Page 58 of Miss Desirable
The coach was no longer rolling along, having reached the congested streets of London, but Fournier was not in any hurry for the journey to end. He could move to France—with Catherine—and they could live at the château with Marie and grow grapes and have babies, and…
Be happy. The prospect stunned him, and made him cautious. The intimacy of the bedchamber was delightful and precious, but to share a future, to share dreams…
Perhaps Catherine was contemplating the same awe-inspiring possibilities, because she had grown silent as the coach gained the quieter streets of Mayfair. Fournier handed her down in the mews and bowed politely over her hand.
He did not want to leave her, did not want for the miracles—plural—of the past twenty-four hours to end, but he also needed solitude in which to contemplate those miracles.
“I will come around tomorrow with your Cahors,” he said. “The best of that vintage I possess.”
Catherine smiled at him, not the gracious, poised expression of a polite woman, but a lover’s beaming benevolence.
“We will drink a toast, to friendship.”
He bowed, she curtseyed, and Fournier signaled the coachman to move on without him.
“You will walk?” Catherine asked.
“I need to move the better to clear my head of all the tender sentiments befogging my thoughts.”
“Clear your head if you must, monsieur, but leave the tenderness in your heart undisturbed.”
He bowed and managed to walk away without bursting into song or twirling his walking stick like a callow swain, but it was a near thing.
A very near, wonderful thing indeed.
* * *
The last two weeks of the quarter were always interminable for a younger son making do on an inadequate allowance. Fortescue Armbruster had learned, though, that one could cope with those two weeks. A call upon the solicitors, and one of the junior Belchers would pass along a few banknotes as an advance on the next installment of Papa’s largesse.
Sons burdened with an overly long-lived father understood life’s unfairness, whether that father was of the peerage or a lowly attorney. The banknotes came, not from next quarter’s total, but from the firm’s petty cash accounts. A bit of goodwill toward one who might still end up with a title on some distant day.
In the last two weeks of the quarter, Armbruster acquired no new clothes, snuffboxes, fashionable accessories, or gambling debts. He moderated his socializing and frequented only the lesser establishments serving food and drink. He might even, if the shortage were dire, do his drinking at his lodgings and forswear the company of the fairer sex.
Because nobody who was anybody knew him at The Boar’s Bride, and because the ale was passable and the meat pies decent, Armbruster did not exactly dread his return to that venue. The same scruffy boy was at the bar, and Nan was polishing glasses with a dingy towel.
“Encore, Victor,” she said, whipping the towel at him. “Dimanche, lundi, mardi, mercredi.”
The boy repeated Nan’s recitation, his accent surprisingly good.
“Jeudi, vendredi, samedi.”
Another parroting of Nan’s words, followed by a cheeky smile. “I’m getting better, aren’t I?”
“Your days of the week are intelligible. Now tell me that the food is good.”
Young Victor frowned. “The word for food is big.”
“Like your word for nutrition,” Nan said, resuming her polishing.
Armbruster watched this exchange, both impatient with it and charmed. The boy likely hadn’t seen the inside of a schoolroom in all his grubby years, and yet, he was eager to learn—or to cozen another pie from Nan.
“That’s it!” Victor said. “Nourriture. La nourriture est bonne.”
Nan tousled Victor’s hair. “Bravo, mon jeune ami,but no more free ale for you today. Back to work before somebody steals your patch.”
Victor shook his tankard above his mouth, several drops landing on his cheeks and a few in his open maw. He wiped his face with his sleeve. “You’ll watch me things while I step around back?”
“Bien sûr.Away with you.”
