Page 26 of Miss Desirable
“Remorse is not a detail,” Catherine said.
He shifted from gazing at the greening countryside to studying her. “What have you to be remorseful about?”
Double drat him to darkest perdition. “Much. I should have noticed sooner that Mama was failing, for one thing.” Even that was not Catherine’s greatest regret. Mama had not wanted any fussing, just as Catherine had no patience for being fussed.
“A diplomat’s wife would of necessity excel at dissembling.” He heaved up a sigh, which managed to sound French of him, and resumed his study of the countryside. “I was married.”
Ah, they were making progress. “You are a widower. Do you wish you’d been the one who’d died?”
“I was never quite that selfish,” he said, “but I have wished many selfish things. Marrying Gabriella was selfish, and I knew it at the time.”
“Shouldn’t both parties feel they are getting the best of a marriage bargain?” Mama had claimed that was the ideal foundation, but then, Mama had been married only the once, and to a diplomat.
“Marriage is complicated. Marriage in time of war is both abjectly foolish and profoundly courageous. Gabriella had the courage. I was the fool.”
“The greatest fool in all of France no doubt.” While Catherine had taken top honors in that category in Rome.
Fournier resumed his fascination with sheep, hedgerows, and pastures. “In every union, one spouse loves a little more than the other, or so I believe. Perhaps in a long marriage, they take turns. One is a trifle more convinced of the marriage’s rightness. One is moreépris…”
“Smitten?”
“Enamored, perhaps. I was enamored of Gabriella. Of her hearty laugh, her warm smile, her robust energy. She wasintrépide. The English word ‘dauntless’ comes to mind. The women of France became inhumanly determined on their objectives as Napoleon conscripted every man and boy fit to march. The ladies were left to manage, and manage they did. I adored Gabriella. She adored my family’s vineyards.”
Oh dear. “I’m sure your vineyards are to be much admired, but your wife was an idiot.”
Fournier took Catherine’s hand and pressed a kiss to her gloved knuckles. “Thank you for that, but you are only half right. Gabriella and I were simply idiots in different ways.”
Catherine curled her fingers around his, lest he think to retreat into platitudes. “Go on.”
“Gabby was as good a wife as she knew how to be, but when an opportunity came for me to remove to London, she insisted I go. Napoleon’s disastrous march to Moscow was in train, his resources spread too thin. His blockade was increasingly porous, and France was starved for coin. I brought a shipment of excellent claret with me to London, and it sold quite well.”
“You were a smuggler?”
“I relied on smugglers for a time. I no longer do. When Paris fell, we thought our difficulties were at an end, but the squabbling—Bonapartists, royalists, ultraroyalists, republicans—became just as deadly as the wars had been. To eschew politics was to be universally judged a coward. I should have returned to France permanently, but Gabriella would not hear of it. I came and went, and we managed until the Hundred Days.”
Catherine allowed herself to lean against him, though only a little. “You had no one to talk sense to you when you contemplated making an ill-advised match and nobody to inspire you when you wanted to reestablish yourself in your native land. No wonder you are a demon when you get a sword in your hand.”
His arm came around her lightly. “Do you know why I held you?”
“Because you are kind and know much of sorrow.”
“I hope I am kind, but that is not the reason I presumed.”
Catherine snuggled closer. “This is not presumption. Foolishness, yes, but not presumption. When I step down from this coach, I will thank you for a pleasant outing, you will bow over my hand, and we will pretend our little cuddling matches never occurred.”
“If that is what you wish.” He sounded amused.
“That is how it must be. Why do you hold me?” And how did he know to do so with a perfect blend of casual unconcern and secure embrace?
“I hold you because I have not embraced a lady I esteem in too long and because to do so is precious beyond words.”
That admission also had something to do with his ferocious fencing, but Catherine could not articulate the connection. She was too consumed with the pleasure of resting again, physically and otherwise, in the arms of a man she esteemed. She also, by slow, careful degrees, turned her leaning into a mutual embrace, her arm around his waist, and that was more precious yet.
Before Catherine climbed from the coach some time later, she kissed her escort.
They were both lonely, they were both burdened by regrets and losses, and yet, she allowed a little desire to lace what was otherwise simply a gesture of thanks and affection. She was not fortified by senseless arguing, but she was fortified by bestowing a kiss where she pleased.
To her delight, Fournier kissed her back with exquisite restraint, then preceded her from the coach and handed her down.
