Page 102 of Souvenir Heart

“It is indeed.” One corner of his mouth curved up. “And I’ve got a studio that’s in desperate need of renovations. But despite the draft and uneven floorboards, I didn’t ask for it and I’ve no intention of taking it.”

“Why not?”

“I was right about the determination I saw in your art.” He shook his head ruefully. “I’ve told you I’m not a good man, but it’s not for lack of trying. Taking money would cheapen whatever good I have managed to accomplish.”

“Why did you tell me you were a mercenary?”

“I didn’t have much time to convince you to let me help you. We still don’t have much time. Given everything you’d been through, I calculated you’d be more likely to believe me if I said I was rescuing you for money than if I attempted to make some noble speech.”

“Can you make noble speeches?”

“I probably would have made a hash of it,” he admitted. Voice softening, he said, “I suspect I might be making a hash of it now.”

“You’re not,” she said, feeling as if her heart had become the bubble of light in that dark place. “I want to be with you. I want you.”

In the stillness of the quarry, it was impossible to miss his sharp intake of breath. He swayed forward.

Even though Marguerite knew he would not break his vow to keep his distance, she held up a hand to stop him. “There will be a price for touching me.”

“Name it. No. Don’t. I don’t care.”

“Before you say that, you should know it’s not my price. And it’s likely to be high.” Marguerite squared her shoulders. “My father didn’t leave me. I chose to stay in France. Those three paintings you saved are my submissions to the Louvre Salon show next month.”

“I know,” He paused, adding semi-apologetically. “There were a lot of papers scattered around your apartment.”

“Which you read.”

“As any good intelligencer would. And I’m very good.” He shrugged. “I needed to find out where you’d gone. Given the disarray I found in your apartment, I suspected you’d been taken, but I couldn’t be sure. Asking your neighbors seemed an unwise choice.”

Particularly if he’d asked Victorine. “If my father had still been in Paris, or my husband had still been alive, I would have been forbidden to show my work. They’d have called such a public display ‘vain and vulgar.’”

“They’d have been dead wrong.” He said with disgust. “Your work deserves to be seen. You need to keep creating.”

“And I will create again.” Saying the words aloud felt like a vow. “I will paint again, draw again, sketch again.”

“Sketch again?” He frowned, repeating the words with a particular emphasis on the word sketch. “Like the work in the gray portfolio?”

“Ah.” The nudes of her fantasy lover. Of him. “You saw those?” Of course he had. He’d searched her apartments, read her correspondence with the Royal Academy, had even noticed the verse in the margin of her art book. There was no way he hadn’t gone through her portfolios. She lifted her chin, bracing herself for his contempt. “What did you think of them?”

“What did I think of them?” He repeated slowly and carefully. Then composing himself with an effort she could almost feel, he replied, “That I’d like to rip the half-dressed fellow limb from limb. Is he your lover?”

“My…” She stopped, stunned. She’d been expecting a tirade about how women had no business looking at, much less drawing naked men. “My what?”

“Lover.”

Laughter burbled from her like a spring. Marcus was jealous. Of himself. “He…is. Now.”

“I see,” he said, in a voice so distant and formal Marguerite almost expected him to click his heels and bow.

“I don’t think you see at all.” Setting her lantern down, she rose and ran a finger down his nose to the shadowed line of his severe lips. “Those drawings were only what I imagined you looked like.” She caught a lock of his hair between her fingers.

“I dreamed about you before I met you. Often.” She let the silken strand slide between her fingers, then placed her hand on his chest. He hadn’t had time to lace his shirt, or to put on a waistcoat; she felt the rapid rise and fall of his breathing, the warmth of his skin, the ridge of scar beneath the linen. “I think I did a fair job of capturing your lovely body. Although, I never imagined the scars.”

She felt his muscles tense; heard his breath catch as understanding dawned.

“It was quite a shock to see you standing in the courtroom.”

“Ah.” The single consonant escaped his lips.