He nodded. “Of course, the male is so dominant and attractive.”
“That is not the male,” I corrected. “The male eclectus is green, the color of his surroundings, meant to blend in and go unnoticed. It is the female which boasts the glorious scarlet plumage. You, my dear general, have made the very common mistake of believing, as so many others do, that the male of the species is the default. I would like to refer you to Antoinette Brown Blackwell, whose very excellent work, The Sexes Throughout Nature, corrects this error on the part of Mr. Darwin—” I broke off at the expression of bemusement on his face. Too late, I realized that Gisela might converse knowledgeably about stamps or cheese, perhaps even politics, but she most assuredly would not lecture on the subject of natural history.
Luckily for me, the general was more attentive to my face than my topic of conversation.
“How stern you look!” he said. “That I have caused such a lovely face to look so forbidding, I will never forgive myself.”
A sharp retort rose to my lips, but I felt a quick pinch from my other side. Rupert was still talking in a desultory fashion with an elderly Frenchwoman—something about porcelain—but his hand had slipped under the table to nip me hard upon the leg.
“Madame, you are quite well? Only you look pained,” the general said, his expression one of grave concern.
“I am quite well,” I assured him. “Just a passing discomfort.”
He leaned near, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “It is the English food. My liver has complained since I crossed the Channel. Nothing but beefsteaks and potatoes, so many potatoes,” he mourned. “I recommend a strong tisane of peppermint. It always soothes the stomach.”
I thanked him politely and just then the consommé bowls were taken away and the next course laid. I turned to find Rupert staring daggers at me. “Is it absolutely necessary to spout Radical philosophy at the general?” he demanded in a whisper.
“It is hardly Radical to propose that women have a say in government,” I told him.
“It is to anyone sitting at this table. And evolutionary theory? I hardly think the Princess of the Alpenwald has even heard of Mr. Darwin much less is conversant with his detractors.”
“Antoinette Brown Blackwell is not precisely a detractor—” I broke off as Rupert began to glower at me.
“You are doing it again,” he said tightly.
“I think my conversation amuses the general,” I said, lifting my fork.
“Do not worry about amusing him,” Rupert said as he stabbed his woodcock. “Your only concern is getting through this horror of an evening without anyone becoming the wiser as to who you are.”
I gave him a demure look that I hoped would signal my agreeableness, but he ignored me, eating his way stolidly through the course until the plates were changed. “You will give yourself indigestion if you carry on this way,” I advised Rupert as I turned back to the general.
The Frenchman was staring at his new plate mournfully. Slices of rosy beef were arranged artfully with piped pureed potatoes. “You see? Beefsteaks and potatoes,” he lamented.
I pointed to the menu. “Rosbif et pommes dauphines.”
He shrugged. “You may call it by a pretty name, but it is still the food of the British peasant.” He poked at the meat with his knife. “This steak is overcooked. It grieves upon my plate.”
The slices of beef were pink and succulent-looking, but every Frenchman I had ever known preferred his beef very nearly still on the hoof. I signaled to the footman behind me, who sprang to attention.
“Your Serene Highness?”
“I am afraid the general cannot eat his steak. Kindly bring him one that is much less thoroughly cooked. And a salad, lightly dressed with oil and vinegar.”
The footman whisked the offending plate away and the general gave a little crow of delight. He leaned towards me, his voice a caressing whisper. “You know, I say to myself, Achille, how can this lovely creature, so natural, so unspoilt, be a princess? I begin to doubt that you are the princess,” he said, smiling broadly. “Perhaps you are the faery changeling!”
A frisson of terror surged down my spine, icy as a chilblained finger. “Oh?” I said faintly.
“But then to see you command this fellow so expertly, I know you are a woman accustomed to giving the orders.” He regarded me with a practiced gleam in his eye. “Now I must mourn that you are a princess, so far out of reach,” he murmured. His gaze dropped lazily to my décolletage again and then rose, unwillingly it seemed, back to my face. “I think I will write poetry to you.”
“I beg you will not trouble yourself,” I told him.
“What is trouble when there is such beauty in the world?” he demanded. He launched into a lengthy poem in French, only half of which I understood, larded as it was with vernacular terms and metaphors that I suspected were slightly indecent. As the footman refilled his glass, I realized he had taken a great deal of the wine and had as yet consumed very little of the food.
He raised his glass to the light, studying the color. “Do you know, madame, there are those who say you should only taste wine from a goblet made of black glass so that the eye may not be fooled by the color, that only the senses of the nose and the tongue are to be trusted. But what a loss! See this beautiful color, like the velvet of my first mistress’s favorite gown. And the bouquet!” He inserted his nose deeply into the glass, sniffing hard. “Such heavy fruits! Cherries and the red currant, so subtle and ripe. This is a very good wine, a wine so good one may dine upon it.”
That seemed what he was inclined to do. He finished two more glasses before his food arrived, and when it did, he stared at his fork as if slightly confused by it. I exchanged my plate with his and cut his meat swiftly into little pieces before handing it back.
“Eat,” I ordered.
“I am yours to command,” he said with limpid eyes. He had eaten half the steak by the time the plates were cleared and there was a brief struggle as the footman removed his. The general clung to it, grumbling as he snatched another piece of steak.
The next course after the roasts was a lovely entremets of artichoke with a parsleyed white wine sauce. The general ignored his entirely in favor of picking desultorily at a jellied orange until the pudding course was served. He brightened at the fanciful display of pouding Sax-Weimar, a chocolate pudding lavishly embellished with cream and butter biscuits. He took a spoonful, rolling his eyes ecstatically in pleasure and making rather unseemly noises of appreciation. The footmen had attempted to take his glass of Bordeaux and pour the dessert wine, but the general would not hear of it, holding it up protectively out of reach and snapping his teeth at the hapless servants.
“What the devil is happening over there?” Rupert demanded.