It will be very funny, at some point, to tell him that hers is Clothilde. For a moment, she's tempted, but: no. Save that for a time when being derailed by the absurdity of rescuing him from Lady Clothilde won't get in the way of what she wants to do right now, which is interrogate him to her satisfaction—

there was a time in her life that the realisation she'd come to would have frightened her into silence, instead. When she'd have lain beside him agonising over the imaginary reasons he might, secretly, not wish her to know all of those things. She isn't seeking comfort for that part of her when she briskly brushes it aside to just ask, but it is reassuring, his bewilderment, his immediate willingness. Of course she must know these things. Absurd that she doesn't. Where would she like to start.

Gwenaëlle presses a kiss to the back of his neck, undone by fondness, and has to take a moment to decide what she would like. Even though it's obvious, really, because always you start at the beginning if you're going to start anywhere, probably,

“You know about my mothers,” she says, “I've mentioned my sisters.” One of them. “Tell me about your farm, before you were insufferable nouveau riche. Who was there?”