

He eased Pauline on to her back and entered her gently.

‘My love,’ she muttered. ‘Do you love me?’

‘Of course,’ Napoleon said. ‘Now that’s enough talk. More than enough. We can talk later. Much later.’

Pauline’s divorce was rushed through with what would have seemed indecent haste back in Paris, but the world of the army was less demanding in its values and barely noticed the legal formality. Except for Eugène, who served on Napoleon’s staff and for a while regarded his stepfather with frosty disdain every time they had occasion to confer. Much as he liked the young man, Napoleon felt no compulsion to try to hide his relationship with Pauline. Not after suffering the hurt and humiliation he had endured at the hands of Eugène’s mother.

Pauline continued to affect her taste for military clothing and wore the uniform of a general when she accompanied Napoleon on his tours of the province. Lieutenant Fourès accepted the situation with good grace, as a man must when he has lost out to an officer of such lofty rank with the status of a national hero. He quietly returned to his regiment where his fellow officers and his men regarded him with shaming pity until he could take it no longer. One morning he took a horse and rode into the desert, and neither man nor horse was ever seen again.

In the new year the resistance to the French occupiers increased in both scale and ferocity, despite the measures that Napoleon had taken to win over the fellahin as well as their religious and political leaders in the towns and cities.

‘Nothing we do makes a difference,’ Napoleon complained bitterly to his staff at one of his weekly briefings. ‘Now they attack us almost every day.’

Berthier coughed. ‘With respect, sir, the peasants are not involved in the resistance. It’s mostly what’s left of the Mameluke forces and the Bedouin, raiding from the desert.’

‘But who is supporting them?’ Napoleon shot back. ‘Who is feeding them? Who is passing on intelligence about our movements and the strength of our patrols? The peasant scum, that’s who.’

‘They probably have no choice in the matter, sir. The fellahin are caught between us and the enemy.They’ll swear that they are loyal to us, and the moment we pass on and the enemy turn up they’ll swear loyalty to Murad Bey.You can hardly blame them.’

‘I’m not going to blame them, Berthier. I’m going to teach them a lesson. A very hard lesson, and if they are sensible they will profit from it. I want a declaration issued. I want a thousand copies of it printed off and sent to every town and village in Egypt. From now on, if any French soldiers are murdered, there will be reprisals. If it occurs in the cities or towns then ten natives will be executed for each French life taken. If our patrols are attacked in the country then the nearest village will be burned to the ground and all livestock slaughtered.The heads of those we execute will be prominently displayed as a warning to others.’ Napoleon paused to let his words sink in, then he continued. ‘We will establish order in Egypt, gentlemen. However many lives it costs. And then we shall have peace.’

Some of the staff officers shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, but no one raised any protest, and then Berthier nodded. ‘Very well, sir. I’ll see that to it that the declaration is drafted.’