A Passion For Him Part 12

Amelia was awakened by the knock that came to her bedchamber door. She lay curled in a ball, her eyes closed, her sleep-foggy mind praying that she could drift back into sleep and rejoin her vivid dreams. Dreams that reminded her of the rare connection she had with Ware and how precious that bond was to her.

But the knocking came again, more insistent. Harsh reality intruded, and she mourned the loss of her nocturnal reminiscences.

"Amelia?"

Maria. The one person in the household that she could not ignore.

Calling out in a sleep-husky voice, Amelia struggled to a seated position and watched as the portal swung open and her sister stepped into view.

"h.e.l.lo, poppet," Maria said, gliding toward her with an elegance she had long envied. "Sorry to wake you. I t is late morning, however, so I did wait. Sadly, the length of my patience is probably not as long as you would like."

"I do so love that gown on you," Amelia replied, admiring the cream-colored muslin and its appeal next to Maria's olive skin.

"Thank you." Maria took a seat on the slipper chair near the window. "Did you have a good evening?"

Visions of Ware, das.h.i.+ng in evening attire, filled Amelia's mind. Last night had been one in an endless string of nights spent at b.a.l.l.s and routs. Except last evening had been marginally different. She was different. Ware was different. The awareness between them had changed, and she knew instinctively that it would never be the same.

He was pressing forward, maneuvering expertly, forcing her to see their situation in cold, hard facts. After an entire childhood filled with falsehoods and evasions, she was normally grateful for his candor. In this instance, however, it served only to increase her feelings of guilt and confusion.

"I t was a lovely evening," she replied.

"Hmm..." The sound was clearly skeptical. "You have been melancholy of late."

"And you are here to talk about it."

"Lord Ware almost kissed you on the terrace yesterday afternoon, and yet last night you did not appear any more eager to see him than usual. How could I not ask you about it?"

Closing her eyes, Amelia's head dropped back onto the pillow.

"I f you would share your burdens with me," Maria coaxed, "perhaps I could help. I should like to."

Opening her eyes, Amelia looked up at the satin lining of her canopy and remembered an earlier time. Her room was decorated in variousshades of blue, from pale to dark, just as her childhood bedchamber had been. She'd made the choice consciously, an external declaration of her decision to pick up where her relations.h.i.+p with her sister had been cruelly severed. Her father had stolen years from them, but in this room she felt as if she reclaimed them.

"There is nothing to help me with, Maria. There is nothing to mend or alter."

"What of your masked admirer?"

"I will not be seeing him again."

There was a pregnant pause, then, "The last you spoke of him was not with such finality in your tone. You saw him a second time, did you not? He sought you out."

Amelia turned her head to meet her sister's gaze. "I lured him to me, and he was angry at me for doing so. He intends to leave Town now, to keep his distance and to prevent me from reaching out to him again."

"He shows a care for your reputation by this action, but you are upset by it." Confusion filled Maria's dark eyes. "Why?"

Tossing up her hands, Amelia said, "Because I do not want him to go! I want to know him, and it pains me greatly that I will not be given that chance. I am distressing Ware and you, yet I cannot seem to set aside my fascination nor can I ignore how weary I am of being left behind. I had enough of such treatment with my father."

"Amelia..." Maria held out a hand to her. "What is it about this man that has captured you so? Is he comely? No...don't become angry. I simply wish to understand."

Amelia sighed. Lack of sleep and inability to eat were taking their toll. She could not fight the feeling that Montoya was slipping away, that every moment when she did nothing took him farther from her. I t frustrated her and made her snappish.

"He wore the mask again," she said finally. "I 've no notion of what he looks like beneath it, but I do not care. I am moved by the way he talks to me, the way he touches me, the way he kisses me. There is reverence in his handling of me, Maria. Longing. Desire. I do not believe such depth of affection can be feigned. Not the way he expresses it."

Frowning, Maria looked away, lost in thought. Dark ringlets swung around her bared shoulders and betrayed how unsettled she felt. "How can he feel such things for you after only a few moments' acquaintance?"

"He says I remind him of a lover lost to him, but in truth I sense he wants me for myself in addition to that." Amelia's fingertips plucked at the edge of her bed linens. "He originally approached me because of her, but when he came again it was for me."

"How can you be certain?"

"I am certain of nothing, and now I suppose I never will be." She looked toward the open door to her boudoir, afraid her features would reveal too much.

"Because he is departing." Maria's voice softened. "Did he say why or where he intends to travel?"

"He says he is in danger of some sort. Deadly danger."

"From St. John? Or someone else?"

Amelia's hands fisted into the counterpane. "He has nothing to do with your husband. He said as much and I believe him."

"Shh," Maria soothed, standing again. "I know you are distraught, but do not vent your frustration on me. I want to help you."

"How?" Amelia challenged. "Will you help me find him?"

"Yes."

Frozen with disbelief, Amelia stared at her sibling. "Truly?"

"Of course." Maria's shoulders went back, a sure sign of her determination. "St. John's men look for him, but we have an advantage. You are the only person to manage close proximity to this man."

Amelia was speechless for a moment. She had not expected anyone to champion her desire to pursue Montoya, and she could not have selected a better person to help her than Maria, who was afraid of nothing and well versed in finding things that did not wish to be found. "Ware searches for him, too."

"Poor Count Montoya," Maria said, sitting on the edge of the bed beside her and collecting her hands. "I pity him. He espies a pretty woman and because of it, becomes hunted from all sides. St. John will seek him in a criminal's fas.h.i.+on. Ware will seek him in a peer's fas.h.i.+on. So you and I must seek Montoya in a woman's fas.h.i.+on."

"And how would that be?" Amelia asked, frowning.

"By shopping, of course." Maria smiled, and the entire room brightened. "We will visit all the purveyors of masks that we can find and see ifany recall the count. I f he always covers his face, he must procure a great many of the things. I f not, perhaps it was a recent purchase and he left an indelible impression. I t is not much, but it's a start. We will have to take care, of course. I f he is in danger, finding him will bring that danger to us.

You must trust me and listen to me implicitly. Agreed?"

"Yes." Amelia's lower lip quivered, and she bit it to hide the betraying movement. Her hands tightened on her sister's. "Thank you, Maria.

Thank you so much."

Maria caught her close and kissed her forehead. "I will always be here to help you, poppet. Always."

The quiet declaration gave Amelia strength, and she clung to it as she slipped from the bed and began to prepare for the day ahead.

Chapter 8

There was a leisurely pace to the pedestrians, carts, and carriages that traveled down the street. The day was sunny and comfortably warm, the air cleansed from a brief spate of early morning rain. Colin, however, was far from relaxed. Something about the day did not sit well with him.

"You should not worry so much," Jacques said. "She will be fine. No one has connected you to your past or to Miss Benbridge."

Colin smiled ruefully. "Am I so transparent?"

"Oui. In your unguarded moments."

Staring out the carriage window, Colin noted the many people going about their daily business. For his part, his business this afternoon was leaving Town. His carriage was presently wending its way toward the road that would lead them to Bristol. Their trunks were loaded and their account with the rental property was settled.

He remained unsettled.

The feeling that he was leaving his heart behind was worse than before. His mortality was something he began to feel more keenly each day. Life was finite, and the thought that the entirety of his would be spent without Amelia in it was too painful to bear.

"I have never shared a carriage with her," he said, his gloved fingers wrapping around the window ledge. "I have never sat at a table with her and shared a meal. Everything I have done these last years was in pursuit of a higher station, one that would afford me the privilege to enjoy all the facets of her life."

Jacques's dark eyes watched him from beneath the rim of his hat. He sat on the opposite squab, his compact body as relaxed as Colin had ever seen it, but still thrumming with energy.

"Soon after my parents died," Colin murmured, staring out at the view of the street, "my uncle accepted the position of coachman to Lord Welton. The wages were dismal and we were forced to leave the Romany camp, but my uncle felt it was more stable than the Gypsy life. He had been a dedicated bachelor prior to my arrival, but he took the burden of my care very seriously."

"So that is where your honor comes from," the Frenchman said.

Colin smiled slightly. "I was wretched at the change. At ten years of age, I felt the loss of my friends keenly, especially following so soon after the loss of my father and mother. I was certain my life was over and I would be miserable forever. And then, I saw her."

In his mind's eye, he remembered the day as if it were yesterday. "She was only seven years old, but I was awed. With her dark curls, porcelain skin, and green eyes, she looked like a beautiful doll. Then she held out a dirty hand to me, smiled a smile that was missing teeth, and asked me to play."

"Enchante," Jacques murmured.

"Yes, she was. Amelia was a dozen playmates in one-adventurous, challenging, and resourceful. I rushed through my ch.o.r.es just so I could be with her." Sighing, Colin leaned his head back against the squab and closed his eyes. "I remember the day I first rode as rear footman on the carriage. I felt so mature and proud of my accomplishment. She was happy for me, too, her eyes bright and filled with joy. Then, I realized that while she sat inside, I stood outside, and I would never be allowed to sit with her."

"You have changed a great deal since then, mon ami. There is no such divide between you now."

"Oh, there is a divide," Colin argued. "I t just is not a monetary one any longer."

"When did you know that you loved her?"

"I loved her from the first." His hand fisted where it rested atop his thigh. "The feeling just grew and changed, as we both did."

He would never forget the afternoon when they had played in the stream, as they often did. He in his breeches, she stripped to her chemise.

She had just reached fifteen years, he ten and eight. He had stumbled across the pebbled sh.o.r.e, attempting to catch a fleeing frog, when he'd fallen. Her delighted laughter turned his head, and the sight of her had changed his life forever. Bathed in sunlight, drenched in water, her beautiful features transformed by merriment, she had seemed a water nymph to him. Alluring. Innocently seductive.

His breath had caught in his throat; his body had hardened. Heated cravings burned in his blood and dried his mouth. His c.o.c.k-which had become an aching, demanding torment as he'd matured-throbbed with painful pressure. He was no innocent, but the physical urgings he'd appeased before were merely annoying when compared to the need wrought by the sight of Amelia's seminude body.Somehow...sometime, when he hadn't been looking, Amelia had grown into a young woman. And he wanted her. Wanted her as he'd never wanted anything before. His heart clenched with his sudden longing; his arms ached to hold her. Deep inside him, he felt an emptiness and knew she would fill it. Make him whole. Complete him. She'd been everything to him as a child. He knew she would be everything to him as a man.

"Colin?" Her smile had faded as tension filled the air between them.

Later that evening, Pietro noted his somberness and questioned him. When he'd spilled out his discovery, his uncle reacted with novel ferocity.

"Stay away from her," Pietro growled, his dark eyes burning in their intensity. "I should have ended your friends.h.i.+p long ago."

"No!" Colin had been horrified at the thought. He couldn't imagine his life without her.

Pietro slammed his fist on the table and loomed over him. "She is far above you. Beyond your reach. You will cost us our livelihood!"

"I love her!" As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew they were true.

Grim-faced, his uncle had dragged him out of their quarters in the stables and taken him into the village. There, he'd thrusted Colin into the arms of a pretty wh.o.r.e who delighted in exhausting him and wringing him dry. A mature woman, she was unlike the marginally experienced girls he'd dallied with before. She made certain he was spent. He left her bed with muscles turned to jelly and a need for a long nap.

When he'd staggered into the nearby tavern hours later, his uncle had met him with a jovial smile and fatherly pride. "Now you have another woman to love," he'd p.r.o.nounced, slapping him affectionately on the back.

To which Colin had corrected, "I 'm grateful to her, yes. But I love only Amelia."

Pietro's face had fallen. The next day, when Colin saw Amelia and felt the same l.u.s.tful longing as he'd experienced at the stream, he'd known instinctively that the s.e.xual act would be different with her. Just as she'd made the days brighter and his heart lighter, he knew she would make s.e.x deeper and richer, too. The hunger he felt for that connection was inescapable. I t gnawed at him and gave him no rest.

Over the next few months, Pietro told him daily to leave her be. I f he loved her, his uncle said, he would want the best for her, and a Gypsy stableboy could never be that.

And so he eventually found the fort.i.tude to push her away out of love for her. I t had killed him then.

I t was killing him anew now.

The carriage dipped, swayed, and rumbled over the streets beneath it, every movement a signal that he was moving farther and farther away from the only thing he'd ever wanted in this world.

"You will return to her," Jacques said quietly. "I t is not the end."

"Until we finish this matter with Cartland, I cannot even consider having her. There is a reason Quinn continued to use Cartland even though he was troublesome-he is an excellent tracker. As long as he is searching for me, I have no future."

"I believe in destiny, mon ami. And yours is not to die at that man's hands. I can promise you that."

Colin nodded, but in truth, he was not so optimistic.

The white-gloved fingers that were curled around the carriage windowsill belonged to Montoya. Amelia knew it with bone-deep surety.

As the nondescript equipage pa.s.sed her, she chanced a stray glance through the open window and spotted Jacques. Frozen in surprise, a s.h.i.+ver of discovery moved through her and filled her with hope. Then she noted the many trunks strapped to the back of the coach.

Montoya was leaving Town, just as he'd said he would.