Page 50 of Miss Desirable
He rose from the bed and set aside the pamphlet on ferns he’d been staring at. “I was waiting another hour for the household to settle before I discreetly tapped on your door.”
“The Dornings put us directly across from one another. Do you suppose that was on purpose?”
Fournier drew Catherine by the hand into his bedroom and closed the door. Her fingers were cold. Nerves or a country house on a chilly spring night?
“Sit with me by the fire, Catherine. Or perhaps you’d enjoy a game of chess?”
She disdained to take a seat, dropped his hand, and paced before the hearth. “If I were more sophisticated, I would say yes to the chess, and we would banter over the board, with all sorts of subtle innuendo and teasing.”
“Not teasing. Teasing is cruel. Flirtation, which is enjoyable. I thought to venture to the stable to see if my coach has truly developed a loose axle, all undetected by my excellent and conscientious coachman. Then I thought, no. Providence has provided you and me an opportunity for time together, if not for intimacies, and your family means well.”
“Do they? I haven’t enough experience with family of this sort to know.”
“For a woman bent on trysting, Catherine, you seem annoyed. What troubles you?”
She wrapped her arms around her middle and stared hard at the rumpled quilts on the majestic four-poster that dominated the room. “What if you are disappointed in me?”
Gracious, she was brave, but he’d known that. “What if you are disappointed in me? I am out of practice and was never much for frolicking.”
“You weren’t? Whyever not? You are handsome, well fixed, charming, and a man.”
“Is that a list of sins?”
She took the reading chair by the fire. “I’m nervous. Forgive me.”
“I would rather love you. I am nervous too,mon coeur.” He scooped her out of the chair and sat with her in his lap. “I am also very pleased to see you. You should wear aubergine frequently.”
She was awkward in his arms, neither resisting nor surrendering. “I can’t. That hue emphasizes my eyes.”
“I adore your eyes. You ask why I am not drawn to intimate encounters. I am, in the animal sense, but being an émigré, the situation grows complicated. If I show attentions to a French lady, she will develop expectations. Her prospects in London are few, and among my own kind, I amun eligiblé.”
Catherine laid her head on his shoulder. “Poor lad.”
“I could take up with an English widow, and because I am French, she would feel a little extra wickedness about our illicit dealings. I do not wish to be anybody’s tawdry convenience.”
“Well said.” Catherine scooted around, rearranging her dressing gown and misplacing a few of Fournier’s wits. “What about a mistress?”
“Miss Fairchild, you shock me.”
“Monsieur Fournier, you are prevaricating.”
While she, in the role of inquisitor, was relaxing. “I was married until a few years ago. I tried to set up a second household in the fine old pious English tradition, but the whole business… The scheduling, the having some clothing here and other clothing there, the complication of having to travel between dwellings, the expectations… I am not suited to calculated self-indulgence. The lady and I parted on good terms, and she has returned to France.”
“You made that possible.”
“Gladly. She was homesick, and in France, nobody would pry into how she managed among the heathen English. She is married now and a very devoted wife.”
Catherine kissed Fournier’s cheek. “She could have been your devoted wife.”
“I had a devoted wife. Devoted to my vineyards, to my consequence, to my name.”
“I hate her,” Catherine said, hugging Fournier close. “She destroyed your innocence.”
“A man does not think of havingl’innocence.” Fournier was fairly certain the meanings were comparable in both languages. “Who destroyed yours?”
Catherine mashed her nose against his throat. “A laughably typical younger son from a ‘good’ family. He was on holiday, traveling the Mediterranean, and I was in a rebellious phase.”
“I am not laughing, Catherine. At least you did not marry this cad and find yourself bound to him for all time. You never had to support a fiction of accord with him, never had to waste your time and devotion making a home for him and currying the favor of his friends. Trusting this scoundrel could have cost you even more than it did.”
