“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.”

“Are you?” Colin’s head turned. In the light of the flickering fire, his beautiful face was hard, his dark eyes cold. “I am not.”

“What could you have done in this condition?”

“There is no reason for me to evade Cartland. I should turn myself over to him and spare everyone the jeopardy my presence creates.”

“Your life is the reason!” she protested. “If you concede, you will die.”

A wry smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Without any hope of having you, perhaps such a fate would be merciful.”

“Colin! How can you say such a thing?” She covered her mouth and fought the tears that welled.

He cursed softly. “Go away. I am not fit company, as I warned you.”

“I am afraid to leave you.” She feared that he would do as he threatened and surrender.

“No, you are not. You already left me, remember?”

Amelia almost said more, but his dangerous mood stilled her tongue. She had seen St. John in similar moods at times and had always wondered at Maria’s fortitude in seeking him out when he was so afflicted.

He needs me, Maria would say in explanation.

It was obvious that Colin needed comfort, too. And Amelia had distanced herself from him, which left him only the bottle to turn to for solace.

She approached him with shoulders squared, lifting the hem of her robe to her lips where she wet it. Reaching him, Amelia raised his chin with one hand and used the other to smooth away the blood. He was still, his eyes watchful, the tension that gripped him reaching out and surrounding her as well, making every nerve ending tingle and every breath a pant.

With an edgy snarl, Colin turned his head and pressed his lips to the sensitive skin of her wrist. She froze, unable to move as his tongue stroked over her now madly fluttering vein.

His glass hit the rug with a soft thud and a splash, and then he was on her, wrapping his big body around her and pulling her to the floor.

“I want you.” His hot open mouth moved ravenously over the tender flesh of her throat. “So badly, it’s eating me alive.”

“Colin . . .” The feel of him, over six feet of potently aroused male, ignited her simmering passion to a raging fire. “We shouldn’t . . .”

“Nothing can stop it,” he said, his hand pushing open the halves of her robe and cupping her breast. “You belong to me.”

Her gaze turned to the door she had left open when she entered. “The door—”

His lips surrounded her nipple through her night rail. Amelia gasped and clutched his hair.

“Remember that night,” he whispered against her breast. “Remember how I felt inside you. Remember how deep . . . how I filled you . . .”

She quivered in longing, her blood hot, her breasts heavy and aching. His callused fingertips rolled and tugged at her nipple, sending waves of pleasure along the length of her body.

“Colin—”

He came over her and took her mouth, inundating her senses with the taste of brandy and the exotic spice that was uniquely his. She moaned in delight, sucking at his thrusting tongue in a desperate effort to drink in more of him.

Distantly, she felt his hands on her thighs. The chill of the evening air over feverish skin betrayed the lifting of her gown. As everything tightened and coiled in anticipation of his touch, Amelia whimpered into his mouth. His knee intruded between hers, urging her legs apart. Shameless, she complied, spreading her thighs to give him access to the throbbing flesh at the apex.

Colin lifted his head and watched her as he cupped her sex in his hand. “You melt for me,” he breathed, his chest lifting and falling rapidly. He pushed two fingers inside her, and she arched in helpless pleasure. “You were made for me.”

The feel of him there, where she ached, was too much. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she breathed, “Come in me. Fill me.”

His gaze darkened, the irises swallowed by dilated pupils. “There is so much I can do to your body, Amelia. So many ways to impart pleasure. Shall I show you what you will miss when we part?”

“You left me first.”

“I came back.” His seductive tone was in sharp contrast to the pain she saw on his features. “Will you come back? If I love you well enough . . . if I addict your body to mine . . . will you come back to me?”

Her lower lip quivered and he licked across it, his breath hot and scented of liquor. His fingers advanced and retreated, plunging shallowly into her clenching sex, building her ardor with tender skill. It was searingly intimate, but in a different way than before. The emotions they bared were not hope and pleasure but despair and pain.

“It would be worth everything,” he said in a serrated whisper, “if there was any chance that you might love me again.”

“I never stopped.” She cried softly, tears trailing down her temples to wet her hair. “Lack of love for you is not the problem.”

Colin pressed his cheek to hers. “My greatest regret is that I could not be enough for you, despite my best efforts.”

Amelia turned her head and pressed her lips to his, unwilling to argue again about their differences when he was already hurting. He took her kiss with tangible desperation, his heart beating so violently, she could hear it over her own racing pulse. All the while his shoulders flexed beneath her touch, the muscles working to propel his fingers into her drenched, aching sex. She cried out softly, a thready sound of female surrender and lust.

The sound changed him; she felt it. The wounded boy from her past gave way to the determined man of her present. Desperation altered to dominance; despair altered to desire. When his head lifted and he met her gaze again, he had the devil in his eyes.

“If only you could see what I see,” he murmured, gentling his fingers, pulling free of her to slide across her clitoris with a slick, expert touch.

She gasped, her hips lifting involuntarily in an effort to increase the pressure of his teasing rubbing.

“Always hungry,” he whispered, “always passionate. You burn for me, Amelia, as if you had Gypsy blood in your veins.”

Colin nipped at her chin, then slid lower, licking along her throat until he reached the obtrusive ruffled neckline of her night rail. He moved, taking a kneeling position, hovering over her in a way that made her feel ravished. She was splayed beneath him, her clothes in disarray, his fingers touching her as only a husband should. The wantonness of her pose only increased her ardor, made her hotter and more desperate.

He pushed up her gown, higher and higher, until her stiffened nipples were kissed by the air and then by his mouth. His tongue was an instrument of pleasure and agony. The gentle licking over the tight peak made her clutch at his hair and pull him closer. As he suckled her, his cheeks hollowed, goading the sensations bombarding her until there was no way to register them all.

Colin. Her beautiful, exotic Colin was making love to her as she had never dreamed he would, and she could not resist him. His need and longing tapped into her own, freeing her of her inhibitions, making her a willing supplicant to his demands.

“Such beautiful breasts,” he praised, kissing across the valley between them to pay a like service to her neglected, jealous nipple. Colin cupped the swollen flesh with his hand, plumping it with gentle kneading, rolling the beaded point between thumb and forefinger. “You are so sweet and soft. I could lose myself in you for days . . . weeks . . .”

The thought of being the recipient of the full force of his desires was as arousing as his touch, and Amelia rode his hand, the need to orgasm becoming a driving urge. “Please . . .”

His teeth bit into her nipple, eliciting a gasp of surprise. Then he traveled lower to circle her navel with the point of his tongue. “Not yet.”

“Now,” she begged, her need so intense, she could hear how wet she was. “Please . . . now.”

Colin reared up to a kneeling position, leaving her bereft of his warmth and touch. He smiled as she protested, revealing the rakish dimples she had always loved. His shirtsleeves were tugged from the confinement of his breeches and pulled over his head, baring a sculpted chest and abdomen that made her mouth water. His skin was dark and stretched tightly over a highly defined musculature. She loved his body, always had. She adored the way hard labor made him powerful and strong.

“The way you look at me will keep us up all night,” he said with darkly sensual promise.

He reached for the placket of his breeches and freed the straining length of his erection. Whatever arguments of reason she might have uttered died a fiery end, her entire focus narrowing to encompass only the man before her. He was a sensual fantasy come to life with his glistening torso bared to the waist and his thick, hungry cock curving upward in proud enticement.