“Ah…”
“My husband's family were Huguenots,” Elizabeth replied smoothly, from her voice she found it a much easier task to pretend than Darcy did.“They have been on our island for a hundred fifty years and almost entirely forgotten anything about France.”
“Ah, no Papist tendencies then.Good.Not that the French are very Papist anymore.Hahahaha.”
Elizabeth politely laughed with him.
Then Lord Wakefield shouted in English at the man loading his carriage, “Not that way!That trunk is worth more than your head, you fool!More than your head!”
The hotel’s servant replied in French that he had no idea what he was being asked, but that he was offended by the foolish Englishman’s tone.Or at least that is roughly what he said.
“Eh, ah,mais qu'avez-vous dit?”Wakefield replied first and then he angrily strode over to the servant, smacked him on the back of the head, and demonstrated with big gestures and slow half shouting in English the way that he wanted it to be done.
Darcy caught Elizabeth’s eye, and she laughed.“In truth, it seems I do not speak so good French as I thought I could… I can read easily, but…”
“It takes a bit to get the knack to hear them speaking, but don’t worry, you’ll manage sooner or later.”
“I hope.”Elizabeth looked at the ground and frowned.
Darcy extended his arm to her, “Shall we?”
He gestured his head to the hotel where they were to breakfast with General Fitzwilliam and decide just what their next plan was.
As they started towards the ornate doors of the fine large building, Wakefield jogged back up to them.“Charmed, Mrs.Benoit.Charmed.Busy now, so apologies, Darcy — you are coming to Paris, right?”
Darcy again opened his mouth, not sure what to say.It would sound deuced strange to admit he had come across the channel with no plans about what he was to do after he’d crossed.That sort of answer was acceptable for a youth of nineteen or twenty on his Grand Tour who was quite ready to just fall in with whichever friends fate presented to him, so that he might let chance show him the adventure and culture he longed for.
A man past thirty was expected to be somewhat more deliberate though.
“We are,” Elizabeth’s clear voice said from beside him.“I am eager to see theNotre Dameand walk along the Seine.See where those famed events took place.”
“Of course you are — best city in the world, better even than London, because the cits in Paris aren’t trying to pretend to be one ofus.Call on,” Wakefield pulled out his card, and scribbled on the back of it with a nub of pencil he pulled from a little book that he apparently kept for the purposes of tracking odds during games of chance, “I’ll be settled on theRue de St Denis,quite near the Isle.We servants of King George must hang together eh?Charmed, Mrs.Benoit.Charmed.”
Wakefield took her hand and kissed before he returned to shouting at the servants.
Elizabeth smiled, a little melancholically, “If I am to be exiled from the Albion, at least I need not miss forJohn Bull.”
Darcy laughed, and walked her into the hotel.
The decor was elaborate, pretty, and very ornamented.Endless detailed patterns, all done in gold and blue, with chairs that looked too thin to support the weight of a man of Darcy’s size.It was like the hotel had been decorated by a Lady who’d become obsessed with French fashions and threw into some rubbish heap all the good solid furniture made of English oak.
Which was fair, since this wasFrance.
Likely anyone who bought sensible furniture here was laughed at by his companions for adopting the English style —à la mode Anglais.
There were large mirrors built into the walls, from ceilings to ground, like he’d been told were in the old palace of the king at Versailles.And there was no carpet, but instead a hard brick floor, which must save on the expense of cleaning the carpet, at the cost of being quite uncozy when the weather was cold.
Monsieur Dessein himself was at the desk, and something about Darcy’s manner led him to brush aside his servant to serve Darcy himself.
Their host’s English was completely clear with an almost affected French accent.“The rooms General Fitzwilliam asked for you are prepared.We have a good collection of bathing rooms here, large and commodious, and there is a passage to the theatre.If you have any needs at all, simply ask me, and I shall provide — do not worry about gaining French money, it is simple.I shall give you Napoleons for your guineas, and then when you return, when your sojourn in our fair land is complete, I shall give you guineas for any Napoleons that remain to you.”
Elizabeth looked down with a slight frown and a little turning away from him.
She was thinking again of the money he’d promised to pay to transport the rest of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s troops to the continent, and what they paid now for this fine hotel.Each time he gave her anything it put Elizabeth deeper in his debt, and he did not want that.He wanted them to be one, so that there was no talk of debt or obligation.
Darcy frowned as he ran over what Dessein had said.What were the values he usually received in his business dealings?“Is not a Napoleon twenty francs?”
“It is, Monsieur Darcy.”
