But Estelle’s response to Phoebe’s shy confession of her affaire with Pascal had made her position very clear. She imagined Phoebe was in thrall to Pascal rather than in love with him, as if she was blind and had no mind of her own. And she had been rather scathing on the subject of Pascal’s involvement too, to the point where Phoebe had even begun to doubt whether he could really be in love with her. She had never in a thousand years expected Pascal to notice her, yet from the first he had seemed to rate her in the kitchen, and he’d made it clear that he found her attractive. She had been hugely flattered, had expected his interest to wane with time, but it had increased. Estelle was wrong. The bond between them was special. It hurt, that her twin didn’t understand that, but Estelle obviously hadn’t inherited any of Mama’s free spirit, so there was no point in trying to sway her. When she came to Paris and saw for herself how deliriously happy Phoebe was, and what a success she was making of her life, she would stop trying to persuade her to come home, but until then, they’d have to agree to differ.
In future, she would be a little more careful in her letters to Estelle. She would definitely not be telling her of this encounter for a start, Phoebe thought, smiling back at Mr Harrington as he returned, armed triumphantly with a new pichet of wine. Even though she had eyes only for Pascal, she was not blind to the Englishman’s attractions. Although his dark blond hair and cornflower-blue eyes made him look more Norse god than English gentleman, an impression initially formed by the way he’d strode across the room to her rescue earlier, heedless of the fact that he was outnumbered. He was dressed with the kind of careless elegance that only the very rich and the supremely confident can carry off, and there was in his smile a kind of devil-may-care recklessness. Was she being fanciful? No, the term dangerously attractive might have been invented for him.
In fact, if it were not for Pascal, she would be very tempted to spend more time in Owen Harrington’s company, while he was in Paris. He had none of Pascal’s Gallic flamboyance, a characteristic which Phoebe very occasionally and most disloyally felt teetered over into arrogance. She certainly couldn’t imagine Mr Harrington waxing lyrical in the middle of a market over the first ceps of the year, or tearing his hair if they had already sold out, but then she couldn’t imagine Pascal rescuing her with such finesse from those two men who had accosted her. Pascal would have come charging over waving his fists and shouting, drawing the attention of everyone in the room to her plight. If he actually noticed she was being harassed in the first place, that is. While Mr Harrington had acted with a quiet self-confidence that was far more effective and infinitely more discreet. Though he was very far from being the stuffed shirt that the Parisians imagined all English gentlemen to be, he was clearly very much a gentleman. Paris would take to him, and he to Paris, Phoebe reckoned. It was a shame, she thought, as he sat back down beside her, that she would not be party to it.
‘Santé,’ Phoebe said, touching her fresh glass to his. ‘Now, you were going to tell me what it is that brings you to Paris?’
‘To quote the dictionary man, Dr Johnson, when a man is tired of London he is tired of life.’ He stared down at his wine, swirling his glass. ‘I’m here because I’m sick of both London and my life there, but that makes me sound like an over-indulged, arrogant narcissist.’
‘What is the truth?’
‘That I’m chasing rainbows, like you, though I don’t have any particular pot of gold in mind as yet. I want to—not so much discover who I am as who I might become. Lord, that really does sound pompous.’
‘No, it sounds exciting.’
He laughed wryly. ‘Excitingly vague. I envy you your certainty and your verve. You know what you want, and you don’t care if you have to flout convention to achieve it. I can’t tell you how refreshing that is, and how much I admire you for it.’
‘You make me sound like a rebel.’
‘I think you are, even if you don’t realise it. I have always thought myself a bit of a rebel, but I simply behave badly in the conventional manner of spoiled, rich young men. You have widened my horizons already, Miss Brannagh. Until now, I’ve never had any ambition other than to enjoy myself.’
‘Goodness, how lucky you are to be able to indulge yourself.’
‘I inherited a fortune from my father, who died ten years ago when I was sixteen. Since I came of age, I have been the toast of society, both high and low. If one pays heed to the scandal sheets I am the richest, the wildest, the wittiest, most handsome, most daring, man in London. My presence can make or break a dinner party or a ball. I never refuse a dare and have never suffered anything worse than a broken wrist in doing so. In a nutshell, for all of my twenty-six years, I’ve lived a charmed existence. Or so my best friend, Jasper, tells me. What I’ve come to wonder, these last few months, is whether what I’m living is actually a feckless and shallow one.’
‘Good heavens,’ Phoebe exclaimed, taken aback and extremely intrigued. ‘Are you being entirely serious?’
‘I am never serious, unless it’s regarding something trivial.’
‘Estelle, my twin, does that,’ Phoebe said. ‘Resorts to sarcasm when she’s embarrassed, I mean, or when she’s talking about something that she cares deeply about.’
‘My problem is that I don’t care very deeply about anything.’
‘That can’t be true!’
‘No less an authority than John Bull magazine described me as “a dedicated hedonist with a penchant for death-defying dares, who cares for naught but funning.”’
Was he teasing her? There was an edge to his smile though. ‘Save that you are bored with having fun and have come to Paris to—I’m sorry, I still don’t know what specifically you hope to gain from your visit?’
‘No more do I, Miss Brannagh, save that it is a very different city from London, and I am already glad that I decided to visit, since I have made your acquaintance. If only you lacked the funds for your restaurant, I would offer to go into business with you, but sadly for me, you can already finance your dream.’
‘Then fund your own dream. You must have one, Mr Harrington. Everyone has a dream.’
‘Do they?’ He threw the contents of his glass down his throat in one gulp. ‘I am living most people’s dream, and it bores me rigid. I am carefree and I couldn’t care less. I’m an ungrateful over-indulged, arrogant narcissist, for there is a part of me that wishes I had not been so blessed, then I may have had something to live for.’
‘You should be careful what you wish for, Mr Harrington,’ Phoebe retorted, ‘and grateful for what you have.’
‘Well said, Miss Brannagh. You are quite right, of course. I need a purpose in life. Though what form that will take, and whether I will discover it in Paris, or Venice, or St Petersburg or Vienna, I have no idea.’
‘Why look so close to home? If you are as rich as you claim, you could try the Antipodes, or Brazil, or Argentina.’
‘Or China, perhaps? I’ll tell you what, why don’t we meet here in—say, a year’s time, and I shall unveil the new, improved Owen Harrington to you, and you can then invite me to dine at your new restaurant, which by then will be the toast of Paris.’
‘I’m not sure that a year will be sufficient for either to have happened.’
‘Two years then. Are we agreed?’
His smile was infectious. ‘Two years to the day,’ Phoebe said, smiling back. ‘You have my word, Mr Harrington.’
He took out a gold case, handing her a card from it. ‘And you have mine. Take this, in the unlikely event you need to get in touch before then, to break our assignation, which I sincerely hope does not happen. Otherwise I look forward very much to seeing you again.’
She put the card in her reticule,