fellow in Genoa, when I had Jester,' he replied, thinking himself quick on his feet for so saying. 'A senator at the time… 'til the French bought him off. Already owned half or more of the damned place. A nasty article, Signore Silvano.'
'Oh, now this is a good show,' Paisley-Templeton excitedly told them, jutting his chin towards the space before the orchestra, where a few younger couples had begun to dance. 'Not for them your everyday quadrille or contre-danse, such as we have at home. They're doing the gavotte, a most intricate dance. Takes years of study and practise to perform properly. I fancy myself as a dab-hand at dancing, yet… it is so complicated, the gavotte! I despair of ever learning it.'
You look the sort, Lewrie told himself uncharitably. 'Napoleon, did you know, refuses to dance unless they play the monaco,' Sir Anthony tossed off, intent upon the dancers with glee in his expression, his champagne glass hand gently marking the time, and even essaying a sway and faint shuffle of his feet. 'The monaco is simple… as is the new dance that comes from Vienna, the waltz. Means 'walking,' I suppose, or something near it. One actually embraces one's partner… with a discreet space between, of course,' he said, lifting his left hand in the air, extending his right. 'A couple holds hands… here, the lady places her hand on her partner's shoulder, and the gentleman places his hand on his partner's waist. One dances a box, One step forward for the man, one backwards for the lady… one step to the right for both, then back for the man, forward for the lady, and then left back to where one started, before performing a half-turn to the right, and beginning the box again. Swooping… elegant. Romantic… yet perhaps too racy for English society, more's the pity.'
'It has been Christmas since we danced,' Caroline said, quite taken with the dancers' movements. 'Perhaps if they do play something familiar to us… once we're done with Napoleon… '
'After I've had more champagne,' Lewrie said. He'd once been a dab-hand himself in the parlours, at the subscription balls, but it had been years, and stumbling about canted decks on his sea legs was not conducive to elegance or fine style. He was sure he would clump!
As if he'd said 'open sesame' a liveried waiter appeared with a tray bearing fresh glasses of champagne. Lewrie gallantly clinked glasses with his wife and turned away to sip deep… and spluttered and coughed.
'M'sieur,' Charitй Angelette de Guilleri said as she dipped in a graceful curtsy, on the arm of an officer of Chasseurs, who knocked off a faint bow, wondering who the Devil his girl was greeting.
'Mademoiselle,' Lewrie managed to say, bestowing a 'leg' in reply, suddenly feeling the heat of the room in late summer, and its crowded body heat of hundreds of attendees. Breaking out in a funk- sweat would be more to the point!
'Madame,' Charitй continued with a maddeningly serene smile on her face, curtsying to Caroline this time. 'Enchantй.'
'Mademoiselle… ?' Caroline said, responding in kind, confused, feeling a flush of heat herself, and wondering if she was being twitted by an impudent mort who wished to insult a Briton.
It didn't help that Charitй was in an Egyptian-pleated gown of such thin, shimmery pale blue stuff that Lewrie didn't have to use his imagination to recall every succulent inch of her. Her hair was up in the ringleted style а la Josйphine, a plumed, wide-brimmed hat on her head, a furled parasol in one lace- gloved hand, and a tiny reticule hung from an elbow.
'Pardon, Madame, but I was also in the parfumerie La Contessa the other day,' Charitй said with wide-eyed, lash-batting innocence, 'and wish to express my regrets you did not find anything satisfactory, for it is the grandest establishment. A thousand pardons for my boldness, but… you are English? How marvellous that we are at peace, and you may enjoy the splendours of Paris, the most magnificent city in all Europe, n'est-ce pas? I may make your acquaintance?'
She got a pistol in that reticule? was Lewrie's prime thought, quickly followed by; Christ, just open a hole in the floor, and let me through it! Who-the-bloody-else is goin' t'turn up?
He surreptitiously gave Charitй a careful looking-over; in New Orleans, she'd had a habit, when carousing in men's suitings, of keeping a dagger up a sleeve; did she today have it strapped to one of her shapely-slim thighs?
'… and Captain Alan Lewrie, of his Britannic Majesty's Navy, Mademoiselle de Guilleri,' Sir Anthony was happily babbling away, glad to have some Frogs to present. 'Captain Lewrie, may I name to you Mademoiselle Charitй de Guilleri, and Major Denis Clary.'
'Your servant, Mademoiselle de Guilleri… Major Clary, your servant, as well,' Lewrie was forced to respond with another 'leg' to both of them, gritting his teeth to appear polite.
'Captain Lewrie will be presented to the First Consul today,' Paisley-Templeton grandly announced. 'An exchange of captured swords. General Bonaparte once made Captain Lewrie a prisoner, temporarily, at Toulon, and still has Captain Lewrie's sword.'
'You refused parole, m'sieur?' Major Clary asked, amazed that a man would not accept the relative comfort of a very loose sort of imprisonment in civilian lodgings, with his pay continuing 'til exchanged for an officer of his own rank.
'I would not abandon my sailors to the hulks, Major,' Lewrie responded. 'It would've cut a bit rough t'just walk away from them and be… comfortable.'
While Major Denis Clary was trying to sort out the phrase cut a bit rough, Charitй stuck her own in. She seemed to find his choice honourable-wide-eyed astonishment and all-but, 'The Capitaine Lewrie is surely courageous. As ferocious as Denis, here, a hero of Hohenlinden and Marengo, n'est-ce pas?'
She batted her lashes nigh-fit to stir a small breeze, playing the innocent minx, eliciting congratulatory coos from Sir Anthony, and a moue and shrug of false modesty from her companion to be so praised.
'Quel dommage, such choice was not given to my brothers, Helio and Hippolyte,' Charitй continued, suddenly turning solemn and all but dabbing at one eye with a handkerchief. 'Or, my cousin Jean-Marie who perished for the glory of France.' Charitй glared directly at the author of their deaths, making Lewrie purse his lips and frown, sure that she'd claw his eyes out, given half a chance. 'You will exchange swords with Napoleon, n'est-ce pas? I only hope that some of those swords are not theirs, Capitaine Lewrie. That would be so tragique.'
She's gotten teeth, Lewrie thought, fighting a wince, recalling those names; Good God A'mighty, can this get even worse?
'I do not recall those names being associated with the swords I brought mademoiselle,' he told her, glancing at her soldier companion. 'These were surrendered by naval officers, at sea… well, picked up more than surrendered, since their owners had fallen.'
Major Clary curled a lip in faint disgust over the fate of fellow French officers, even if he held a low opinion of his nation's navy, and how little it had accomplished since the war's start in 1793.
'Yayss, well…,' Paisley-Templeton placated.
'Honour to make your acquaintance, m'sieur' Major Clary said, eager to end their chat. 'Madame, Capitaine?'
'Your servant, sir… mademoiselle' Lewrie replied with one more bow to each, hoping that that was over and done with.
'That little… whore!' Caroline muttered as they departed.
Oh shit, she's plumbed to it! Lewrie gawped to himself; now she knows about Charitй, too! Oh yes, it can get worse!
Lewrie tried to bluster his way out of it. 'Why call her a-'
'Her!' Caroline snapped, flicking her fan open in the direction of the orchestra, and the dancers. For there, now the orchestra had ended the long gavotte and gone on to a simpler minuet or quadrille air, was Phoebe Aretino, swanning gracefully through the
