Page 11 of Souvenir of Love

“She’s still sister to the Earl of Moreham and an heiress.”

“Indeed. And after tonight’s events it will be so much easier to sort out the fortune hunters amongst her suitors.”

“In the morning,” Alix said firmly, “we will have a family meeting. We’ll discuss what has happened with Louisa and Madeleine.”

“Louisa? I doubt she’ll have much advice to offer on the subject of Elizabeth’s disgrace.”

“You think not, Rafe Moreham? And why do you think she spends so much time in the garden?”

“Because she likes flowers.”

“As usual, my beloved husband, you underestimate the strength of women. Haven’t you noticed that when talk turns to your father and his parties and his women, Louisa suddenly realizes she’s forgotten some critical item? Or how her talk turns to grafting and fertilizers? She’s not nearly so absentmindednor so absorbed in her flowers as she’d have you believe. She’s simply decided that the sharpest thorns in the garden are more comforting than the kindest words of the ton.”

“Fascinating. So, you’re suggesting we abandon all hope of marrying Elizabeth off and set her up as an apprentice gardener? Although I suppose,” he added dryly, “it would be better than whatever flamboyant planyourmother might concoct. Let me guess: dress her in red, accessorize her with plumes, encourage the broadsheets to herald the praises of the ‘Scarlet Dove’?”

“I am suggesting that together we might come up with a plan to help Elizabeth through this mess,” Alix said, pointedly ignoring his sarcastic reference to how her mother had arranged for her to wear gray gowns when she first arrived in London, and how the papers then labeled her the “Silver Siren.”

“That ismyresponsibility,” he replied, tersely.

“And that, my love, is what concerns me. Promise me you’ll do nothing rash, nothing without telling me first.”

“I promise I’ll do what’s best for Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth winced. They were discussing her as if she weren’t even there. A part of her felt as if she were not. The rest of her was nearly overcome by the desire to fling open the carriage door, leap out, and run screaming through the streets of London. That would be briefly satisfying, but eventually, she’d find herself nowhere…rather where she found herself now. She closed her eyes.

She’d done a reckless thing, a scandalous thing.A stupid thing.There’d be gossip, snickers at her expense, and some of the older, stuffier sort might cut her directly, but completely disgraced? It couldn’t happen. She was still Rafe’s sister, still sister to, and daughter of, the Earl of Moreham, heiress to a comfortable fortune.After tonight’s events it will be so much easier to sort out the fortune hunters amongst her suitors…That fragment of Rafe’s conversation floated back to her. Healways predicted the worst. She clapped a mental hand over the voice inside her head that suggested this time he might be right; this time she might have bent the rules so far back they’d finally broken.Nonsense, she told the voice. This might even prove to be agoodthing, a test of sorts, to weed out the men drawn to her simply for her lineage, her place in society. Make it simpler to find the man who’d liked her, perhaps even loved her, for herself.

A smile, the first since she’d kissed James Dinsmore, crossed her face.

“She’s smiling.” Rafe nudged Alix. “She hasn’t the slightest notion of what she’s done.”

“Rafe, leave her be.” Alix slipped into French.

Elizabeth never understood why her sister-in-law did that; her own French was nearly as fluent as Rafe’s—he’d seen to that just as he’d seen to every other detail of her education.

“The night has been horrible enough for her.”

“This isn’t,” Rafe replied, also in French, “like being discovered kissing a dance master, Alix.”

It wasn’t. And not simply for the reasons Rafe and Alix were concerned with. Her other kisses had been experiments, no sentimentality involved—though most certainly the subjects had been attractive. Another smile flickered across her face as she recalled the freckles sprinkling the nose of the footman she’d kissed when she was fourteen.

“There, Alix, she’s doing it again, smiling. Do you think that devil Dinsmore got her drunk?”

Drunk, it was how she’d felt when James had touched her. But while the champagne had given her the courage to kiss him, it hadn’t been the liquor that had led her to do more. It had felt so right, so good. Elizabeth shifted in her seat at the restless memory of precisely how good. Even now, with all that had happened, her body wanted more.

“I’ll wager he did get her drunk. Lecherous bastard probably made certain her glass was never empty.”

“As you did the first time you kissed me?”

“If I might correct your memory, my love, I wasn’t filling your glass that night; you were. And I wasn’t trying to seduce you. I was trying to help you to see reason. To understand why you should marry me.”

“Is that what it was?” Alix’s tone was amused.

“Don’t try and change the subject, Alix. This isn’t like Elizabeth’s previous escapades. I can’t simply send her to another school, or find her another tutor.”

She didn’t want to go anywhere, Elizabeth suddenly realized. She didn’t need any more lessons. In James, she found the master.

“What are we going to do, Rafe?”