not seen the truth of life.” He cupped her face within his hands, his eyes so full of adoration that her throat grew tight. “I thought I might marry someone who would be a friend, who would keep me company as the years passed, but I never expected… I never thought for a moment…. You made me remember who I once was, Phoebe. Who I want to be again.”
“I love who you are right now, Max,” she said and kissed him.
***
The rest of their time in Paris was perfect. To begin with, Max took her shopping, insisting she buy an entire new wardrobe for their return to England.
“I do not propose to marry a prettily behaved little wallflower, love,” he said, his eyes alight with mischief. “I want my wife to turn heads, and make all the old tabbies gasp and murmur behind their fans. So we had best buy you everything that is the height of fashion, had we not?”
“Oh, well, if you insist, Max,” Phoebe said demurely, struggling to keep her countenance. “For I do want to be a good wife to you, and if that is what you wish….”
“It is,” he insisted, and was endlessly patient and good-humoured as she was measured and pinned, and chose a wardrobe of outrageously vivid colours and styles, precisely calculated to do just as he had asked.
It was marvellous.
They visited Place Louis XVI—where that monarch and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, had lost their heads to Madame La Guillotine—the Louvre, the gardens of the Tuileries, Place Vendome, and the Pont Neuf. The cemetery of Père Lachaise was perhaps a morbid destination, but Max indulged her, happy to take her anywhere, apparently delighted by her delight in everything they saw, every memory they made together. They met up with Nina and Charlie, who looked to be enjoying Paris—and each other—very thoroughly, and most days they went out together. They shopped and danced, and visited the theatre and the opera house, and at night Max took her to bed and taught her a little more of all that they could have together—all they could be together—but always he stopped short of making her his, of taking his own pleasure.
Phoebe did not insist or complain, sensing that this slow seduction was the only way he felt at peace with not waiting for the night of their marriage. She sensed too that he was eager to return home, to begin their lives together, but not once did he voice his wishes. Never did he do anything to diminish the pleasure she took in discovering all that Paris had to offer them.
They were returning from a trip to Place de Vosges, having left Nina and Charlie to find their own entertainment, when she decided they had both been patient enough.
“Max,” she said, turning to look at him. “I have one last thing I wish to do before we leave Paris.”
He frowned a little. “Leave? I thought you were having fun.”
She laughed at that and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Of course I’m having fun. It’s been marvellous, every second of it, but… but I think I should like to go home, Max. Tomorrow, if you don’t mind. I wish to see my family and for us to be married, with all of them around us. And then, I should like to go home—to your home—so you might show it all to me.”
His eyes warmed and she knew she had pleased him which made happiness bloom in her own chest. “Our home, love. It will be our home.”
“Yes.”
He leaned in and kissed her, and she sighed, feeling the now familiar tug of arousal. He had been careful to limit their bedtime adventures, and she admitted to feeling a gnawing sense of impatience, a desire to have everything he had promised her.
“And what is it you want, on your last night in Paris?” he asked, his tone such that she knew he would not deny her anything she wished.
“I wish to go back to Rouge et Noir and play Monsieur Demarteau at cards, and….” She hesitated.
“And?”
“And I want you to make love to me, Max.”
He smiled, a wicked smile even though a sheepish glimmer sparkled in his eyes. “Do you want the truth, love?”
“Always,” she said, wondering what he would say.
“I was going to anyway,” he whispered, nuzzling the tender skin beneath her ear. “I cannot wait another night. I shall run mad.”