Page 41 of Miss Desirable
“I choose friendship, Fournier. I would dearly like to have your friendship and you have offered that freely, so let’s begin there.”
He sat up a little taller. “You flatter me. Friendship first, then.” He tossed a coin to a crossing sweeper and, by some subtle cue, signaled Bertold to pick up the trot.
Catherine’s choice had apparently surprised him—she’d certainly surprised herself—and the whole pretty, sunny morning grew one degree brighter still.
* * *
Fournier had not wept when he’d learned that Gabriella had been lost. That bereavement had had an inevitable quality. Sooner or later, in post-revolutionary France, the reckless paid for their boldness, and Gabriella had been very reckless.
He’d not wept when news of the tremendous casualties suffered on all sides at Waterloo had become known. He’d not wept… He could not recall the last time he’d wept. At his mother’s funeral, perhaps.
Amid the greening trees and gentle mists of a Hyde Park morning, he battled an ache in his throat born of both sorrow and hope. Catherine Fairchild valued hisfriendship. More than she sought a clandestine hour of pleasure, she sought his companionship, caring, and trust.
Something akin to relief threatened to overwhelm Fournier’s dignity. A man who had friends was never truly in exile, was he? Friendship was an anchor that transcended time, nationality, and distance. Friendship could be more durable and comforting than marriage.
A home for the soul, a refuge for the heart.
Goddard, MacKay, and even Dorning might someday number among Fournier’s friends, by virtue of long acquaintance and an occasional muttered admission over a hand of cards. Their friendship would be understated, not the public display Catherine made riding at Fournier’s side.
“Does my choice disappoint you?” Catherine asked as they trotted through the park’s gates. “Would you rather we instead trysted on the staff’s half day and pretended not to know each other otherwise?”
“Trysting on half day is for those who lack courage and imagination, though I will happily accede to that plan if such is your wish. A lady’s offer of friendship is no small treasure.”
“My poor Franny is truly out of condition,” Catherine said, slowing her horse to the walk. “I suppose I am too.”
Bertold adopted the walk as well, after the requisite protest. Parks, in his equine opinion, were for galloping, not wooing.
“Out of condition in what sense?” Fournier asked.
“Mourning for Papa, then Mama’s advancing illness, meant I did not have to brave the wilds of Mayfair. I worried for my mother, of course, but I also enjoyed having an excuse to bide at home. I went to my charitable committee meetings, I accompanied Mama on her increasingly rare social calls, but mostly, I…”
“The great boon you’d once sought—the social whirl of polite society—had become a purgatory to avoid. Returning to France became like that for me. Why do you look at me so? Friends confide in one another.”
“Tell me more about your purgatory, Fournier.”
The horsesclip-cloppedalong, the mare’s breathing a trifle labored, while Fournier sought to find words for emotions he’d barely acknowledged.
“Gabriella came to treat me as her London factor. She was never overtly unwelcoming, but neither was she overjoyed when I risked my neck to visit home. I had no legitimate offspring, so the vineyards would go to her should death befall me. She did not wish me dead, but with each trip to France, I became less the absentee owner of the château and more the tolerated guest whose wishes were ignored in favor of Madame Fournier’s orders.”
“I’m sorry,” Catherine said, nudging her mare up onto the verge so a pair of gentlemen could trot past them. “Your experience smacks of the toleration I was shown by polite society. Nobody was overtly cruel, and yet, my fondest dream, to take my proper place in London’s drawing rooms and ballrooms, soured one whisper, one glance, one silence at a time. In my case, though, I can say the dream I cherished was foolish. For you to expect a warm welcome from your wife was not foolish at all.”
“For me to be angry at a woman who’d never held me in much personal esteem would be more foolish still.”
“And yet, you were angry. Are you still?”
Fournier considered making some quip about friendship being more work than trysting, but quips and bon mots could also show a want of courage and imagination.
“I am angry at Gabriella for dying, because her death denied us any sort of rapprochement, any resolution. I begged her to take refuge away from the château, but she refused that request until traveling became perilous. Her coach was held up, and she had to walk miles through wretched weather before she found an inn. A lung fever set in, and that was the end of my ambitious wife.”
“You are angry at yourself.”
“This pleases you, because you are still angry at yourself as well.”
Catherine saluted with her whip. “A fine riposte, monsieur. I try to have compassion for the younger woman I was. Some days, I meet with more success than others.”
“Splendidly honest of you and well put. Shall we trot again? The mare will never regain her conditioning if we don’t offer her the occasional challenge.”
“Subtle, Fournier. As it happens, a challenge is in the offing.”
