Chapter Two: The Eighteenth Century

"Fuck. I can't believe this. Joseph! This is beyond belief! Fuck, couldn't you have not been such a dumbass and not provoke her like that! You could've died, Joseph! You could've died!"

Kate, not minding the many 18th century peasants that were trying not to stare, began hitting Adam about on the shoulder. However, this caused the many people around the street corner to take concern with their notice. They looked with a curious eye at the very active woman's green silk robe until someone mentioned something about the Far East, but this still brought questions as to why she had blonde hair and European looks.

Adam, on the other hand, did take much notice to the people noticing him, but didn't have much concern over his consideration to take his gray cotton t-shirt off and wrap it around his leather shoes, which were a technological marvel in themselves that wouldn't be conceived for at least another twenty years.

"Shut up, just stop it," he breathed out, minding which road they were actually on. "The chances of her actually shooting me-"

Kate continued on, tripping on the cobblestones with her slippers. "But Elizabeth said she did shoot you. Joseph, if not for her, you'd be dead! How could you be so careless! So stupid!"

Her dearly beloved shook his head, stopping himself from doing something really terrible. "Nevermind. You just don't understand…"

"Fuck that! Don't tell me-- especially me-- about things I don't understand!"

Adam took a breath, still minding the street names. "The game's no fun when you keep winning all of the time," he said.

"It's not a game! Joseph! Joseph, listen to me!" Kate pulled at Adam's shoulder to get him to look in her glowering eyes. "It's not a game!" she said. "This is your life! This is our life!"

For a second, Adam shuddered once he looked into her desperate eyes. "I'm sorry," he said more quietly, though not any more sincerely. "Can we move on, now? My friend lives just right here." Just to their left was a darkly bricked shop with large windows that contained a mess of ridiculous dresses.

"No! Stop! You can't just--"

"My God! Monsieur Dupont! Where did you go? How did you disappear? We all thought you were dead!" The man, a sort of tall and skinny thing with a fine white wig and a set of perfectly kept dark violet clothes, ran to Adam's feet, and promptly started kissing his left hand.

Adam acted completely natural, making no motion to stop the man. "There, there, Labelle. I'm sorry I had to go on short notice. I was traveling abroad, to the Far East." He broke his fluid French with a pathetic sigh. "I've had a rough time, there I'm afraid, Labelle, so I'm going to have to ask you--"

For the first time, Labelle noticed that Adam was wearing nothing but blue canvas on his legs. "Say not another word, my Lord! Not another word!" Labelle skittered behind a few mannequins to his back room, and there was some thrashing and crashing to be heard. "There has been a few styles come and gone in your absence, my Lord, but considering your taste, I'd recommend a grand entrance! Something to make Versailles give you a standing ovation!"

"Labelle--"

The man exited his back room with a pile of baby blue satin, lace, and a bag of buttons grasped in his fingers. "Yes, my Lord?"

Adam spoke again very regally. "I would like to keep my return as quiet as possible for now. The lady and I just need something to wear for now. Just something one would wear around the manor, not anything too flashy. Not anything that takes much time to prepare."

Labelle blinked, cocking his head. "A pre-made? Well... yes, my lord. Of course, my lord." He seemed disappointed for a moment, but his energy picked up again once he spotted the robed woman beside Adam that was looking curiously at some of his samples.

"My lady!" He ran over to her as well, furiously kissing her hand. "Please, excuse me, my Lady. I did not see you there! I am very, very, forever sorry."

Kate snatched her hand away at once, looking with a raised eyebrow at the man. "Oui," she nodded, unsure of herself, "Bonjour, Monsieur."

Labelle took a step back, looking confused again. "Eh... My lady, what an accent you have!" he stepped back and tried to smile.

"How could you say such a thing?" Adam pretended to have a fit. "Me? Of all people, marry an Englishwoman? No, of course not! She's Austrian!"

Kate quickly made a convincing effort to say some things in German like "Your shop is lovely," and "I like sausages."

"But of course, my Lord," Labelle blushed slightly under the makeup. "I'm sorry, my Lord-- ah, my Lady, as well. Deeply sorry." He kissed both of their hands again until Adam accepted his apology and told him to get to finding clothes already.

Labelle called for his brother, a shorter, but just as fashionable man wearing deep blue clothes, who went to tending to Kate while Labelle started on Adam.

"These trousers! Where did you get them? A shipyard? My God, they're thick, too! Like leather! Blech!" Labelle continued to take Adam's measurements, surprised at the inches he had gained in a little over a year.

"Labelle," asked Adam, spreading out his arms. "What have you heard of my property? Was it well taken care of after my disappearance?"

The tailor shook his head, unsure what to say. "Well, I do believe that the servants that are still there--"

"How many have left?"

"Of course, my Lord, don't only trust the rumors I hear, but about half have left for other work while the other half stays and runs the place how they want to, with parties about every night. On the other hand," Labelle's face brightened. "I have a whole outfit just your color that I made for a picky Baron a few years back. Just a little hemming and it should be perfect!"

Adam put on an uneasy smiled and nodded. "Good," he said. "Perfect."

There was a scream and then a groan coming up from the other back room.

"Kate," he added in German, calling up through the shop, "how are you getting along?"

"Can you tell this man to stop squeezing my waist? The fat's still not going away!"

Adam snickered. The thoughts of his past here had already been vaporized from his mind.

Later that day, Adam and Kate were finally set in a age appropriate clothes. Adam was wearing a deep and dark brown outfit with a matching coat and white stockings and underclothes. Kate was dressed more simply, in a pastel blue dress with less than five layers.

"I haven't worn a dress since I was twelve. God, I look like the pub girl... or the innkeeper lady from that one video game," she had said while she kept spinning in front of the mirror, although she had also complimented Labelle for his stitching and handiwork.

Meanwhile, Adam couldn't keep himself from smiling every time he looked at her. "You should be glad that Marie Antoinette had just set off the country style. If not, you could never be caught sleeping in something like that."

Adam had also told Labelle to just send him the bill once he made his homecoming public, which shouldn't take but a few weeks, he explained. Labelle said he would do just that, that exactly, and thanked Adam for the business.

"What did he keep calling you? Count? So I guess you were still pretty important even back then?" asked Kate once they were out walking to the far side of town. She noticed that Adam had asking for the toned down type of clothing, because although their clothes were bright and spotless, they were in generally the same style as most of the French commoners.

Adam shook his head, pulling Kate out of the way of a cart of cabbages. "I was Clement Marc Antoine Dupont de Aumont, écuyer, Comte d'Lyonnais. If you keep talking long enough about how your grandfather on you mother's side was married to the daughter of the Duke of This Provence, whose grandfather was almost King, if not for that bloody adviser that-- they're forced to believe that you're noble. Even in Versailles, although you need official proof to be invited to the court, there is enough people so that you can sneak into the parties unnoticed."

"But you've got to have had some kind of money," insisted Kate. "You couldn't sneak into Versailles in rags."

He shrugged. "Once you drop a life, a name, and pick up a new one, you transfer your bank account along with it, but the manor was a gift from my father-in-law, as he was never granted any sons."

Kate stopped dead in the middle of the street. Adam had to drag her out of the way of some horsemen riding by. "You were married? To whom?"

He sighed and said very simply, "Frederica, daughter of Louis II de Sauvageot, 4th Duc d'Mercoeur. A pretty little thing, if not just completely daft. We were married in 1783, she died a year later, and then I left for Japan."

"Oh," Kate considered the thought. "I'm... sorry, then."

"You're not."

Kate blinked at him and licked her lips. "You're right. I'm not." She looked at her heels as she walked. "So I assume you carried your money to Japan with you? What's going to happen when Labelle sends the bill?"

Adam sidestepped to avoid a few women rushing by. "I hope that we won't be here long enough to find out." He looked to her. "I really did hate this century. It's ludicrous that I have to live through it again."

A/N: "Clement Marc Antoine Dupont de Aumont, écuyer, Comte d'Lyonnais." You have no idea how much research I went through about Pre-Revolutionary France to get what kind of name Adam would have, how names worked, what were the most common names, what kind of noble he would be, how he would be a noble without history, what places he would say he ruled over, how he would be treated how great the chances were people believed him, and all the things that have to do with his tid-bit history. Not to mention Pre-Revolutionary conditions in general. Hours. And hours. And most of the helpful information was from Wikipedia. And I did the same thing with my Norrington story! About France!

You know what the messed up thing is? I don't even take French! I have no interest in ever going to France! I'm learning freakin' Spanish! I don't know why I put myself through this extensive historical research that barely shows through in the end. I guess... I'm just insane.

Ah.