Esmeralda watched Enjolras curiously as he wrote. The way he seemed to purse his lips in concentration was endearing and amusing to her all at the same time. Having enough of watching the young revolutionist in silence, she finally spoke up.
"You know, normally when a person sits down at your table it's common curtesy to at least acknowledge them, Monsieur." She smirked evilly at the jolt that seemed to course through Enjolras' body at her sudden interruption to his thoughts.
Enjolras exhaled heavily and he took a long look at the cheeky woman sat in front of him. His eyes were immediately drawn to the rosy lips that were upturned in a poorly suppressed smile. He shook his head slightly, before adjusting his position to fully face her.
"My apologies, Mademoiselle Fauchelevent, how has your evening here been so far?" He asked politely.
Esmeralda scoffed at her full title, it felt so stiff.
"I implore you to call me Esmeralda, Monsieur." She insisted, batting her dark lashes at him. "And as much as I admire a hard-working man, everybody deserves their breaks."
She stared pointily at the metal pen he still held in his hand.
As much as she admired a what? Was she-? No, she couldn't be. She wasn't… flirting with him, was she? Here of all places! Such bold actions from a young mademoiselle indeed!
His thoughts caused him to swallow nervously as he placed his pen gently down onto the table, forgetting the paper for the moment. The bob of Enjolras' Adam's apple didn't go unnoticed by Esmeralda, only causing her to grin more.
"Esmeralda, then." He tested out her name on his tongue, how it flowed easily through his lips without struggle.
"Does this mean I get to call you Alexandre, then?"
He swallowed his wine harshly causing him to cough violently into his hand, he was obviously taken aback by her brazen question.
"I mean- well-" Enjolras stuttered.
He had stuttered! What was wrong with him today?!
"I mean, isn't it only fair? Since I'm giving you permission to call me by my first name." She was enjoying herself by watching him fluster! What a menacing woman indeed.
When Enjolras was about to refute her and tell her how since she had been the one to ask him to call her by her first name, he should've been the one with the choice to offer her the use of his first name, not the other way around, but for some reason he knew there was no point in arguing about it. He sighed in defeat, yet another lost battle, but he didn't give up hope yet as he was reminded of the saying "lose the battle but win the war".
"Feel free to call me whatever you wish, mademoiselle." Esmeralda frowned at this, hearing him call her by mademoiselle had obviously displeased her.
"Enjolras, is what everybody seems to call you." She nodded to the cheerful members that were spread across of the room in front of them. "But I'd rather not be part of the 'everybody', I like to stand out you see." She took a long sip from her wine glass and stared off into the centre of the room. "Alexandre is far too long and proper… Alex is a name I frankly dislike, for some odd strange reason, so that leaves us with Andre."
Enjolras watched Esmeralda finally turn her head to face him, locking eyes immediately.
"Is that alright with you?" she tilted her head at him, waiting for his response.
"I repeat my previous statement." He muttered in reply.
The silence grew between the pair and feeling the sudden urge to change the topic of conversation, she did just that.
"So, what's your future plan, Andre?" She swirled the contents of her glass playfully as she awaited his answer. "If we do win this revolution."
"Future plans?" he asked, confused.
"Yes, like marriage or a job and whether you're going to move to the countryside or stay in Paris." She explained, her hands gesturing all over the place.
Enjolras looked at Esmeralda sceptically, why was she so curious about him?
"If I manage to finally pass my bar exam then I'll become a lawyer, hopefully." He added. "As for marriage, I have no desire for it."
Esmeralda raised her eyebrows at his proclamation, it was expected and unexpected at the same time.
"At all?" She uttered incredulously. "You're a rather good catch for all those other bourgeois girls."
"A good catch." He mimicked irritably.
"Of course! You're handsome, intelligent and wealthy." She listed the 3 things off on her fingers before looking up at him with hooded eyes. "A woman would have to be blind and deaf to not find you attractive. Have you not ever had a beau?"
The only answer Esmeralda received was the hell-freezing glare Enjolras gave her, which she interpreted as a very simple no. She stared at him for a second, admiring the way his hair fell slightly into his eyes as he scribbled onto his paper.
"Have you ever heard of the British poet Tennyson?" Her question caused him to raise his head, she didn't wait for his answer to carry on, "There's a line in one of his poems that goes:
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
It's a meditation on the dissolution of a relationship, the meaning's quite self-explanatory. It's just something to think about, I guess."
Enjolras raised his eyebrow at her, her sudden mention of the poem had caught him off guard. Was it because of their earlier conversation? When he said he was never going to take a wife?
"I didn't take you as a person to recite poetry," he commented, his pen paused in it's never-ending dance across the lines of the paper.
"Yes well, many people don't really," she sighed.
Enjolras could barely let the weight of her words sink in before a loud shout and a clatter of chairs nearby disturbed his thoughts. Courfeyrac and Combeferre had both sauntered over to their table and had pulled up two chairs to sit along side them joining in on their conversation. Grantaire had long passed out on the table across the room and Marius had decided to call in an early night.
"What are you two loners talking about all on your own?" joked Courfeyrac.
"We're hardly loners if we have each other's company, Courfeyrac." Esmeralda shot back at him.
"Touché, mademoiselle." He grinned and continued to sip from his bottle.
"But for your information, we were discussing marriage."
"Marriage?!"
Courfeyrac sputtered the contents of his drink and coughed violently. Enjolras' eyes nervously glanced across the room, it seemed no one else had heard the ear-piercing exclamation from Courfeyrac. Yet another misunderstanding he had to clear up.
"And poetry," Esmeralda added with a grin.
"We were discussing marriage in general, Courfeyrac." Sighed Enjolras, "Don't try to think too much, you'll only hurt yourself."
Courfeyrac sent a withering glare to Enjolras, which he merely rolled his eyes at, as Combeferre picked up the conversation again.
"Marriage, eh? Looking for the perfect suiter are we, Esmeralda?"
"They're the ones that find me, unfortunately," replied Esmeralda bitterly.
"Don't tell me you're as opposed to marriage as much as our dear Apollo here." Courfeyrac clapped a hand on Enjolras' shoulder, much to his displeasure.
Esmeralda chuckled heartily before replying, "No, certainly not as much as Andre here, but I do have a certain disdain from it."
The 3 men fell deathly silent and Esmeralda looked confusedly between them. She glanced over to Enjolras, who eyes were trained to the table, and then to Courfeyrac who was barking with laughter and then to Combeferre, who's lips were parted in shock.
"A-Andre?!" Courfeyrac gasped between his throws of laughter.
The look on Enjolras' face was so cold it could've made hell freeze over.
"I-I didn't realize, the pair of you were on 'nickname' terms." Confessed Combeferre, glancing between the couple.
"Oh, he isn't." clarified Esmeralda, a small smirk creeped in the corner of her mouth. "But, I am."
That damn smirk was going to be the end of Enjolras.
"Y-you… said you had… a disdain from marriage, why?" Courfeyrac wheezed out his question before beating his chest into recovering from his, rather, exhausting laugh.
Esmeralda gave a heaving sigh, recalling all the memories of her governess teaching her how to act like the perfect wife and remembering all the potential suiters that had randomly showed up at her front door asking for her hand in marriage before she even knew their name.
"It's imprisonment." Esmeralda had a far off look in her eyes, like she was trapped in her own world. "Well, right now it is anyways. All I want to do right now is enjoy my youth while it lasts, you see. For example, I want to go on midnight escapees, cause a scandal or two and perhaps along the way I meet a man that doesn't make me feel like I'm constantly tied to the ground. It's like marriage is a cage and I'm the silly bird that got coerced with the prospect of safety and comfort to get in it. It doesn't matter how large or how spacious the cage is, the cage is still a cage. I'm not really free. Unfortunately, unlike you boys, I don't get a choice. I'm a woman, it's my 'duty' to marry a well-off man with good prospects and bear his children, but while my husband is enjoying his young adult life, what am I doing? Where am I in this picture? I'll tell you where, I'm at home nursing the children. Why should I be the one to give up youth for something I don't even want?"
Esmeralda grumbled incoherent words to herself, but one would assume they weren't as intelligent as the one she used in her little speech just then. The three men around her let the heavy weight of her outburst settle into their minds as they interpreted her words.
Enjolras was enlightened by her words, the only type of women he had ever encountered up until Esmeralda were the very vapid, boring bourgeois mademoiselles that wore too much perfume and had very little common sense. Esmeralda's view on marriage seemed to open a door in his mind, letting out all this mess of ideas and opinions he had to sort. She was the exact opposite of those girls. When all they had wanted was to find a good husband from him, Esmeralda had wanted to find out about the lunatic beliefs and ideas he had. She was openminded to different beliefs and welcomed change for the better. She wasn't one of the chess pieces being played but in fact the player, who had the control of the game.
"So, when's the wedding?"
The hands on the old grandfather clock ticked away as it neared 12am in the morning, most of the Les Amis members had already left the café and gone to their respective homes for the night to sleep away the alcohol. About half an hour ago, Esmeralda had declared that she had to be heading home as well and Combeferre had politely offered to walk her home, which she had kindly accepted.
Lucky bastard.
Only Courfeyrac, Grantaire and Enjolras were left to grumble in their own seclusive thoughts and Grantaire, who had previously awakened from his drunken stupor, although still very tipsy, was the one to receive Enjolras' freezing gaze.
"What wedding." He enunciated each word precisely, making sure Grantaire could feel the scathing heat from every word he spoke.
Grantaire barely even flinched.
"Why, the wedding between you and Esmeralda, of course!"
Courfeyrac glanced between the two men nervously, feeling the tension growing heavily within the air, but it seemed Grantaire failed to notice it.
"O' c'mon! She's a righ' spitfire, int' she?" The words came tumbling out of Grantaire's mouth before Courfeyrac could stop him and he felt the fear rumble in his stomach.
"Ya' chant of a revolution, yet 'ere you are! Probably more lovesick than Marius!" Trust Grantaire to spill his mouth to possibly the worst person for this situation in the entirety of France.
Courfeyrac felt cold sweat start to bead along his brow as his gut twisted in anxiety as he watched Enjolras' grip on his pen whiten.
"I am not the one that's lovesick." Enjolras spat the word out like it had left a foul taste in his mouth.
Grantaire released a bark of laughter as he staggered to his feet, rising off his chair with less balance than a new born foal.
"'Course you are! Yar' bloody speechless when she's around and you blushed."
Grantaire's grin spread as Enjolras' eyes widened as he, as well, raised out of his chair to face the stumbling drunkard. Courfeyrac could merely watch on in muted horror, too afraid to set up Enjolras' temper.
"Don't bother tryin' to deny it, Apollo." Grantaire jabbed the point of the bottle towards Enjolras' chest. "An' you shouldn't be ashamed of it, I mean, you only have to take a bloody glance at the woman to-"
Before Courfeyrac could shout in horror, Enjolras' fist flew towards Grantaire's head and punched him cleanly in the jaw. Grantaire fell to the ground in a heap, knocked out by the blow with the help of the enormous amount of alcohol in his system. Enjolras breathed heavily as he recollected himself and straightened his waistcoat.
"Sorry… I needed for him to shut up for just one damn second."