But she intended to take in as many experiences as she could while she was here.
‘Then that is settled.’ Amethyst was so pleased Fenella was completely in tune with her own desire to get out and explore that for once her state of almost permanent irritation with Monsieur Le Brun faded away to nothing.
And she smiled at him.
‘Is there any particular establishment you would recommend?’
‘I?’ He gaped at her.
It was, she acknowledged, probably the first time he had ever seen her smile. At him, at least. But then she had never dared let down her guard around him before. She’d taken pains to question every one of his suggestions and to double-check every arrangement he’d made, just to make sure he never attempted to swindle her. Or thought he might be able to get away with any attempt to swindle her.
And he had got them to Paris. If not quite to his schedule, then at least in reasonable comfort. Nor had he put a foot out of place.
She was beginning to feel reasonably certain he wouldn’t dare. Besides, she had Fenella to double-check any correspondence he wrote on her behalf. Her grasp of French was extremely good, to judge from the way Monsieur Le Brun reacted when he’d first heard her speaking it.
‘The best, the very best,’ he said, making a swift recovery, ‘is most probably Very Frères. It is certainly the most expensive.’
She wrinkled her nose. It sounded like the kind of place people went to show off. It would be crammed full of earls and opera dancers, no doubt.
‘The Mille Colonnes is popular with your countrymen. Although—’ his face fell, ‘—by the time we arrive, there will undoubtedly be a queue to get in.’
She cocked her eyebrow at him. Rising to the unspoken challenge, he continued, ‘There are many other excellent places to which I would not scruple to take you ladies... Le Caveau, for example, where for two to three francs you may have an excellent dinner of soup, fish, meat, dessert and a bottle of wine.’
Since she’d spent some time before setting out getting to grips with the exchange rate, his last statement made her purse her lips. Surely they wouldn’t be able to get anything very appetising for such a paltry sum?
Nevertheless, she did not voice that particular suspicion. Having watched her intently as he’d described what were clearly more expensive establishments, he was probably doing his best to suggest somewhere more economical. He wasn’t a fool. His manner might infuriate her, but she couldn’t deny he was observant and shrewd. Because she’d made him suffer enough for one day and because Fenella had a tendency to get upset if they quarrelled openly in her presence, she admitted that she rather liked the sound of Le Caveau.
* * *
It wasn’t long after that she and Fenella had changed, dressed, kissed a drowsy Sophie goodnight and were stepping out into the dimly lit streets of Paris.
Paris! She was really in Paris. Nothing could tell the world more clearly that she was her own woman. That she was ready to try new things and make her own choices in life. That she’d paid for the follies of her youth. And wasn’t going to carry on living a cloistered existence, as though she was ashamed of herself. For she wasn’t. She’d done nothing to be ashamed of.
Of course, she was not so keen to start becoming her own woman that she was going to abandon all her late Aunt Georgie’s precepts. Not the ones that were practical at any rate. For her foray to the bargain of a restaurant that was Le Caveau, she wore the kind of plain, sensible outfit she would have donned for a visit to her bankers in the City. Monsieur Le Brun had just, but only just, repressed a shudder when he’d seen her emerge from her room. It was the same look she would have expected a member of the ton, in London, to send her way.
Provincial, they would think, writing her off as a nobody because her bonnet was at least three years behind the current fashion.
But it was far better for people to underestimate and overlook you, than to think you were a pigeon for the plucking. If she’d set out for the Continent in a coach and four, trailing wagonloads of servants and luggage, and made an enormous fuss at whatever inn they’d stopped at, she might as well have hung a placard round her neck, announcing ‘Wealthy woman! Come and rob me!’
As it was, they’d had to put up with a certain amount of rudeness and inconvenience on occasion, but nobody had thought them worth the bother of robbing.
And there was another advantage, she soon discovered, to not being dressed in fine silks. ‘I can’t believe how muddy it is everywhere,’ she grumbled, lifting her skirts to try to keep them free from dirt. ‘This is like wading down some country lane that leads to a pig farm.’
‘I suggested to you that it would be the mode to hire a chair for your conveyance to the Palais Royale,’ Monsieur Le Brun snapped back, whiplash smart.
‘Oh, we couldn’t possibly have done that,’ said Fenella, at her most conciliatory. ‘We are not grand ladies. We would both have felt most peculiar being carried through the streets like—’
‘Parcels,’ put in Amethyst. ‘Lugged around by some hulking great porters.’
‘Besides,’ said Fenella hastily,’ we can see so much more of your beautiful city, monsieur, if we walk through it, than we could by peeping through the curtains of some sort of carriage. And feel so much more a part of it.’
‘That is certainly true. The mud certainly looks set to form a lasting part of my skirts,’ observed Amethyst.
But then they stepped through an archway, into an immense, brilliantly lit gravelled square, and whatever derogatory comment she might have made next dried on her lips.
And Monsieur Le Brun smirked in satisfaction as both ladies gaped at the spectacle spread before them.
The Palais Royale was like nowhere she had ever seen before. And it was not just the sight of the tiers of so many brightly lit windows that made her blink, but the crowds of people, all intent on enjoying themselves to the full. To judge from the variety of costumes, they had come from every corner of the globe.
‘This way,’ said Monsieur Le Brun, taking her firmly by the elbow when she slowed down to peer into one of the brightly lit windows of an establishment in a basement. ‘That place is not suitable for ladies such as yourselves.’
Indeed, from the brief glimpse she’d got of all the military uniforms, and the rather free behaviour of the females in their company, she’d already gathered that for herself.
However, for once, she did not shake Monsieur Le Brun’s hand away. It was all rather more...boisterous than she’d imagined. She’d found travelling to London, to consult with her bankers and men of business after her aunt’s death, somewhat daunting, so bustling and noisy was the metropolis in comparison with the sleepy tranquillity of Stanton Basset. But the sheer vivacity of Paris at night was on a different scale altogether.
It was with relief that she passed through the doors of another eatery, which was quickly overtaken by amazement. Even though Monsieur Le Brun had told her this place was economical, it far surpassed her expectations. She had glanced through the grimy windows of chop houses when she’d been in London and had assumed a cheap restaurant in Paris, which admitted members of the public, would resemble one of those. Instead, her eyes were assailed by mirrors and columns, and niches with statues, tables set with glittering cutlery and crystal, diners dressed in fabulous colours and waiters bustling around attentively.
And the food, which she’d half-suspected would be of the same quality she’d