After leaving the hall, Georgiana immediately went to the warehouse where the wine was stored and found the steward, Fischer.
Napoleon drank only one kind of wine. She had Fischer seal up all those bottles, then went to find Duroc. She needed to review the staff.
Of course, the male attendant's death might have had nothing to do with Napoleon. He had a life of his own. Perhaps a jealous girlfriend had poisoned him, or perhaps he had some terrible disease. It had better not be a plague like the Black Death, or everyone in the hall might have been infected.
An investigation required an autopsy, but the family would most likely refuse to allow a dissection.
There were too many people here. Assassins might have slipped in among the guests, but without a guest list to compare against, she could only hope the staff still had one.
She would not blame Josephine and Madame de Vaudey at a time like this. Stephanie Beauharnais, the future Princess of Baden, was Josephine's relative. It would do Napoleon no good to divorce Josephine now. Her "whispering slander" would achieve nothing, and Bonaparte was not skilled at dealing with women or social occasions. Madame de Vaudey, meanwhile, was the sort of woman who easily made people lower their guard. Georgiana had almost forgotten that she had been sent by Josephine to "deal with" Georgiana.
Once, Polina had dressed as a priestess of Bacchanal at a ball, making everyone else jealous. A countess dressed as the goddess of the hunt had acted friendly toward her, only to say, when the time was right, that Polina had donkey ears.
A woman's heart truly ran deeper than the sea.
Madame de Vaudey was truly Josephine's "good friend," though she apparently did not care much for the