Behind them the last log in the fireplace succumbed and fell into two, sending a tiny blizzard of sparks up the chimney. Dying firelight danced a final minuet on the ceiling above the matrimonial bed, but no one noticed. The log crackled and squeaked as it burned down, but no one added another log from the basket next to the fireplace.

The only sounds from the bed were inarticulate ones: sounds of desire, sounds of pleasure, finally of ecstasy. Gasped, at the moment of greatest bliss, words of love.

The great master bed fell into silence again. Even the fire was silent now, reduced to a sultry heap of embers, glowing a deep carmine red in the depths of the fireplace.

The silence was broken only by a deep voice. “Être avec toi, c’est toujours comme retourner à la maison, Sophie. Being with you is always like coming home.”

Sophie reached up and caressed her husband’s cheek, love shining in her eyes. “You are my home, Patrick.” And again, as he buried his face in her hair, holding her so close that his large body seemed imprinted on hers: “With you, I am home.”

Author’s Note

A Note about Scepters, Sultans, and the Pleasures of Eloping with Strangers

In 1613 Robert Tailor’s play, The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl, was performed in London. In the first act, a young gentleman, Carracus, stands below the window of his beloved Maria, waiting for her to climb down a ladder and elope with him. But alas! His best friend, Albert, descends from that window, where he has pretended to be Carracus and has (in his words) “robbed Carracus of what’s more precious than his blood”—Maria’s virginity.

The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl grows a bit tedious after this climactic scene, since all three lovers end up wandering about the woods in disguise. And from a romantic point of view, the last act is rather disappointing: Carracus and Albert swear eternal union—”nothing now but death / Shall cause a separation”—and the three people return to London together. Clearly, male bonding was alive and well in the 17th century!

The liberties I have taken with Tailor’s plot are naught compared to my endowment of Napoleon with an exploding scepter. In fact, Selim III (the Ottoman sultan from 1789-1807) did recognize Napoleon as emperor in 1804, and he did declare war on England in 1806. But the idea that Selim might have discarded the noble title of sultan for that of emperor is purely my own invention. And Emperor Napoleon was likely far too busy with his unrealistic and hazardous plans to invade Great Britain to pay attention to a ruby scepter, unless it would grace his own coronation ceremony in December.

About the Author

About the Author

Eloisa James is also the author of the acclaimed novel Potent Pleasures. She is a professor of English literature who lives with her family in New Jersey.