Miss Desirable by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes [Burrowes, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781956975116
Publisher: Grace Burrowes Publishing

“Were you expecting me?” Catherine asked.

She stood in the doorway between the parlor and bedroom of the guest suite Fournier occupied. Her manner exuded gracious poise, while her eyes gave away uncertainty. She was attired for bed, covered more modestly than she would have been in any evening gown, and yet, the aubergine velvet did marvelous things for her eyes, and for Fournier’s imagination.

He rose from the bed and set aside the pamphlet on ferns he’d been staring at. “I was waiting another hour for the household to settle before I discreetly tapped on your door.”

“The Dornings put us directly across from one another. Do you suppose that was on purpose?”

Fournier drew Catherine by the hand into his bedroom and closed the door. Her fingers were cold. Nerves or a country house on a chilly spring night?

“Sit with me by the fire, Catherine. Or perhaps you’d enjoy a game of chess?”

She disdained to take a seat, dropped his hand, and paced before the hearth. “If I were more sophisticated, I would say yes to the chess, and we would banter over the board, with all sorts of subtle innuendo and teasing.”

“Not teasing. Teasing is cruel. Flirtation, which is enjoyable. I thought to venture to the stable to see if my coach has truly developed a loose axle, all undetected by my excellent and conscientious coachman. Then I thought, no. Providence has provided you and me an opportunity for time together, if not for intimacies, and your family means well.”

“Do they? I haven’t enough experience with family of this sort to know.”

“For a woman bent on trysting, Catherine, you seem annoyed. What troubles you?”

She wrapped her arms around her middle and stared hard at the rumpled quilts on the majestic four-poster that dominated the room. “What if you are disappointed in me?”

Gracious, she was brave, but he’d known that. “What if you are disappointed in me? I am out of practice and was never much for frolicking.”

“You weren’t? Whyever not? You are handsome, well fixed, charming, and a man.”

“Is that a list of sins?”

She took the reading chair by the fire. “I’m nervous. Forgive me.”

“I would rather love you. I am nervous too, mon coeur.” He scooped her out of the chair and sat with her in his lap. “I am also very pleased to see you. You should wear aubergine frequently.”

She was awkward in his arms, neither resisting nor surrendering. “I can’t. That hue emphasizes my eyes.”

“I adore your eyes. You ask why I am not drawn to intimate encounters. I am, in the animal sense, but being an émigré, the situation grows complicated. If I show attentions to a French lady, she will develop expectations. Her prospects in London are few, and among my own kind, I am un eligiblé.”

Catherine laid her head on his shoulder. “Poor lad.”

“I could take up with an English widow, and because I am French, she would feel a little extra wickedness about our illicit dealings. I do not wish to be anybody’s tawdry convenience.

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