There was a French proverb that went like this: lunch was for friends, dinner required etiquette, afternoon tea was for children, and supper belonged to lovers.
Augereau seemed determined to drag things out until supper, but Georgiana remembered that the Italian Embassy had once invited her for afternoon tea, only for other matters to distract her and make her forget.
Though she could talk with Alexander von Humboldt for four hours, she truly did not know how to begin a conversation with Polina. Polina reclined gracefully on a chaise lounge, and even with her hair cut short, she was still beautiful and captivating.
But how was she supposed to attend social functions looking like that? Short hair was not yet fashionable among women, while plenty of men wore theirs long.
The residence provided them with coffee. In theory, drinking the stuff should have kept her awake, unless she too wanted Bonaparte to summon her to a meeting at eleven o'clock like the ministers.
Yet she drank it anyway, hoping that when she went to the Italian Embassy later, no one else would be asleep.
If the French could not act without authorization, then the British enjoyed considerable freedom. After capturing Perim Island, a knight named Home Popham had been sent to seize the monopoly on Mocha coffee.
Clearly, Georgiana was not the only one to have considered this after the failed recovery of Saint-Domingue. Other islands that produced coffee and sugar, such as Cuba, also fell under British jurisdiction.
But Cuban coffee used the sun-drying method rather than the washed method. It was simple, cheap, and the most traditional way of processing coffee. Mocha Port, near the Red Sea, lacked fresh water; why would they use precious water to wash coffee beans?
The washed method required fermentation, which supposedly allowed