Page 99 of Souvenir of Love

“I know.” She ducked her head. “And I know I must seem absurd to you. But…” She looked up. “Do you remember the first time you kissed me?”

“Of course.” An image of her, a goddess in amber, spread across the library chaise flashed across his mind.

“Do you remember how the room looked? The candles, the champagne, the firelight, and you…like a fairy-tale prince in sapphire silk.”

“A bit worse for the wear now, I’m afraid.” He brushed a curved finger over his scar.

“Not to me, not ever, not when you’re one hundred years old with white hair and wrinkles.”

“Then what is it?”

“I know that we cannot have that night or that setting again. And though I know that we will have a wedding ceremony, this is our wedding night. I wish…” She shook her head, struggling to make him understand.

“You wish it to be special,” he said, wondering how he could make it so. He wanted her so much. He’d waited so long; he’d have tumbled her on the deck if the captain hadn’t offered them the stateroom. But he knew that she was right, that her first time should be special. And as he thought about it, he realized he wanted it to be special, too, for her and for them. He glanced around the room, searching for something, flowers, candles, rose petals, a pirate’s string of pearls. His eyes fell upon a basin of water, a sliver of soap, and a hand towel the cabin boy had left for them. He smiled and climbed off the bed.

The soap had been made with olive oil and to Elizabeth it seemed to smell of the fruit ripening in the sun. As James bent over her, swirling the soapy water across her skin in ever-widening circles and smoothing her dry with the towel, she felt herself easing back into his hands. He washed her as clean as she imagined any babe had ever been. He didn’t stop. Pouring fresh water into the basin, he began to dribble it across her skin, tongue chasing the droplets, his lips sipping the water where it pooled in the hollows of her body. She felt like the ocean beneath the ship, restless and rocking, and she arched her hips.

He dribbled water across them and it trickled between her thighs, his tongue darting after it. Not a drop escaped him to dampen the sheets. She spread her legs to allow him greater access, and he dribbled more water. He parted her folds and let the water drip in a most exquisite form of torture. Elizabeth couldn’t help herself; she began to moan low in her throat. And when he bent to sip and suck, her hands sought his body. She clutched at him, gripping and stroking, desperate to communicate the way he made her feel, the way he made her ache and want.

He drew himself up and kissed her and she realized he was right, she did taste of the sea, salty and sweet, and everywhere the spicy scent of olives. She felt him, thick and heavy, against her thigh, rubbing the wetness where his hands and mouth had been and she wasn’t afraid and it wasn’t too fast—it was right.

“Elizabeth?” It was a question.

She pressed her mouth against his throat, feeling his pulse hard and fast against her lips, and murmured, “Yes.”

“I love you.” He pressed against her.

“I love you, too.” She reached down and touched him, surprised at how much more of him there was. Together, slowly, they began to guide him in.

As he filled her, there was pain, a tight and tearing pain. She bit her lip and braced her back to prevent him from knowing, from stopping. He kissed the sweat that beaded her brow and his fingers teased her sensitive nub, creating a pleasure that drew her up, again and again. And there was a deeper well of pleasure. She could feel James coming closer and closer with each thrust. And it was more important than the pain. It was everything. She gripped him with her hands, pushed against him with her hips, reaching for it. Like a diver reaching for a pearl buried at the bottom of the sea and running out of air, she threw herself against him, her lungs bursting, heart pounding. She drewherself up around him, clasping him tight within her body, and found the pleasure wasn’t a pearl at all, nothing so luminous and cool; it was a ruby, fiery and intense, driving through her body and exploding red behind her tightly closed eyes.

Elizabeth and Jameswere still wrapped tightly in each other’s arms when the boat reached the shores of England. When they disembarked, they discovered that Lord Grenville had sent a coach for Joley and James, along with fresh clothes and funds for the trip to London.

The Frenchman expressed surprise when James explained they would not be traveling with him.

“I do not understand, Lord Dinsmore…” he began. “Lord Grenville…”

“Convey my regrets to His Lordship,” James said. “Tell him…” His eyes slid to Elizabeth. “Tell him I have some unfinished business with the Earl of Moreham.” He smiled. “And reassure Lord Grenville that when my business is complete, the networks he desired me to establish will be knit far closer than he ever could have imagined.”

Thirty-Six

“Icannot believe you invited that woman to call,” Madeleine hissed as she, Alix, and Louisa sat in the red drawing room waiting for a footman to bring in the guests who had just been announced.

“As I told you before,Maman,” Alix hissed back, “when I sent the thank-you note for the baby stockings to Miss Leech, I added the invitationas a courtesy. I never imagined she would come, not after everything that has passed between our families. But I was sosurprisedby the gift of the booties. The stitching is exquisite…”

“Peasant women in Alsace knit booties. One thanks them, Alix, but one does not invite them into one’s home.”

Louisa, who was sitting on a red and gold brocade sofa across from mother and daughter, whispered, “It ispossiblethat Miss Leech is unaware of the troubles. I doubt Lady Anne would be inclined to discuss her brother’s behavior with a companion, even if she is a relative.”

Madeleine traced the swirling red pattern of a plume on the arm of her chair with a carefully manicured finger. “She may be disinclined to discuss the scandal in her own home, but I’llwager my new hat she’ll have no qualms about bringing the subject up in ours.”

If Livingston,Moreham Hall’s long-suffering butler, was surprised to see Elizabeth Harcrest and James Dinsmore arrive together shortly after tea, decades of training prevented him from expressing it. “His Lordship will see you in the library,” was all he said.

Elizabeth replied, “And where are the ladies?” in an equally bland voice, as if she’d just come down the stairs from her room, rather than having reappeared after several weeks of absence with a man her brother detested on her arm. “My mother and Lady Alix?”

“In the red drawing room.” As they mounted the marble staircase, he added, “Madame la Comtesse de La Brou is with them. They are entertaining guests for tea.”

The footman, standing by the entrance to the earl’s library, straightened imperceptibly when Livingston glared warningly, then gave two discreet knocks with his white-gloved knuckles on the polished paneled door. At the order, “Come,” he swung the door open, standing at attention, eyes steadfastly fixed on the twisting flowers and vines that adorned the molding across the hall.