regshoe

Sorry for the late comment! Anyway, I'm so glad to hear that you enjoyed it more on reread. : D

I've enjoyed it very much on my own reread, as well, while I have been recording it for Librivox. And some of the things that you're noting here are things that I have noticed, as well:

this time I especially appreciated noticing how far Aymar returns his feelings (that postscript, oh my goodness).
YES, very much agree. I remember from my first read how I thought it felt kind of imbalanced then, so I was very glad to notice these things.

And the scenes you're quoting! The reference to Mary Renault is actually quite hilarious, with her oblique sex scenes. And even in fic, this is just the sort of 'Afterwards…' that you put after a fade-to-black sex scene. : D

I appreciate Broster making the point, through Mme de la Rocheterie, that conservative sexual mores in the early nineteenth century means being more permissive than typical modern young people. I wonder how she'd feel about Aymar/Laurent if she found out?
I actually remarked to garonne about this very thing! Actually I think it's hilarious how his grandmother is all, 'Oh, the youth of today! In my day a red-blooded young man would have taken her to his bed, husband or no husband!' And astute of Broster, actually, to make this note about how sexual mores had changed from the more libertine French court of before the revolution.

And, well, I thought someone ought to write fic about them, and (as far as I can find) no one has yet, so I decided I would do it and now have 2,500 words of draft fic. I suspect this won't last, but it's nice in the meantime.
Yay! Very glad to hear that, and looking forward to hopefully getting to read it. : D

Actually it's very easy to have Aymar and Avoye break up: they already have broken up in the book, and then you just have them not get together again. I actually wouldn't mind reading Laurent/Aymar/Avoye, which is pretty much what the ending of the book does IMO (or at least leaves a large opening for). But Avoye is a much paler character than Alison is, and I don't care about her remotely as much.