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Proudly holding her posture and wearing an impassive smile on her face, Eloisa de Lavua barely tightened the folded fan in her hand, as if it were her only anchor in this sea of faces, conversations, and glances. Her eyes seemed to be focused on the void, but in reality, they were greedily capturing the smallest details: the movements of the guests, the light of the candles reflecting in the crystal glasses, and, most importantly, the faces of the men, who were gathering in small groups, discussing political intrigues.
"Shit, what the hell am I even doing here? Is this crap ever going to end?!" — she mentally growled, still inside Stepan Bondarenko, a former criminal boss from 1990s Russia, and now a full-fledged Mademoiselle Eloisa, the daughter of a local viscount. It was the year 1763. France, where any high-born woman was seen only as a decoration for her man, was worse than any of his worst nightmares.
Six months. Six months of hell. Silk dresses, corsets so tight they made breathing painful, not to mention endless lessons in embroidery, dance, and "proper behavior." Stepan had never thought he would miss the dirty basements of St. Petersburg, where his dealings with gangsters were settled. But here, in this elaborate, cloyingly sweet world, he was even nostalgic for a bullet in the face.
During these months, he had learned to control himself — or rather, he tried. The first few weeks had been a real nightmare: Stepan, trapped in the body of Mademoiselle Eloisa, had desperately tried to understand what had happened to him. For a man who had spent his whole life solving problems like a guy that everyone feared, suddenly ending up in the body of some French lady from the past felt like an absurd dream. And unlike a dream, there was no waking up.
At first, he was sure it was some sort of hallucination, the aftereffects of the beatings or something slipped into his drink during one of the nighttime brawls. He shouted at the servants, demanded a phone, tried to explain that he wasn’t "Eloisa," but "Stepan Bondarenko, the guy who controls the Vasilyevsky District." But his words were met with either frightened looks or outright confusion.
The first real "debut" arranged by Eloisa's father became the last straw for him. On edge, Stepan snapped right in the middle of the reception. He stood before dozens of people in elaborate wigs, silk coats, and dresses, and screamed desperately:
— Enough! This is all bullshit! I’m not Eloisa! Can’t you see? I’m a man! A man, goddammit, from 1995! Russia, ever heard of it? Gangsters, a maroon jacket, brawls, that’s my life! And you... — he made a wide gesture with his hand, knocking someone's glass — all of this is your farce with dresses and dinners.
The guests went...