Page 95 of Souvenir of Love

“Ruined me? Again, with that? Ruined me for what? Meaningless card parties and balls? Empty conversations with people who don’t care a whit about me? A ‘suitable match’?” Her voice was as insistent as the wind. “I went willingly into that library with you, just as I came willingly to France. Have you forgotten that Iforcedyou to bring me with you?”

“I could have found a way to send you back,” he replied sharply.If I’d wanted to. “Instead, I put your life at risk. Because of me, your hands are stained with blood.” The scene played in his mind—the soldier charging at Elizabeth. Elizabeth swinging the musket. Dropping it, her face white. Her body trembling in his arms.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” She grabbed the lapels of his coat. “All this talk of you not being good enough for my brother, or for me. But the truth isI’mthe one who isn’t good enough…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Admit it, James, you want a conventional wife, not one with a reputation as a wanton…or a murderer.”

A conventional wife?He might have laughed at the absurdity of her notion, if he hadn’t seen the pain in her eyes and heard it in her voice.“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say those things—or even think them.” He drew her close again, knowing this time, he might never let her go. “You killed that man to save my life.”

“I did it for you. Possibly the first thing I’ve ever done without thinking of myself first…”

“I put you in danger. Dear God, Elizabeth,what if I had lost you?”

She gave a watery laugh. “That’s what I was thinking when I swung that musket. What if I lost you? My love. Myonlylove.”

The words rushed out before he could stop them. “And you are mine, Elizabeth Harcrest. In this life, I will only love you.”

“So how can you say we can never be together?” She pounded his chest. “How can you speak of sending me away?”

His heart, the one that he had taught himself to believe he didn’t have, felt as if it were being sliced with a million razors. “What else can I do?” He had to make her see, to understand, that sending her awaywas the right thing to do. “My reputation is a disgrace…”

“As is mine.”

Damn her beautiful hazel eyes, she was laughing at him. James tried again. “The Dinsmore estates are in debt—I am not a wealthy man. Far from it. I cannot keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed…and I will not take money from your brother—even if he had a mind to give it, which we both know he has not. Do you understand what that means?”

“If both our reputations are in tatters, we shall have no need of fine clothes, or expensive entertainments.”

“Do you take nothing seriously, Elizabeth? I must work for a living. I intend to continue spying.”

“I take you very seriously, James Dinsmore.” She slid her arms around his neck, whispering in his ear. “And I’m sure if we put our heads together, we shall make the most perfect pair of spies.”

James looked again at the spit of land that marked the edge of France. At the waves, crashing against the rocks. Elizabeth was like those waves, wild, insistent, relentless.How could he resist her?

She kissed his neck.

Why did he want to?For his love for her, too, was like the ocean, deep and never-ending. “I have nothing.”

“You have me.”

She was everything.

“We shall never be respectable, Elizabeth.”

“We shall never be dull,” she amended.

He kissed her then with fierce desperation, as if his body might convey everything his words could not. And when at last he found the strength to stop, he said, “I shall see Joley delivered into Grenville’s hands, dispatch you to Moreham Hall, and then…”

“No.” Elizabeth tore herself from his arms, staggering back. “Don’t you understand? I love you, James Dinsmore. I will be ‘dispatched’ like tattered baggage!”

“Tatteredbaggage?” He caught a strand of hair the wind was teasing about her face and smoothed it back. “I prefer to think of you as windblown.”

She thrust his hand away. “Don’t think you can charm me?—”

He caught her by the shoulders. “Elizabeth, don’t be thick.”

“Don’t bethick? Of all the?—”