Page 37 of If You Were the Only Girl in the World
She shook her head. “No, no. But he…I never saw it but he wanted to court me! He heard from a friend, another doctor there, that I was seeing a British officer. He was so spiteful to me. Wanted to have me struck from the staff for immoral…” She broke on a sob, unable to utter the rest. Then she sniffed back her sorrow and straightened her spine. “But I told him if he didn’t give me a good reference, I would go to the board of directors in Washington. I knew two personally, you see. And I said I’d tell them. Accuse him of improper behavior. He didn’t like that. But he agreed. Finally. He let me go and gave me a good reference. Can you imagine?!”
“I can.” Nate reached out for her and she came to him and nestled against him, her belly, their baby pressed against his loins.
She wound her arms around him and tucked her face under his jaw. “I missed you.”
He lifted her face with two fingers to her chin. “You haven’t answered me. Why? What worries you?”
She hugged him tightly and avoided looking him in the eye. “I don’t know what to do in England. If I can get a license. Practice medicine. Work as I should.”
“We’ll work that out. Find a way. But,” he said as he pushed strands of her hair back from her cheeks, “I assume those questions imply you would come with me to England, yes?”
She took her time, her beautiful eyes tracing his hair, his eyes, his nose and mouth. “I think a child needs a father.”
“I think a child needs a mother and father who love each other.”
She gazed up at him and tears welled on her lashes once more. “I love you. I love you so much that I feared if I never saw you again, or you were hurt or sick or dying and I didn’t know—” She put a hand to his cheek and her lips to his. “I could not bear that you’d never know your baby. Or that you’d leave this world without knowing that I loved you.”
He brushed her tears from her plump cheeks and grinned. “I know now. I know all of it and I’m ready to marry you. Will you now put me out of my misery and tell me if you’ll marry me or will I follow you to the ends of the earth to persuade you?”
“You won’t persuade me.”
Hearing refusal from her, he caught her shoulders. “Katrina?”
She grinned. “You won’t have to. I love you, Nathaniel Langston. I love you and I want to be your wife!”
He huzzahed and hugged her close.
But when he wanted to kiss her to seal the agreement, she pulled back. “There are a few details though.”
“I’ll give you the world if you’ll give me all the rest of my days and nights with you.”
She kissed him madly, quickly. “We’ll marry here.”
“In Paris. I think we should. I may not be able to get us across the Channel unless we are man and wife. I remember also my cousin Camille and her husband Pierce saying that Americans and British must have certificates of citizenship to marry in France.”
“Very well. I want Aurore to attend, and Marianne and Remy to come if they can. My friend at the hospital too. Alice Durlinski.”
“Done. What else?”
She grew solemn and frowned. “I want to live with you in London. I want to kiss you in the Strand and watch the stars over the Thames. I want to make love to you in gardens and dance with you in dining rooms and garden sheds and kitchens…” she waved a hand, “around the world.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “That’s a long list.”
“Ours will be a very long marriage. Are you ready to never be alone again?”
“Never alone again, my darling.” He’d figure out how to bring his son up from the country to London and take time separating him from the loving family who’d cared for him from a baby. But he had faith he and she would find ways to live a full and happy life together.
She grabbed the fabric of his uniform. “Not alone tonight.”
“Not tonight or any night so long as we both shall live.”
CHAPTER12
Three mornings later, Katrina dressed in a new dark purple wool walking suit with a white lace blouse, both of which she’d purchased from a Left Bank vintage boutique weeks ago and not yet worn. Her attire wasn’t white and she didn’t have a veil, but the deep color added a glow to her skin. And what did a gown matter when all else about this wedding was the right thing to do?
She smiled at herself in the floor-length mirror of her much too ornate Ritz hotel room and affirmed how happy she was this morning. She’d fallen in love with a wonderful man whose regard for her had shown from the moment they met years ago and again on the dark streets of London. She adored him for his tenderness toward her and his acceptance of her work, her aspirations to continue and grow. She had never expected to marry.
So many men had looked upon her as a doll, too lovely to want to go to college, too silly to want to go to medical school, too brash to believe she could survive in a man’s world of medicine. But she’d marched on through the taunts of men who’d tried to hold her back by insults or tried to manipulate her by seducing her with their compliments. She’d used her good looks and her common sense to help her ignore the men like Emile Russell who thought they could control her with intimidation and innuendo. Through it all, the challenge of residency and the nightmare of her Paris duty, she’d endured. As if she’d won a prize for her dedication, there was Nathaniel Langston before her, the only man who valued her as she was for all that she was. She adored him and she’d marry him and welcome every day she had with him.
