Page 2 of Miss Desirable
She glanced at the window, which was like viewing a waterfall from the back. Torrents of cold rain coursed down the glass, and Xavier hoped that the lady hadn’t far to travel when she left.
“I was told you did this—offered customers samples of your wines.”
“The wines are their own best advertisements. I could rhapsodize at length, in several languages, but the proof is in the tasting. Shall we?”
He gestured toward the open door of his public office, a room used mostly to impress customers who sought to negotiate bulk sales. The appointments included a pretty inlaid escritoire rather than the massive oak desk preferred by the English, a pink Carrara marble fireplace to complement the burgundy velvet drapes and upholstery, and Savonnerie carpets.
If Xavier could not stand on French soil when discussing business, he could at least stand on French carpets.
“You will warm yourself by the fire, Madame, and I will pour. Please do have a seat.”
She complied on a soft rustle of velvet, while Xavier pretended to study the wine rack along the inside wall. He knew precisely which wines he’d offer her, and he had a fairly good idea which one she’d choose—if the wine was for her.
And if the wine wasn’t for her, and she was widowed, then for which lucky fellow did she purchase it, and would she be back when the time came to replenish her stock of cordials?
“We will start with these,” Xavier said, selecting three more green bottles from the rack running the length of the inside wall and set them down next to the Cahors. “Ideally, the wine must breathe before sampling. Fortunately, we are in no hurry. Perhaps Madame would like to remove her bonnet?”
Hewanted to remove Madame’s bonnet, to see the face that went with the voice. For her to make this outing in such vile weather suggested she’d wanted the shop to herself, a reasonable objective for a widow, but then, where was her footman, her coach, her porter?
“I ought not,” she said, slipping a hatpin free and sticking it through the strap of her reticule. “Veils are hot, though, and nobody warns one about that, not that there’s anything one can do.”
She lifted her bonnet off and passed it to Xavier, as if he were as much footman as proprietor of the entire establishment. That he wore the finest morning attire Bond Street had to offer and quite profitably traded exquisite wines throughout Europe did not, in English eyes, make him any less a shopkeeper.
Liberty, equality, and fraternity had a hard going on British soil, despite all of John Bull’s bleating about his rights. Fortunately, Fournier also owned substantial acreage, most of it in France. London society grudgingly tolerated his gentlemanly pretensions as a result.
Fournier shook the bonnet gently before hanging it on a drying hook beneath the mantel. The label in the crown was from a fine shop indeed, and the brim had been finished with exquisite blackwork embroidery.
The elegant clothing prepared Xavier for the possibility that the lady herself was plain, which would have suited him quite well. Beautiful women were sometimes not all that interesting, after all. Like handsome men, pretty ladies could become so absorbed with their appearance that they failed to acquire other, more substantially attractive traits.
Humor, political acumen, literary sophistication, scientific expertise, musical skill… The list was long. Contemplating such feminine attributes left Xavier lonesome for France, even as the restored Bourbon monarchy tried to shove the whole nation back into the same wretched confines from whence the revolution had sprung.
“While the wine breathes, we must find a topic to discuss other than the weather,” he said. “Would I offend Madame if I took a seat?”
“Of course not. Please do, Monsieur Fournier. I actually like rainy days.”
“I will never understand the English,” he said, taking the second of the two wing chairs before the fire. “Why on earth do rainy days appeal?”
As his guest gazed into the flames, Xavier got his first good look at her. Madame’s features were unremarkable taken individually. An unprepossessing nose, particularly compared to Xavier’s own aquiline beak. A lovely complexion—the dreary British climate giveth, occasionally. And a good, strong chin.
The lady’s mouth was generous and curved at the moment in a faint, self-conscious smile. Her hair was somewhere between auburn and brown and done up in a simple braided bun at her nape.
“I am in thrall to good books,” she said. “On rainy days, nobody comes calling, and I can order a tea tray, curl up with an old friend, and spend hours cast away in bliss. Snowy days are almost as lovely, but snow is so quiet, and the sound of rain comforts me.”
Xavier had been speaking English almost exclusively for more than a decade. He still needed the space of a heartbeat to realize that when the lady referred tocurling up with an old friendand spending hourscast away in bliss, she meant curling up with a treasured book.
His mental fumbling was not simply the result of a small linguistic confusion. The lady’s eyes were also somewhat to blame. The impact of her gaze was extraordinary, both for the color—not blue, but rather, the majestic hue of the blooming iris—and for the directness of her regard.
Xavier was acquainted with only one family boasting eyes of that striking shade, and to the best of his knowledge, none of the Dornings had suffered a recent bereavement.
Who was she, and what was she about?
* * *
Veils were stuffy, and they made one’s spectacles steam up, but Catherine appreciated the privacy afforded by thick black netting. Monsieur Fournier had been so charming, so… easy to be with, that the moment when he’d caught sight of her eyes brought more than the usual disappointment.
In the instant when a stranger first met her gaze, Catherine could discern whoknewand who had yet to be disabused by the gossips regarding her situation.
Xavier Fournier clearlyknew, but then, he was reputed to be a man of varied interests and wide connections. The émigrés had to be, if they intended to thrive in the London marketplace of products and influence.
