August 1939
Emerging from the underground Trocadero metro stop, you round the corner of the recently completed, gleaming Palais de Chaillot and stop dead in your tracks. There before you is the most iconic landmark of Paris. Perhaps all of France.
La Tour Eiffel.
Breathtaking in its metallic magnificence, glowing in the setting sun. A sight that buoys your travel-weary soul seven days after you left New York: boats and trains finally bringing you to this wondrous spot. A light breeze even dances over your neck in greeting, a balm from the cloying subterranean heat of the metro.
It's a light elbow check to your arm that pulls you back from a state of reverie.
"A beautiful sight, but one you'll get used to," your uncle Robert chuckles, shaking your heavy leather case to indicate it's time to move along. "In fact, I've been told you will be able to see it from your appartement..."
He has accompanied you to Paris and will see you settled into your new adventures before continuing on to visit friends in England. He spent the roaring 20s living right here in the 16th arrondissement himself and, indeed, has arranged for you to share living quarters with a young British lady, a relative of his English friends. It's a comfort to know you'll have at least one English speaker to chat with as you dive headfirst into learning proper French as you go.
Robert leads you away from the amazing sight and into the bustling streets, alive with cars, trams, bicycles and pedestrians buzzing in all directions. It's all at once like New York City, but yet so different as well, cafe terraces filling the wide pavements with all manner of people gathered to sip robust cafe au lait and refreshing limonade.
Within minutes, you are on a quieter side street and stopping outside a handsome honey-coloured stone facade with wrought iron window balconies and window guards, teaming with colourful, fragrant flowering pots. The number 14 gleaming white on a traditional navy blue tile. Your uncle pushes the enormous wooden door open, beckoning you into a cool whitewash wall corridor with mosaic floor tiles.
"Ahhh, Robert!!" a sophisticated middle-aged lady bustles from a nearby doorway and greets your uncle warmly, kissing both cheeks. It would appear they are friends of old.
"Y/n, this is Madam DuLac, your landlady," he explains as you offer a handshake, admiring her boucle jacket and chic bun.
"Qu'est-ce?" she signals with a good-natured frown, obviously finding your polite greeting lacking, pulling you into a hug and two-cheeked kiss. She smells like Chanel perfume, cigarettes and baked goods. "You are in Paris now, ma chérie; this is how we greet one another," she counsels in heavily accented but perfect English.
"You speak English?" you sigh, relieved, your French decidedly lacking.
"Bien sûr," she smiles. "And please call me Solène," she adds with a friendly smile.
"Eloise should be home from the library maintenant; the perfect time for you to meet," she gestures towards an elevator cage surrounded by a sweeping grey marble staircase.
"I think I would prefer to take the stairs," you admit, nerves flaring at the idea of such a contraption.
Your uncle laughs. "Well, I am taking it; I am not hefting this case of yours up five flights of stairs," he adds dryly as you gaze up the swirling stairwell.
"Five storeys?" you squeak.
"The view is the best from the top," Solène advises as she rattles back the cage entry and steps in, looking at you expectantly.
YOU ARE READING
When The World Is Free || Benedict Bridgerton
FanfictionIt is late summer 1939, when you arrive in Paris from New York to begin a year of adventure. A deal struck with your parents to see a little of the world before settling down and marrying your 'childhood sweetheart' Stanley. You soon find yourself w...
