Villa Pavone and the Peacocks of Caserta
Beaulieu-sur-Mer, French Riviera
PREVIOUSLY…
Dispatched from a first-class express train from Monte Carlo to Beaulieu-sur-Mer, French Riviera.
Darling readers,
Somewhere between espresso and espionage a tattered copy of Tatler appeared beside my Bellini this morning—left, I suspect, by my archnemesis, the Marchioness of Mayhem, who enjoys starting scandals she doesn’t finish.
But that was hardly the morning’s first absurdity.
Earlier, while I was attempting to pack discreet surveillance equipment inside a Dior racquet bag for a frivolous weekend of doubles, a knock came at the door of my Monaco hotel suite.
A courier arrived (in tennis whites, naturally) bearing an embossed envelope sealed with wax and insufferable optimism.
Inside: a heavy cream envelope, monogrammed with an entirely unnecessary family crest (two croquet mallets crossed over a champagne flute). The stationery reeked of Earl money and mild sunstroke.
🎾 Invitation: Annual White Tie & Tennis Whites Soirée
Archibald Reginald Pippinbottom III requests the pleasure of your company at his Annual White Tie & Tennis Whites Soirée
Villa Pavone, Beaulieu-sur-Mer
This Saturday at half-past noon
(Please wear white. Please behave.)
Arrival & Departure:
Overnight from Friday at sunset through Sunday brunch.
Festivities to include:
Pimm’s on the Pergola
Sunset drinks with a garnish of mint, regret, and minor nobility.
Friday Evening’s Welcome Dinner:
A moonlit banquet featuring seven courses, four scandals, and at least one sauce flambéed table-side by a man in tennis whites and a monocle.
Champagne Lawn Tennis (weather permitting, scandals not).
A Private Art Exhibition
Featuring works from the De Rossi family collection: Picasso, Gilot, Le Corbusier, and something “of Imperial significance” (read: possibly stolen, definitely framed).
Oysters from Private Tide Pool
Curated by a marine sommelier.
A “Peacocking” Photo Booth (sponsored by Persol)
Feathers provided. Dignity optional.
A Surprise Musical Guest
Described only as “lightly cancelled.”
Saturday Night’s “Love-Love” Soirée:
Dancing, dessert flambé, and possibly firemen.
Dress Code: Wimbledon with a Riviera twist. Tennis whites strictly enforced. No neutrals, no excuses.
RSVP via telegram, carrier pigeon, or to Penelope (Archie’s co-host-slash-“girlfriend”—please, they have less chemistry than still water).
ABSOLUTELY NO ESPIONAGE.
(Which means there probably will be).
Naturally, the entire art world has been invited: Ferdinand Megève, fresh off his latest pigment scandal. Gigi de Rossi (if she dares to show her face). Sergei Volkov, who swears he only deals in yachts now. And Cosima Vögeli, who I suspect is the reason the RSVP list was printed on burnable paper.
But what’s truly curious is the art exhibition. According to the footnotes (and you know how I love a good footnote), the works were “graciously donated” by the De Rossi family—a phrase which, in their case, may be synonymous with forged.
A Titian, some mid-century masters, and something coded in Greek? I’m packing a magnifying glass and my sharpest heels.
🚂 The Orient Express
Invitation still in hand, I rang for a porter, ordered a coupe of something cold and ruinously expensive, and threw three gowns, two wigs, and a wiretap into my steamer trunk.
Within the hour, I was gliding through the Riviera aboard what the concierge insisted on calling the Monaco-Beaulieu Express—but which I, naturally, referred to as the Orient Express, First Class.
Lacquered wood paneling. Lalique crystal sconces. A faint note of Guerlain in the velvet upholstery. My compartment looked less like a train car and more like a jewel box for a duchess with diplomatic immunity and dubious taste. I approved.
Mundi di Salvator was already installed in the corner, draped in Hermès and disdain, leafing through Le Monde like it owed him an apology. His steamer trunk leaked the scent of iris powder and encrypted lip gloss.
“Victoria,” he said without looking up. “If this train serves warm brie again, I’m defecting to Milan and taking the wigs.” I let him sulk. He’ll come around once the caviar arrives.
And then Allegra von Bischoffshausen swept in, twenty minutes late and ten degrees overdressed: alabaster Alaïa, diamonds at noon, a small Bichon Frise, and a flute of Krug in hand.
“Penelope said I could tag along,” she purred, settling into the seat beside mine and kicking off heels worth more than the train car. “Apparently I’m meant to… mingle. Or distract. Or possibly seduce a customs official. Honestly, I wasn’t listening.”
She produced a Baccarat atomizer from her white Birkin and misted herself with something illegal. “Scandale No. 9,” she said. “Limited edition. Not yet released. Or cleared by customs.”
I eyed the bottle. It pulsed faintly. Mundi noticed.
And finally—Chip Vanderwall. Former enfant terrible, current enfant worse. He crashed into the compartment with a flute of champagne and pants lined in stolen gala menus.
“Don’t mind me,” he said, already eating someone else’s canapé. “I’m here to reconnect with nature. And possibly Archie’s maid.”
My compartment now resembled a smuggler’s box caught in a custody battle—with enough tension to snap a tennis net.
And just as the train gave a dramatic lurch—the door creaked open one last time.
Of course it was my grandfather, Major Phipps, who poked his head in.
He wore an unconvincing disguise: wide-brimmed fedora, oversized sunglasses, and a printed linen shirt. In one hand, a tarnished silver-tipped cane. In the other, a file labeled CONFIDENTIAL.
“Hallo hallo,” he said, squinting. “Is this first class, or have I wandered into a French hostage situation?”
No one answered. Mundi lowered his newspaper by a millimeter. Allegra sipped. Chip froze mid-canapé theft.
Phipps winked at me then disappeared down the corridor.
Finally, I settled into my seat and flipped open the Tatler to the latest gossip column by the Marchioness of Mayhem (God knows what she’s on about). There, scribbled in violet ink at the bottom of the page:
“Page 84. You’re going to scream.”
I did.
🦚 Villa Pavone: From De Rossi Dynasty to Pippinbottom Property
By: The Marchioness of Mayhem, Gossip Columnist. Tatler, July 2025.
Few properties on the Riviera possess a résumé quite as scandalous as Villa Pavone. Once the glittering jewel of the De Rossi family crown—home to dukes, cardinals, and one very famous forger—now resides (at least on paper) in the hands of one Archibald Reginald Pippinbottom III, a man best known for confusing a floor plan with a prenup.
Originally the estate was a wedding gift to Gigi de Rossi’s grandmother, Contessa Elisabetta di Rossi di Caserta, from her third husband (or fourth? It depends who you ask and whether they were legally alive at the time).
Part Roman folly, part fascist fever dream, the villa boasts:
A marble-clad panic room disguised as a boudoir
An underground tunnel to the marina
A frescoed ballroom once used to host a very quiet arms summit in the 1980s
A mirrored salon rumored to have belonged to the Marquise de Pompadour (unverified, naturally, but a delightful lie)
Contessa Elisabetta—known in certain postwar diplomatic cables as “The Peacock,” was said to be equal parts La Dolce Vita and La Dolce Vendetta. During World War II, she kept close company with artists, poets, musicians, aristocrats, bishops, and collectors.
An Italian socialite, sciura, and art patron in her own right, the Contessa commissioned a painting a day when the Germans entered Paris—from the likes of Calder, Picasso, Modigliani and more. Famed for her rebellious attitude, emerald cigarette holder, discreet vaults, and a pet ocelot named Sandro, she survived six papal transitions, four coups, and one particularly aggressive divorce.
When she “retired,” she left the villa to Gigi with a note that simply read:
“Use the West wing wisely. And never trust a conservator with clean fingernails.”
Villa Pavone now plays host to champagne garden parties, fashion-week afters, and the occasional covert smuggling rendezvous. The De Rossi family crest is still carved into the gateposts—though most guests assume it’s just decorative. Poor things.
So how did this ancestral masterpiece pass from Gigi de Rossi’s gilded grasp to the notorious Pippinbottom enfant terrible of the Riviera? Depending on which baroness you ask, it involved either:
a forged codicil,
a Baccarat-fueled poker night,
or a very expensive misunderstanding involving a Hungarian duchess, three doves, and a lease agreement written in Latin.
Gigi publicly claims she “let it go” because “the light was better in Palermo.”
But here’s the twist: While Archie may hold the deed, the villa still breathes Gigi. The staff answers to her tone of voice. The locks haven’t been changed. And there are rumors—utterly unconfirmed, of course—that a particular symbol keeps appearing: a three-headed peacock, worked into the cornicing, the china, even the villa’s stationery.
What it means? No one knows. Or no one’s saying.
One whispered theory? That the three-headed peacock isn't just a crest—it's a code. Used, allegedly, by a certain ecclesiastical circle known for collecting more than relics.
As one well-placed gallerist whispered: “Pippinbottom owns the walls. De Rossi owns the secrets.”
And it is precisely within those secrets that one finds the hidden compartments, the disguised blueprints, and—allegedly—the taxidermy peacock that never went through customs.
So yes, darlings. Villa Pavone may be legally Archie’s. But in the world that matters? It’s still De Rossi territory.
— The Marchioness of Mayhem
💣 The Coup d’État
Underneath the article, there was a grainy black-and-white photograph from an old newspaper archive:
Caption: Major Bartholomew Phipps and Contessa Elisabetta di Rossi di Caserta, mid-waltz at a masquerade in Rome, circa 1952.
Scribbled in Latin: “Amor, Ecclesia, Tradimento” (Love, Church, Betrayal).
Nota bene: It’s said Contessa Elisabetta once hosted a wartime guest of British Intelligence in the villa’s blue room for what diplomatic cables described as “extended negotiations”—the result of which, some say, is that a certain illegitimate granddaughter now haunts the art world like a particularly glamorous ghost.
No marriage was ever announced, of course. But rumour has it that a certain well-heeled 14¾th Marchioness now fluttering about the international art scene may carry both the Phipps jawline and the De Rossi taste for drama. If true, that would make her both granddaughter to a British spy and heir to the most tastefully treasonous family in Christendom.
💌 An Addendum, Hand-Delivered at 140 km/h
As I reached the final line—mouth agape in sheer disbelief—the compartment door slid open with a hiss.
“Telegram for Lady Victoria Fenwicke-Smythe,” a man in white gloves presented me with a silver tray bearing a single envelope. Before I could ask, he bowed and vanished down the corridor.
All eyes turned to me.
Faintly impressed into the wax seal: the unmistakable peacock crest of Villa Pavone.
Inside, Penelope’s scrawl:
Operation Peacock is ready. Gigi and clan already here. Meet me in the library when you arrive. –P
The train shuddered. A gull shrieked overhead.
I folded the letter with care and turned back to the window. The blue coastline glittered like a trap. My mind spun. The bomb had been dropped.
Three heads. One secret.
So this is how it begins.
Yours in Shell Shock & Suspicion,
Lady Victoria (Fenwick-Smythe?) of the Fenwick-Smythe Manor (I think?)
⛈️ COMING NEXT: THE THUNDERSTORM DINNER
A caviar course interrupted by lightning. A guest list rearranged by scandal. And one very damp soprano with ties to Interpol.
As the Riviera sky darkens and the villa’s shutters begin to rattle, Lady F finds herself seated next to a man who may—or may not—have forged the De Rossi Codex.
The wine is flowing. The power may not be.
Operation Peacock continues... under candlelight.
Follow the Scandalous World of Lady Victoria Fenwick-Smythe, 14¾th Marchioness of the Fenwick-Smythe Manor
Society columnist, former debutante, and unhinged socialite art collector with a taste for scandal and sapphires. Click here to meet the cast of Lady F’s social misfits, beautifully dressed disasters, and barely-disguised frenemies.