The Slightest Provocation by Pam Rosenthal

Excerpt is up at her site. As children of feuding Derbyshire landowners, Mary Penley and Kit Stansell eloped against their families' wishes. But neither their ardor nor their marriage could survive their own restless natures. Nine years later, Kit is a rising star in the military while Mary has made her way in a raffish, intellectual society of poets and reformers. A chance meeting re-ignites their passion, but still they have very different values. Yet when Kit uncovers a political conspiracy that threatens all of England, they agree to put their differences aside. Amid danger and disillusionment, Kit and Mary rediscover the bonds that are stronger than time, the selves who have never really parted-and the love that is their destiny. From site... Sort the same thing just more Their love and their nation are at risk, the bonds of trust and honor threaten to dissolve at The Slightest Provocation. The children of feuding Derbyshire landowners, Mary Penley and Kit Stansell were supposed to be enemies. Too willful to be bound by their families' prejudices, they became secret friends instead -- and then much more than friends. When they eloped, they thought they'd left all the rivalry and contention behind them. But a proper Mayfair marriage wasn't so easy for the radical-minded daughter of a brewer and the wildly undisciplined son of a marquess - if Kit really wasthe marquess's son anyway. Now, nine years, a legal separation, and a war later - Kit and Mary are thrust together again, as passionate, as willful and stubborn, and as ready to hurl themselves (or perhaps the glassware) at each other as ever. But when political intrigue threatens everything they hold dear, can this contentious pair of lovers rediscover the trust, the passion, and the selves that never really parted?