Stop yer gob, 'fore I do it for ye, Lewrie thought, in no better takings than the first time he'd been exposed to the simpering young twit; Christ, but he will prattle on!
"I am led to understand that a factotum from the First Consul's staff came round to retrieve the swords you are to present to him… All is in order, Captain Lewrie?" Paisley-Templeton enquired.
"Aye, all done," Lewrie told him. "Shifty-lookin' cove."
"You will be thrilled to learn that the First Consul's office sent me a letter, informing me that your old sword has been discovered in Bonaparte's trophy room," Sir Anthony further enthused (languidly), "and will be on-hand to return to you, once the pacific speeches about our new relations are done. Erm… you would not mind looking over a few thoughts that might go down well, were you to express them to the First Consul during the time he gives you, Captain Lewrie?"
"Some actor's lines t'be learned, sir?" Lewrie balked. "Why is this the first I've heard of em?"
"Just a phrase or two, some hopes for a long, continued peace," Paisley-Templeton assured him, producing a sheet of paper from his velvet and embroidered silk coat.
"Well, Hell," Lewrie said with a put-upon sigh, quickly looking them over. "Damn my eyes, sir! Do people… real people ever talk in such stilted fashion?"
"Well, erm…," Sir Anthony daintily objected, blushing a bit.
"Captain Lewrie will phrase things his own way, Sir Anthony," Caroline told the prim diplomat. "With luck, he will be able to get the gist of what you wish said across. Won't you, my dear?"
She was too impressed by the grandness of the occasion to be angry with him today, and sounded almost supportive, as if she'd tease the young fop, too. Almost like a fond wife of long-standing content.
"And, here we are!" Paisley-Templeton said with overt relief as the coach rocked to a stop and a liveried palace lackey opened the kerb-side door. This sea-dog was being a bit too gruff this afternoon for Paisley-Temple ton's liking.
"You do look lovely, Caroline," Lewrie whispered to her as they debarked from the coach, into a sea of onlookers and other attendees garbed in their own grandeur. "Especially so."
That put a broader grin on her face and a twinkle in her eyes as she lifted her head to gaze over the incoming crowd. Lady Imogene had done her proud, with a choice of gown in the latest Paris fashion, with the puffy half sleeves, low-cut bodice, and high-waisted style of the moment. Caroline's gown was a delicate light peach colour, trimmed with a waist sash and hemmings of braided gilt and amber twine, with an additional trim of white lace; all carefully attuned to her complexion, her sandy light-brown hair, and hazel eyes. A gilt lamй stole hung on her shoulders, draped over long white gloved arms, and nigh to the bottom hem of the gown. Some of the late Granny Lewrie's gold and diamond jewelry adorned her ears and wrists, while a gold and amber necklace encircled her neck. Her hair was done up in the convoluted Grecian style, with a braided gilt and amber circlet sporting egret plumes bound about her forehead. And, in the style of the times, her gown was racily shimmery semi-opaque, which, in the right light, revealed almost all of a woman's secrets. In Caroline's case, her gown hinted at a woman who, despite three children and a hearty cook, had kept her figure slim and nearly girlish.
She did frown for a second, though, to look down at her feet to see if her white silk knee stockings or gilt lamй slippers had gotten scuffed or stained. Satisfied that all was still well, she looked back up and rewarded both Sir Anthony and Lewrie with another pleased grin.
"Beard the lion in his den?" Lewrie japed in a whisper to her.
"The ogre in his cave," Caroline quipped right back.
"The troll under the bridge," Lewrie added.
"The dragon in his golden lair," she said with a chuckle, and leaned her head close to Lewrie's for a moment.
"Those feathers'll make me sneeze," Lewrie said.
"Pardon, m'sieur. Permettez-moi, s'il vous plaоt," a uniformed officer in the Police Nationale said to Lewrie, once they were in the large formal receiving hall. "Un moment?" the young officer beckoned to draw him into an alcove, away from the others.
"What for?" Lewrie asked. "Sir Anthony?" He looked for aid.
"I do not know, Captain Lewrie. Un problиme, m'sieur? Damme! He says no one presented to the First Consul can do so without being searched for weapons, Captain Lewrie! This is outrageous!"
"But understandable," Lewrie said, after thinking about it for a moment. "Proceed, sir. Produit, m'sieur," he told the officer as he held out his arms to cooperate. Muttering to himself in English, "And I hope ye're not one t'prefer the 'windward passage.'"
Lewrie got a rather thorough pat-down, though it was obvious that the snug tailoring of his suit precluded hidden weapons; even the inside of his lower sleeves, the tops of his half-boots held nought.
"Lui, aussi, maintenant, m'sieur?" Lewrie asked in his halting French, pointing to Paisley-Templeton. "Him too, now?"
"They will not dare!" Sir Anthony snapped. "This is an insult to his Britannic Majesty, King George, and all Great Britain! A stiff note of displeasure will be on Minister Talleyrand's desk before nightfall, dare they man-handle me, sir!"
"C'est de rigueur, comprenez, messieurs?" the officer said with an apologetic shrug, waving them both back towards the hall doors, and the two men rejoined Caroline at their place in line before those tall double doors as tall as a longboat stood on end. They were surrounded by a rainbow of brightly coloured uniforms of the various branches of Napoleon's army some clanking with spurs on their boots and swords at their hips, which raised Lewrie's eyebrows over his recent search. By those officers and ornately dressed civilian gentlemen stood an host of elegantly gowned women, some of them young, lovely, and flirtatious as they waited for entrйe; lovers and mistresses, Lewrie determined. Wives seemed more dowdy, even though gaudied up something sinful in the same semi-translucent fabrics as the young and firm-bodied. And there were so many egret plumes in hats and hairdos that Lewrie could conjure that every bird in Europe was now bare-arsed.
A majordomo or master of ceremonies loudly announced each pair as they were allowed in, crying above the soft strains of a string orchestra over in one corner of the vast baroque hall. Their turn came at last; first Sir Anthony, then, "Capitaine de Vaisseau а la Marine de Guerre Britannique, Alain Lui… Lew-rie, et Madame Caroline Lewrie!"
That turned quite a number of heads, made officers grip their sword hilts or pause with their champagne glasses halfway to their lips, forced women to goggle or comment behind their fans, and flutter them in faint alarm, as if a fox had been allowed into their chicken coop.
"Are we so infamous?" Caroline had to ask in a soft mutter near his ear once more, her cool and regal smile still plastered on her face.
"We're English… We must be," Lewrie chuckled back. "How do, all," he said to the crowd in a soft voice, nodding and smiling, almost waving in their general direction as they paced down the centre of the reception hall. "Now, Sir Anthony… where the Devil do they keep the bloody champagne?"
First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte had completed his toilet after leaving his bath; his usual routine followed to the letter. He washed his hands with almond paste, his face, neck, and ears with scented soap (from La Contessa's, in point of fact, in the Place Victor), picked his teeth with a boxwood stem, brushed twice, with paste then powdered coral. Stripped to the waist, dressing robe tossed aside and standing in a flannel vest and underdrawers, he had Constant trickle eau de cologne over his head (also from Phoebe Aretino's) whilst he brushed his skin with stiff bristles, and had Constant do his back.