"Professor..."
"Not now, Padma."
Georgiana shouted impatiently, then returned to her room.
The moment the door closed, her whole body relaxed.
Sometimes being alone did not mean being lonely. Only after quite a while did she take out the letter Duroc had given her, but she did not rush to open it.
Aachen was not very far from Maastricht, so the intelligence she had provided was not entirely wrong. But was a round trip between Brussels and Aachen possible in a single day and night? Especially when the messenger was not a cavalryman, but a farmer.
Information in this era did not travel as it did in the twenty-first century, with telephones and the internet. It was constrained by distance. Even with the telegraph, no line had been laid between Aachen and Brussels. She had never expected people to use semaphore on land.
"Did you miss me?"
She heard Severus behind her, but did not turn around.
She truly needed "treatment" now, but not revelry to cover up her pain. Though that would let her forget many things for a while and feel a momentary release.
She raised her head and looked at the painting hanging in her bedroom. It was Rubens's Golden Tulips. Van Gogh had painted more than one version of Sunflowers, but people usually remembered the most valuable one, because reproductions of that painting hung on many walls, while most originals were in museums, with only one privately owned.
The painting on her wall was an original Rubens, not a reproduction. As she looked at the lavish Baroque oil painting, two other paintings came to mind. One was the full-length portrait of Louis XIV; the other was David's painting of Napoleon crossing the Alps on horseback. The Battle of Marengo had taken place in June, but the