‘I had hoped for something grander than this.’

‘There was no time to organise anything else,’ Napoleon protested. ‘Some day, we’ll make it more formal, I swear it. A ceremony you can be proud of to your dying day.’

The registrar coughed and leaned towards them. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather complete the formalities before you have your first matrimonial row.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Napoleon blushed. ‘I’m sorry.’

The registrar glared at him for a moment before returning to his script and continuing with the ceremony. When it was over, Napoleon and Josephine signed their names, witnessed by Barras and Joseph.There was a small reception in the new house before the guests left and the newly wed couple retired to their bedroom and closed the door behind them.

‘Still angry with me?’ Napoleon smiled, his fingers gently untying the straps of her bodice. She stood stiffly before him, trying to keep her face fixed in a stern expression of rebuke.

‘Of course.’

‘Well then, let us see whether I can persuade you to forgive me . . .’

Two days later, as dawn broke over Paris, Napoleon stepped out of the house he had lived in for barely a week. Outside in the street Junot was waiting for him, holding the reins of their horses. The rest of the staff and his baggage had been sent ahead a few days earlier and there would be a long hard ride before they caught up with them. Napoleon swung up into his saddle, adjusted his reins and then turned to look at the bow window on the first floor. Through the glass he could see Josephine gazing down at him, her arms clasped about her body as if she were cold. Their eyes stayed fixed on each other for a moment, and Junot, sensitive to their need, turned his horse away and made for the end of the street. Napoleon mouthed words of his love, then waved one hand in a gentle gesture of farewell and rode off to war.

Chapter 10 - Arthur

Chapter 10

Arthur

Dublin, 1795

After the frozen horrors of the campaign in the Low Countries, Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Wesley returned to Dublin with a warm sense of familiarity and comfort. He was gaunt and thin after the harrowing experience of the campaign and his eyes seemed sunken on either side of his large hooked nose. Exercise and hearty eating would soon restore him to his normal athletic build, but the callowness of youth had been left behind on the battlefield and he was filled with determination to improve himself, and defend his country from the ravenous appetite of revolutionary France.