Page 72 of A Proposition for the Comte
‘What are they?’
‘Two bream and a perch. Napoleon does not send money to feed his troops as they cross the lands they vanquish. One has to improvise or starve.’
He had starved often, Lian thought then, the humour of the day wilting. In the north of Spain and in Portugal and in the cold of the Pyrenees. But he had been lucky, too, for many others had not survived to tell the tale.
Banishing such maudlin reflections, he reasoned that for this moment no one was near enough to be dangerous to them or a threat of any kind. It was just himself and Violet, the hat she had worn yesterday discarded this morning, the length of crimson settling across her shoulders and down her back.
The bruises on her cheek were darker, the puffiness under one eye spreading. A battered beauty but brave. He could barely stop himself from putting the fish to one side and finding her warmth.
But she looked both tired and hungry and they hadn’t eaten much since yesterday morning. They would reach Addington Manor some time in the afternoon and needed sustenance to see them on their way.
‘You were up early?’
‘I sleep better with you than I ever do alone.’
He gave her these words because the truth in them was startling. He could not remember a morning in years when he had awoken so late to the sound of birdsong.
‘It is the same with me. Perhaps we wear each other out.’
He laughed at that as he laid the first fillet of perch in to his small pan.
‘Then I shall feed you to replenish your energy, my lady.’
‘“If music be the food of love, play on.”’ She remembered the quote from boarding school.
‘You read Shakespeare?’ He asked this after a moment or two.
‘Books were like friends to me when I had none.’
He’d liked to have met Harland Addington in life, Lian thought then, if only to place his hands about his throat and squeeze the breath from him.
He almost said as much but then decided against it given the mystery of the Viscount’s death, which she had yet to explain. Pulling the fish from the pan, he served it on a plate taken from his saddlebag and watched as she lifted the white flesh to her mouth.
‘Salt might have made it better, and butter, but...’
She shook her head. ‘It is delicious, Aurelian. The most delicious fish I have ever eaten in my life. Thank you.’
She was not a woman to stand on ceremony. That thought warmed him considerably, for how often had he been in the company of females who did not appreciate the simple things?
His mother had been the same, finding joy in humble treats and making the most of chance and change.
‘One day I shall catch you a brown trout at Compton Park, for to me it is the king of all fish.’
‘Compton Park is your house?’
‘In Sussex. An hour away from Shay and Celeste’s estate. It was a part of the reason I wanted to come to live in England.’
‘I have heard stories of the beauty of it.’
‘Yet to me it’s simply home.’
‘A place to stay, to settle.’
There was a puzzlement in her words that he wondered about and yet after his dismissed marriage proposal he had no desire to mention his hopes again.
Now was enough. This moment under this sky with fresh food to eat and good company to enjoy. Even the cold seemed lessened today.
He’d always been someone who looked ahead. But now with Violet he only thought of stopping which was just another way that she had changed him.
‘I need to return to Paris to finish a few things and then I will be back.’
‘The gold?’ she asked and he nodded.
‘Nothing is easy until it is finished.’
