Page 21 of If You Were the Only Girl in the World
“I’ve often taken ward duty for others. I’m sure I can find someone to trade with me.” She clasped her hands together but she really wanted to slap. “This is just what I need.”
“Wonderful. I want to take you to meet a few of my French family.”
“They live here?” She remembered something from years ago when she’d heard that he was related through the Hannifords to a large aristocratic French family. “I vaguely recall rumors of you having quite a few famous people as relatives. Who are they?”
The lines around his eyes relaxed as he chuckled. “Famous. Rich. Aristocrats. Indeed, we have it all.”
“Sounds exciting.” She dug into her omelet now with a gusto she hadn’t had before. There was life and the possibility of good conversation that had nothing to do with war and casualties.
“I’d like you to meet my French cousins. Not really my blood relations, if you will, but as close as one can get for all the affection we bear each other.”
She emptied her wine glass and Nate lifted his chin to direct the waitress to bring them more.
“I’ll be tipsy,” she complained but did not refuse the pour.
“You’re sleeping when we go home.”
“So true.” She raised her glass high and drank.
He grinned in approval. “My aunt and her husband now live south of Paris on the family estate. They left their home on the Rue de Rivoli after the Germans invaded in nineteen fourteen. My aunt is the niece of Killian Hanniford.”
She remembered the name of the patriarch. “The blockade runner and millionaire?”
“The same. He is eighty-five now and frail, but lives in Brighton with his wife. He is Dylan’s father.”
She sipped from her wine glass. “Of course. I remember now. Dylan told me.”
“Marianne, my aunt, and her husband have three children. All our age now. The oldest, Bertrand—or Rand, as we call him—is in the French Army. Off and on, shall we say.” Nate gave her a funny look.
“What do you mean, ‘off and on’?”
Nate smacked his lips. “Rand is with French Intelligence. He is a film producer, of some note, and they took him in as a Colonel to make films for propaganda.”
“Astonishing. He must be good.”
“Excellent. The very best. Have you seen‘My Lover, My Paris’?”
“The film with Carin LeBRemyer?” The blonde femme fatale actress was a sensation not only in France but in the States too. The black and white romance was acclaimed for its technique and the actors, especially LeBRemyer, for their performances.
“Exactly.”
“My, my,” she said in awe, “a very notable family.”
“Indeed. Rand will not be with us, but I have more relatives whom you will enjoy.”
“Such as?” She was ready to be enchanted.
“Marianne and Remy’s youngest daughter lives with them. Her husband who was in the Army was captured with the first invasion of the Marne and died soon after in a German POW hospital.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She sat back, her breath gone with the sour news. “It touches everyone, this war.”
He fingered the stem of his glass. “Aurore is a physician.”
That had Katrina sitting forward. “A doctor! Good for her. What does she practice?”
Nate settled serious dark eyes on her. “She does not take patients, not as you would take them.”
“I don’t understand.”
