Lisette

Chapter 39 ~ Orgueil et Prévention

I awoke early on New Year's Day, finding myself awake before the sun, and curled in closer to Enjolras, glad of his warmth. The embers of the fire still glowed softly, but they were doing little to heat the room by this time, and I guessed from their appearance it must have been somewhere around five o'clock. Half asleep, Enjolras pulled me closer, draping an arm over me and mumbling something unintelligible as he did so. While the nightmares hadn't been so bad of late, it was still soothing to hear his heartbeat, and feel him so close, and I found myself gradually drifting back to sleep.

By the time we both woke properly and began to dress, it was about ten o'clock. I'd slept with my chemise in the bed, so that it wouldn't be so hideously cold when I put it on, a habit that I'd taken up in October, when the linen began to feel really cold in the mornings, and changing into a clean chemise became more of a chore. Enjolras still teased me about it, but equally I couldn't help but laugh at the way he shivered and grimaced when pulling on a freezing cold linen shirt in the mornings. Even my suggestion that he warm it by the fire was dismissed, on the grounds that it would 'get too smoky,' irrespective of the fact that the chimney had a good draw to it.

In the cold, we'd taken to washing at the same time, so that the water was warm for both of us - it cooled too quickly for us to take turns as we used to. I wasn't exactly going to complain - seeing Enjolras without so much as a shirt on was always a pleasure, and judging by the look in his eyes when he looked at me, he felt much the same way. For all that the winter mornings were cold, the electrifying feeling of his bare skin against my own when I kissed him (or he kissed me) made getting out of bed worth it.

Not long before we were planning to leave, the hall-porter delivered a small package addressed to Enjolras. It contained a couple of cards, and a box of sugar plums. The first card, attached to the sweets and addressed solely to Enjolras, was from his parents, wishing him well for the New Year and asking for him to come and visit when he had the time between his studies. Judging by the signatures, the handwriting was entirely his mother's, with his father's name tacked on at the end. He discarded it having barely read it. The second was from his Great Great Aunt Josephine, but to my surprise, it was addressed on the inside to the both of us. As well as wishing us well, she expressed interest in meeting me, and invited us both to her 100th birthday party in late July. Her writing was cramped, and she had begun to cross her lines to fit everything in, including warnings for Enjolras that his mother was beginning to look for a suitable wife for him, and the plans for the food at her birthday party, and who she would invite.

Enjolras read it to me as I leaned over his shoulder, hand on his back. He seemed used to the crossed lines on the letter, reading them out without stumbling, while I struggled to interpret the writing. The old lady's crabbed scrawl was difficult enough to read, and the fact that when she had reached the end of the card, she had simply continued writing over the top of where she had already written but with the paper rotated at a right angle didn't make reading it any easier.

"What do you think?" he asked, reaching the end of the letter.

"Think of what? Whatever you've told her about me, I'm flattered. She seems to think very highly of me, given that she's never met me. Or perhaps because she's never met me."

"Not that. Though I'll grant you she should think highly of you. After all, I do! More what do you think of going to her birthday party? She'd like to meet you."

"But then I'd have to meet the rest of your family. How would we manage that? Your mother's hardly going to accept me into her house with my lack of money or connections."

He laughed. "Lack of money wouldn't matter if you were well born and well connected."

"Well? What does it matter? I'm neither, and given that everyone knows everyone at that level of society knows everyone else, or at least knows someone who knows someone, I can hardly pretend."