After nightfall, the officials who had come to Rambouillet to work all took their own carriages back to their lodgings near the château.
Georgiana had thought the night was over, but just as she was about to wash up, someone knocked on her door.
She opened it to find Napoleon's valet standing outside.
"Tell him that as long as Josephine is here, I'm not going to his room," she told the valet without the slightest embarrassment.
"The master has serious business to discuss with you," the valet said.
"What business?"
"Please come with me."
She did not press further.
In television dramas, scenes of a maid being led by a valet to the lord's bedroom in the middle of the night were common. She had never imagined that one day she would find herself in such a situation.
Yet she was not taken to Napoleon's suite, but to the Council Suite on the second floor of the château.
Lord Napoleon Bonaparte sat waiting for her on a Rococo sofa in the library. Behind him hung a tapestry depicting a boar hunt. He looked calm and haggard, nothing like a man of thirty.
"You won." He pointed at the small table near her right hand. "Take a look. This is the draft of the peace negotiations."
She froze for a moment.
The Treaty of Amiens had been signed in 1802, but no one knew when its drafting had begun.
It seemed the trading delegation that had arrived this time carried a significant mission. They had not merely come to deliver white swans and buy grain.
"Why aren't you looking?" he asked gently.
"Women do not take part in politics."
"Then what are you here for?"
"...Peace," she said guiltily.
He gave a cold laugh, rose to his feet, and poured himself