Page 40 of Miss Desirable
“Then you must have been with selfish dunderheads. I am concerned for you, as a friend is concerned, as your family would be concerned did they know what you contend with. Whether or not we ever become lovers, I am your friend.”
Franny, a somewhat shaggy, pudgy creature in her present state, toddled along next to Bertold, a charger in his prime.
“You are so French, Fournier.”
“Thank you. I am also a gentleman, which is far more relevant to the discussion. If you refuse to allow me to court you, at least allow me to befriend you as we become lovers.”
“Court me?”
“Nobody would find my presumption unusual. I am known to be socially ambitious. The French are no respecters of rank—this is universally believed—and only a fool would turn up his nose at your fortune. When you dismiss me, all of Mayfair will applaud that you have come to your senses.”
“No.”
He looked peevish, and on him, that was attractive. “Why not? I make a credible suitor.”
“Because friends don’t use one another like that. I am honestly puzzled as to how any dalliance between us can progress, because my household is full of servants who will gossip, no matter how much I pay them. I am watched, you are watched, and…”
“And you have convinced yourself that unless we find ourselves stuffed into another coach late at night, a few kisses will be the limit of our pleasures?”
“I am resourceful, too, Fournier, but I’m no longer a schoolgirl whom all would rather not have underfoot. I cannot claim to be sketching the nearest vista by the hour while my obliging maid looks in on her auntie. I cannot slip out of my bedroom to meet you in the orchard, confident that nobody will question how the hems of my nightgown somehow got soaked between midnight and dawn.”
“You aspired to be devious.”
He did not shy away from the word, meaning Catherine didn’t have to shy away from it either.
“I was awful. I was beyond ridiculous, and I paid dearly for my recklessness. That I am contemplating the same sort of folly with you both fascinates and appalls me.”
The streets had grown wider, the vehicular traffic more elegant, the pedestrians fewer and more fashionable. Still no sign of Nevin.
“You are telling me,” Fournier said, “that your adventures were long ago. We have that in common. My wife has been gone for some time, and I was faithful to her.”
From another man, Catherine might not have believed that declaration, but from Fournier, it was simply a statement of old business.
“You endured long separations from her.”
“I was a man without a country, without family on hand, without a place in London society. Loyalty to my wife was an anchor and kept life simple. To be honest, Gabriella found my fidelity a touching oddity.”
One should not speak ill of the dead, but one should also not allow a friend to labor under a misconception.
“Then she was a selfish dunderhead.”
Fournier smiled. “I begin to agree with you, though I must quibble over one point.”
“Only one?”
“Only the one for now, but it matters. You refer to youthful folly, Catherine, probably undertaken with somebody of similar inexperience and more a matter of rebellion than joy. I married in part as a matter of duty—my aunts wanted me wed, though I knew Gabriella coveted my vineyards rather than my person. You and I are done with such tedium. What we embark on will be for joy and friendship and pleasure,non?”
He’d put his elegant finger on why Catherine was even tempted to frolic with him. In Rome, she’d been resentful of every stricture. Why behave like a nun when no London Season awaited? What did a reputation matter if one’s very birth meant scandal was a foregone conclusion?
She had been too young, and too sheltered, to realize scandal and fallenness came in degrees, some far easier to bear than others. She’d squandered her good name for Armbruster’s promises and a few fumbling interludes fraught—on her part—with more terror than desire.
Little of joy colored those memories, and the sorrow they’d bequeathed to her was a daily burden.
“Joy and friendship and pleasure sound too ambitious,” Catherine said, “but lovely.”
“Then choose one, and we will start there.”
The comment was meant to be lighthearted, to begin a bantering repartee that would take them through the gates of the park and onto some misty bridle path.
