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Léon Belmont (ex_the_ambas216) wrote in toujoursliberer,
@ 2008-03-28 07:54:00

Entry tags:

ambassadors_ball, leon_belmont

An Invitation to the French Ambassador's Ball
Subject: The Ambassadors Ball
Where: The French Embassy
Who: Léon Belmont, the French Ambassador to the English court
Warnings: none as yet
Open to: All (all players may attend either as invited guests of the ambassador, as servants or guests of those invited, as staff, or as gate-crashers.)

The ballroom of the Embassy was already growing busy, and when Citizen Belmont paused for a moment besides one of the large windows, he could see yet more carriages pulling up outside, wreathed in the mist blowing in from the river.

The quartet had been playing now for a good half an hour, new French tunes as well as those the English favoured. His staff was busy handing out good French wine, and then refilling those glasses when they were drained.

It was going to be a good evening, and not only in the eyes of the party-goers. With some of England’s most prominent aristos on the guest list, and some than some newly arrived French nationals, tonight would be a night of information gathering, of sizing up the opposition, and perhaps even ensuring some of those French escapees were returned to face justice.

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social_climber
2008-04-21 10:49 pm UTC (link)

The air was certainly colder out here than it was in the crowded ballroom. Inside, the heat was stifling and the air stale, laced with wine and the laughter of nobs who knew nothing about life outside of soirées. But Harry Fisher had not come outside, into the cobbled yard of the Embassy, to escape from the party within.

He could still hear them, of course, the quartet muffled by glass and stone walls, and the sound of conversation even more so, but the sound of the steel hooves on cobble in the stable was closer, clearer, and somehow it was calming. Harry didn't know why, he didn't even like the damn animals. But still.

And then there was the figure he'd been waiting for, giggling and blowing kisses and trying to shut one of the doors on a too amorous client who was obviously too much the worse for drink. As soon as the door was shut, and the client apparently loosing interest in his quarry, the giggling stopped, and the girl made her way down the steps to meet the man stood in the centre of the yard. Penny Graham. She was one of the hardest little workers Harry had ever known. "Bit of a tough one?" He asked, and she shook her head.
"Drunks are all the same." She shrugged, her accent similar to his, although it lacked the refined edge that he had carefully worked into his voice. "Hardly worth fourpence, to tell you truth." She added, pulling something from her bodice, a slim coin purse, and handing it over.
"Then you best run along and see if the next lot are any better." Harry held out his hand, letting her drop the purse into it. "There's a Hackney waiting. He knows where you're heading."
Penny gave another nod, dusting her hands down on her dress, the night too dark to show it's detail clearly, and then hurried off, leaving Harry alone again to take the coins from the bag and slip them into his pocket.

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viveleroi
2008-04-21 11:23 pm UTC (link)

Olivier's seat in the carriage house left him full view of the courtyard. He'd been watching deals like that go on all night, when he hadn't been inside with Amandine. Conducting such business on the very steps of the French embassy took guts, and whoever it was who kept coming out to collect the money from the petite painted girls had a bellyful that was not to be doubted. Olivier had dealt with enough personages in France to know the other activities that gentleman had up his sleeves. What with Amandine spending her time working, Olivier had little else to spend his small earnings on. In France, he'd showered his wife with jewels and finery, here, what use was his money save for entertainment?

"Excuse me," he called, standing from his seated position on a wheel. "Monsieur, may I speak?"

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social_climber
2008-04-22 07:13 am UTC (link)

Harry turned slightly, eyeing the interior darkness of the stable block. He knew better than to walk into the darkness unaccompanied. "Perhaps I could spare you a moment." He told the French voice, "If you were to step out here?"

He let his hands slip inside the inner pocket of his jacket, fingertips touching the reassuringly solid edge of the metal inside. Likely as not he would not need it, but even so, he carefully slipping it into the palm of his hand. No need to be foolish about one's safety, especially not concerning strangers. Likely as not, it was just some servant wanting to waggle a free evening with one of the whores, or a drunk lord who wanted to tell him about his adventures. Although the voice did not sound drunk, and having just come from a room of French aristocrats, this man did not sound like an English lord...

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viveleroi
2008-04-22 07:15 pm UTC (link)

Olivier obliged the man, walking out of the stable into the moonlit courtyard, his hands raised slightly away from his person, so his new companion might see he was unarmed in an obvious sense. He didn't think his duties as a stablehand would come in need for at least another hour or two, and Amandine was too busy finding them humiliating work with former countrymen to worry about what he was doing.
"Tell me sir, what other activities have you reign over?" Surely people didn't stop at prostitution and fraud. Olivier assumed fraud because otherwise, how would such an unsavory individual be allowed at the Embassy?

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social_climber
2008-04-22 07:35 pm UTC (link)

"Reign?" Harry says, turning to look at the other and making one or two steps towards him, meeting half way between his original position and the stable block itself. "I didn't think that was a word you French particularly liked?" He enquired, glancing over the man. Pose was wrong, all wrong, for a man who worked with horses for his living. And all wrong for a man who was used to being subservient. His back was too straight, his head held too high.

"What were you looking for exactly, my lord?" He asked, testing the theory. If he was wrong, well, maybe there would be a bit of a scuffle if the stable-hand took offence. But Harry doubted that. He doubted that a lot.

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viveleroi
2008-04-22 07:48 pm UTC (link)

Olivier was less concerned about being detected than he should have been, Amandine's obvious ease in her current poverty-stricken surroundings had lulled him into a false sense of security, and he made little effort to hide his roots or education. The referral of 'lord' did not set off warning bells because the man inquiring might suspect Olivier's identity, but because it was so strange to hear, after weeks of mucking stables and boxed ears.

"Sir, a humble stablehand searches only for a humble game," he responded, proverbial hackles up. "I cannot afford a lady, as others here have, but perhaps after a few hands of a favorite game I might," this was nonsense of course, Olivier had no intention of purchasing a few hours with some syphilic London prostitute, not when Amandine was so happy to be with him.

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