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.