He was grinning broadly. “I never imagined… Are you sure, Mademoiselle?” He had both her hands now and was smothering them with kisses. “I cannot give you the life you have here. I could perhaps manage a small apartment. I have money saved, but it would not be what you are used to.”
“Marcel, this is not the life I am used to. I am the daughter of a vicar, who was himself the son of a clerk in a counting house. My ducal connections are so far back that I cannot even tell you how distant a cousin Lord Aldridge is. I am used to a life of counting pennies, and I am good at making do, I promise.”
“You deserve to be dressed in silks and have maids to tend you.”
“And be cold and lonely?” she asked again.
His response was a kiss, which was very satisfactory, and little was said in the arbor for some time.
Eventually, though, Cedrica returned to the topic of their future. “We must not dip into your savings for the restaurant, Marcel. When we have enough saved, we can open Fournier’s of London and live above it in a little apartment.”
“It could be three years, my own, and I do not wish to wait.”
“I shall work, too,” she assured him. “The duchess will let me stay, I think, and she pays me a salary and my keep.”
“The duchess may turn you off if she knows you plan to marry a chef, Rica.”
She smiled at her new nickname, the ‘r’ rolled over Marcel’s tongue. “She knows. She sent me to you. I’ll forfeit the dowry Lord Aldridge promised if I married a ‘suitable’ gentleman, but I told her I did not care about that, and she smiled. She will be happy for us, Marcel.”
“Is it so?” he marveled.
“Yes. And I should return and tell her that we are betrothed. We are betrothed, are we not?”
“Yes, my Rica. I, Marcel Fournier, accept your proposal with a thankful heart.” Marcel kissed her again to prove it, and it was some time later that Cedrica finally floated upstairs to tell her patroness her news.
