“Come.” He took hold of her elbow and directed her to a bench beneath the nearest rose arbor. “Sit down before you swoon.”

“I’ve never swooned in my life.”

“Humor me.”

She sank down on the bench, folding her trembling hands in her lap. “I didn’t know when you’d come back. Or if you’d come back. I was beginning to think—”

“What? That I’d fled? Never to be seen again?”

She bit her lip.

Alex sat down beside her. He wasn’t smiling any longer. “Didn’t you hear what I said to you on the beach?”

“Y-yes.” Her mouth went dry at the memory of it. “You said that I was yours now. And that you were mine.”

“I meant it.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I meant it.” His voice was as sure and strong as forged steel. “I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”

On the beach, Laura had heard his whispered words as if in a dream. She’d wanted so desperately to believe them. Three long days later, however, foolish romantic notions had been eclipsed by hard common sense. “You only said it because you were concerned about my reputation. You must have known you’d ruined it.”

“I suspected I might have done,” he said frankly. “But in the moment, I confess, your reputation wasn’t at the forefront of my mind.”

She felt the same deep urge to believe him. To believe that she was his. That he wanted her. Cared for her. It was a primitive, feminine impulse, void of all logic. Laura endeavored to ignore it. “It doesn’t matter now. The damage is done. There’s no undoing it.”

“It matters to me. A great deal.” He studied her face, frowning. “You look ill.”

A surge of self-consciousness caught her unaware. She was in an old day dress with a faded stain on the bodice, her hair twisted back in a haphazard roll at her nape. He seemed to have a knack for catching her at her worst. It was irritating, really. “What an unflattering observation.”

“There are marks under your eyes. As though you haven’t been sleeping.”

“I haven’t been. Not very well. After what happened at Margate—”

“Which is exactly why I was in such a rush to get everything in order. It’s the only way to counter the harm to your reputation.”

“I don’t care about my reputation!”

He went still.

Laura briefly looked away from him. “That is…I do care, but only in so much as the damage to it harms my family.” She forced her gaze back to his. “If I’m upset, it’s not because you’ve ruined me. It’s because I’ve realized that I’m not as strong as I thought I was. That I’ll never be strong enough, no matter how hard I try.”

“Because you couldn’t make it back to shore on your own?”