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The sudden assailment of memories from their youth almost brought her to her knees. The sight of scratches left by her nails in the golden flesh added a carnal claim to his beautiful body that she longed to enforce.
As she watched, he stilled. Her exhale was a pant, and his head swiveled to face her in a lightning quick movement.
“Amelia.”
He straightened and pivoted, baring the chest she had worshipped with both mouth and hands.
Dear God, he was divine. So handsome and virile, he made her heart ache.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“Utterly.”
Colin flinched and stepped toward her.
“Please do not come closer,” she said.
His jaw tightened and he halted. “Stay. Talk to me.”
“What is there to say? I heard your reasons. I understand why you acted as you did.”
“Is there hope for us? Any at all?”
She shook her head.
Agony transformed his features. “Look at me,” he said in a broken voice. “Look at where we are. This is where I would be if I had not left—tending St. John’s horses while you lived your life in a manse I am not allowed to enter. How could we have been together? Tell me that.”
Amelia covered her mouth to stifle a sob.
“What if I gave it all away?” His words were laced with a desperation that broke her heart into even smaller pieces. “What if I resumed my place as a servant in your household? Would you have me then?”
“Damn you,” she cried, her shoulders straightening in self-defense. “Why must you change yourself to suit me? Why can you not simply be who you are?”
“This is who I am!” He spread his arms wide. “This is the man I have become, but he is still not what you want.”
“Who cares what I want?” She stalked toward him. “What about what you want?”
“I want you!”
“Then why are you so quick to leave my side?” she snapped. “If you want me, fight for me. Do it for you, not for me.”
Amelia thrust the reins at him.
He caught her hand and held it. “I love you.”
“Not enough,” she whispered, yanking free. Then she turned and ran from the stable in a flurry of skirts and lace.
Colin stared after her for long moments, attempting to reason what more he could do, what more he could say to win her love back. He had done everything, lost everything . . .
A dark shape filled the doorway, and he pushed his roiling emotions aside. “St. John.”
The pirate stared at him with knowing eyes. “There was a lone rider spotted on a hill nearby. He is being followed back to town.”
Colin nodded. “Thank you.”
“Supper will be served shortly.”
“I do not think I can bear it.” The thought of the façade he would have to wear while Ware publicly laid claim to Amelia was too much.
“I will make your excuses, then.”
“I owe you a great deal.”
St. John hesitated a moment, then stepped farther inside. “Did you ever have the misfortune to meet Lord Welton?”
“Once. Briefly.”
“What do you recall about him? Any impressions that lingered?”
Frowning, Colin thought back to the long-ago day. “I remember thinking he had no warmth in his eyes.”
“Nothing like Miss Benbridge.”
“Bloody hell. Nothing like her at all.”
“Yet she seems to think they are similar creatures,” St. John murmured. “Or at least that she is capable of becoming more similar. Any action she takes that is prompted by her desires rather than her reason is a suspected weakness.”
Colin digested the information carefully. With him, Amelia was a creature of passion. She always had been. But they had been separated at the same time she’d learned of her father’s treacherous nature. Certainly the revelation of Welton’s true evil would have changed her, altered her in some way. In his heart he was attempting to woo the girl of old, but she was not that same girl any longer. He had to take that into consideration.
“Ware is the reasonable choice,” Colin said, but he no longer thought the earl was the best choice. Amelia’s vitality came from the passionate fire within her. It needed to be celebrated, as it would be with Colin. Not extinguished by the decorum Society would demand from Ware’s wife.
“Yes,” St. John agreed. “He is.”
The pirate made his egress as silently as he’d arrived, leaving Colin with a great deal to consider.
Amelia sat stiffly during dinner, highly conscious of the fact that Colin took his meal in his room. The discussion she’d had with him in the stables prodded at her and gave her no rest. She was poor company, speaking little and casting a dark cloud over everyone’s already somber mood. Despite her best efforts, she could not forget the sight of Colin working in the stable, a station he might still occupy if he had stayed in her employ. It was a shocking revelation to her, and she did not know what to think of it.
She retired early and hoped exhaustion would claim her, but fate was not so merciful. Unable to sleep, Amelia spent long hours tossing about in her bed. She finally abandoned the effort and left the confines of her disheveled linens. Donning her robe over her night rail, she slipped downstairs to the library.
The hour was late, all parties abed, leaving her the massive manse to herself. There were many times she roamed the St. John house at night, finding comfort in the silence and feeling of aloneness so reminiscent of her youth. Her imagination wandered, creating stories and tales in her mind, her memories picking up various passages from favorite books until she found herself at the library.
The door was slightly ajar, the flickering light of a blazing fire betraying the presence of someone inside. A shiver of awareness coursed over her skin in a wave of gooseflesh, urging her to forsake thoughts of reading and return to the safety of her bed. She debated a moment, internally examining why she would proceed when she valued stability so highly.
Ever since Colin had returned to her life, she had been acting with reckless disregard for anything but her own wants and needs. The correlation to her pater could not be ignored, and her jaw clenched with determination. It was most likely Ware in the library, and his presence would ground her and mitigate the riot of emotions she did not know how to deal with.
She pushed open the door.
Entering on silent feet, she noted the shirtsleeve-clad arm hanging over the side of a wing chair and the large hand holding a crystal goblet at a careless angle. From the darkened color of the skin, she knew she had incorrectly guessed the occupant’s identity, but she did not retreat. Something about the way the glass was held alarmed her. The amber liquid inside was tilted perilously close to the rim, threatening to spill onto the English rug.
The room was warm and comfortable, the walls lined floor-to-ceiling with bookcases displaying a mixture of worn volumes and priceless artifacts. Overstuffed furniture was scattered around the space, as were many side tables. It was a library that was actually used, rather than serving as merely an ostentatious display of wealth. Despite the inevitable upcoming confrontation with the man in the chair, she was soothed by the smells of parchment and leather, and took comfort in the silence inherent in a place of learning and discovery.
Amelia rounded the wingback and found Colin sprawled within its cradle, his long legs stretched out to rest his booted feet atop a footstool, his torso sans a coat and waistcoat, his throat bared by a missing cravat. He looked at her with heavy-lidded, emotionless eyes and lifted the goblet to sculpted lips. There was a scratch near his brow and a trail of dried blood below it.
“What’s wrong?” she asked softly. “How were you hurt?”
“Stay away,” he said in low, rough tone. “I am in a dark place, Amelia, and I have consumed more liquor than is wise. I cannot say what I will do if you come too close.”
Draped on the carved wooden arm of a nearby chair were his waistcoat, coat, and
weapons—a small sword and dagger.
“Where did you go?”
“I have yet to leave.” He turned his head to look into the fire.
She heard the sadness and despair beneath the words, and her heart hurt for him. For her. “I am glad you did not go out.”
