The Plan of Fate

She always believed in fate. Things happen for a reason, and the forces that control such things are outside the knowledge of mankind. There is a freedom in knowing that the things that come to pass are destined to be so. And there is a beauty in it, as in all things.

It was fate, therefore, that pushed Genevieve Etienne to beg her father to allow her to go to Paris in August of 1907. She was accompanied by a chaperone, of course, but Genevieve had never been allowed to travel without her family before this. Her father made all the arrangements for them, and the chaperone—a widowed neighbor by the name of Madame Audibere—was well-acquainted with the rules put in place for Genevieve. They would take the train from their town of Haravilliers into Paris and then a carriage to the hotel. They would return home after the race.

That was what Genevieve wanted to see. The Peking to Paris race was set to arrive any day now, and she had been so excited about it in all the newspapers. Peking was a world away. China was such an exotic place. Genevieve had never been anywhere outside of France. The furthest she'd ever been was to Nice on holiday when she was sixteen. And Genevieve longed for adventure, to go somewhere and see something. Anything, really. Her love of beauty was so stifled in France; she only ever saw the same things over and over. She never could understand how Monet was so fixated on painting the same water lilies in a million different lights and seasons. Genevieve wanted to experience more. And if she could only get close to the racers who crossed the continent from China to France in their motorcars, she might get to see something. Anything!

Thanks to fate, she did get to see something. She stood on the sidewalk of the boulevard to await the racers. The motors were audible from a great distance, and the crowd was anxious to see who crossed the finish line first.

When the cars came into view, the excitement grew. People pushed against each other, trying to get close to the front and get a better look. Genevieve wasn't paying attention and was jostled a little too much. She lost her footing and tumbled down into the street with a cry.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a man appeared and picked her up, pulling her to safety just before the cars whizzed by. Genevieve did not see Prince Sciopone Borghese win the race like everyone else did. She was staring into the face of her rescuer.

"Pardonez-moi, mademoiselle. Comment allez-vous?" he asked in rather poorly accented French.

Genevieve blinked up at him, taking in his shocking blue eyes and his sandy blond hair and his elegantly trimmed mustache. He was tall and handsome, and his attractive face was filled with concern for her. And fate knew long before Genevieve that she had fallen in love at first sight, and never again in her life would she look at another man the way she looked at this one.

One dinner with Thomas Blake was all it took for her to be certain. He was so thoughtful. A little nervous, but perhaps that was his limited French. But even with their language barrier—as she spoke not a single word of English—Genevieve found out quickly that he was from Australia, a land that she had hardly ever heard of, and he was a doctor who just finished his training in Britain. He was on holiday in France before returning to his homeland to work as a doctor there.

She was smitten with him right away. And he with her, it seemed. Madame Audibere was quite cross with the amount of time this Australian doctor was spending with her on that last day in Paris before they had to take the train home. But he must have fallen in love with her as quickly as she had with him because Thomas accompanied them back to Haravilliers. He took a room at a small inn for three weeks, spending as much time with Genevieve as her father would allow. And at the end of it, he asked for permission to marry her.

Genevieve begged her father to agree. She did not care that Thomas still intended to go back to Australia, that if Genevieve married him, she would likely never see her family ever again. That was a small price to pay for the adventure of moving to a foreign land and to begin a life with the man she loved. That was what mattered, that she would be with him.

They were married at Genevieve's parish church. Thomas was a Catholic, thankfully. He told her that there was a church in his home of Ballarat that they could attend, which was a comfort to Genevieve's parents. Her mother wept as her father gave her away, but Genevieve could not feel one ounce of sadness on her wedding day. The moment the priest pronounced them man and wife and Thomas kissed her, it was the happiest she had ever been in all her life.

The journey to Australia was long and difficult, and Genevieve did not enjoy it. She got sick on the ship and spent most of the time in bed. Thomas tended to her as much as he could, as a loving husband and skilled doctor, but there wasn't much to be done. She found herself sullen on what should have been a happy honeymoon trip. Still, they spent the time trying to talk to each other, Genevieve learning a bit of English and Thomas improving his French.

They finally reached the house in Ballarat that Thomas had purchased before leaving for his studies in Britain. A friend of his had been renting it out on Thomas's behalf. She was excited to see such a large and lovely house that she would be able to call home.

Before opening the front door, Thomas turned to her and held both her hands in his. "I hope that you will be happy here," he said slowly.

His words were measured so that she would be able to understand. It took Genevieve a moment to find the words of her own. "I am your wife," she said, "so I will always be happy."

A beaming smile appeared on his face. He let go of one of her hands and cupped her cheek to pull her toward him for a gentle kiss. But what started gently soon grew more heated, and Genevieve started to feel the coiling tension of arousal deep in her belly that she had come to recognize in the short months they had been married.

She pulled away from him with heart pounding and breathlessly asked, "Is your house have a bed?"

Thomas laughed, something that did not come very often to him, she knew, and gently corrected her English. "'Does your house have a bed,' is what you meant," he explained. "And yes, dearest, our house has a bed." He emphasized the word 'our' in a manner that Genevieve understood. He opened the door and took her hand, leading her inside. "I will show you everything later. First, the bed," he insisted.

They raced up the stairs and into the bedroom. Genevieve did not look at anything or take note of her surroundings whatsoever. There would be plenty of time to see the house and to learn every corner of it. For now, the house echoed with laughter of newlyweds that quickly turned into moans and gasps of pleasure.

Genevieve Blake knew she would be happy in that house for a very long time.

Fate, however, knew differently.