Page 53 of Miss Desirable
“As many as that?” He kissed her gloved fingers. “Such flattery.”
“You are astonished as well,” Catherine said. “We can talk about that later. What has taken me completely aback is that I don’t feel in the least ashamed. I have no regrets and, in fact, cannot wait for another opportunity to spend a night in your arms.”
“You go beyond flattery now. Soon, I will be blushing. This is not manly, according to you English.”
“Soon, you will be strutting. You and I were a couple at the breakfast table, and it was lovely and nobody’s business, and nobody made it their business.”
“The Dornings’ meddling had gone as they’d intended. I am still torn between gratitude and annoyance.”
Catherine rested her head on his shoulder. “Your annoyance sounds suspiciously smug, Fournier.”
“I have every reason to be smug. Nap if you like. Some passionate fellow deprived you of a full night’s rest.”
She’d slept in his bed, the first time in her life that she’d spent the night with a lover. The passionate fellow now sitting so placidly beside her had been magnificent, and the pleasure answered so many questions Catherine had not put even to Mama.
And the affection, the cuddling, and warmth… That was dangerously alluring too. So was watching Fournier rise, pull on a pair of loose pajama trousers, and move through a series of slow, graceful stretches unlike anything Catherine had seen previously.
That he would observe his morning routine while she looked on was a gesture of confidence in her, a silent request for her to accept the whole man, not only the gallant lover.
“You are thinking,” Fournier said. “Marveling at my amorous skills? Or perhaps at your own?”
“Yes. Marveling at both. Here I thought I was a half-disgraced wallflower, not an ardent acolyte of Eros. I wish I’d met you sooner.”
“We have now, and the mistakes and regrets that weigh on our hearts make us appreciatenowmore than we would if life had been a bed of clover,non?”
Well, perhaps, but no amount of Gallic philosophizing would move Catherine to forgive Fort Armbruster for laughing at her.Marry a schoolgirl who barely knows how to kiss just because I’ve endured her fumblings on a few occasions?
At some point, Catherine would have to tell Fournier the rest of it, the whole, sorry, heartbreaking tale. Fournier was worthy of that confidence, but Catherine would have to reveal it on her own terms, in her own time.
When she wasn’t aching in places private and pleasurable. When she could make sense of what had changed with a single joyous night in Fournier’s arms. It occurred to her a quiet, cozy mile later that Fournier was perhaps also rearranging his expectations and trying to make sense of their situation.
“Are you pondering and marveling?” she asked.
“Both,” he said as the horses increased their pace. “You have called me blazingly honest, albeit a miserable excuse for a rebellion.”
“Just so. I esteem your forthright manner greatly, Fournier. Don’t think to turn up diffident or coy on me now.”
He shifted, wedging himself more into the corner of the bench and wrapping an arm around Catherine’s shoulders.
“I value your esteem, though that word is too reserved for the sentiment I bear you. I amcaptivé, or perhaps your English word ‘enthralled’ applies. One can hardly think in the state I find myself.”
In the past mile, his silence had become brooding, his expression distant. Not cold, but lost in thought.
“If your wife is still alive, then simply tell me, Fournier. I have no need to marry and no real wish to marry. A wife is not the impediment to our friendship that you might think her to be.”
Not a sentiment the proper Miss Catherine Fairchild should be able to think, but that same Miss Fairchild had seen life in diplomatic circles on three continents. She’d observed Mayfair’s best families from among the ferns and potted palms bordering many a fine ballroom, and—most significantly—she was no longer a furious, lonely seventeen-year-old bumbling through her first affair.
“My wife has gone to her reward,” Fournier said, “but you should also know that there was a child.”
If highwaymen had stopped the coach, Catherine could not have been more taken aback. “You lost a child?”
“No.” He spoke near her temple. Catherine realized he’d chosen to make this disclosure when they were cuddled such that she could not see his face. “Yes, rather. The girl was legally my daughter. Though, given my extended travels to London, she could not possibly be my daughter. Still…”
“You loved her.”
“Of course I loved her. How can one not love a child? She wasn’t mine in the sense that I was present at her conception, but she was mine to love, to care for, to raise, and to protect.”
That last word was spoken in a near whisper.
