Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [170]
Francie knew what they thought and she did not care, she only wanted to be alone. The ship steamed across the Indian Ocean, calling at Bombay and Port Said en route to the Mediterranean. Francie’s spirits began to rise as she surveyed the lovely pine-fringed shores of southern France and she wished enviously that she had time to linger in the pretty little resort of Nice, where she disembarked. But she had a reservation at the Ritz in Paris, and Paris was the city she had always dreamed of visiting, ever since she was a child learning French from her governesses.
The manager showed her personally to her suite overlooking the rue Cambon; he knew her importance and her wealth and there were vases of tall red roses, bowls of fresh fruits, and a bottle of excellent champagne to greet her. She inspected her new quarters, thinking of Annie as she tested the perfect bed springs and inspected the fine linens and the impeccable bathrooms. Annie was considering opening a hotel here and she would be arriving in four days. Meanwhile, she was on her own with all of Paris as her playground and without wasting another second she left excitedly, guidebook in hand, to inspect its wonders.
Buck was driving to the American Embassy from the Elysées Palace, where as head of an important trade mission he had just had a meeting with the President of France. He was in his favorite city in the world, he’d been there exactly three days and he hadn’t had a moment to enjoy it. But his bags were already packed and in an hour he would be back on the boat train on his way to Cherbourg and the liner Normandie, sailing that evening for New York. He gazed longingly out the window of the chauffeured limousine. The last time he had been in Paris was with Maryanne and all she had wanted to see was other important people.
He wanted to stroll leisurely across the city’s beautiful bridges, not drive quickly over them, and to stop to admire the vistas instead of glimpsing them fleetingly from a car window; he wanted to linger on her chestnut-lined boulevards and browse in her fabulous museums. He wanted to drink the wine and eat long, leisurely meals and admire her beautiful women. And by God, he was going to.
At the embassy, he quickly canceled his sailing, said good-bye to the ambassador, sent his bags over to the Crillon and strolled at a leisurely pace through the Place de la Concorde. He took a seat at a sidewalk café and ordered a Pernod, contemplating his freedom. He was alone in Paris and for once his time was his own. He glanced at the woman on his right absorbed in her guidebook and his heart jumped. Her back was toward him but he would have known her anywhere. It had been almost a year since he’d had tea with her in New York, and he still carried in his wallet the note she had sent him thanking him for the painting. He’d been to San Francisco several times since—more often than was strictly necessary for business, always in the hope of seeing her, but Annie Aysgarth had been as closed-mouthed as a sphinx; she’d always told him vaguely that Francie was traveling or at her ranch. And now, six thousand miles away in Paris, fate had sent her to him.
She looked as beautiful as ever in an amethyst-color wool jacket braided in black; her short skirt showed off her slender black-stockinged legs and her hair was tied back with a large black silk bow.
Feeling his eyes on her, Francie turned and saw him. “Oh,” she said. Her heart lurched and she dropped her guidebook in confusion. “Buck Wingate. What a surprise.” She bit her lip, blushing like a girl as he picked up her book, took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips, French-style.
“I couldn’t ask for a better one,” he said, smiling into her eyes. “You look about nineteen years