But any rationalization, however objective, couldn't long overcome the weight of despair crushing her spirits. Leaning her head back against the leather squabs of the carriage seat, she shut her eyes against the tears threatening to spill over. Feeling lost and stranded, a terrifying, unknown course before her, she was overwhelmed by hopelessness.

Why me? she lamented, twin paths of tears gliding down her cheeks. And utterly despondent, she wondered what further disasters awaited her.

But at a post stop north of Parma, as she waited in the carriage for the horses to be unharnessed, she saw a young woman with two children begging for alms beside the road and her own difficulties in contrast seemed trivial. Unlike the ragged, starving young family, their faces pinched with hunger and need, she was well fed, well clothed, actually pampered by the colonel-so she'd arrive unblemished, in prime form for his general.

Slipping the pearls from her neck, the ones Beau had given her in Lisbon, she called the woman over to the carriage, and placing the necklace in her hand, she wished her good use of them. "Take these, and feed your family."

The young mother burst into tears at the lavish gift, kissed Serena's hand, and thanked her, her words overwrought with emotion, tears streaming down her face. Trying to pull her torn garments into some semblance of order, she apologized for her appearance, embarrassed by her shabbiness. "We're not beggars, signorina," the woman softly said. "Or we wouldn't be if my husband hadn't died. But the children-"

"Please, I understand," Serena interposed, feeling a philistine in her elegant gown and guilty for her own self-pity when this woman scarcely had clothes to cover herself or food to eat. "No apology is necessary. Please-bring your children up so I may meet them," she added, wishing to curtail the woman's self-conscious atonement, catching the shy glance of the little girl clutching her brother's hand.

Pulling her children forward-a thin boy and a small girl who smiled timidly at Serena-the woman urged her youngsters to give Serena thanks.

"Thank you, signorina," the young boy gravely said. "Our papa died in the war." His eyes were too large in his thin face, his arms and legs emaciated. But he stood protectively over his sister, holding her hand firmly.

"Papa dead," his little sister piped up, understanding the calamity if not the concept and Serena's eyes grew wet with tears at the children's poignant words.

"Giovanni died at the battle of Magnano last spring," the young mother said. "And"-her mouth quivered-"it's been very hard...." Her voice broke for a moment. "We have no relatives and it's difficult to find work with two small children," she quietly finished.

"I know someone who can help you," Serena said, impelled to aid the unfortunate family. "Do you know how to take the post to Florence?"

At the mother's immediate nod of affirmation, Serena searched her pocket, remembering the single florin she always carried for emergencies. Taking it out, she handed it to the woman. "Take the post coach to Florence and go to Professor Castelli at the Accademia dell'Arte. Tell them I sent you; the professor will know who will buy the necklace."

The flash of hope that shone from the young mother's eyes struck Serena with such impact, it eclipsed her own problems. Before the colonel ordered the troop back on the road, Serena was able to give the young woman definitive directions to the Castellis'. "Tell them I'm well," she added at the end, "and am on my way to Milan, I think. I'll contact them again as soon as I'm able," she finished in a rush, for the carriage was pulling away.

The children waved and smiled and the woman's heartfelt thanks echoed in Serena's ears long after the troop left the post station.

Feeling revived, almost invigorated after her meeting with the unfortunate mother and children, if it were possible to experience such a positive sensation under the circumstances, Serena straightened her skirt, smoothed out the wrinkles in the elegant white georgette gown the colonel had sent to her, adjusted the yellow silk bows decorating the ruffled sleeves, as if readying herself for the fray. Her mood was almost light-hearted as she looked out the carriage window at the bright summer landscape.

She wasn't the only lady in Italy faced with the prospect of being conciliatory to the country's new conquerors, she reminded herself. Nor would she be the last if Colonel Solignac and his compatriot's sense of extortion continued unchecked.

Now, how exactly did one befriend a commander-in-chief?

Apparently not with the usual ploys, she discovered when she was ushered into General Andrea Massena's quarters the following day.

He looked up from his desk when Colonel Solignac brought her in, silently surveyed her for the space of two heartbeats (hers very violent despite her intentions to appear calm), and immediately returning to the papers before him, said, "Take her to my apartment."

He was already dictating to his two secretaries before she'd left the room. A maid greeted her at the commander-in-chief's suite in the Palazzo Mombello, showed her the armoires filled with female clothing in one of the dressing rooms, told her to help herself to anything she wished. With a bobbing curtsey, she said she'd bring some refreshments for the signorina and the signorina was to consider the general's apartments her own.

From the maid's experienced tone, Serena realized she wasn't the first lady to share the general's quarters.

Massena hadn't looked like what she'd anticipated, she thought, generals in her experience being old and portly. Massena's hair was gray (the result of his starvation diet at Genoa during the siege) but he was hawk-faced and lean; he had the look of a corsair. His eyes, ice blue and wintry, had assessed her with a swift, fleeting arrogance. But then he had complete authority in all of Italy; she supposed a degree of arrogance went with the rank. He wore none of the accoutrements of his position, though; his simple blue tunic had been partially unbuttoned, his shirt beneath as plain as his uniform. He almost looked out of place in the gilded opulence of the palazzo.

After the maid returned with a tea tray, she busied herself in the room, pouring Serena's tea, unpacking the few of her belongings an orderly had brought from the carriage, placing her books atop a splendid pietre dure table near the sofa in the salon where Serena had decided to sit. As she went about her duties, she scrutinized Serena with an obvious interest, as if placing her in the hierarchy of women privy to the general's life.

"The general's very kind, signorina," the maid said, offering encouragement to the young lady who sat stiff-backed on the sofa like a schoolgirl.

"I'm pleased to hear it," Serena replied, keeping her voice neutral, not sure whether the maid was there to serve her or guard her.

"And he's devoted to his officers."

As they are to him, Serena thought, wondering how many other staff officers brought back captive women for their commanders. "How nice," she said.

"More tea?" The maid hovered at her elbow.

"No, thank you."

"Another cake?"

"Thank you, no."

"Would you like me to find you something more comfortable to wear?" the girl inquired. "The general dines late, you see. You may have to wait some time."

"No, I'm comfortable," Serena said, not yet capable of playing the courtesan with ease, her posture the antithesis of relaxation.

"Very well, signorina." The maid fluffed the last pillow on the settee across from Serena, surveyed the room quickly for any duty left undone, and seeing none, said, "Ring for me if you need anything."

Serena passed three nerve-racking hours anxiously waiting for the general to appear, rehearsing a variety of demands and pleas, courteous and not, wrathful and gracious, debating the best procedures required to expedite the process of her release.

But he didn't come and dinner passed without his appearing. Serena ate alone at a very large dining table in an enormous dining room, the vast interior gilded and mirrored and lighted with hundreds of candles. Massena's chef was of the first rank, the food superb, the service regal.

For a moment before dinner, she considered refusing the food as a form of protest against her capture, but it was impossible after surveying the delectable choices put before her. The table was covered with beautifully prepared dishes: dozens of choices in the opening course-soups, hors d'oeuvres, removes, and entrees, and before taking her first bite of veal with sorrel sauce she chastised herself briefly for being without firm principles.

After dinner she spent the evening making a pretense of reading, and at ten declined the maid's offer to assist her into bed. She preferred to sit up and read for a time, she told the maid, dismissing her for the night, intending to avoid sleep-the thought of being surprised in bed by a strange man too daunting.

She fell asleep in her chair with all the candles burning.

Like a young child afraid of the dark, the general reflected with a faint smile when he went to his chambers near midnight to fetch a document and looked in on Solignac's pretty present. A shame, he thought with a twinge of regret, that he couldn't ignore his pressing correspondence and take pleasure instead in the mademoiselle's delectable body. But he couldn't, he decided with a sigh, and returning to his office, he kept his secretaries up until three. After a short nap in his dressing room, he rose again at dawn to begin another day of demanding administrative duties.

Napoleon had called Massena to Milan shortly after Austria's defeat at Marengo and then immediately left for Paris, where the politics of fluctuating conspiracies required his presence. Massena was left with the onerous tasks of reorganizing and reequipping 70,000 troops of the consolidated Reserve and Army of Italy, none of whom had been paid in six months.

The morning activities in the adjacent dressing room woke Serena, the sound of bathing, the murmur of voices bringing her nerves on full alert once again. What should she say to the general when he first came in? What could she say without fear of reprisal? But the voices remained comfortably distant as Serena slowly came awake, stretching her stiff muscles. The chair, while luxuriously soft, had not offered the amenities of a bed.

As Serena nervously awaited her denouement, Franco, the general's batman, entertained his master with the latest on-dits as he dressed him for the day, and the occasional sound of the men's laughter reached Serena through the closed doors. The valet served up all the freshest rumors for Massena's edification, the general's understanding of local affairs always dependent in part on Franco's intelligence reports. Once the elderly servant had run through his repertoire of current gossip, he said with a nod at the doors to the adjoining bedchamber, "Sylvie says the mademoiselle wouldn't go to bed last night no matter how she coaxed her."

"I noticed," Massena murmured. "Send her some bauble from me today."

"The countess liked emeralds."

"She did, didn't she? Well, send this one emeralds; Solignac's young lady does have the look of Natalie, doesn't she?" Massena's memories of the Countess Gonchanka brought a smile to his austere face.

"Solignac has a good eye."

Massena laughed softly. "Now if I can just find time to enjoy my prize."

"It's not your fault the army's in a mess," the orderly grumbled, his loyalty unswerving, his understanding of army politics consummate after fifteen years of serving Massena. "They expect too much of you."

"As usual, Franco. And then the complaints begin when I lash everyone into shape."

"They're ungrateful pigs." He shook out a fresh shirt, displeasure in every snap of his wrists.

"You and I know that," Massena said with a grin, sliding his arms into the crisp shirt his batman held out for him now. "But then we must consider the politics of survival."

"Hmpf. As if Bonaparte would be First Consul without you to win his wars."

"Or I an efficient soldier without you to take care of me," the general murmured, standing still while his cravat was carefully draped into appropriate folds.

"It's an honor, sir."

"I'll try to dine with the young lady this evening." Massena shook his cuffs down. "Come and remind me at eight."

"Unless another hundred dispatches arrive this afternoon," Franco mumbled, protective of his master, concerned with the heavy schedule Massena kept after so recently suffering at the siege of Genoa. He'd endured the same scant rations as his men and his health wasn't completely restored yet. "You should try to sleep more."

"I'll try," Massena politely agreed, his mind already distracted by the most pressing of his appointments for the day. "Bring coffee to my office," he added, picking up his tunic himself, waving his orderly away. "See that it's very black and very sweet, Franco." He was already halfway to the door. "I have to see the monseigneur first and he always gives me a headache."

"Hang the old sinner." With republican zeal, Franco viewed the papacy as expendable.

"There are times I'd like to when he boldly lies to me," Massena said with a flashing smile, shrugging into his coat. "But then, the French Treasury needs the money he tells me he doesn't have."

The procurement of cash for the pay of the troops was always an exasperating problem, although it wasn't the first time Massena had been faced with it. The French consular government had inherited from its predecessors, the Directory and the Convention, the principle that the French armies had to be fed, clothed, and paid at the expense of the occupied enemy territories. Strictly speaking, though, the provinces of Northern Italy occupied by Massena's army were not enemy territory but neutral states, whose populations the French government wished to conciliate and attract into the French political system as buffer states against Austria. So from the first, it was obvious that any contributions exacted from the local governments would be bitterly resented and would be insufficient to meet the requirements of the French troops.

Napoleon had promised that any shortfalls would be made up by cash payments from the French treasury. They never would be, of course, Massena knew, and his greatest difficulty was imposing contributions on those who, in his opinion, could best afford to pay them.

He spent the morning with local government officials trying to appear fair and reasonable to men who strongly objected to the sums required of them.

His afternoon was given over to tiresome and acrimonious disputes with the Austrian high command over the line of demarcation that was to be established between France and Austria per the Convention of Alessandria that had ended the campaign-an instrument still to be ratified both by the government in Paris and by the Aulic Council in Vienna. And due to the vagueness of the terms laid down in the Convention by Napoleon's representative, Berthier, and the Austrian chief of staff, Zach, the disagreements would take weeks more.

Once the Austrians had taken their leave late that afternoon, a dozen new dispatches were handed to Massena and the next time he looked up, an ADC from Napoleon was being ushered in by Solignac. Both men's faces were wreathed in smiles. The envoy from Paris had brought nine million in gold for the army paymaster. It was an occasion for celebration; Solignac had already left instructions with the chef. All further administrative duties should be curtailed for the night, he affably suggested, and at a cheer from the staff, Massena agreed with good grace.

21.

Serena received orders, albeit couched in polite terms, to appear in the dining room at nine.

The emeralds had arrived from the general that afternoon, a magnificent necklace and earrings carried in by Franco, who with a graceful bow handed Serena the gold casket containing them. "Compliments of General Massena," he'd said.

And when the maid arrived to dress Serena, she conveyed a message from General Massena that he "would be pleased if the mademoiselle would wear the emerald jewelry that evening."

What a long way she'd come from her quiet upbringing in Gloucestershire, Serena thought. Wondering what other orders she'd be required to fulfill before the evening ended, she watched servants carry in copper buckets of water for her bath. Tonight she was slated to become the latest of General Massena's paramours. And she didn't know what to do.

What if she were to refuse him? What would happen to her? A small shiver fluttered down her spine. Or did one yield with good grace and pretend it didn't matter that you were reduced to the status of courtesan?

She was mute as she was bathed and dressed, feeling like a prisoner about to be led to the scaffold, her silence apparently unnoticed by the maid who ordered her lowly minions about with the authority of her exalted position. She commanded and they obeyed, bringing soap and towels and more water. The shampoo was discarded twice before the proper scent was accepted by the maid, the fragrance of jasmine apparently preferred by the general, the scent heady in the steam of the bath chamber.

The maid selected appropriate lingerie when Serena said she didn't care what she wore. The delicate silk of a chemise and the gossamer bit of corset slid over her skin with a luxurious whisper as she was laced in and beautified for the general's pleasure.

The abbreviated corset was nothing more than boning covered with lace that served to boost her breasts well above the low decolletage of the filmy bit of white mousseline de soie passing for a gown. There was no question of her purpose in such revealing attire, the undergown of flesh-colored silk blatantly suggestive, clinging to her hips and legs when she moved.

Her hair was dressed a l'antique in a fall of blond curls pinned high on her head, and the emerald necklace lay on her exposed bosom like a sensual invitation to look, to touch.

A lodestar of the first magnitude, a score of men concluded as she entered the dining room. Each one turned to stare at her standing at the door, the emeralds drawing the eye, her full, plump breasts holding their awed gazes. And each officer envied the general walking over to greet the young lady Solignac had brought from Florence.

"Good evening, mademoiselle," Massena said as he reached her, bowing slightly. "Solignac tells me your name is Miss Blythe. Welcome to Milan." He didn't introduce himself and she wasn't sure whether it was arrogance or diffidence. Unlike several of his fellow officers, arrayed in full dress uniform ablaze with gold embroidery, he wore a severe black uniform without medals or ribbons. "The emeralds are very lovely on you," he added, his voice without inflection.

"I'm not sure what to say, sir." Did one thank one's captor for his gift, regardless it was probably someone else's in the not too recent past?

He smiled and took her hand, drawing her into the room, gesturing gracefully in her direction; his hand, she noticed, was strong, tanned, devoid of jewelry. "Comrades, Miss Blythe has consented to bear us company at dinner tonight. Please welcome her."

A hearty round of applause greeted his remarks as well as a number of more exuberant cheers from the younger subalterns.

"As you can see, Miss Blythe," he softly said, smiling faintly, "your presence is much appreciated. Could I offer you some wine?"

"No thank you." She tried to keep her voice from trembling, but the struts of the fan she held in her hand were near to snapping.

"I won't take advantage of you, Miss Blythe, if you have some wine," he remarked with amusement, taking note of the strained curve of the ivory-and-lace fan. He waved a footman over. "The lady would like a glass of wine."

The footman reappeared with the filled glass, and Massena handed it to her, watching as she obeyed him and lifted it to her lips. "The evening won't seem so threatening after a glass of wine," he gently said. "I have no intention of hurting you. Now come," he went on in a less cajoling tone, "Solignac is impatient to talk with you. He's a connoisseur of art and he tells me your painting was very good. He'll talk endlessly of his collection, so when you've endured enough, simply walk away. I've already warned him you have my permission to ignore him."

She smiled, as she knew she was expected to do, and leaning over the merest distance, so his mouth was nearer her ear, he murmured, "That's better."

Perhaps the wine did help or the general's urbane chivalry reassured her or the officers' amiable courtesies calmed her worst fears, for after a time she found herself relaxing in the convivial company. Seated beside the general at dinner, she listened to the good-humored fellowship, the talk not of war but of families or horses, of homes they'd left behind and of who was most apt to win the bank tonight at faro. She found herself laughing too on occasion and when Massena spoke to her, she no longer weighed each word before responding. It was very strange at first when she realized these men were little different from those she might have dined with at a country party in Gloucestershire. And she even forgot for a time that she was not a guest but a captive.

They retired after dinner to a large drawing room that had been arranged for cards, and while several officers played faro the general invited her to sit with him at his table, where the game of choice was loo.

He handed her some gold coins and without asking, had the dealer allot her cards as well. Under the circumstances she would have had to make a scene to refuse.

He knew that of course. He'd been watching the alarm diminish in Serena's eyes throughout the evening, taking pleasure in wooing her. He wanted her to play cards because he'd see that she won and ladies liked to win.

And then later in the evening, he'd play a very different game with her. One that he'd win.

She was many ducats richer before long, as he'd ordered, although the lady had a refreshing expertise that made him question her pose of innocence. In his experience, women that skilled at cards were also skilled at other more pleasurable amusements. The paradox between her naivete and that gamester facility more likely seen in the demimonde piqued his interest; he'd have to inquire into her background. Although countess or maid, the pleasure they offered was identical. Massena wasn't looking for permanence, only orgasmic diversion.

They drank some excellent wines and laughed more often as the evening progressed and empty bottles accumulated. Serena had decided the general was right. The inevitable conclusion to the evening would be more palatable with a glass or two of wine. And she had no illusions as to the general's intent.

An orderly interrupted their game shortly after midnight, apologizing as he handed Massena a note.

Scanning the message, the general said, "Show him up," and then finished dealing the cards. "A merchant from Florence wishes to discuss a donation from Fiesole," he abstractly noted, Solignac's questioning look requiring some response. "I'll ante four thousand."

"Who from Florence?" Solignac retorted, cautious of businessmen arriving at so late an hour.

"A Signore Allori. A banker, I'm pleased to say. Are you playing, Solignac?"