The Garden Intrigue

In the ninth installment of Lauren Willig''s best-selling Pink Carnation series an atrocious poet teams up with an American widow to prevent Napoleon''s invasion of England. Secret agent Augustus Whittlesby has spent a decade undercover in France posing as an insufferably bad poet. The French surveillance officers can''t bear to read his work closely enough to recognize the information drowned in a sea of verbiage. New York-born Emma Morris Delagardie is a thorn in Augustus'' side. An old school friend of Napoleon''s stepdaughter she came to France with her uncle the American envoy; eloped with a Frenchman; and has been rattling around the salons of Paris ever since. Widowed for four years she entertains herself by drinking too much champagne holding a weekly salon and loudly critiquing Augustus'' poetry. As Napoleon pursues his plans for the invasion of England Whittlesby hears of a top-secret device to be demonstrated at a house party at Malmaison. The catch? The only way in is with Emma who has been asked to write a masque for the weekend''s entertainment. Emma is at a crossroads: Should she return to the States or remain in France? She''ll do anything to postpone the decision - even if it means teaming up with that silly poet Whittlesby to write a masque for Bonaparte''s house party. But each soon learns that surface appearances are misleading. In this complicated masque within a masque nothing goes quite as scripted - especially Augustus'' feelings for Emma.