Promiscuous

I’m in love again.

And he’s rich, urbane, erudite and English.  He possesses beautiful manners, an impeccable wardrobe, a manservant, a monocle and a title.  He’s perfect for me and I know we’d be blissfully happy together.

There’s only one thing that stands in the way of our happiness.  His name is Lord Peter Wimsey and he’s a fictional character.

We met many shooting seasons ago in a mystery entitled Whose Body by Dorothy L. Sayers.  The sparks flew all throughout Have His Carcase, The Nine Tailors, and Murder Must Advertise.

But the romance really heated up during Gaudy Night and by the time Lord Peter made his final appearance in Busman’s Honeymoon, I was prepared to marry him and have his heirs.

Until I met Fabrice Sauveterre, an enormously wealthy and sophisticated French duke.

We were introduced by his petite amie, Nancy Mitford, in Love in a Cold Climate.  He had a family mansion in town, a country home in the Midi, a palazzo in Venice, and a stunning pied-a-terre in Paris.

Attentive, generous, amusing, monsieur le Duc truly understood women.  And when he went off to fight for De Gaulle and the Free French during World War II, I could have stayed faithful to him forever.

If only I hadn’t taken that fateful troika trip to Russia.

When the horses stopped in the middle of War and Peace,  I found that I had arrived at the vast estates belonging to Prince Andrei.

Bold, tormented, brooding, and best of all, a widower, this prince was at once a man capable of the most heroic actions- and yet sensible to the deepest feelings of love and despair.

What a boychik.  And if his father hadn’t come between us, rest assured my last name would be Bolkonsky.

But don’t get me wrong.  Rich and titled Russians aren’t the only Slavs that get my heart racing.

Have you met Moscow detective Arkady Renko?

Disillusioned with a broken system, cuckolded by his gym teacher wife, betrayed by his corrupt police cohorts, pursued by the KGB, his sexy angst called out to me.

He can have me anytime. I don’t care if it’s right in the middle of Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park.

Or I can take a dive with Captain First Rank Marko Ramius of the submarine Red October.  Upright, intrepid and available (another widower), when he heard that I was single again, Tom Clancy fixed us up.

But all that submerging gives me the bends.  So I decided to check into a hotel in Cairo. And who did I run into?  Jonathan Pine, The Night Manager.  Another military man, ex British army.

But thanks to the genius of John Le Carré, Jonathan is also a fine sailor, a gifted painter, a dab hand in the kitchen, ruggedly handsome, and carrying a torch for a dead woman. Before he gets involved with that slut Jemima, I wanted to show him what true love was all about.

And we would have lived happily ever after in Cornwall if only I hadn’t trysted in Paris with Fred Peloux.

Oui, oui, I’m well aware that mon petit Cheri is thirty years younger than moi. But he is so young, so breathtakingly-handsome, so idle, so rich, so bored-  I just can’t resist this tasty bagatelle.

And I swear he will be my very last amour.  I am, after all, getting on in my literary years. Alors,  c’est la vie, mes vieux.

(And perhaps Madame Colette knows how to say “cougar” en français?)