“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 br**sts 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.”
“And when will that day come, Colin?”
He pulled back, frowning.
“All these years, and yet you still found reasons to put me aside until last night when I forced your hand.” Amelia sighed, and he heard a note of finality in the forlorn sound. “I think we saw in each other only what we wanted to see, but in the end the gulf between us is too wide to cross with mere illusions.”
Colin’s blood froze, a not inconsiderable feat with her body pressed so tightly to his. “What are you saying?”
“I am saying that I am tired of being left behind and forgotten until some preordained time arrives. I have lived the whole of my life under such a cloud and refuse to do so any longer.”
“Amelia—”
“I am saying that when we leave this room, Colin, it will be farewell between us.”
The slight scratching on the open door drew Simon’s attention from the maps spread out across his desk. He looked up at the butler with both brows raised. “Yes?”
“There is a young man at the door asking for Lady Winter, sir. I did tell him that neither she nor you were at home, but he refuses to leave. ”
Simon straightened. “Oh? Who is it?”
The servant cleared his throat. “He appears to be a Gypsy. ”
Surprise held his tongue for the length of a heartbeat. Then Simon said, “Show him in. ”
He took a moment to clear away the sensitive documents on his desk. Then he sat and waited for the dark-haired youth who entered his study a moment later.
“Where is Lady Winter?” the boy asked, the set of his shoulders and jaw betraying his mulish determination to get whatever it was he came for.
Simon leaned back in his chair. “She is traveling the Continent, last I heard. ”
The boy frowned. “Is Miss Benbridge with her? How can I find them? Do you have their direction?”
“Tell me your name.”
“Colin Mitchell.”
“Well, Mr. Mitchell, would you care for a drink?” Simon stood and moved to the row of decanters that lined the table in front of the window.
“No.”
Hiding a smile, Simon poured two fingers of brandy into a glass and then turned around, leaning his hip against the console with one heel crossed over the other. Mitchell stood in the same spot, his gaze searching the room, pausing occasionally on various objects with narrowed eyes. Hunting for clues to the answers he sought. He was a finely built young man, and attractive in an exotic way that Simon imagined the ladies found most appealing.
“What will you do if you find the fair Amelia?” Simon asked. “Work in the stables? Care for her horses?”
Mitchell’s eyes widened.
“Yes, I know who you are, though I was told you were dead.” Simon lifted his glass and tossed back the contents. His belly warmed, making him smile. “So do you intend to work as her underling, pining for her from afar? Or perhaps you hope to tumble her in the hay as often as possible until she either marries or grows fat with your child.”
Simon straightened and set down his glass, bracing himself for the expected—yet, surprisingly impressive—tackle that knocked him to the floor. He and the boy rolled, locked in combat, knocking over a small table and shattering the porcelain figurines that had graced its top.
It took only a few moments for Simon to claim the upper hand. The time would have been shorter had he not been so concerned about hurting the lad.
“Cease,” he ordered, “and listen to me.” He no longer drawled; his tone was now deadly earnest.
Mitchell stilled, but his features remained stamped with fury. “Don’t ever speak of Amelia in that way!”
Pushing to his feet, Simon extended his hand to assist the young man up. “I am only pointing out the obvious. You have nothing. Nothing to offer, nothing with which to support her, no title to give her prestige.”
The clenching of the young man’s jaw and fists betrayed his hatred for the truth. “I know all of that. ”
“Good. Now”—Simon righted his clothing and resumed his seat behind the desk—“what if I offered to help you acquire what you need to make you worthy—coin, a fitting home, perhaps even a title from some distant land that would suit the physical features provided by your heritage?”
Mitchell stilled, his gaze narrowing with avid interest. “How?”
“I am engaged in certain . . . activities that could be facilitated by a youth with your potential. I heard of your dashing near rescue of Miss Benbridge. With the right molding, you could be quite an asset to me. ” Simon smiled. “I would not make this offer to anyone else. So consider yourself fortunate.”
“Why me?” Mitchell asked suspiciously, and not without a little scorn. He was slightly cynical, which Simon thought was excellent. A purely green boy would be of no use at all. “You don’t know me, or what I’m capable of.”
Simon held his gaze steadily. “I understand well the lengths a man will go to for a woman he cares for.”
“I love her.”
“Yes. To the point where you would seek her out at great cost to yourself. I need dedication such as that. In return, I will ensure that you become a man of some means.”
“That would take years.” Mitchell ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know that I can bear it.”
“Give yourselves time to mature. Allow her to see what she has missed all of these years. Then, if she will have you anyway, you will know that she is making the decision with a woman’s heart, and not a child’s.”
For a long moment, the young man remained motionless, the weight of his indecision a tangible thing.
“Try it,” Simon urged. “What harm can come from the effort?”