Josephine had a Jardin des Plantes filled with roses, and Redouté used his delicate brushwork to capture them. One variety of rose had been introduced from the Netherlands; it was called maheka, meaning Belle Sultane.
The names Parvati and Padma together always reminded Pomona of a sixteenth-century Sufi epic. That peerlessly beautiful Sri Lankan princess made the Sultan of Delhi, like the Ancient Greeks, attack the fortress where her husband was. But Helen eventually returned to the King of Sparta, while Belle Sultane chose suicide when the city fell. In the end, the Sultan of Delhi still did not possess her.
Things one could not obtain often became impossible to forget. Georgiana brushed the white threads from Bonaparte's black coat, making it sit more crisply on him.
He was much sturdier than he had been during the Italian Wars, and he could fill out this cut now.
"How is it?" he asked, adjusting his cuffs as he looked into the mirror.
She suddenly felt that the red-and-gold gradient fabric should not have been hidden beneath the coat, but displayed outside. Yet that would have made it like that red parade uniform.
"Where is your brooch?" Georgiana asked. She thought he would look better with some lavish jewelry pinned on.
"It broke," he said flatly, adjusting the scarf around his neck.
She also thought the sunflower brooch was unsuitable for his chest. He looked better wearing the star-shaped Legion of Honour medal.
The pointed corners of the collar could actually have been adorned with gemstones—for instance, peridots with golden oak leaves.
Suddenly, she realized she was dressing him up. That was not something she ought to have been doing.
One corner of his scarf bore a lilac pattern, as though someone were declaring her presence and "sovereignty."
Perhaps he saw the