The west lounge of the old pension has been turned into a private room for guest events. Granted, there are several staying this night at the elegant home, but the lounge has been especially prepared for the one residing at the house for the week.
     At three am, most of the house is asleep. One of the staff is awake though, since the lounge is in use. Raymond Marillet, lately Prince of Tours, sits there, enjoying his brandy, eyeing a three-tiered display on the coffeetable, all arranged for his delight.

     The willing attendant pages the American's rooms without comment, returning with the message that she will be down presently. The wait is very brief before Dr. Gifford descends the wooden stairs to come into the blue salon. Her countenance is changed slightly. While still generally friendly, she's dressed for coctails rather than coffee, a summery chifon over silk sheath dress with a very flattering rutched bodice in a floral printed aqua that sets off her eyes.
     "Good evening again." Victoria says easily, "I hope I didn't keep you waiting, I got a call right after the clerk paged me."

     Raymond stands up, a smile drawing across his lips. "Good evening, Victoria," he offers, glass still in his hand. Dressed simply in a black suit with blue silk tie, he moves around the table to offer his free hand.
     "You look beautiful. I should have expected nothing less..."
     Raymond's palm remains upright in offering, even though his eyes wander the dress. "And no, you did not keep me waiting. No man, upon a sight, could say that his time was lost."

     Extending her hand naturally in response to be taken, Victoria smiles, "Thank you, I've been looking forward to an occasion to wear this dress, actually, so I should thank you again for the perfect opportunity."
     She leans in for the traditional French exchange of kissed cheeks, "I spoke to William earlier, he wanted me to be sure and extend his greetings and say that he'll be most put out if you don't manage to come by sometime this season since, as he put it, 'you're just down the road'." She smiles, "My invitation was a little more stern so after the wineries here I'll make my way up for the festival."

     The touches of cheek are returned, and Raymond turns about to walk you to the divan. "William, hmm?" Raymond smiles, "I will see to him later. I am sorry you're obligated," he grins. "Such is the way of patronage, yes?"

     "Oh, I'm not at all sorry. I've been hoping to be able to see Chinon, really, I've only been to Strathfyr, I seem to come in the winter." Victoria says easily, taking a seat as indicated, smiling yet, "And I had planned on meeting up with them at one place or the other depending on where they were, so I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time." And the we does seem to include Dunross in its manganomy, of all things.
     "I should appologize again though, the stir I remembered was William's fault, he clarified. Not yours at all." She does sincerely seem to be contrite about the mistake. Particularly since it was taken badly, which obviously wasn't her intention.

     "How about this," Raymond says in his native tongue, "...we drop the subject, hmm?" Once you are settled, he moves towards a bar cart, where he sets his snifter down. "And instead, you tell me what you'd like to drink."
     The tea serviceon the table includes chocolates and petit fours, along with a series of well-appointed canapes. Raymond's already started, helping himself to items from each level.
     "Brandy? Kir? Campari or..." Raymond asks, "...martini? Something American?"

     "Lovley." Victoria replies in French. Though hers is obviously not native, if gramatically precise. A hint of embarassment creeps in again as she folds her legs to the side, "Unfortunately I've never been able to manage alcohol. I'd rather hoped it would be something I'd get over, but didn't manage to. Is there coffee?"

     Raymond looks up, faintly surprised. "Of course," he murmurs, twisting around to see a sidetable near the cart. A glass is replaced, and Raymond moves over to a tray, examining the items upon it. Both hot water and coffeepot are there, and he picks up a cup to continue preparing something.
     "I am certain you will have a lovely time at Chinon -- it is a marvelous ville and castle. Just stunning. And William's renovations have truly been a blessing to the area. A majestic place now, just as it had been in the...well..." Raymond smiles, looking into the cup as he pours, "...when he lived there first." As a mortal. "Chinon's glory century, certainly."

     Somehow, it's a rather interesting turn of fate to have a girl who can't drink wine mannage a vineyard. But sometimes the more challenged make innovative decisions, perhaps. Or, at least, she'd probably hope so if one were to ask.
     She takes up one of the canapes delicately before nodding, "I've heard of some of the more challenging ones. And I recall him telling me of some of the things he wanted to do when he'd speak about it in New Port. And of course I've seen all the pictures in the magazines since it's been done, but they never really manage to do justice to the building itself." Victoria answers, "I really meant to come see it sooner, but things being what they are haven't managed to."

     "Well you will enjoy it," Raymond affirms. "Sugar and or milk?" he asks, brow arching in patient expectation.

     "Both please." Victoria answers, eating the hordurve as she watches the pouring of the coffee.

     Nodding, Raymond finishes adding two teaspoons of sugar with a bit of milk. He brings cup and saucer over to you, his other hand reaching and retrieving his unfinished brandy.
     "I will guess then that you know that the irony of your alcohol restriction is rather profound, considering your business, yes?" Raymond smirks, effortlessly sitting down beside you without balancing hands. The coffee is offered your direction. "I ask then how you achieve success without experiencing your products."

     "Thank you." Accepting the cup and taking a sip, Victoria chuckles, "It really is. The first year was pretty challenging. But Ui isn't so handicapped when it comes to that, so he worked with the tasting. And there were several old hands who had been with the winery before William and Ian left that were kind of given those duties."
     Taking another sip of the coffee she smiles, "But I've started working with the grapes themselves before they're firmented and there's no problem. I just experience them in their earliest stages, so to speak. It's been wonderfully interesting to learn about."

     "I'm certain," Raymond smiles, his knees near your own. He continues to enjoy his brandy, looking at you across the rim of his glass. "Hmm, I have forgotten myself. Thank you for the stellar vase...it is indeed, perhaps too much. A work of indescribable beauty. Yet, it was far more than what we discussed in Scotland..."

     "You're very welcome." Victoria takes another drink of her coffee and shrugs her shoulders a bit, not seeming worried about the difference herself, "It's worth it to me to know that it's in the hands of someone who appreciates it. And so far I haven't found anyone else who really does in the same way."

     Raymond nods and grins. "Well, you may rest that it is in the best hands possible, Victoria. I could not believe it when I opened the box. Just..." he sighs, "...glorious. I was stunned for a long time, in truth."

     Her smile brightens, obviously delighted at the response, "Good. When I saw it I just thought it was the perfect thing. Normally his work is a little more modern than most of the styles you mentioned to me and while there's always room for a few odd pieces, it can really disrupt the flow of a collection. But that one was... classical."

     "Classic indeed," Raymond agrees, finishing off his snifter. He crosses his hands upon his lap, letting the curved glass dry. "I will see it and think of you, of course," he smiles. "Now, as with all things, where to place it in the collection. That...is the challenge."

     "I've always had a problem with that. When I started, it wasn't as much of an issue because I focussed on lamps. And then branched into some windows. So, the placement in the house ended up being mostly logical." She is Ventrue after all, "But when I started getting other things it got more complicated. I haven't really arrived at a system I like particularly yet."

     "I keep multiple systems," Raymond explains. "Well, not systems. Aesthetics," he smiles. "My way of seeing thing in an aesthete that rationalizes the relationships between them."
     Wasn't there something of Toreador and specific artistic ability?
     "I think I'll stop there," Raymond smirks, grinning as he stands to make himself another brandy. "Just that...everyone has a way of seeing things, objects, and patterning. You will find yours, even if it is based on some logical principle. Terribly Ventrue, really," he chuckles softly to himself, pouring from a crystal decanter on the cart.

     She grins at the comment about her clan, "Why thank you, that's very kind of you to say." Victoria does, however, get the teasing nature of the comment, seeming to turn it around herself. "And really, it's one of the things that I'm fascinated with. How people organize things. You can tell quite a lot about a person from that alone, really."
     She takes another drink of her coffee, offering, "For example, I know a woman who organizes her jewelry entirely by the year she got it."

     Raymond grins thinly, as if suggesting, How quaint. "And that works for her?" he asks, moving back towards you and retaking his seat. The shared sofa squeaks plaintively, but softly.

     Victoria smiles with a hint of a grin, and nods, "It does. Because her interest in the jewelry is sentimental. So she always associates it with wherever she got it from."

     "It simply seems..." Raymond begins, then looks at you. A thought better. "Nevermind. That's good she enjoys her jewelry and thinks of the memories associated with them. That's the point of it all, isn't it?"
     "And you? How do you organize? Yes, I'm asking directly," Raymond grins, his smile somewhat at himself, for he stares into his brandy as he chuckles. "What does your organization, let's say, speak of you?"

      Victoria arches an eyebrow curiously, honestly interested in what it seems perhaps, "Hopefully, it is."
     Taking a sip from her coffee she chuckles a little, "For the moment, purely practical. Though I'm trying to decide on another system, I haven't figured out based on what yet." Smiling still she reaches over and takes one of the miniaturized delecacies off the tiered trey on the table, "And say about me?" Considering briefly as she takes a bite, she finishes it thoughtfully before responding, "At the moment I think it says that I don't take enough time to really enjoy the things that I have. And that while they are all in order, they aren't necessarily being made the most of."

     "Such is the way of life," Raymond breathes after his swallow. He goes ahead and takes another, the liquor lifting the air with the scent of smoke and pecans. "In truth, there is little more than enjoyment that's important. Enjoyment of life, of work, of blood, of love, of who we are, love of what one wants, love of what one acquires and wants back. Love of self," Raymond even adds, gaze falling once more upon the woman near him. "That drives all -- that Love. Really, there's nothing wrong with it."
     "Even the Ventrue love of obligation and yoked responsibility," Raymond grins. "There is enjoyment in that as well, for you, I am sure."

     "I'm coming to think so more and more, really." Victoria says easily to the first, "Life is entirely too long to not spend it with at least a measure of enjoyment attached. And simultaneously too short, would be the regular argument." Long seems to hold a little more weight with her for some reason.
     She chuckles at the teasing comment, "Well, you're not entirely without obligation and yoked responsibility yourself, it seems?" Being a prince would certainly seem to entail those things to a great degree. "I would hope for your sake that it's for something or someplace that you love? At least to a degree?"

     "I love Tours," Raymond nods, leaning in slightly. Snifter rests on his lap, while his free hand stretches along the back of the rococco divan. "I love..." he thinks a moment, "...my existence. My homes. The power I now seem to have. I love my glass collection. I love..." he looks at an angle to his sitting companion, though his height requires a slight crane of his neck, "...travelling. Being alone. Being with someone. Beauty. Age. Elegance. Color. Light. Flying. Excellent service."
     "Not necessarily in that order."
     Raymond smirks, blue eyes winking at the humor. "I don't think of my role as yoked responsibility and obligation that much, really. I was asked and I have given myself to the benefit of Kindred in Tours. I'm a rather good martyr, actually." For that, Raymond's smile becomes a beam.

     Victoria laughs lightly at that beam. Again for Raymond there is another sacrificial parallel drawn. Twice in one night is a pretty strong accomplishment. "That is a great deal to love, certainly. It's very... encouraging."
     She takes another drink from her coffee thoughtfully, "And to what you were saying earlier about love of self, there's a very prominent school of psychology that maintains without that most intrinsic of Loves, any others are a twisted shadow of what should be there. Some even go so far as to say that they are fostered in an effort to replace its absence. They don't generally say it with as much art, though." She smiles a little, before she takes the other half of the dulce in a pause, following it with another drink from her cup, "I've always been inclined to agree with it."

     "Oh, yes," Raymond purrs, drawing away and up slightly. "I forget that you are a medical professional." He nods, taking the moment to finish his current flush of brandy. Sips are not taken, to be sure. Instead, Raymond pulls draughts to overwhelm a palatte.
     "So you are suggesting then that I love..." he smiles, "...because I am lacking in love?" Tsk. "Too Freudian and simplistic."

     "Actually, quite the opposite." Victoria says easily, getting up to refill her own coffee as she speaks, adding sugar and cream with most of her attention on her conversation companion, "I am suggesting that so far, it seems you are able to take enjoyment out of a great many things. And while there is of course always room for me to be proven wrong, that would seem to show that you have a good deal of comfort with yourself."
     Sitting down in her seat on the devan once more she smiles, "If you were wondering, the particular comment which would hold weight in a professional analysis would be the love of being alone followed by the love of being with someone. And the understanding of a value of yourself individually as well." She reaches up to brush a lock of hair off her forehead and back a bit, "I've got a tendency not to trust people who don't at least think they're valuable."

     "Then you must adore Kindred," Raymond groans then smirks. "They're all valuable and know it, of course. And, I thank you for the analysis; while I am undead, I seem to have a healthy appreciation of myself and those around me. That's good to know," Raymond sarcastically responds. "I'd hate to think that I was...unnatural...or something. Unhealthy," he grins, setting his empty snifter down on the near table.

     She grins a little, "Most of them don't know it, would be my argument. They want everyone else to think they do. But I certainly wouldn't debate it with many of them." She shrugs, "I don't practice anymore, it's probably worth just about as much weight as you want to give it."
     Victoria takes another drink from her coffee, "And most medical professionals would immediately say that you and I are as unheathy as humanly possible. Being that we're dead. But, even that has been debated. So, I guess the moral of the whole thing is, it's all relative."

     "Now, there is one thing that I do not love," Raymond says softly, "...relativity. It's a cop-out," he grins, "...as you say in American. But that -- is another story for another night."

     "That certainly sounds interesting though." Victoria says, grinning back, "It does get pretty easily tossed around."
     "So, since I'm going to be a tourist of sorts in Chinon, as a frequent visitor are there any things in particular that you think I should take the time to enjoy?" She asks, changing the subject since it seems there was a motion to do so.

     "Chinon?" Raymond ponders a moment, "Depends on your interest. It is not a big place, but is bustling for its size. About fifteen-thousand now. There are the things related to Decartes, his home..." Raymond starts.
     "But, what is it you want to know of Chinon?" As the town is only 30kms from Tours, it's part of the prince's responsibility. However, Raymond keeps to the tourist issue at hand. It, like Saumur and Angiers, is old Anjou stomping grounds. And, as such, Plantagenet names do keep sway. "Fontevraud is not so far -- lovely place -- Azay le Rideau, Ille de Brouchard. All delightful. In Chinon," Raymond tosses out, "...there are a couple of fine restaurants, and of course, all along the Loire," he smiles genially, "...there are vineyards of cabernet franc that are the best in the world. We have perfected the grape there. And chateaux. Always the chateaux..."
     "So, what interests you?" Raymond asks, sitting back against his curve of the divan and removing his arm from the short length.

     "I'm interested in the vineyards, certainly. I'll probably spend a pretty good amount of time there." Victoria says. She settles into the seat slightly, apparently not planning on getting up for more coffee, "I've always liked history. I don't feel like there's much history at all in Portland. Which isn't fair really, I'm sure all kinds of interesting things have happened there in fields that I'm not overly familiar with."
     "Glass, of course, I've enjoyed seeing the cathedrals and older artists that have managed to survive in the area. And I'm looking forward to the chateaux. I've actually got one in Switzerland that I've never had the time to visit, I'm thinking I might spend the winter there this year depending on what happens." She considers again, "And I'm coming to have a more honed appreciation for paintings than I used to."

      "That is a long list," Raymond acknowledges. "I hope you have time. So, let's start with the wineries -- of course, esteemed William will know the details of such a thing. Domaine de Beausejour, Domine Remillard, and Jacques and Denis St. Montrand are all in the appellation controllee, so you must visit them. The caves that line the Vienne -- the river where Chinon sits -- is where most store their vintages. This is an old practice. Ask and they may show you. I do not know what vineyard will receive you, but such can be arranged."
     "For cathedrals, you must leave the Vienne for the Loire river proper. Angiers, Saumur have the best cathedrals. They are family seats, you see, and as such, the cathedrals were there. Despite what you hear of Chinon, the House of Anjou, well, is based in Saumur. The castle there retains the orignal walls. Chinon was the beloved residence, however. Again, you may get these stories first hand," Raymond smiles. "Fontevraud has the second best windows, but it is an old place, recently restored. The sisters were there in their heyday, and well..." Raymond pauses, "I will let William speak to you of Fontevraud and what it means to his familie. They built it. Again, all along the valleys of the Loire, you will find the famous places: Amboise, Loches, Villandry, Azay, Saumur, Blois and Chambord. Plus dozens of others that I have not named. You can spend weeks in my home and each night would be filled."
     "And no trip to our Loire would be complete without a stop at the great cathedral at Tours. Until Chartres itself, Tours was the cathedral city for this region of France."

     "I doubt I'll be able to see everything in one go, really, but as far as I understand France will still be here when I get back." Victoria says with a smile, "It's longer than I've been able to spend before, so really, all of it's a treat even if I don't get to all of it that I want to see."
     She shrugs a little around another sip of coffee, "Besides that it's always good to have something to look forward to seeing when you come back." She smiles, "And I certainly wouldn't think of missing the cathedral in Tours. I wouldn't be able to carry on a conversation of any intelligence without sounding like more of an American than I already do."

     Raymond laughs softly, "God willing, France will be here." Raymond pauses then, shaking his head. "It is...getting late," he observes, then turns his wrist over to see the time. A brush of his hand sends his jacket and shirt cuffs back, revealing the watch beneath. "Nearing five," he murmurs, though likely, he did not need to see the watch to know it.
     "I will be in the Vezere only another night or so. My holiday must, as all good things, come to an end. You are to Chinon next?"
     "And then America?"

     "It is, isn't it." She glances at the clock on the wall as the time is mentioned before turning her attention back again. Leaning over to put her coffee cup and its saucer on the table she nods, "I'm hoping to see the caves here before I leave. And then I'll be off to Chinon. From there it'll just depend, I'm definitely staying through the wine festival. I might take in a couple more places in France before I head back over, though."

     "Yes, the festival," Raymond nods sagely, almost forgetting it for a moment. "I hope you enjoy the Loire, hmm? Well, at least the Vienne portion," he smiles, "...and wherever else you may travel."
     "It has been a pleasure," Raymond begins, his gaze lowering. His fingers seem to ripple as ribbon when he picks up the more delicate hands before him, bringing them slowly to his lips as a pair.

     "It seems impossible that I wouldn't." Victoria says amicably with a genuine smile, "But thank you. And I appreciate your recommendations on sight seeing."
     "I haven't had an evening this enjoyable in some time. Good conversation is more rare than the time I've had to seek it out, it seems." When her hands are lifted, she gives the fingers under her own a light grasp after the kiss is placed there in response, easily moved along their path.

     His breath is cool, though the prince's fingers are warm. Raymond smiles as he releases the hands. "Good conversation is one thing we have in spades, in France." A place he clearly loves. "Find any good cafe, and conversation will find you, if you let it."
     With that, Raymond Marillet stands. The divan exhales slightly for the relief. "If you desire anything," Raymond notes, "...you know how to reach me, yes?" He brushes at his jacket lightly, encouraging the linen to fall back to the lines perfected by its tailor.

     Rising at the same time Victoria nods, gown drifting back into place like a smooth cloud, "Yes, thank you. If you have free time come up and feel like taking a turn as a sight seer, I'd enjoy the company."
     She arches an eyebrow slightly in inquiry, "Do you think you'll be coming to the festival at Chinon? If nothing else we might run into each other there?" And it wouldn't be a total leap of interpretation to take her tone as somewhat hopeful, most likely.

     Raymond's stepped around the table, and turns back to look. He smiles, each hand disappearing beneath the tails of his coat and into his pockets. He rocks back and forth from ball to heel and gives a flick of his eyes to the ceiling.
     "Maybe," Raymond purrs coyly. He comes to a halt and grins, "Just maybe."
     "Give my best to William," Raymond says, walking over to open the parlor doors, "...and Dunross as well. I will more than likely catch up with them soon."
     "Very soon."

Posted by rowan at September 20, 2003 01:34 PM