Page 2 of Souvenir of Love

“Rafe, His Grace believes heisHannibal. If Anne and James hadn’t locked him away, he’d have squandered what little remains of the family fortune on imaginary herds of elephants.”

Rafe purposefully ignored his friend. “As I have said, she’s been the very definition of graciousness. Never an unkind word.”

“Not so long as one is facing her,” Elizabeth teased. She cast a questioning look up at Cole. “Is it true, His Grace believes he is the Carthaginian general?”

Cole lowered his dark head conspiratorially. “I’ve seen his toga.”

“Carthaginians didn’t wear togas,” Rafe interjected.

“Are you certain?”

“Alix,ma petite!” A tiny woman dressed in an elegant gown of dark purple velvet interrupted their debate. A matching velvet puff fastened with a large diamond pin was perched at a jaunty angle atop her dark curls. “I have been waitingagesfor you and Rafe to arrive.”

“Good evening,Maman.” Alix kissed her mother’s cheeks.

“Madeleine, you look beautiful,” Rafe said, kissing her cheeks in turn.

“Lady Dinsmore’s eyebrows simply vanished into her hairline when I made my entrance,” Madeleine, la Comtesse de La Brou, confessed. Then she shook her head. “That woman, did you see the ghastly robe she has on?”

“Ordinarily she dresses in pastels, as if she were just emerged from the schoolroom.” Alix laughed.

“I suspect that is her purpose. To convince some unwitting suitor that she has.”

“The man would have to be an exile not to know she has been out for ages,” Cole interjected.

“Or nearly blind, like Sir Edmund Bogglesworth,” Elizabeth added, giggling.

Madeleine held up a small white hand. “I fear we go too far in mocking our hostess. Sir Edmund may be dull, but I believe he would not be an unkind husband, and,vraiment, he has a fortune that would make Lady Anne most comfortable. You must bear in mind, Elizabeth, not every woman has the fortune, face, and figure to make the choices you shall have.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the company; Madeleine had been married against her will and at an early age to Alix’s father.

“Choices she shall have,” Rafe broke in lightly, “ifshe behaves respectably and chooses her companions wisely.” His eyes darkened as they drifted across the ballroom and settled on the figure of James Dinsmore, leaning nonchalantly against the wall. Candlelight from a nearby sconce gleamed on the waves of his loosely braided blond queue and spilled across the broad shoulders of his midnight-blue velvet coat.

Elizabeth resisted the urge to follow the direction of Rafe’s gaze. She already knew where James was standing. Finding him was the first thing she did when she entered any assembly. “How can I do otherwise, brother dear, when you select them for me?”

“Your sister has a point, Moreham.”

“My sister, Davenport, has an unfortunate fascination for charming rakes.”

“Perhaps because I have grown up surrounded by them?” she suggested with a smile.

James Dinsmore nodded absentlyat some crude comment tossed off by Arthur Lounsbury, his blue eyes fixed on the Earl of Moreham’s sister. Elizabeth looked charming tonight, dressed in a soft gold color that reminded him of a fragrant chardonnay. Her chestnut hair was swept back and thick curls tumbled down over the amber velvet of her mantelet. She was guarded, as usual, by her brother and by Davenport. But if he knew Lady Elizabeth Harcrest, and by now he was fairly certain that he did, she would eventually escape their watch and make her way to him.

A slight smile of expectation curved his sensuous lips.

She really was quite amusing, brash and bright, with none of the false timorousness of the other debutantes this season. He suspected she sought him out to annoy Moreham, and he always encouraged her.Moreham, that self-righteous prig. He’d treated Anne shabbily, dashing off to France when everyone expected him to make an offer of marriage. And then, entangling himself with Alix de La Brou. Of course, there was something in the earl’s eyes whenever he looked at Alix, something that had never been there when he’d looked at Anne… Still, Anne had been so certain the émigré would be nothing more than a brief affair. And then Moreham had married her.God, he hated to remember how devastating that had been…

Elizabeth had linked arms with Davenport and she was laughing.

James might have been jealous if it hadn’t been a well-known fact that Davenport was absurdly devoted to his wife.Ridiculous, the notion that I could be jealous over another man’s attention to Elizabeth…He was bored; he desired the amusements of her quick wit—that was all.

But her fall from grace would be a loss to the ton.

The lines to a poem he’d once committed to memory slipped unbidden from his lips: “What! Were ye born to be an hour or half’s delight /And so to bid good night? / ’Twas pity Nature brought you forth / Merely to show your worth /And lose you quite.”

“What’s that, Dinsmore?” Arthur Lounsbury frowned in exasperation. “Damn me if you’ve not heard a word I’ve been saying.”

“Lounsbury,” James reassured his companion, wondering idly how long it would be before the brandy Arthur consumed in such quantities turned his boyish features to florid fat. “I have been listening with unbridled fascination. The bay mare Harding sold you last Tuesday has been wheezing suspiciously and you’re wondering if you’ve been cozened. Having warned you repeatedly that the man is a scoundrel, I’d wager my fortune the answer is yes.”