Gentlemen And Rakes

Chapter Five: The Flying Pear (Andrew's PoV)

"What do you mean, you're engaged?"

"By saying that I'm engaged, I mean that I've been unfairly betrothed without my consent nor my consultation."

"Ah."

An uneasy silence passed between us in which I fidgeted with a corner of my shirt. At long last, I spoke. "Who is it?"

"I'm not actually certain."

"What do you mean, you're not actually certain?"

"Andrew, why on earth do you expect me, of all people, to know the identity of my fiancée?"

"…Because you're her future husband?" I tried. John merely rolled his eyes at me in impatience. "No, really; do you honestly not know?"

"Well…"

"Come along, John, who is it?" I emphasised my point by throwing a conveniently-placed apple at his head.

"Ow! Since when did you start throwing fruit at your guests? 'Tis not in keeping with the conventional form of etiquette, you know…"

"John: who is she?" I pressed.

"Just a very spoilt little convent girl."

There was a pause. "You're marrying a convent girl?" He nodded. "You?"

"Yes."

"And a convent girl?"

"Unfortunately." I began to cough. He merely glared at me.

"What's so comical about that?"

"Well… There are a lot of different kinds of women I can imagine you with, John, but not one of them had ever received a convent education."

"Are you implying I'm more a sinner than I am a saint?" he asked, hands suddenly clasped together in mock prayer.

"I'm not implying anything—I'm telling you outright you're more a sinner than you are a saint."

"Well I never!" he exclaimed, hand at his brow in a melodramatic swoon.

I gave him a glance laced with concern. "Sometimes I worry about you…"

"People are always saying that…"

Another silence longer than the last fell upon us. John had appeared quite suddenly on the doorstep of my father's London townhouse this morning, swept—or rather, staggered—into the parlour, and announced, without so much as a "Good morning," that he was engaged. I'd simply stared at him for several minutes whilst he helped himself to the rest of my breakfast: "I'd jumped out the window before I could finish mine," he'd said in explanation.

Sometimes I wondered exactly what went on in the Raven household that rendered this particular escape route as mundane.

"Is she a merchant's daughter? A Catholic merchant's daughter?"

"Well, I doubt she's Puritan."

"Point taken." I took a sip of wine and stared pointedly over the rim. "But she can't be an aristocrat though, can she? They're all Protestant, or at least appear to be…"

"She can if she's French."

Pause. "You're marrying a French convent girl?"

"An aristocratic French convent girl, to be exact."

"But… But won't there be a kind of… a sort of… language barrier?"

"My education has, unfortunately, included the basics of French conversation."

"But won't she need to learn English?"

"Not if I move to France."

"You're moving to France!"

"Yes. My father is ecstatic; I saw him cracking open the wine cellar as I jumped."

"Was he ecstatic that you're moving to France, or ecstatic that you've jumped?"

"…I'm not actually certain…" he said as he speared a piece of meat on a fork. "You need a new cook, by the way."

"Yes, but moving on from my father's household arrangements: how did you manage to secure an aristocratic French convent girl?"

"My mother was sent to the same convent as her mother."

"Good God, how many convents are involved in your marital arrangements?"

"A minimum of two, I think."

"You think?"

"Well, I jumped out the window before I could hear the whole story…"

"Well, you should have delayed your jumping until you'd heard the whole story then, shouldn't you?"

He shrugged nonchalantly, reaching across the plate to grab an orange.

"What is she, then? A chevalier's daughter?"

"A countess."

"So she's a widow, then?"

"No; like I said, she's an incredibly spoilt convent girl…"

"But—But then she must be older than you…"

He threw an orange peel into my face. "For God's sake, Andrew, she's a convent girl! Most girls are taken out of the nunnery when they've finished their education and thrown straight into society."

"Well, what would an aspiring English bourgeois like me know about the laws of Parisian society?"

He threw another orange peel at me; it landed in my hair instead.

"So she's our age, then?"

"Younger."

"Fifteen?"

"Younger."

"…Twelve?"

"She's ten years my junior."

"You mean she's seven?"

"Yes."

"But… But… But how can a seven-year-old be a countess?"

"Well, she's very spoilt, as I said."

I closed my eyes in exasperation. "Please expatiate."

"Well, her grandmother was the daughter of an Italian baron, and her grandfather was a French count. Her mother was sent to a convent in northern Italy, as was mine."

"Why Italy?"

"Oh, you know, centre of the Catholic faith and all that—Anyway, they remained firm friends after both returned to their respected countries. The count died, and as she was his only daughter, she inherited his title of Comte de Vallauris; then she married a marquis, and so effectively ended up with two titles. She gave birth to a son—who, by the way, did not receive a religious education—and then a daughter."

"And the daughter became a countess because…?"

"Well, let's just say her mother gave her a very valuable christening gift."

He drained my wineglass as I stared in shock, examining his fingernails for any sign of dirt. "They're getting quite long, aren't they?" he asked, waving his hand in front of my face.

"But—But you—You—You don't have a title! You don't actually have anything of value to an aristocrat, much less a French one! How—Just because your mother—I don't—"

"Andrew, breathe," John commanded. "Which just brings me to my next point: I don't think it's ever going to happen. I'm too far beneath her status. And besides, I have five years for her parents to change their minds and marry her to a duke of a kind."

"So… So you're not going to marry this countess?"

"It's highly improbable, yes."

"So… So you jumped out of a window, came here, ate my breakfast, drank my wine, and threw orange peel at me for absolutely no legitimate reason."

"I just wanted to see the look on your face as I calmly explained everything to you in a slow and frustrating manner," he justified. I retaliated by grabbing the entire fruit bowl and tipping all of its contents over his uncovered head.

"Ow, ow, ow—is that a pineapple? OW! Yes, it is!"

He leapt away from his chair, his arms over his head, and ran out of the door, me and my fruit bowl in close pursuit.

"Her name is Nicolette d'Évignon, now stop pelting me with bananas!" he yelped in defence.

I froze mid-throw. "Is that meant to stop me from throwing expensive fruit at you?"

"Um, yes?"

"How?"

"Didn't you want to know the name of the girl I'm engaged to that will never be my wife?" he tried tentatively. A flying pear answered his query. "I guess not," he murmured, throwing a mango back.

It landed against my cheek with an audible splat, sliding slowly off of my chin to land on the Persian carpet beneath our feet.

And that was how we passed the first Tuesday morning of the summer.

-x!x-

AN: Hmm, I'm not sure if this is a vital plot point or just something really random, or both… This is what happens when my beta-reader and I collaborate; by collaborate, I mean I type, she throws random comments in, and we both watch a Sarah Brightman concert…