Portrait of a Scandal. Annie Burrows

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СКАЧАТЬ train of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was the particularly arrogant knock Monsieur Le Prune always used. How he accomplished it she did not know, but he always managed to convey the sense that he had every right to march straight in, should he wish, and was only pausing, for the merest moment, out of the greatest forbearance for the unaccountably emotional fragility of his female charges.

      ‘The problem in the kitchen,’ he began the moment he’d opened the door—before Amethyst had given him permission to enter, she noted with resentment—‘it is, I am afraid to say, more serious than we first thought.’

      ‘Oh, yes?’ It was rather wicked of her, but she relished discovering that something had cropped up that forced him to admit that he was not in complete control of the entire universe. ‘It was not so insignificant after all?’

      ‘The chef,’ he replied, ignoring her jibe, ‘he tells me that there cannot be the meal he would wish to serve his new guest on her first night in Paris.’

      ‘No meal?’

      ‘Not one of the standard that will satisfy him, no. It is a matter of the produce, you understand, which is no longer fit to serve, not even for Englishmen, he informs me. For which I apologise. These are his words, not my own.’

      ‘Naturally not.’ Though he had thoroughly enjoyed being able to repeat them, she could tell.

      ‘On account,’ he continued with a twitch to his mouth that looked suspiciously like the beginnings of a smirk, ‘of the fact that we arrived so many days after he was expecting us.’

      In other words, if there was a problem, it was her fault. He probably thought that putting the welfare of a child before making money was proof that a woman shouldn’t be running any kind of business, let alone attempting to expand. ‘However, I have a suggestion to make, which will overcome this obstacle.’

      ‘Oh, yes?’ It had better be good.

      ‘Indeed,’ he said with a smile which was so self-congratulatory she got an irrational urge to fire him on the spot. That would show him who was in charge.

      Only then she’d have to find a replacement for him. And his replacement was bound to be just as irritating. And she’d need to start all over again, teaching him all about her wares, the range of prices at which she would agree to do deals, production schedules and so on.

      ‘For tonight,’ he said, ‘it would be something totally novel, I think, for you and Madame Montsorrel to eat in a restaurant.’

      Before she had time to wonder if he was making some jibe about their provincial origins, he went on, ‘Most of your countrymen are most keen to visit, on their first night in Paris, the Palais Royale, to dine in one of its many establishments.’

      The suggestion was so sensible it took the wind out of her sails. It would make them look just like the ordinary tourists they were hoping to be taken for.

      ‘And before you raise the objection that Sophie cannot be left alone,’ he plunged on swiftly, ‘on her first night in a strange country, I have asked the chef if he can provide the kind of simple fare which I have observed has soothed her stomach before. He assures me he can,’ he said smugly. ‘I have also spoken with Mademoiselle Francine, who has agreed to sit by her bedside, just this once, in the place of her mother, in case she awakes.’

      ‘You seem to have thought of everything,’ she had to concede.

      ‘It is what you pay me for,’ he replied, with a supercilious lift of one brow.

      That was true. But did he have to point it out quite so often?

      ‘What do you think, Fenella? Could you bear to go out tonight and leave Sophie? Or perhaps—’ it suddenly occurred to her ‘—you are too tired?’

      ‘Too tired to actually dine in one of those places we have been reading so much about? Oh, no! Indeed, no.’

      The moment Bonaparte had been defeated and exiled to the tiny island of Elba, English tourists had been flocking to visit the country from which they had been effectively barred for the better part of twenty year. And filling newspapers and journals with accounts of their travels.

      The more they’d raved about the delights of Paris, the more Amethyst had wanted to go and see it for herself. She’d informed her manager, Jobbings, that she was going to see if she could find new outlets for their wares, now trade embargoes had been lifted. And she would. She really would. She’d already made several appointments to which she would send Monsieur Le Brun, since she assumed French merchants would be as unwilling to do business with a female as English merchants were.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ