How My Perfect Life Was Inverted

Chapter Fifteen: Geneviève

"…I'd personally prefer if we turned the sleeve up a bit; lace seems a little too formal for a riding habit, don't you agree?"

"That's all very well and good, Miss, but what is Mademoiselle's opinion on the matter?" I heard Mr. Houghton, the dressmaker, simultaneously address both Flavio and myself. Sighing, I turned my unseeing gaze away from the planted orange trees and rose bushes, gently fanning myself. I had been sitting melancholically on the veranda, brooding over my short life so far, Flavio curled at my feet with a book on embroidery he had found in Lady Hale's abandoned room, when we had suddenly spotted the friendly duo trudging up the path, escorted by two liveried servants.

I had every reason to be morose; I recognised the veranda from the dream I had had of Jack not so long ago, in which we had kissed to distract the guards. When, walking arm-in-arm with Flavio about the Governor's meticulously landscaped and distinctly European gardens, I had spotted it, I had torn my arm away from my maid's, leaving him to deal with my hastily-dropped parasol, and rushed eagerly towards it in search of a torn rectangle of my nightdress snagged on the ivy. I was surprised to see that the ivy had recently been trimmed away, leaving only close-cropped tufts of beige-coloured stalks as evidence of its presence: It seemed as if the entire household was conspiring against my ever discovering whether Jack's visit was a dream or not. With this realisation, I had promptly sunk into a sulk, and Flavio had to dart to the kitchen to fetch me a chair. The Houghtons had arrived about twenty minutes later, smiling and apologising profusely for being unable to call earlier.

"Oh nonsense!" I'd exclaimed with a somewhat false smile. "Why, it was only three days since I'd visited your little workshop; frankly, I think that this is rather quick."

The wife gave the husband a knowing smile and, as Flavio and I pored over the sketches, I heard her murmur to her husband, "Didn't I tell you, Jamie? A lady of proper breeding isn't at all as insufferable as these affected… plantation wives and daughters."

I bent my head to hide my smile; although I've been subjected to numerous adjectives in my time, 'not insufferable' had never been amongst them. I was rather pleased with it.

"There is a favour," I said quickly, glancing up at the pair, "that I've been meaning to ask of you…" I turned to Flavio, worry flurrying across my mind as I groped for his false name. "J - Jeanne-Louise…?" I trailed off pointedly, and his violet eyes widened.

This morning, I had had a discussion with Flavio; a discussion which resulted in my maid flouncing off to unknown maid-friendly quarters in a sulk. Because Flavio had brought with him a collection of the most dazzling gowns I had laid eyes on since waking up in the colonial Caribbean, it had seemed perfectly sensible to me that, as well as commissioning new dresses, I adjust all of Flavio's own gowns to fit my own, more womanly figure—and although Flavio's frocks were a few inches too small for me, I'd like to state that yes, it was possible for the garments to be loosened for my fuller figure. Flavio's tailor had been an intelligent man (or woman, I didn't know for certain); knowing that people's bodies can wax and wane over time, he had left a good five inches of the material over, flatly folded and hidden along all the seams, in the event of Flavio's weight gain (which apparently hadn't happened yet). Last night at supper, I had squeezed with relative ease into that stunning silk number, so I knew that only a few inches needed to be let out before it could fit me more snugly.

Flavio had protested rather childishly at my plan, of course, but—before he could throw a tantrum—I threatened to have him dismissed from his post. It may seem cruel, but if you had seen the clothes in his possession, you'd have done exactly the same thing. Eventually, Flavio had calmed down enough to consent to have his gowns "destroyed, mutilated, and torn open to make way for your fat—" I promptly threw a shoe at him, and that was when he disappeared to sulk. I spent the half-hour I had alone standing in front of a full-length mirror, studying my figure from every angle, until he had returned.

"Jeanne?" I now said warningly. "The dresses? Might you fetch them for me?"

Flavio's lower lip began to quiver, his eyes filling up, and I hurriedly shooed him away before he caused a scene.

"So!" I said brightly, wincing at my perfect English. "A-About this… model," I blurted out stupidly, skidding around the word pattern, "Th-This will… suit me?"

They both stumbled over themselves to assuage my fears, and we continued to discuss various patterns and materials and the latest fashions from Paris until I became aware of two male eyes upon me. I stiffened a little, and turned to look out over the landscaped gardens.

"Christophe!" I gasped, fanning myself rapidly. It took me a moment to realise that this was the first time I had seen him in direct sunlight—and how it suited him! I studied him in awe, my eyes roving over him in wonder as though I had never seen him before.

He was dressed, I realised with a frown, in a riding habit a little too dark for the heat of the Caribbean; his cotton shirt, peeking out beneath his loose ebony waistcoat, had been dyed a deep burgundy, complementing the unfashionably bronzed skin of his face and chest. How did he get so brown? I couldn't help but wonder; Was it due to the low cut of his shirts, or did he ride shirtless once far enough from all those of maidenly sensibilities; or did he even—Oh stop it, Sierra. His breeches were black, or perhaps an extremely dark grey, made of a thicker material than his paper-thin shirt, and I tried not to think of how hot he must have been beneath them; his boots were a soft black leather, cleaned and polished to shining perfection; only the scuffs, so prominent that not even the best of boot-black could entirely conceal them, informed the world of how worn they truly were. Around his neck hung a kerchief of some dull, black material. He wore no frockcoat, opting instead for a long black cloak, swept over one shoulder. There was something wonderfully gothic and timeless about his apparel; the darkness of his garments seemed to absorb the relentless sunlight, making him appear both sensual and sinister—traits, I realised, that were far from incompatible. I was so shocked by this transformation—last night and this morning he had appeared both fashionable and casual, but hardly… dark—that all I could do was stare.

When I eventually raised my eyes to his, I was taken aback at how much bluer his dark clothes and rich colouring made him; there was a mischievous, almost flirtatious sparkle as he returned my gaze, and my heart leapt in fear at the knowingness I saw there: Did he know? Did he suspect…?

And then: He heard me speaking English.

When he smiled, and swaggered towards me, I was reminded of my first impression of him: that he looked like Jack, if Jack had been an aristocrat. This thought soon fled my mind, and I heard my fan clatter to the floor as I sank weakly into my seat.

"Madame! Are you quite well?"

I smiled shakily, and nodded up at the concerned Mrs. Houghton.

"Th… The heat…" I whispered faintly, ignoring my fearfully beating heart as each slow, deliberately casual step of Christophe's brought him closer, closer, closer…

"Why is it," he asked me casually, greeting me with a quick peck on the cheek, "that a woman, when confronted with clothing, ceases to take note of the immediate world around her?"

I smiled shakily up at him, and shrugged. "One of life's niggling little mysteries," I replied stupidly, studying his face for any sign of suspicion: There was none, and I was uncertain of whether to be thankful or concerned.

"Are you visiting… one of Uncle's neighbours?" I asked, praying I appeared calm and serene.

Christophe's lip quirked in a manner that suggested he was attempting to suppress a smirk. "In a manner of speaking," he answered evasively. "Don't fret, petite ange; I'll return long before nightfall," and he gave me a quick kiss on my burning cheek and a longer, lingering caress on my fingers. I felt the imprint of his lips, light though the contact had been, long after he had left me.

The moment he was gone, adjusting his kerchief as he went, a powerful relief flooded through me; sighing, I reached down for my fan, my other hand rubbing my neck nervously.

"S-So…" I said clumsily to Mr and Mrs Houghton, who had politely stepped away during my fleeting conversation with my brother, "I believe we were discussing échelles…"

Christophe had lied about returning 'long before nightfall,' but my afternoon did not suffer from his absence; if anything, I benefited, even though my brother had instructed the help to effectively place me under house arrest: Paul, fearing his father's anger upon discovering the missing chandelier, had all but vanished, and I was left the mistress of the manor. I enjoyed my brief position of power immensely; I breached social protocol by taking tea with the Houghtons who, though a little old for me and were rather dull, were kind and amicable—two traits that were hard to come by. Our conversation never strayed very far from the topic of clothes, which was fine by me; speaking of which, the three of us eventually bullied—persuaded Flavio into relinquishing his. I felt terrible at this act of betrayal and, when I had allowed him to traipse up to my room so that he might sob in peace, shyly commissioned the dressmaking couple to create a few frocks of his own.

"You can get his—her, pardon my English—measurements from these gowns," I told the pair, my hand resting on the implausibly high pile of silks and satins he had left with us—How did he and Jack sneak into the house undetected with those?

"If you don't mind my asking, Madame," Mrs. Houghton questioned timidly whilst her husband gaped at the gowns in rapture, "But how does an honest maid come to own such fine garments?"

I closed my eyes and cursed my recklessness; in my vanity, I had not stopped to consider what others would make of Flavio's dress collection.

"Well that, madame, is a rather long story; Jeanne-Louise…" and I hurriedly fabricated a tale of how 'Jeanne-Louise' was the only daughter of an alcoholic aristocrat who drank and gambled away both his wife's comparatively meagre dowry and his family fortune; how, in desperation, Jeanne-Louise had flung herself upon the mercy of an old convent-school friend of hers, which was me, and how I persuaded my father to take her in as my companion. When our ship was attacked, Jeanne and I had reasoned that it would be far safer for us to travel as lady and maid, so that only one of us would be 'eligible' for ransom, leaving the other to slip away, nigh inconspicuous, for lawful help. Her gowns, I explained, were actually my own; but I had gained a little weight since leaving Paris, and during her brief role as maid, she had grown rather attached to them; wearing such exquisite garments was the only link she had left to her former life of leisure.

"…And now she claims she'd rather die an honest maid than a shamefully impoverished aristocrat," I concluded woefully; "hence her insistence at this masquerade."

"Oh, well that explains it," Mrs. Houghton told me with a pitying, carefree smile. "My husband and I thought the two of you were rather… attached."

I thought of how the two of us slept curled up in the same bed—I was too fearful of Paul's intentions, despite Flavio's uncertain reassurances, to sleep alone, and Flavio had declared that he didn't like the look of the cramped sleeping quarters the rest of the housemaids shared—and nodded in agreement. We talked idly for a little longer, and then I bade them farewell, assuring them that my brother would pay all expenses as soon as the gowns were complete.

I then had an hour or so in which I could do as I pleased, which I spent exploring the house and attempting to reconcile with Flavio, before a liveried footman ran out panting to tell me in patronising, exaggerated English and embellished arm movements, that my aunt and uncle, Governor and Lady Hale, were returning earlier than was originally anticipated.

Governor Hale and his French wife, my aunt, Flavio told me as he hurriedly pinned and curled and loosened and generally arranged my hair over one of the too-small gowns that the Houghtons had left behind—they decided to take three of Flavio's dresses to adjust, return them upon another visit, take a few more, and repeat this process until all of the gowns were my size—had been attending a week-long—or was it two weeks?—soirée at a nearby plantation belonging to a nouveau-riche expatriate and his family. They had been married either twenty or twenty-five years, depending on which maid you chose to listen to, and theirs was a companionable, if loveless, marriage.

"They're very happy together, or so I'm told," he told me as he teased my hair up to a slight Pompadour. "Arranged marriages tend to be happier than love matches, you know."

I didn't know, and asked him why this was.

"Because in an arranged marriage, both husband and wife have realistic expectations of what is to be expected of the relationship; marrying for love, on the other hand, is fraught with unforeseen, unprecedented disasters. Furthermore, an arranged marriage, when seen to properly, tend to bring together two like-minded and highly compatible people whose affections for one another should hopefully grow over time; far more likely in a love match to have the spouses falling out of love. But what's wrong, Sierra?" he added upon seeing my grave expression.

"Nicolette," I answered; "the only reason she was shipped off to the Caribbean in the first place was to marry, wasn't it? And if I, as Nicolette, was to marry this… this…"

"Sauveterre," Flavio supplied helpfully.

"Yes, Sauveterre—him—Do you think we'll get—We'll be happy together?"

Flavio gave an uncharacteristic snort at this.

"With your—Nicolette's—dowry and connections, I somehow doubt he'll be able to see much of the rain cloud—he'd have been blinded by the silver lining."

I pulled the brush from his hands and used it to swat at his fingers.

"That's for calling me a rain cloud," I sniffed as I handed the instrument back. "But you've seen to learn a lot about Nicolette here; tell me more about her. And her family."

Flavio had acquired all of his information through carefully planted questions, comments, and strategic eavesdropping. Maids, butlers, footmen—they all talked to one another as they worked, exchanging tattle and gossip about both Kingston and their aristocratic employers. The Évignons, I learnt, were not 'true' aristocrats—that is, they belonged to what Flavio referred to as the 'Land' nobility as opposed to the more exclusive 'Sword,' named so because the honour was won upon medieval battlefields. Basically, they bought their title instead of having it honourably bestowed upon them; their aristocratic lineage began four generations prior, when Louis-Henri Évignon purchased the marquisate of Montfévière and changed the family name to the ever more slightly aristocratic d'Évignon. This wasn't to say that they'd remain a part of the lower nobility forever, though; if the Évignons could hold onto their wealth and titles for about eight generations, they'd have subtly, successfully assimilated themselves into the elegant, courtly Sword nobility. I calculated that by the time the Évignons were fully accepted into this courtly fold, the quiet stirrings of the French Revolution would have already begun, and silently pitied the social pretender that was Louis-Henri.

"So Christophe will be the fifth Marquis de Montfévière then," I said aloud. "But I was told that Nicolette was Comtesse de Vallauris in her own right; is she a widow then?"

Certainly not, was my reply; the land of Vallauris, along with its corresponding title, was a substantial part of her dowry; after our marriage, Sauveterre could demand others to formally address him as Monsieur le Comte de Vallauris.

I wrinkled my nose at this. "What a mouthful," I declared, leaning my head forward as instructed whilst Flavio fidgeted with a few curls. "I don't think I'll enjoy being married to such an obvious social climber."

"Well I can't think of a better match for an Englishwoman who was briefly the mistress of a gratuitously big-haired pirate captain, can you?" he questioned, sticking a pin into my hair.

I looked down at my dresser, and didn't answer.

Governor Hale and his wife burst into their home with little, if any, formal ceremony. I was sat in the parlour, attempting to look demure yet aristocratic, and I was certain they would have ignored me completely, had it not been for a throat-clearing butler, and even then, Lady Hale appeared far more interested in me than her husband, who merely brushed me aside and disappeared into his study with a moodily slammed door. The wife stayed a little longer, exchanging formal pleasantries, before excusing herself and hurrying to join her husband. When the door had closed behind her, my false smile had fallen from my face, and I immediately sought out Flavio.

"How did it go?"

"They completely ignored me!" I pouted childishly. "The Governor grunted, then went and shut himself in his office; and as for my aunt…"

"What of your aunt?"

I pulled at a loosened curl, which was tickling at my shoulder, and smoothed down my skirts.

"She wasn't much better." And with this, I promptly sat down on the mattress, which with my wide skirts was no mean feat. A slight rustling and creaking, accompanied by the sudden indentation of the mattress, told me that Flavio had crawled up to sit on the bed behind me.

"There must be an explanation," he frowned. "Governors don't just ignore their recently-abducted niece for no good reason…"

"Well this one did."

"Were you—"

"No, I was not."

"Not even a little—?"

"No."

"Well then, you must've—"

"I most certainly did not!"

"Oh," he said, and promptly curled up in thought.

"Did you remember—"

"I was the politest creature since—Since a polite person did something that was incredibly polite. No, it wasn't that."

There was a pause before Flavio shyly offered, "Maybe the Governor and his wife are having a little matrimonial spat? Arranged marriages aren't the most friendliest arrangement, you know."

"'Arranged marriages aren't the most friendliest…?'—But not so long ago, you said—"

"Don't use my own words against me; it's not fair, and defies all verbal sparring etiquette. Besides, I need silence to think in."

"You actually think?" I snapped moodily at him, and promptly kicked off my shoes, crawling up the bed and hugging a pillow to my chest as I lay on my side. Flavio followed me, sort of; he laid his body down completely, his head moving to rest against my stomach; even through all the layers of my clothes, I swore I could feel his breath warming my skin. The possibly-imagined sensation sent a shiver down my spine, and I distracted myself by groping around the bed.

"You want a pillow, Flavio?" I asked, handing one to him. We sat curled up close to one another, Flavio's lower lip protruding in an expression that was both frown and pout as he racked his brains for a solution.

"I'm going to go eavesdrop," he announced, so quietly that I barely heard him. "See if there's a reason for your being ignored. Will you be all right on your own?"

I nodded, accepting the pillow he handed to me.

"Just don't be too long, will you? You know I hate being left alone."

The 'problem,' Flavio told me twenty minutes later, was rather straightforward:

"Christophe's wife has been abducted."

I had been reading a small book extolling the virtues of obedience; it now fell to the smooth uncovered floorboards, its dry pages crackling.

"…What did you just say?" I asked, certain I'd misheard him.

I hadn't.

"Madame d'Évignon; she's gone. Abducted by a highwayman, apparently."

A highwayman? I could only stare.

"Madame d'Évignon? A highwayman? Have we walked into a melodrama?"

"Pardon?" he queried, staring up at me in confusion. I ignored him.

"Are you trying to tell me…" I began, and stopped. "Are you trying to tell me that Christophe's… married?"

"But of course; why, didn't you know?"

"I… I…" I fumbled, squeezing a nearby pillow. Of course, I realised stupidly, he's an eighteenth-century aristocrat, and eldest heir; why wouldn't he be?

"But…" I stuttered. "But – But - But he's never mentioned her… No one said—Oh God, Flavio—Does Nicolette—Do I—know her?"

Flavio shrugged, kicking off his shoes before curling up on the bed, his head snuggled in my lap.

"Who knows?" he asked breezily as I absentmindedly curled his hair about my fingers.

"You do… Don't you?" Flavio blinked and turned to look at me blankly.

"You must do!—you always do!—You're a Flavio, and Flavios know all!"

Flavio pursed his lips at this, wrinkled his forehead, and shook his head before telling me quite plainly that Christophe and Geneviève—for that was the name of Christophe's wife—had unexpectedly married just before Christophe's family had received news of Nicolette's disappearance (the source of his information, he briefly paused to tell me, was Bouchon, Christophe's valet and confidant) so no, I can express as much surprise as I wanted at her existence.

"Well that makes things so much easier," I replied, relieved. "You do have to pity Christophe though; first his sister was shipwrecked, and now his wife's been abducted. Where is he, anyway?"

"Ah," Flavio answered pleasantly, "Even Bouchon is not privy to such information."

I smiled, and bent to retrieve my book before reclining on the bed, Flavio crawling up to curl beside me with his head resting on my stomach, mewling and purring like a contented kitten. Setting the book aside, my hand reached down to gently caress his hair, scooping up a handful of strands and watching them shimmer as they fell. It seemed to me as if his hair was an entire spectrum of yellow; a slight twirl, perhaps a toss, and a whole other shade was revealed. I was absolutely fascinated with watching his hair; almost as entranced as he was with my cleavage.

"Flavio, I thought you were afraid of them," I commented lazily.

My maid's body stiffened, and there was one awkward moment where I was certain he'd stopped breathing. Then he abruptly straightened, seized a pillow, and scurried down the mattress to curl up at my feet, the pillow pulled ostensibly over his head. I poked at him with my toe a few times, shrugged at the lacking response, and returned to my book.

After over an hour of respective reading and hiding, Flavio suddenly shot up, inadvertently throwing his pillow at me.

"Do you hear that?" he queried excitedly, back straightened and arms raised in a way that reminded me uncannily of a meerkat. Before I could answer him, he had bounded off the bed and scurried through the two doors that opened out onto a small balcony, looking eagerly down at the drive below.

"Are those hoof beats?" I asked, following him at a slower and far more graceful pace.

"Yes; there's a man on a horse with a rather dishevelled woman on him."

By now I was standing beside him, and glanced down to see a dark rider attempting to slow his steed and caress his russet-haired lover all at once. I wrinkled my nose and snorted, turning away from the passionate but revolting sight.

"Somehow I don't think Christophe will be too upset when he hears of his missing wife," I remarked scathingly.

Except, of course, that the brown-haired woman dressed in a simple, dirtied, hastily-buttoned and rumpled but finely-made dress was Geneviève d'Évignon; and therefore, it was safe to deduce that Christophe had been the abductive highwayman. In hindsight, I found it hard to believe that I hadn't guessed this sooner; I had seen him, hadn't I, skulking about the gardens, dressed from head to toe in dramatic black and looking rather handsome and smug and handsome again: He had all but told me that he planned on riding, but had been rather evasive as to the destination: it was all so obvious…

Far from being relieved at this development, Governor Hale was incensed: his with heavily-accented French, interspersed with barely-comprehensible English, burst through walls and windows, echoing off of every plausible surface of his mansion: bellows of how worried both he and his wife had been, how they had dispatched messages to every military official in Kingston, how humiliated he would be at detracting these orders, and what was Christophe thinking? Oh, if Christophe had been a child, how thoroughly he would have birched him… Midway through his tirade, I had opened the door to find Lady Hale escorting the guilty but giggly Geneviève to what I assumed was her room. It seemed as though both women wished to be as far away from the source of noise as possible, and had seized upon the only legitimate reason available: bathing.

It goes without saying that the following supper was an awkward affair, with constrained small talk being the order of the evening: the Governor's verbal harangue had apparently sobered the affable Christophe, who sat sombrely beside his bathed and beautiful wife. Lady Hale sat at her husband's right hand, and I sat beside her: Paul had all but disappeared, leaving a note to say that he was visiting an unspecified friend for an unspecified amount of time, so his place had been taken by his mother, whilst his mother's place, the seat immediately to the Governor's left, was taken by Geneviève, who had generously decided to act as a barrier between her husband and his uncle. This meant that Christophe was directly opposite me, and throughout all four courses I fancied that he was staring at me; or at the very least attempting to catch my eye. I chose to remain silent, and my words, when I did speak, were deliberately short and clipped.

I honestly believe that Christophe was hurt by my cool silence; he certainly seemed unwilling to remain in my presence any longer than was necessary, citing an imaginary headache as reason for his abrupt departure. Geneviève remained long after he left, and when Governor and Lady Hale had retired to his study, apparently to discuss something of vital social importance, I was forced to accompany Geneviève to the parlour, where she sat before the harpsichord and improvised a pretty but simple little melody for my personal enjoyment.

"I do hope you like it," she said to me when the last metallic note had yielded to the gentle chirruping of cicadas. She struck me as being a little older than myself, perhaps even the same age, and very, very pretty: She was not, however, beautiful in the way that I would usually define the word; that is, hers was not the striking, glamorous sort of beauty that you tend to associate with Hollywood starlets or fashion darlings (as I did have very high standards when it came to such things).

Her hair was a medium-light brown, with only a limited range of highlights and lowlights; her skin wasn't marble-white, at least not without powder, but it was pale, pinking girlishly at her cheeks. Her eyes were large and brown, the lids perhaps a little too heavy, giving her the appearance of doleful sleepiness; but the expression in them were very warm, and forever amicable. Her lips were small, red, and puckered like a child's; they turned up slightly at the edges, which gave the immediate impression that she was always smiling; it was only when two small dimples appeared in each pink cheek that an onlooker knew for sure that this was so. I obviously can't describe much of her body, hidden as it was beneath her hoops and various pastel layers, but I could see enough to tell that she was slender, and I knew that had it not been for the corset, her curves would have been rather limited.

To be perfectly honest, she didn't seem at all an appropriate match for the dark, confident, conventionally handsome Christophe: And yet, she clearly must have had an adventurous side hidden beneath her quiet and demure exterior; she did, after all, allow herself to be 'kidnapped' by her husband, and they must have made love in the grass at least once on their leisurely journey to the Hales' home. Hardly the behaviour of a quiet little… prude.

That being said, I could sense that she seemed eager to impress me, no doubt for her husband's sake: Thus, I was resolved to hate her. The image of a masked Christophe doing something as romantic as sweeping his wife from under her guardians' noses and then ravishing her beneath the shade of a nearby palm tree seemed wasted on a timid brown mouse like Geneviève.

"Are you and my brother very much in love?" I blurted out harshly; from the look on her face, I guessed this wasn't the usual response she received for her playing.

"Well, I—I like to think that we are, yes," she stuttered in the manner of one caught completely off-guard.

"Really. Well if you don't mind my asking, exactly why is it then that you gallivanted off to some sort of high-societal soirée with your aunt and uncle, leaving your beloved husband alone but for his cousin?"

"Because, Mademoiselle—my husband wished to remain here, waiting for news of your return."

I crossed my arms and glowered at this; a perfectly reasonable answer to a perfectly unreasonable question. But at least her docility had been confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"I see," I said, feeling my cheeks heating in embarrassment at my obvious jealousy. Snapping my fan shut, I rose from my seat; dutifully, Geneviève rose with me, straightening her pale pink skirts in anticipation of a curtsy.

"I'm feeling a little light-headed," I said to her. "Bonsoir, Madame."

"Y-Yes," she stuttered quietly. "Thank you for your time, Mademoiselle."

Reaching the door, I paused to cast her one final, lingering look; she was still standing beside the harpsichord, her hands clasped primly over her rose-tinted skirts, watching me with a gentle understanding that, frankly, quite unnerved me.

I burst into my room, the door crashing sickeningly against the wall, causing Flavio to yelp and drop his hairbrush.

"Why is Si-Si so very angry?" he queried childishly as I stood before him and demanded he undress me.

I hesitated before answering: the truth was, I hadn't had sex in a very long time (just under two weeks, in fact), and the thought of the impish, mischievous, handsome Christophe making playful, passionate love to a woman who, quite frankly, looked more suited to lying there with her eyes closed as she thought dutifully of England—France, rather—only served to highlight this fact. That Geneviève very clearly did not undertake a passive role during conjugal relations only served to further my frustration.

"Geneviève," I scowled. "She irritates me." Which wasn't far from the truth.

"Why, what did she do?"

"She—" I began moodily, and stopped, snapping my jaw shut. "Well she—" Again, I couldn't think of a single word or action to justify my loathing of her.

"She's French," I settled, knowing as I did that at this time the English very much viewed their imminent European neighbours with contempt and disdain; they were, after all, caught in a race of who-can-bring-the-entire-world-under-the-unrelenting-yoke-of-imperialistic-oppression-first.

"Oh come now, that's hardly fair—" Flavio began, but was interrupted by Governor Hale's unexpected bellow of:

"WHERE IS MY BLOODY CHANDELIER?"

-x!x-