Passion for Him

Chapter 4

The fence was directly ahead. After making certain that the guard was still far enough away to miss seeing her, Amelia hurried toward it. She did not see the man hidden on the other side of a large tree. When a steely arm caught her and a large hand covered her mouth, she was terrified, her scream smothered by a warm palm.

“Hush,” Colin whispered, his hard body pinning hers to the trunk.

Her heart racing in her chest, Amelia beat at him with her fists, furious that he had given her such a fright.

“Stop it,” he ordered, pulling her away from the tree to shake her, his dark eyes boring into hers. “I’m sorry I scared you, but you left me no choice. You won’t see me, won’t talk to me-”

She ceased struggling when he pulled her into a tight embrace, the powerful length of his frame completely unfamiliar to her.

“I’m removing my hand. Hold your tongue or you’ll bring the guards over here.”

He released her, backing away from her quickly as if she were malodorous or something else similarly unpleasant. As for her, she immediately missed the scent of horses and the hard-working male that clung to Colin.

Dappled sunlight kissed his black hair and handsome features. She hated that her stomach knotted at the sight and her heart hurt anew until it throbbed in her chest. Dressed in an oatmeal-colored sweater and brown breeches, he was all male. Dangerously so.

“I want to tell you I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse and gravelly.

She glared.

He exhaled harshly and ran both hands through his hair. “She doesn’t mean anything.”

Amelia realized then that he was not apologizing for scaring the wits from her. “How lovely,” she said, unable to hide her bitterness. “I am so relieved to hear that what broke my heart meant nothing to you.”

He winced and held out his work-roughened hands. “Amelia. You don’t understand. You’re too young, too sheltered.”

“Yes, well, you found someone older and less sheltered to understand you.” She walked past him. “I found someone older who understands me. We are all happy, so-”

“What?”

His low, ominous tone startled her, and she cried out when he caught her roughly. “Who?” His face was so tight, she was frightened again. “That boy by the stream? Benny?”

“Why do you care?” she threw at him. “You have her.”

“Is that why you’re dressed this way?” His heated gaze swept up and down her body. “Is that why you wear your hair up now? For him?”

Considering the occasion worthy of it, she had worn one of her prettiest dresses, a deep blue confection sprinkled with tiny embroidered red flowers. “Yes! He doesn’t see me as a child.”

“Because he is one! Have you kissed him? Has he touched you?”

“He is only a year younger than you.” Her chin lifted. “And he is an earl. A gentleman. He would not be caught behind a store making love to a girl.”

“It wasn’t making love,” Colin said furiously, holding her by the upper arms.

“It appeared that way to me.”

“Because you don’t know any better.” His fingers kneaded into her skin restlessly, as if he couldn’t bear to touch her, but couldn’t bear not to either.

“And I suppose you do?”

His jaw clenched in answer to her scorn.

Oh, that hurt! To know there was someone out there whom he loved. Her Colin.

“Why are we talking about this?” She attempted to wrench free, but to no avail. He held fast. She needed distance from him. She could not breathe when he touched her, could barely think. Only pain and deep sorrow penetrated her overwhelmed senses. “I forgot about you, Colin. I stayed out of your way. Why must you bother me again?”

He thrust one hand into the hair at her nape, pulling her closer. His chest labored against hers, doing odd things to her breasts, making them swell and ache. She ceased struggling, worried about how her body would react if she continued.

“I saw your face,” he said gruffly. “I hurt you. I never meant to hurt you.”

Tears filled her eyes and she blinked rapidly, determined to keep them from falling.

“Amelia.” He pressed his cheek to hers, his voice carrying an aching note. “Don’t cry. I can’t bear it.”

“Release me, then. And keep your distance.” She swallowed hard. “Better yet, perhaps you could find a more prestigious position elsewhere. You are a hard worker-”

His other arm banded her waist. “You would send me away?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her hands fisted in his sweater. “Yes, I would.” Anything to avoid seeing him with another girl.

He nuzzled hard against her. “An earl…It must be Lord Ware. Damn him.”

“He is nice to me. He talks to me, smiles when he sees me. Today, he is going to give me my first kiss. And I’m-”

“No!” Colin pulled back, his irises swallowed by dilated pupils leaving deep black pools of torment. “He may have all the things that I never will, including you. But by God, he won’t take that from me.”

“What-?”

He took her mouth, stunning her so that she couldn’t move. Amelia could not understand what was happening, why he was acting this way, why he would approach her now, on this day, and kiss her as if he were starved for the taste of her.

His head twisted, his lips fitting more fully over hers, his thumbs pressing gently into the hinges of her jaw and urging her mouth to open. She shivered violently, awash in heated longing, afraid she was dreaming or had otherwise lost her mind. Her mouth opened, and a whimper escaped as his tongue, soft like wet velvet, slipped inside.

Frightened, she stopped breathing. Then he murmured to her, her darling Colin, his fingertips brushing across her cheekbones in a soothing caress.

“Let me,” he whispered. “Trust me.”

Amelia lifted to her toes, surging into him, her hands sliding into his silken locks. Unschooled, she could only follow his lead, allowing him to eat at her mouth gently, her tongue tentatively touching his.

He moaned, a sound filled with hunger and need, his hands cupping the back of her head and angling her better. The connection became deeper, her response more fervent. Tingles swept across her skin in a wave of goose bumps. In the pit of her stomach a sense of urgency grew, of recklessness and flaring hope.

One of his hands slipped, caressing the length of her back before cupping her buttock and urging her up and into his body. As she felt the hard ridge of his arousal, a deep ache blossomed low inside her.

“Amelia…sweet.” His lips drifted across her damp face, kissing away her tears. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

But he kept kissing her and kissing her and rolling his hips into her.

“I love you,” she gasped. “I’ve loved you so long-”

He cut her off with his lips over hers, his passion escalating, his hands roaming all over her back and arms. When she couldn’t breathe, she tore her lips away.

“Tell me you love me,” she begged, her chest heaving. “You must. Oh, God, Colin…” She rubbed her tear-streaked face into his. “You’ve been so cruel, so mean.”

“I can’t have you. You shouldn’t want me. We can’t-”

Colin thrust away from her with a vicious curse. “You are too young for me to touch you like this. No. Don’t say anything else, Amelia. I am a servant. I will always be a servant, and you will always be a viscount’s daughter.”

Her arms wrapped around her middle, her entire body quaking as if she were cold instead of blistering hot. Her skin felt too tight, her lips swollen and throbbing. “But you do love me, don’t you?” she asked, her small voice shaky despite her efforts to be strong.

“Don’t ask me that.”

“Can you not grant me at least that much? If I cannot have you anyway, if you will never be mine, can’t you at least tell me that your heart belongs to me?”

He groaned. “I thought it was best if you hated me.” His head tilted up to the sky with his eyes squeezed shut. “I had hoped that if you did, I would stop dreaming.”

“Dreaming of what?” She tossed aside caution and approached him, her fingers slipping beneath his sweater to touch the hard ridges of his abdomen.

He caught her wrist and glared down at her. “Don’t touch me.”

“Are they like my dreams?” she queried softly. “Where you kiss me as you did a moment ago and tell me you love me more than anything in the world?”

“No,” he growled. “They are not sweet and romantic and girlish. They are a man’s dreams, Amelia.”

“Such as what you were doing to that girl?” Her lower lip quivered, and she bit down on it to hide the betraying movement. Her mind flooded with the painful memories, adding to the turmoil wrought by the unfamiliar cravings of her body and the pleading demands of her heart. “Do you dream about her, too?”

Colin caught her wrist again. “Never.”

He kissed her, lighter in pressure and urgency than before, but no less passionately. Soft as a butterfly’s wings, his lips brushed back and forth across hers, his tongue dipping inside, then retreating. It was a reverent kiss, and her lonely heart soaked it up like the desert floor soaked rain.

Cupping her face in his hands, he breathed, “This is making love, Amelia.”

“Tell me you don’t kiss her like this.” She cried softly, her nails digging into his back through his sweater.

“I don’t kiss anyone. I never have.” His forehead pressed against hers. “Only you. It’s only ever been you.”

Amelia jerked awake with a violent start, her heart racing with the remnants of adolescent passion and yearning. Tossing back the covers, she sat up, allowing the chilly night air to seep through her thin night rail to her perspiration-damp skin. She lifted shaking fingertips to her lips, pressing hard against the swollen curves in an effort to stem their tingling.

The dream had been so vivid. She imagined that she could still taste Colin, a heady exotic flavor that she craved to this day. It had been years since she’d been plagued with such recollections. She’d thought they were fading, that perhaps she might be healing. Finally.

Why now? Was it because she had agreed to proceed with the wedding? Was Colin’s memory rearing up and demanding that the love of her life not be set aside?

Amelia closed her eyes and saw a white mask above shamelessly sensual lips.

Montoya.

His kiss had made her tingle as well. From head to toe and everywhere in between.

She had to find him. She would find him.

“What does he say?”

Colin refolded the missive carefully and tucked it into a drawer of his desk. He looked at Jacques. “He believes Cartland is leading a group of men here in England.”

“He will not want to bring you back alive.” Jacques walked over to the window and brushed the sheer panel aside to look down at the front drive.

The town house they occupied was a rental in fine shape. It was a short distance from the city, near enough to be convenient, but far enough away to ensure that no one would find them noteworthy. The distance also allowed them to ascertain if they were being followed or not, which Colin had been just a few nights past. The night he had danced with and kissed Amelia.

“It is good that you stay indoors during the day,” Jacques said, turning back to face him again. “You are being hunted on all sides.”

Shaking his head, Colin closed his eyes and leaned into the back of his chair. “It was foolish of me to seek her out that way. Now I have attracted St. John’s attention, and he will not rest until he knows why I displayed such interest in her.”

“She is a beautiful woman,” Jacques said, his voice laced with a Frenchman’s innate appreciation of such delights.

“Yes, she is.”

Beyond beautiful. Dear God, how was it possible for a woman to be so perfect? Stunning green eyes framed by sooty lashes. An imminently kissable mouth. Creamy skin, and the fully ripened curves of a woman grown. All carried with an air of latent sensuality that he had always found alluring.

He could admit now that his attendance at the ball had been goaded by his hope that he would see her and find his attraction unfounded. Perhaps absence had made his heart too fond. Perhaps he had embellished her memory in his mind.

“But that is not why you love her,” Jacques murmured.

“No,” Colin agreed, “it’s not.”

“I have rarely seen a woman with such yearning in her soul. Although I watched her as you did, she did not take note of my interest, only of yours.”

That was his fault, he knew. Repeated glimpses of her profile had only whetted his appetite to see her directly. Look at me, he’d urged silently. Look at me!

And she had, unable to resist when followed with such ravenous attention.

The eye contact had cut him to the quick, piercing across the distance between them and stabbing deep into his heart. He’d felt it, the yearning Jacques spoke of. That longing elicited a primal response in him to deliver it, whatever it was that she wanted. Whatever she needed.

“You could take her from the other man,” Jacques said.

He knew that, too. Had felt the wavering in her as they had danced and then again when they had kissed.

“I wish I’d never followed Cartland that night!” Colin growled, the frustration inside him a writhing, powerful thing. “Everything would be different.”

She would be in his bed now, writhing and arching beneath him as he rode her hard and deep, awakening the wanton he sensed was waiting just beneath the surface. In his mind, he could hear her voice hoarse from crying out his name, her satin skin covered in a fine sheen of sweat.

He would push her beyond reason, take her body places she never knew it could go…

“The twists in our lives happen for a reason,” Jacques said, returning to the desk and sitting across from him. “I could have lived the whole of my life without leaving France, yet I was destined to follow you here.”

Colin pushed the lewd images from his thoughts and opened his eyes. “You are a good man, Jacques, to carry your debt beyond the grave.”

“Monsieur Leroux saved the life of my sister and with her, the life of my niece,” he said quietly. “I cannot proceed knowing his murderer has not paid for the crime.”

“And how do we make him pay?”

The Frenchman smiled, bringing warmth to his hard features. “I would like to kill him, but that would put you at a marked disadvantage. With me as your only witness, you would find it extremely difficult to prove your innocence.”

Colin said nothing to that. Jacques had already helped far beyond what he had any right to ask.

“So he must confess.” Jacques shrugged. “I will take what pleasure I can from doing whatever is necessary to garner that confession.”

Nodding, Colin looked toward the window. Night had fallen hours ago. Shortly, he could leave and make discreet inquiries in his efforts to find Cartland before the man found him. But first, he would need some rest. “I will retire for a few hours, then set out and see what I can discover. Someone will have a loose tongue, to be sure. I just have to find him.”

“Perhaps you should contact the man you worked for here,” Jacques said carefully. “The one who directs Quinn.”

Colin had never met Lord Eddington, never exchanged a word or correspondence. All communications passed through Quinn, and as far as Colin knew, Eddington was unaware of the identities of the men working under Quinn. There would be no way to prove that he was a confidant. “No. That is not possible,” he said grimly. “We do not know one another.”

The Frenchman blinked, apparently so taken aback by the news that he lapsed into his native language. “Vraiment?”

“Truly.”

“Well, then…that rules out that course of action.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, it does.” He pushed to his feet. “We will talk more when I awake.”

Jacques inclined his head in agreement and waited until Colin had left the room. Then he moved to the desk, where he opened a drawer and pulled out the white half mask.

Colin would not be attending any balls or masquerades, so his continuing possession of the mask betrayed its sentimental value. Jacques had watched his new friend with Miss Benbridge and knew the woman meant a great deal.

So he would watch her when he could and keep her safe, if possible. If God was kind, Jacques would finish his task, Cartland would have his comeuppance, and Colin would have the woman he loved.

As a child, Amelia had learned how to socialize with giants.

Of course, at that time, they had been imaginary. The man standing before her was quite real, but she knew he was the same sort of giant as the one in her mind-gentle and kind beneath a gruff, formidable exterior.

“This is extortion!” Tim cried, looming over her.

Amelia set a hand at her neck to rub the ache caused by craning so far back. “No,” she denied. “Not really. Extortion gives you only one choice. I am offering you options.”

“I don’t like yer options.” He crossed his great arms over his barrel chest.

“I do not blame you. I don’t care for them very much either.”

She moved toward the nearby padded window seat. The upper family parlor was packed with people, all employees of St. John. Some played cards, others talked and laughed boisterously, and still others napped where they sat, exhausted from running errands all day long.

“It would have been much easier for everyone if the man had simply stated his intentions directly.” Amelia shook out her skirts of yellow shot silk taffeta and settled as comfortably as possible in her evening attire. “But he did not, and so we must guess. I am not very good at guessing, Tim. I haven’t the patience for it.”

Looking up at him from beneath her lashes, she smiled prettily.

Tim snorted and scowled. “Don’t you ’ave something else to worry your ’ead o’er? Wedding gowns and such?”

“No. Not really.”

She should be consumed with the planning of her forthcoming nuptials. From waking to sleeping she should have no time for anything else. It was the most anticipated match of the Season and, if she maneuvered well, it could be a wonderful launch for her new position as a future marchioness.

Instead she was consumed by thoughts of her masked admirer. She was tenacious when intrigued and told herself that if she could only discern the man’s motives, she would be free to concentrate on more pressing matters.

It was prewedding nervousness. The need for one last peccadillo. A farewell to childhood whimsy.

She shook her head. There were a hundred names she gave to why she was so distracted by the masked Montoya. But the reason’s true identity eluded her.

“Well, yer not doing any searching,” Tim grumbled. “Not on my watch.”

“Fine,” she said agreeably. “Just inform me when you find him.”

“No.” Tim’s jaw took on that obstinate cant that was more bark than bite. He wore green wool trousers this evening and a black waistcoat trimmed with green thread. It was the most colorful ensemble she had ever seen him wear. His coarse gray hair was restrained in a braided queue, and his Vandyke was neatly trimmed.

Amelia adored him for the effort, knowing the care he displayed was due entirely to affection for her. He wanted to make her proud while he was following her about at the Rothschild ball this evening. He would not be attending, of course, merely watching from the outside perimeter, yet he’d taken pains with his appearance.

She was proud of him, regardless.

“Very well, then.” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I shall search for him myself and drag you along with me, since you are to be my nursemaid.”

Tim growled and several heads turned in their direction. “All right,” he snapped. “I’ll tell you when, but not where or ’ow. But you should be forgetting about that man. ’E won’t be troubling you again, I promise you that.”

“Lovely.” She patted the space next to her and held her tongue regarding any further discussion on the matter. She would see Montoya again, alone. Whether that was within St. John’s captivity, or outside his reach. She had to. Something within her wouldn’t allow the matter to rest. “Come and tell me about Sarah. Will you be making an honest woman out of her soon?”

The floor vibrated with Tim’s heavy footsteps, and when he sat, the seat creaked in protest. Amelia smiled. “Was your mother a sturdy woman?”

His returning grin was infectious. “No. She was tiny, but then, so was I.”

She laughed and he flushed, so she changed the subject. “About Sarah…?”

Sarah was Maria’s longtime abigail, a soul of discretion and loyalty. Tim had been soft on the maid for years, yet neither appeared to be hastening toward the altar.

“She won’t ’ave me,” he answered glumly.

Amelia blinked. “Whyever not?”

“She says my work is too dangerous. She won’t be widowed with children. Too ’ard.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “I do not understand that, to be honest. Love is too precious to waste. Waiting for the right time, the right place…Sometimes that never comes and you will have missed out on what little happiness was yours to claim.”

Tim stared at her.

“Do not discount me because I am young,” she admonished.

“Ye’ve yet to ’ave life knock you down.”

“I have had it hold me back, restrain me, keep me from the things I have wanted.”

“’Tis different to see something through glass than it is to ’old it in your ’and and ’ave it taken from you.” His eyes were kind. “Cease pining for yer stableboy. The earl is a good man to turn a blind eye to this.” Tim waved his arm in a sweeping gesture that encompassed the whole room.

Amelia sighed. “I know. I do love him. But it is not the same.”

“If the Gypsy ’ad lived, you would ’ave grown out of yer liking for ’im.”

“I do not believe so,” she refuted, seeing Colin clearly in her mind, laughing, his dark eyes bright with joy and affection. Then later, flushed and intent with passion. They’d done no more than kiss, but the ardor was there. The need. The sensation that the feeling would escalate into a blinding brilliance that might well be unbearable.

That sense of…anticipation…stayed with her. Unfulfilled. Untapped.

Until Montoya kissed her.

Then it had simmered inside her. Just for an instant, but long enough to reawaken what had long been dormant. That was what she could not explain. Not to anyone, not to herself. She had considered what, if anything, was similar about her two attractions. It was rather alarming to decide that she was attracted to the forbidden. To what she could not have. Should not have.

In the voluminous folds of her skirts, Amelia’s hand clutched the secret bundle in her pocket that she carried with the mad hope that she might see Montoya again.

“The Earl of Ware has come to call,” the butler intoned from the doorway.

Tim stood and held out his hand to her. “A good man,” he said again.

Nodding, she released the note in her pocket and set her fingers within his palm.

The man in the white mask was following her.

The mask was the same, but the man wearing it was not. This man was shorter, stockier. His garments, though of the same austerity as Montoya’s, were of lesser quality.

Who was he? And why did he hold such interest in her?

Amelia was crestfallen, but prayed she hid it well. Although she had known it was a possibility that Montoya had approached her for a reason beyond attraction to her, she had chosen to believe that it was personal, in the best possible way. His mourning for his lost sweetheart had been so like her own. She had felt a connection to him that she had previously felt only with Ware and Colin.

Had it all been a lie?

She suddenly felt alone and very naïve. The ballroom was a crush, the earl whose arm she held was charming and devoted, and someone was speaking to her, but she felt as if she were an island in a vast sea.

“Are you unwell?” Ware whispered.

Shaking her head, she tried to look away from the man in the white mask and was unable to. She damned herself for looking for Montoya. If she had not, she could have kept the fantasy of his interest alive within her. Now that it was gone, she felt its loss keenly.

“Should we stroll?” Ware suggested. He bent over her in a highly intimate pose made acceptable by his smile and a wink at the gentleman speaking to them. “Lord Reginald’s discourse is coaxing me to sleep, as well.”

Amelia fought a smile, but felt it tugging at the corner of her lips. She turned her gaze from the masked man who watched her so closely and met Ware’s concerned blue eyes. “I should like that, my lord.”

He made their excuses and began to lead her away. As often happened when he sheltered her, her heart swelled with gratitude. She prayed that the feeling would grow into love and thought perhaps after they consummated their marriage it might turn into that. He would have a care for her in that regard, too, she knew.

She glanced at him, and he caught her gaze and held it. “Everything I do for you, sweet Amelia, is for the occasional moments when you look at me as you are doing now.”

Blushing, she looked away and watched the man in the mask moving, circling the room at the same pace she was, keeping himself directly opposite her.

“Would you excuse me for a moment?” she asked Ware, smiling.

“Only a moment.”

A female guest walked past them, her appreciative gaze roving the length of Ware’s tall frame.

“You provocative devil, you,” Amelia teased.

He winked, stepped back, and kissed her gloved hand. “Only for you.”

She rolled her eyes at the blatant lie, then made her egress, heading toward the hallway that led to the retiring rooms. She took her time, making certain it would be easy to follow her, then slipped down the hall. There were plenty of guests mingling about. Music swelled from the open ballroom doors. Candlelight flickered in sconces along the wall. She felt safe.

Taking a deep breath, she pivoted on her heel and faced him.

He stood several feet back. Amelia arched a brow and gestured him closer. He smiled and approached, but stopped a discreet distance away.

“Y-your mask…” she began.

“His mask,” he corrected with a definite French accent.

“Why? Does he want me, or St. John?”

“I do not know who St. John is.”

Amelia hesitated a moment, inwardly debating the wisdom of her actions; then she reached into her pocket. She withdrew what she hid there and held it out to him.

The Frenchman’s head tilted to the side as he considered her. He took what she offered and sketched a gallant bow. “Mademoiselle.”

“Give him that,” she said. Then, lifting her chin, she walked past him and returned to Ware’s side.