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xp_logsBackdated to Friday evening. Amanda goes to have dinner with the Baron and learns a lot about Remy and herself.
It wasn't a castle, as might of been expected. Instead, the Baron d'Rochefort lived in a large, old stone manor, surrounded by a wide swath of farmed and untouched lands. The drive took her up a hill, and as she exited the car, Amanda was treated to a view of the town nestled on the seashore to the west, and to the east, a great valley which yawned open and exposed green tracts of woodland and multicoloured fields of farms extending into the country.
Jean-Louis slid back into the car, mentioning that the Baron would call a taxi for her before he drove off. In the stone above the heavy wooden front door, a shield was etched into the stone; Amanda could only assume it was the symbol of the d'Rochefort's. With three booming knocks on the phoenix shaped iron knocker, the door finally opened, and an extremely old woman opened the door.
"Allo?"
"Um." It wasn't often Amanda was lost for words, but it was becoming a habit in Beaumont-les-Bains. Perhaps because the normality of it all kept throwing her. "I'm, ah, here for dinner. With the Baron?" She involuntarily smoothed down the front of her shirt, wishing she'd gone through with the buying of something more dressy. But given how even looking into store windows at dresses made flashbacks shuffle through her mind like Remy's pack of cards - showing off the Hellfire dress to Manuel, Amora's dressmakers draping her in silk and velvet, the prom with Angelo, Marie-Ange helping her get ready... - it was probably a good idea not to. The flashbacks weren't as invasive, but she was still having to weather a welter of memories at the most inopportune moments. "My name's Amanda Sefton."
"Anglais?" The woman said, staring myopically at her. Behind her, there was a soft laugh and a moment of liquid French at which the Woman opened the door wide and walked away, grumbling to herself.
In the lobby, there was an older man standing there. He was slim, about a few inches shorter than Remy, and in his sixties, she'd guess. His hair was heavily streaked with grey, and he wore an eyepatch over his right eye. If met on the street, she might have pegged him for a restauranteur or a retired athlete of one of the gentler sports, like cycling or fencing.
"Mademoiselle Sefton? I am the Baron d'Rochefort." He said with a slight bow and a quick kiss on the back of her hand.
""Bonsoir," she replied, her French accent much improvement after years of Marie-Ange's influence. "Thanks for inviting me. It was a bit of a surprise - I s'pose Remy called you as well?" It was said with amusement rather than any kind of suspicion.
"Jean-Louis did. The reason the French Resistance was so effective at gathering and sharing intelligence was that they had been trained by decades of normal town life." He said with a ready smile, the crow's lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I do take an interest in visitors to our town, especially ones sent by someone who to my knowledge has only ever brought one person here. My name is Charles, in case Baron is too weighty for a quiet dinner."
"Well, Remy didn't exactly send me here..." Amanda began, but pulled herself up short. "Tho' I guess the whole leaving a house deed and a whole new identity in a safety deposit box was probably as good as an engraved invitation." She returned the smile, stepping inside as she was ushered in. "I have to admit, I've never had dinner with a Baron before."
"You will find it is very similar to dining with common people, except for better wines." He waved her along through the house. Instead of coming to a stiff dining room, he instead led her along to a bright, wood-lined room with large windows looking out over the vinyard. The floor was laid with stone, and there were several racks of wines, obviously set there not for storage but rotation.
Amanda visibly relaxed at the sight, obviously having expected something more formal and thus more fraught with memories of Manuel and his father, memories she really wasn't ready to deal with yet. "You've got a lovely place," she said, looking around the room with appreciation. "You do a lot of business with the wine thing?"
"I collect it, and the estate is a working farm and vineyard. Almost two hundred years at this point." The man uncorked a bottle easily, and decanted it with smooth gestures. "There is a very strong market for smaller vintages, and I am in the position that I can support both the estate and the staff on those profits. It allows me to focus the revenue of my other ventures on the town itself."
"You mean, keeping the town running, that sort of thing?" Amanda asked, honestly curious.
"To an extent. My family managed to keep most of our properties in the town over the last century, and much of the money from rents we've normally used to help with the needed repairs which our local government lacks funds to do. We formed into a township in the seventies, and since then, I enjoy using my position to support keeping the local community vibrant." He gave her a typically Gallic shrug. "While they are not legally my people, they are still my people, if that makes sense."
"More than you realise," she replied, with heartfelt emphasis. "So, the inevitable question... when did you meet Remy?"
"Years ago. He had only just come to Beaumont-les-Bains, and tried to buy a house from me. He was... different. Not his mutation. There was something behind those eyes that simply was not right, and yet, also desperate. A very strange man, Remy." He lifted the decanter and filled two glasses. "A very haunted man, I would say."
"I'd say you've got it right on the nose, there," Amanda returned, looking at this Baron with renewed interest - like just about everyone who Remy knew, there was more here than the surface. "He doesn't talk about this place much, but when he does... well, it's almost like someone talking about a personal heaven."
"Heaven isn't a place, Mademoiselle Sefton. It's a state of total peace. We all find it somewhere different." He inhaled the bouquet of the wine, and then took a small sip, running the wine around in his mouth before he spoke. "Hints of lavender and plum. DeCocceq's south slope, I should think. As I was saying, I hope you haven't come here to find the same thing."
"Why's that?" she asked, accepting the glass he offered to her. "Seems to me like Remy's done his best to make sure I can have that, if I want." She took a sip of the wine, even with the ever-present doubts assailing her noting it was pretty much the best wine she'd ever had, although she wasn't exactly an expert. "Perhaps it's what I want."
"Perhaps. But in my experience, each person needs something different, and whatever peace that Remy has found here fits him. Will if fit you? It is unlikely that you will find the peace you need here in the same fashion as Remy." He smiled at her. "I don't want our little town to disappoint you by not providing the same 'heaven' as you might wish."
"To be honest, I don't know what I wish. Half of the time I'm not even sure who I am." It slipped out and she took a larger sip of wine to cover it. "We'll see. I have to admit, I'm liking it so far. Amelie and Jean-Louis have been brilliant."
"You are an Englishwoman living in America. I imagine that you must be served for the things that we possess; excellent food, a warm and casual lifestyle, culture." He said, with a quirk of his mouth. The door opened and a tray was pushed in by the old woman, but she didn't give them a second glance as she left them. "Ah, dinner. I hope you don't mind a more relaxed meal. I didn't think that a more formal setting would suit you."
"You don't miss much, do you?" she said wryly, glancing down at her jeans (admittedly clean and without holes, but still jeans) and blue cotton shirt. "Yeah, I'm not so much one for the fancy stuff." Especially since most of those occasions had involved violence of some kind, with her usually on the receiving end.
"That is a shame. All beautiful women should have their moments to shine in distinguished company." He removed the covers from the trays, and motioned to the plates at the table. "Please. Now, I remember Catherine Deneveve standing on the boardwalk in Marsellies, looking out to the sea, ignoring the other guests at the Chanel party being held. She said she was there to be seen, but that did not mean she had to stop seeing. Fame does not suit the newer generation as well."
"Sounds like someone I work with," Amanda replied with a grin and thinking of Sofia as she took a seat and inhaled the scents from the food with interest - she'd discovered the food wasn't at all what she'd been brought up to believe of French food. "'S all well and good for the beautiful women. Me, not so much."
"Beauty is a state of mind, Mademoiselle Sefton, not a physical nature." He passed along a plate and took his own, sitting down. "You would be wise to learn that lesson young."
"There's benefits in being ordinary. People don't pay so much attention to you when you don't want them to." Amanda looked down at her plate. "Wow, this looks fantastic."
"Ordinary? And an associate of LeBeau. I may be noble, but I am not inbred, Mademoiselle Sefton. Nothing with LeBeau is ordinary."
She glanced up from her plate, a little flustered. "Well, maybe not ordinary..." she said, wishing her skin didn't show a blush so well. "I mean, I'm not ordinary, not really, but..." What was she trying to say? "Maybe part of me wishes I was?"
"We always wish for something other than what we are. I was once a Gitiune smoking student Anarchist. Obviously not the most effective life decision for the heir to a title." Charles was a surprising figure; he had the Old World charm in large amounts, but without the prickly or haughty attitude. It was a man well relaxed in his own skin.
She blinked at him. "Seriously?" She grinned. "I used to be a street punk. Bad dye job and more piercings than you could poke a stick at. And an attitude to match." Shaking her head, she reached for her wine again. "I was such a pain in the arse."
"Also a right of the young. Those who don't try and break the system in their youth don't understand what parts to defend as they age." He set down his fork. "Allow me to be intrusive for a moment, Mademoiselle Sefton. Stop playing the street punk. You're no longer her, and her limitations are very different from your own."
There was a long pause, as Amanda poked at her food with the fork and tried to think of an answer. What would Remy have done with such a statement? Probably made a self-decrepetating joke and brushed it aside. But Remy wasn't her. Fuck, she wasn't even sure who she was these days. That was why she was here in the first place. To figure out if she was still the person who could do the job. To live the life she had chosen, back before she really understood the cost. "I... don't know what to say," she replied at last, looking up and meeting the Count's eye. "Sometimes you play the role so much, you lose track of who you are." Her vulnerability showed in her face and in her voice, which shook a little.
"You do. But then, Mademoiselle Sefton, you find a place that seems to be perfect; a personal heaven, yes? And it shows you that you're not the role, or the people you know. That the solution must come from within you." He swirled the wine in his glass for a moment. "And is Beaumont-les-Bains that place? A few days should answer that question. Do not be afraid to say the answer is no. At the very least, you will certainly enjoy the food, neh?"
A smile appeared at that and she chuckled a little. "I'll drink to that," she said, raising her glass to him.
It wasn't a castle, as might of been expected. Instead, the Baron d'Rochefort lived in a large, old stone manor, surrounded by a wide swath of farmed and untouched lands. The drive took her up a hill, and as she exited the car, Amanda was treated to a view of the town nestled on the seashore to the west, and to the east, a great valley which yawned open and exposed green tracts of woodland and multicoloured fields of farms extending into the country.
Jean-Louis slid back into the car, mentioning that the Baron would call a taxi for her before he drove off. In the stone above the heavy wooden front door, a shield was etched into the stone; Amanda could only assume it was the symbol of the d'Rochefort's. With three booming knocks on the phoenix shaped iron knocker, the door finally opened, and an extremely old woman opened the door.
"Allo?"
"Um." It wasn't often Amanda was lost for words, but it was becoming a habit in Beaumont-les-Bains. Perhaps because the normality of it all kept throwing her. "I'm, ah, here for dinner. With the Baron?" She involuntarily smoothed down the front of her shirt, wishing she'd gone through with the buying of something more dressy. But given how even looking into store windows at dresses made flashbacks shuffle through her mind like Remy's pack of cards - showing off the Hellfire dress to Manuel, Amora's dressmakers draping her in silk and velvet, the prom with Angelo, Marie-Ange helping her get ready... - it was probably a good idea not to. The flashbacks weren't as invasive, but she was still having to weather a welter of memories at the most inopportune moments. "My name's Amanda Sefton."
"Anglais?" The woman said, staring myopically at her. Behind her, there was a soft laugh and a moment of liquid French at which the Woman opened the door wide and walked away, grumbling to herself.
In the lobby, there was an older man standing there. He was slim, about a few inches shorter than Remy, and in his sixties, she'd guess. His hair was heavily streaked with grey, and he wore an eyepatch over his right eye. If met on the street, she might have pegged him for a restauranteur or a retired athlete of one of the gentler sports, like cycling or fencing.
"Mademoiselle Sefton? I am the Baron d'Rochefort." He said with a slight bow and a quick kiss on the back of her hand.
""Bonsoir," she replied, her French accent much improvement after years of Marie-Ange's influence. "Thanks for inviting me. It was a bit of a surprise - I s'pose Remy called you as well?" It was said with amusement rather than any kind of suspicion.
"Jean-Louis did. The reason the French Resistance was so effective at gathering and sharing intelligence was that they had been trained by decades of normal town life." He said with a ready smile, the crow's lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I do take an interest in visitors to our town, especially ones sent by someone who to my knowledge has only ever brought one person here. My name is Charles, in case Baron is too weighty for a quiet dinner."
"Well, Remy didn't exactly send me here..." Amanda began, but pulled herself up short. "Tho' I guess the whole leaving a house deed and a whole new identity in a safety deposit box was probably as good as an engraved invitation." She returned the smile, stepping inside as she was ushered in. "I have to admit, I've never had dinner with a Baron before."
"You will find it is very similar to dining with common people, except for better wines." He waved her along through the house. Instead of coming to a stiff dining room, he instead led her along to a bright, wood-lined room with large windows looking out over the vinyard. The floor was laid with stone, and there were several racks of wines, obviously set there not for storage but rotation.
Amanda visibly relaxed at the sight, obviously having expected something more formal and thus more fraught with memories of Manuel and his father, memories she really wasn't ready to deal with yet. "You've got a lovely place," she said, looking around the room with appreciation. "You do a lot of business with the wine thing?"
"I collect it, and the estate is a working farm and vineyard. Almost two hundred years at this point." The man uncorked a bottle easily, and decanted it with smooth gestures. "There is a very strong market for smaller vintages, and I am in the position that I can support both the estate and the staff on those profits. It allows me to focus the revenue of my other ventures on the town itself."
"You mean, keeping the town running, that sort of thing?" Amanda asked, honestly curious.
"To an extent. My family managed to keep most of our properties in the town over the last century, and much of the money from rents we've normally used to help with the needed repairs which our local government lacks funds to do. We formed into a township in the seventies, and since then, I enjoy using my position to support keeping the local community vibrant." He gave her a typically Gallic shrug. "While they are not legally my people, they are still my people, if that makes sense."
"More than you realise," she replied, with heartfelt emphasis. "So, the inevitable question... when did you meet Remy?"
"Years ago. He had only just come to Beaumont-les-Bains, and tried to buy a house from me. He was... different. Not his mutation. There was something behind those eyes that simply was not right, and yet, also desperate. A very strange man, Remy." He lifted the decanter and filled two glasses. "A very haunted man, I would say."
"I'd say you've got it right on the nose, there," Amanda returned, looking at this Baron with renewed interest - like just about everyone who Remy knew, there was more here than the surface. "He doesn't talk about this place much, but when he does... well, it's almost like someone talking about a personal heaven."
"Heaven isn't a place, Mademoiselle Sefton. It's a state of total peace. We all find it somewhere different." He inhaled the bouquet of the wine, and then took a small sip, running the wine around in his mouth before he spoke. "Hints of lavender and plum. DeCocceq's south slope, I should think. As I was saying, I hope you haven't come here to find the same thing."
"Why's that?" she asked, accepting the glass he offered to her. "Seems to me like Remy's done his best to make sure I can have that, if I want." She took a sip of the wine, even with the ever-present doubts assailing her noting it was pretty much the best wine she'd ever had, although she wasn't exactly an expert. "Perhaps it's what I want."
"Perhaps. But in my experience, each person needs something different, and whatever peace that Remy has found here fits him. Will if fit you? It is unlikely that you will find the peace you need here in the same fashion as Remy." He smiled at her. "I don't want our little town to disappoint you by not providing the same 'heaven' as you might wish."
"To be honest, I don't know what I wish. Half of the time I'm not even sure who I am." It slipped out and she took a larger sip of wine to cover it. "We'll see. I have to admit, I'm liking it so far. Amelie and Jean-Louis have been brilliant."
"You are an Englishwoman living in America. I imagine that you must be served for the things that we possess; excellent food, a warm and casual lifestyle, culture." He said, with a quirk of his mouth. The door opened and a tray was pushed in by the old woman, but she didn't give them a second glance as she left them. "Ah, dinner. I hope you don't mind a more relaxed meal. I didn't think that a more formal setting would suit you."
"You don't miss much, do you?" she said wryly, glancing down at her jeans (admittedly clean and without holes, but still jeans) and blue cotton shirt. "Yeah, I'm not so much one for the fancy stuff." Especially since most of those occasions had involved violence of some kind, with her usually on the receiving end.
"That is a shame. All beautiful women should have their moments to shine in distinguished company." He removed the covers from the trays, and motioned to the plates at the table. "Please. Now, I remember Catherine Deneveve standing on the boardwalk in Marsellies, looking out to the sea, ignoring the other guests at the Chanel party being held. She said she was there to be seen, but that did not mean she had to stop seeing. Fame does not suit the newer generation as well."
"Sounds like someone I work with," Amanda replied with a grin and thinking of Sofia as she took a seat and inhaled the scents from the food with interest - she'd discovered the food wasn't at all what she'd been brought up to believe of French food. "'S all well and good for the beautiful women. Me, not so much."
"Beauty is a state of mind, Mademoiselle Sefton, not a physical nature." He passed along a plate and took his own, sitting down. "You would be wise to learn that lesson young."
"There's benefits in being ordinary. People don't pay so much attention to you when you don't want them to." Amanda looked down at her plate. "Wow, this looks fantastic."
"Ordinary? And an associate of LeBeau. I may be noble, but I am not inbred, Mademoiselle Sefton. Nothing with LeBeau is ordinary."
She glanced up from her plate, a little flustered. "Well, maybe not ordinary..." she said, wishing her skin didn't show a blush so well. "I mean, I'm not ordinary, not really, but..." What was she trying to say? "Maybe part of me wishes I was?"
"We always wish for something other than what we are. I was once a Gitiune smoking student Anarchist. Obviously not the most effective life decision for the heir to a title." Charles was a surprising figure; he had the Old World charm in large amounts, but without the prickly or haughty attitude. It was a man well relaxed in his own skin.
She blinked at him. "Seriously?" She grinned. "I used to be a street punk. Bad dye job and more piercings than you could poke a stick at. And an attitude to match." Shaking her head, she reached for her wine again. "I was such a pain in the arse."
"Also a right of the young. Those who don't try and break the system in their youth don't understand what parts to defend as they age." He set down his fork. "Allow me to be intrusive for a moment, Mademoiselle Sefton. Stop playing the street punk. You're no longer her, and her limitations are very different from your own."
There was a long pause, as Amanda poked at her food with the fork and tried to think of an answer. What would Remy have done with such a statement? Probably made a self-decrepetating joke and brushed it aside. But Remy wasn't her. Fuck, she wasn't even sure who she was these days. That was why she was here in the first place. To figure out if she was still the person who could do the job. To live the life she had chosen, back before she really understood the cost. "I... don't know what to say," she replied at last, looking up and meeting the Count's eye. "Sometimes you play the role so much, you lose track of who you are." Her vulnerability showed in her face and in her voice, which shook a little.
"You do. But then, Mademoiselle Sefton, you find a place that seems to be perfect; a personal heaven, yes? And it shows you that you're not the role, or the people you know. That the solution must come from within you." He swirled the wine in his glass for a moment. "And is Beaumont-les-Bains that place? A few days should answer that question. Do not be afraid to say the answer is no. At the very least, you will certainly enjoy the food, neh?"
A smile appeared at that and she chuckled a little. "I'll drink to that," she said, raising her glass to him.
