“I think I’ll wed Sarah after all,” he growled, yanking on her stays so tightly, she lost her ability to breathe. “I’m too old fer this.”
Gasping and lacking the air required to speak, she swatted at him to fix it. He scowled, then appeared to notice that she was about to faint, and why. He grumbled an apology and loosened the tapes.
“I ’ope yer ’appy,” he snapped. “You’ve driven me to the altar!”
Amelia pulled on her underskirts. After Tim tied them to her, she caught up her dress from where it pooled on the floor and thrust her arms into the sleeves.
Tim’s thick fingers fumbled with the tiny buttons that secured the gown.
“I love you.” She looked over her shoulder. “I do not know if I have ever told you that, but it’s true. You are a good man.”
The flush of his skin spoke volumes.
“’E’d best marry you, if that’s what you want,” he said gruffly, his gaze on his task. “Otherwise, I’ll string ’im up and gut ’im like a fish.”
It was some sort of peace offering, and she accepted it gratefully. “I would help you, if it came to that.”
He snorted, but a quick glance over her shoulder revealed a wry curve to his lips. “’E doesn’t know what trouble ’e’s got ’imself into with you.”
Amelia shifted impatiently. “I pray we can keep the man alive long enough to show him.”
The moment Tim announced he was done, she pulled on stockings and shoes, and rushed toward the door. As she took the stairs with all the decorum she could muster, her breath shortened until she felt dizzy.
The next moments of her life would alter the future forever; she felt it in her bones. The feeling of portent was so strong, she was almost inclined to flee, but could not. She needed Montoya with a depth and strength she had thought she would never feel again. Part of her heart screamed silently at the betrayal of her first, dear love for Colin. The other half was older, wiser and understood that affection for one did not negate the affection she felt for the other.
Her hand shook as she reached for the doorknob of the private dining room. In the best of circumstances she would be nervous. She was about to face the man who had seen her and touched her in ways no one else ever had. The added tension brought on by the revealing of his face only deepened her disquiet and concern.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, Amelia knocked.
“Come in.”
Before she lost her courage, she entered with as confident a stride as she could affect. She paused just inside, taking in the lay of the room with its cheerily blazing fire, large circular table draped in cloth, and walls covered in paintings of the countryside. He faced away from her before a window, his hands clasped at the small of his back, his broad shoulders covered in exquisite colorful silk, his silky black locks restrained in a queue that ended just between his shoulder blades.
The sight of his richly clad form in the simple country room was glaring. Then he turned, and her body froze in shock.
It cannot be him, she thought with something akin to panic. It is impossible.
Her heart ceased beating, her breath seized in her lungs, and her thoughts stuttered as if she had taken a blow to the brain.
Colin.
How was it possible . . . ?
As her knees gave way, she grappled blindly for a nearby chair but missed. She crumpled to the rug, a loud gasp filling the highly charged air as her instincts rushed to the fore and forced her to breathe.
“Amelia.” He lunged toward her, but she held up a hand to stop him.
“Stay away!” she managed, through a throat clenched painfully tight.
The Colin Mitchell she knew and loved was dead.
Then, how is it, an insidious mental voice questioned, that he is here with you?
It can’t be him . . . It can’t be him . . .
She repeated that litany endlessly in her mind, unable to bear the thought of the years between them, the life he must have led, the days and nights, the smiles and laughter . . .
The betrayal was so complete, she could not credit that Colin was capable of it. Yet, as she stared at the dangerously handsome man who stood across from her, her heart whispered the agonizing truth.
I would know him anywhere, it said. My love.
How could she have missed the signs?
Because he was dead. Because I grieved long and deeply.
Freed from the confines of the mask, Colin’s exotic Gypsy features left no doubt that it was he. He was older, the lines of his face more angular, but the traces of the boy she had loved were there. The eyes, however, were Montoya’s—loving, hungry, knowing eyes.
The lover who’d shared her bed was Colin . . .
A wracking sob escaped her, and she covered her mouth with her hand.
“Amelia.”
The aching tone in which her name was spoken made her cry harder. The foreign accent was gone, leaving behind the voice she heard in her dreams. It was deeper, more mature, but it was Colin’s.
She looked away, unable to stand the sight of him.
“Have you nothing to say?” he asked quietly. “No questions to ask? No insults to hurl?”
A hundred words struggled to leave her mouth, and three very precious ones, but she leashed them tightly, unwilling to bare the depth of her pain. She stared at a small, square painting of a lake that adorned the wall. Her lower lip quivered, and she bit it to hide the telltale movement.
“My body has been inside yours,” he said hoarsely. “My heart beats in your breast. Can you not at least look at me, if you will not speak to me?”
Her silent reply was the tears that flowed in a steady, endless stream.
He cursed and came toward her.
“No!” she cried, stilling him. “Do not come near me.”
Colin’s jaw clenched visibly, and she watched the muscle tic with an odd disconnection. How strange to see Montoya’s maturity and polish within her childhood love. He looked the same and yet different. He was bigger, stronger, more vital. He was stunningly attractive, blessed with a novel masculine appeal few could rival. She used to dream of the day they would be wed and she could call him her own.
But that dream had died when he had.
“I still dream of that,” he murmured, answering the words she had not realized she’d spoken aloud. “I still want that.”
“You allowed me to believe you were dead,” she whispered, unable to reconcile the Colin she remembered with the magnificently dressed man standing before her.
“I had no choice.”
“You could have come to me at any time; instead you have been absent for years!”
“I returned as soon as I was able.”
“As another man!” She shook her head violently, her mind filling with memories of the last weeks. “It was a cruel game you played with my affections, making me care for a man who does not exist.”