Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.

11 November 2022, Cumbrian Embassy, Toulouse

My dearest cousin Armand,

We have arrived—several days ago, in point of fact—and are beginning to settle in. As you can see from the direction, we are to be housed within the Cumbrian Embassy itself! “Maximilian’s the deputy chief of mission, what?” said Lord Ellesmere. “Can’t have him languishing in rented digs, now can we?”

It seems that I had underestimated, or at least misunderstood, the extent of Max’s new responsibilities. He had given me to understand that he was replacing Alec Gainsborough—which he is, in part. But Gainsborough was not Lord Ellesmere’s deputy. Publicly he was no more than the Ambassador’s social secretary, and privately the Ambassador’s head of intelligence. And now he is returning home to Cumbria.

“It’s m’ father, don’t you know,” Gainsborough told us. “Bad ticker for years, and it stopped altogether several few months ago. M’ mother’s been carrying on, but I’m the eldest, and it’s time to take up m’ new duties.” And here he smiled broadly. “Change is as good as a feast, what?”

So Maximilian is inheriting Gainsborough’s intelligence operations, having once having played a key role within them; but he has also been granted the loftier title, and more responsibilities with it. I fear he shall have his hands quite full.

You, with your command of detail, are no doubt crying (as I was), “But what of the previous deputy chief? and what of His Lordship’s social calendar?”

“I’ve never had an official deputy before,” Lord Ellesmere told me. “We had no embassy here at all during the height of the Troubles, of course, and when we returned—I was newly appointed to the post—it was with the smallest of staffs, in case it was necessary to return to Cumbria with all due haste. And by the time we were past that,” and here he favored me with a small bow, “Alec had was more or less managing everything for me. Wasn’t his job, but there it is. But times have changed, and we are now recruiting up to a full establishment. And here,” he said to Maximilian with a broad smile, “you are!”

(His Lordship’s new social secretary is a retiring young fellow named Winstead. I am told that he traveled with us on the Margaret-Suzanne, though I never once saw him.)

Our lodgings here are quite grand, and much larger than our old flat in the Albertine; should the Divine bless us with another child or two, we shall have quite enough room for them. And servants, Armand! We shall have servants appointed from the household staff to cook and clean and so forth. Mother and Father have always had a full establishment in London and in Wickshire, so it isn’t like I am unused to the idea—but Maximilian and I have not had such a luxury in all our married days, what with “gallivanting about from hither to yon” as Father puts it.

I have been assigned no official duties at all—except to be present and pleasant at official embassy functions. I am not sure what my unofficial duties will be, other than to be a friend to Her Highness, Princess Beatrice, but it seems that perhaps I shall have time to pursue my studies after all: His Lordship told me cordially that I might take an embassy coach to L’École as often as I choose.

Beatrice is not residing at the Embassy, but in royal splendor in a nearby townhouse with her establishment.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for the other shoe. Sa Majesté Charles connived with His Cumbrian Majesty’s government to bring us here, for what purpose I do not know, but though I have been much with Princess Beatrice I have had no word from or sign from le Roi.

Perhaps it is just as well; I have more than enough to do, for the moment, without worrying about le Roi de Provençe. The wife of the deputy-chief-of-mission must dress rather better than a simple student of wizardry, and though I added a few items to my wardrobe before we left Cumbria one does not rely on the coutouriers of Yorke, not if one wishes to appear à la mode in Toulouse. Lady Ellesmere and I have more than a few visits to make before I can be considered presentable.

But though I shall be acquiring many new pairs of shoes, it is the one shoe that hasn’t dropped that occupies my mind.

Your impatient cousin,

Amelia

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