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“They are speaking in the private dining room,” Christopher explained, “with an open door for propriety’s sake. From the sounds of it, it is not going well for the man.”
“Why not?”
“When ’e approached me,” Tim rumbled, “I thought ’e looked familiar, but I couldn’t place ’is face. It came to me when I overheard them talking.”
“What came to you?” she asked, looking between both men. “Who is he? Do we know him?”
“Remember the pictures I drew for you in Brighton?” Tim asked, harkening back to the days of her “courtship” with Christopher. After a failed attempt to retrieve Amelia, Tim had put both his excellent memory and talent for rendering to good use by drawing images of the servants who had spirited Amelia away.
Nodding, Maria recalled the stunningly beautiful drawings. “Yes, of course.”
“The man she’s speaking to is one of them.”
Frowning, she tried to recall them all. There had been a drawing of Amelia and Pietro, as well as of a governess and a young groomsman . . .
“That is not possible,” she said, shaking her head. “That young man was Colin, the boy who died trying to save Amelia.”
“Pietro’s nephew, was he not?” Christopher asked with one brow raised. “If there are any doubts about the man’s identity, I am certain Pietro can help us to dispel them.”
“Bloody hell,” she breathed. Pivoting on her heel, she looked for Simon and found him sinking into a chair. She marched toward him.
He glanced up and saw her coming, his blue eyes first sparkling with welcome, then narrowing warily. The smile that curved his sensual lips faded as resignation passed over his features. She knew then that it was true, and her heart ached for the torment her sister must be feeling.
“Out with it,” she snapped, as he stood before her.
Simon nodded and pulled out the empty seat that waited between him and Mademoiselle Rousseau. “You might want to take a seat,” he said wearily. “This might take some time.”
“Release me, Colin.”
Amelia held back a sob by dint of will alone. The feel of his big, powerful body pressed so passionately against her back was both a balm and a barb. Her nerves were raw; her emotions fluctuated between wild, heady joy and a feeling of abandonment too close to what she had felt in her father’s negligent care.
“I cannot,” he said hoarsely, his hot cheek pressed ardently to hers. “I am afraid if I let you go, you will leave me.”
“I want to leave you,” she whispered. “As you left me.”
“It was the only choice that afforded me the opportunity to have you. Can you not see?” The tone of his voice was a rough plea. “If I had not left and made my fortune elsewhere, you would never be mine, and I could not bear it, Amelia. I would do anything to have you, even give you up for a time.”
She tugged at his arms. Every breath she took was filled with the scent of him, a scent that awakened her body to memories of the passionate night behind them. It was an unbearable torment. “Release me.”
“Promise to stay and hear me out.”
Amelia nodded, knowing she had no choice. Knowing they had to find some closure to this so they could both move on with their lives.
Facing him with an uplifted chin, she tried to keep her face impassive despite the tears she could not stop. For his part, Colin made no effort to hide his torment. His handsome features were wracked with painful emotions.
“I might have felt differently,” she said flatly, “if you had told me of your desire to build a different life for yourself, if you had made me a partner in your plans instead of cutting me out.”
“Be honest, Amelia.” He clasped his hands behind him as if to prevent reaching out for her. “You would never have allowed me to go, and if you had begged me to stay, I would not have had the strength to deny you.”
“Why could you not stay?”
“How was I to afford you with a servant’s meager pay? How was I to give you the world when I had nothing?”
“I could have borne any livelihood if only you were there to share it!”
“And what of the nights?” he challenged. “Would you feel the same while shivering because we must ration our meager stipend of coal? And what of the days? Where we must rise before the sun to work ourselves to exhaustion?”
“You could have kept me warm, as you did last night,” she retorted. “A lifetime of such nights . . . I would damn the coal to hell if my bed was warmed by you. And the days. The passing of each hour would bring me closer to you. I could have tolerated anything if it led me back to you.”
“You deserve better!”
Amelia stomped her foot. “It was not for you to decide that I was incapable of living such a life! It was not for you to decide that I was not strong enough!”
“I never doubted that you would make such an effort for me,” he argued, his frame vibrating with an edgy intensity so reminiscent of the Colin of old. “What I doubted was my strength, my capability to live in that manner!”
“You did not even try!”
“I couldn’t.” Colin’s voice grew more impassioned. “How could I bear looking at your cracked and reddened hands? How could I bear the tears that would come in the unguarded minutes when you longed for a moment’s comfort?”
“Love requires sacrifice.”
“Not when the entirety of the sacrifice is made by you. I could not live with myself knowing that my selfishness brought you to an unhappy end.”
“You don’t understand.” Her hand lifted to cover her heart. “I would have been happy as long as I had you.”
“And I would have hated myself.”
“I see that now.” Grieving anew, Amelia wondered how she could have been so wrong about their love for each other. “If we had never met, you would have been happy with the life you had, wouldn’t you?”
“Amelia—”
“Your discontent stems from me and the expectations you imagined I had for you.”
“No, that is not true.”
“It is.” The pain in her chest intensified until she could hardly breathe. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I wish we had never met. We might have been happy.”
His eyes widened. “Dear God, do not say such a thing! Never. You are the only thing that has ever brought me happiness.”
Suddenly, she felt so old and so tired. “Leaving your country and your family, traversing the Continent risking your life to gather information for the Crown . . . That is what you call happiness? You are deluded.”
“Damn it,” Colin growled, snatching her by the shoulders. “You are worth it, all of it. I would do it again a hundred times over to become worthy of you.”
“I never thought you were unworthy, and you did not harbor these feelings of inferiority until you met me. That is not love, Colin. I do not know what that is, but I know what it is not.”
Made anxious by Amelia’s sudden composure, Colin considered ways to keep her connected to him. Last night they had been as close as two lovers could ever hope to be, and now they were as distant as strangers. “Whatever doubts my revelation may inspire, do not belittle my feelings for you. I love you. From the moment I first saw you, I loved you, and I have never stopped. Not for a moment.”
“Oh?” Amelia wiped at her tears with hands so steady, he felt a prickling disquiet. “What of the times when you gained the expertise at lovemaking you displayed so beautifully last night? Were you in love with me then?”
“Yes, damn you.” He pulled her closer, pressing the full length of his heated body to hers. “Even then. Sex is sex to a man, nothing more. We require the spending of our seed to be healthy. It has nothing to do with elevated feelings.”
“Simply slaking your needs as you did behind the store when we were younger?” She shook her head. “Last night, with every touch . . . every caress . . . I wondered how many women you must have entertained in order to acquire such skill.”
“Jealous?” he lashed,
bleeding inside and frightened by her rapid retreat. She spoke with no inflection, no feeling, as if she cared not at all. “Do you wish it had been you who served my baser needs with no emotion or caring? No affection or concern?”
“I am jealous, yes, but also sad.” Her beautiful eyes were empty. “You lived a full life without me, Colin. At times, you were likely content with your lot. You should not have come back. Those women did not make you wish to be someone you are not, as I do.”
“I never think of them,” he vowed, cupping her beloved face in his hands. “Never. All the while I thought of you and how deeply I wanted you. I wished they were you. It was an ache that never faded. I learned, yes. I became skilled, yes. For you! So that I could be everything to you, so that I could satisfy you in every way. I wanted to be all you needed, all you wanted.”
“How miserable,” she said. “It breaks my heart to know that I have prevented you from being happy.”
Furious at his helplessness and confused by the turns the conversation was taking, Colin held her still and took her mouth, thrusting strong and sure into the hot, moist depths.
He tasted her pain and sorrow, her bitterness and anger. He drank it all, stroking across her tongue with his, before sucking fiercely.
Clutching his forearms with both hands, she moaned and trembled in his arms. Her body could not resist his, even now. It was a weakness he hated to exploit, but he would if necessary.
“My mouth is yours,” he said hoarsely, brushing his wet lips back and forth across hers. “I have shared kisses with no one but you. Never.”
He caught her hand and held it over his heart. “See how strongly it beats? How desperately? Because of you. Everything, everything I have ever done has been with you in mind.”
“Stop . . .” she panted, her breasts thrusting against his arm with her labored breathing.
“And my dreams.” He pressed his temple to hers. “My dreams have always been yours. I aspire to be a better man to be worthy of you.”
