“Soon after my parents died,” Colin murmured, staring out at the view of the street, “my uncle accepted the position of coachman to Lord Welton. The wages were dismal and we were forced to leave the Romany camp, but my uncle felt it was more stable than the Gypsy life. He had been a dedicated bachelor prior to my arrival, but he took the burden of my care very seriously.”

“So that is where your honor comes from,” the Frenchman said.

Colin smiled slightly. “I was wretched at the change. At ten years of age, I felt the loss of my friends keenly, especially following so soon after the loss of my father and mother. I was certain my life was over and I would be miserable forever. And then, I saw her.”

In his mind’s eye, he remembered the day as if it were yesterday. “She was only seven years old, but I was awed. With her dark curls, porcelain skin, and green eyes, she looked like a beautiful doll. Then she held out a dirty hand to me, smiled a smile that was missing teeth, and asked me to play.”

“Enchanté,” Jacques murmured.

“Yes, she was. Amelia was a dozen playmates in one—adventurous, challenging, and resourceful. I rushed through my chores just so I could be with her.” Sighing, Colin leaned his head back against the squab and closed his eyes. “I remember the day I first rode as rear footman on the carriage. I felt so mature and proud of my accomplishment. She was happy for me, too, her eyes bright and filled with joy. Then, I realized that while she sat inside, I stood outside, and I would never be allowed to sit with her.”

“You have changed a great deal since then, mon ami. There is no such divide between you now.”

“Oh, there is a divide,” Colin argued. “It just is not a monetary one any longer.”

“When did you know that you loved her?”

“I loved her from the first.” His hand fisted where it rested atop his thigh. “The feeling just grew and changed, as we both did.”

He would never forget the afternoon when they had played in the stream, as they often did. He in his breeches, she stripped to her chemise. She had just reached fifteen years, he ten and eight. He had stumbled across the pebbled shore, attempting to catch a fleeing frog, when he’d fallen. Her delighted laughter turned his head, and the sight of her had changed his life forever. Bathed in sunlight, drenched in water, her beautiful features transformed by merriment, she had seemed a water nymph to him. Alluring. Innocently seductive.

His breath had caught in his throat; his body had hardened. Heated cravings burned in his blood and dried his mouth. His cock—which had become an aching, demanding torment as he’d matured—throbbed with painful pressure. He was no innocent, but the physical urgings he’d appeased before were merely annoying when compared to the need wrought by the sight of Amelia’s seminude body.

Somehow . . . sometime, when he hadn’t been looking, Amelia had grown into a young woman. And he wanted her. Wanted her as he’d never wanted anything before. His heart clenched with his sudden longing; his arms ached to hold her. Deep inside him, he felt an emptiness and knew she would fill it. Make him whole. Complete him. She’d been everything to him as a child. He knew she would be everything to him as a man.

“Colin?” Her smile had faded as tension filled the air between them.

Later that evening, Pietro noted his somberness and questioned him. When he’d spilled out his discovery, his uncle reacted with novel ferocity.

“Stay away from her,” Pietro growled, his dark eyes burning in their intensity. “I should have ended your friendship long ago.”

“No!” Colin had been horrified at the thought. He couldn’t imagine his life without her.

Pietro slammed his fist on the table and loomed over him. “She is far above you. Beyond your reach. You will cost us our livelihood!”

“I love her!” As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew they were true.

Grim-faced, his uncle had dragged him out of their quarters in the stables and taken him into the village. There, he’d thrusted Colin into the arms of a pretty whore who delighted in exhausting him and wringing him dry. A mature woman, she was unlike the marginally experienced girls he’d dallied with before. She made certain he was spent. He left her bed with muscles turned to jelly and a need for a long nap.

When he’d staggered into the nearby tavern hours later, his uncle had met him with a jovial smile and fatherly pride. “Now you have another woman to love,” he’d pronounced, slapping him affectionately on the back.

To which Colin had corrected, “I’m grateful to her, yes. But I love only Amelia.”

Pietro’s face had fallen. The next day, when Colin saw Amelia and felt the same lustful longing as he’d experienced at the stream, he’d known instinctively that the sexual act would be different with her. Just as she’d made the days brighter and his heart lighter, he knew she would make sex deeper and richer, too. The hunger he felt for that connection was inescapable. It gnawed at him and gave him no rest.

Over the next few months, Pietro told him daily to leave her be. If he loved her, his uncle said, he would want the best for her, and a Gypsy stableboy could never be that.

And so he eventually found the fortitude to push her away out of love for her. It had killed him then.

It was killing him anew now.

The carriage dipped, swayed, and rumbled over the streets beneath it, every movement a signal that he was moving farther and farther away from the only thing he’d ever wanted in this world.

“You will return to her,” Jacques said quietly. “It is not the end.”

“Until we finish this matter with Cartland, I cannot even consider having her. There is a reason Quinn continued to use Cartland even though he was troublesome—he is an excellent tracker. As long as he is searching for me, I have no future.”

“I believe in destiny, mon ami. And yours is not to die at that man’s hands. I can promise you that.”

Colin nodded, but in truth, he was not so optimistic.

The white-gloved fingers that were curled around the carriage windowsill belonged to Montoya. Amelia knew it with bone-deep surety.

As the nondescript equipage passed her, she chanced a stray glance through the open window and spotted Jacques. Frozen in surprise, a shiver of discovery moved through her and filled her with hope. Then she noted the many trunks strapped to the back of the coach.

Montoya was leaving Town, just as he’d said he would.

Fortuitously for her but unfortunate for him, his driver had chosen to travel along the very street she and Maria traversed in their search for him.

“Maria,” she said urgently, afraid to tear her gaze away for fear she would lose sight of him.

“Hmm?” her sister hummed distractedly. “I see masks in the display here.”

Before Amelia could protest, Maria slipped into the nearest store, the merry chiming of bells heralding her departure.

A multitude of pedestrians milled around them, though many steered clear due to Tim, who towered over everyone and guarded his charges with an eagle eye.

“Tim.” Amelia lifted her hand and pointed at the carriage, which continued to move farther away. “Montoya is in that black travel coach. We must move swiftly or we shall lose him.”

The sensation of something precious sifting through her fingers caused a sort of anxiety she had never felt before. She grabbed her skirts and followed at a near run.

A hackney discharged its passengers a few yards up the street. Amelia hurried toward it with one hand lifted in a frantic wave.

Realizing her intent, Tim cursed under his breath, grabbed her elbow, and dragged her along. “Halt!” he roared as the driver raised his whip.

The man turned his head and froze at the sight of Tim. Swallowing hard, he nodded. When they reached the coach, Tim yanked the door open and thrust her up into it. He looked at the two lackeys who followed them. “Go back with the others and find Mrs. St. John. Tell her what happened.”

Sam, a red-haired man who had been in St. John’s employ for years, gave a jerky nod. “Aye. Be careful.”

Tim lunged into the coach, forcing Amelia back into the interior. “I don’t like this,” he said gruffly.

“Hurry!” she urged. “You can chastise me on the way.” He glowered and cursed again, then yelled instructions to the driver.

The hackney lurched into motion, pulling away from the milling pedestrians and into the traffic of the street.

The doorbells were still chiming when Maria came to an abrupt halt just inside the door of the shop.

A tall, elegantly attired gentleman blocked her way to the deeper interior. At his side, a lovely blonde was wearing the very latest in French fashion. Maria’s gaze moved from one to the other, noting what a handsome couple they made.

“Simon!” Maria gaped in startled recognition.

“Mhuirnín.” As he captured her hand and lifted it to his lips, the tender affection in the beloved voice was palpable. “You look ravishing, as always.”

Simon Quinn stood before her looking more sinfully delicious than any man had a right to. Dressed in buff-colored breeches and a dark green coat, his powerful frame drew the eye of every woman within viewing distance. He bore the form of a laborer, while clad in superbly tailored garments fit for the king himself.

“I was not aware that you had returned to London,” she chastised gently. “And I admit I am more than slightly piqued that you did not seek me out immediately.”

The Frenchwoman smiled a smile that never reached her cold, blue eyes. “Quinn . . .” She shook her head, setting the festive ribbons that adorned it to swaying. “It appears your poor treatment of women is an unfortunate recurring trait in you.”

“Hush,” he snapped.

Maria frowned, unaccustomed to Simon being curt to lovely females.

The bells chimed again, and she attempted to step out of the way when her arm was caught by a grasping hand. Taken aback, she pivoted in a swirl of deep rose-colored skirts and found Sam looking far too anxious beside her.

“Miss Amelia saw ’is coach,” the lackey blurted out, “and ran after ’im. Tim’s with ’er, but—”

“Amelia?” It was then that Maria realized her sister was not beside her. She rushed back out the door and onto the crowded street.

“There,” Sam said, pointing at a hackney moving down the street.

“She saw Montoya?” Maria asked, her gut knotting with apprehension. Lifting her skirts, she pushed her way through the milling pedestrians. Simon and the blonde came fast on her heels, and more of St. John’s men barreled through directly after them. They were causing somewhat of a melee, but she did not care. Reaching Amelia was her only concern.

When it became apparent that there was no hope of catching up to them on foot, she stopped. “I need my carriage.”

“I sent for it,” Sam assured from his position at her side.

“Seek out St. John and explain.” Her mind rushed ahead, planning out the possibilities of the next few hours. “I will take the rest of the men with me. Once we find Amelia, someone will be sent back with our direction.”

Sam nodded his agreement and departed to collect his mount.

“What the devil is going on?” Simon asked, a frown marring the space between his brilliant blue eyes. The blonde, for her part, looked only vaguely interested.

Maria sighed. “My sister has become enamored of a masked stranger she met at a ball several nights ago, and she is chasing him.”

The sudden tension that gripped Simon’s frame increased her anxiety. If he sensed some danger from the situation, she knew it must be more than worry for a sibling that drove her.

“I have been fretting over it ever since,” she continued, “but she cannot be swayed. I attempted to reason with her, but she is determined to find him. As is St. John. I offered to assist Amelia in her search as a way to control at least a part of the whole affair, but apparently she spotted him on the street a few moments ago and is now giving chase.”

“Good God!” Simon cried, eyes wide.

“Oh, this is delightful!” Miss Rousseau said, her eyes finally showing some signs of life.

“I will come with you,” Simon said briskly, gesturing to his footman who waited nearby. The boy rushed off to fetch Simon’s carriage.

“You do not have to become involved,” Maria said, heaving out her breath. “You are presently engaged. Enjoy your day.”

“You are upset, mhuirnín. And perhaps I can help. We were on our way out of Town for holiday, as it was. Miss Rousseau does not mind the alteration of our destination.”

“No, no indeed,” the Frenchwoman said, smiling. “In fact, I should like to come along. Foolish young lovers are always so diverting.”

Simon growled, the sound so edgy that Maria reconsidered her continuing protests and held her silence instead. Simon had been her lieutenant for many years, and his assistance would be tremendously valuable. Whatever the situation was between him and Miss Rousseau, it was for them alone to work out. She had enough trouble of her own to manage.

It was a few moments longer before the gleam of highly polished black lacquer heralded the approach of the St. John town coach. Maria hoped that the distance to be traveled was not one that would need the sturdier travel carriage.

Simon’s equipage drew up behind hers, and with laudable haste they were all in hot pursuit.

Colin vaulted down from his travel coach with relief, his long legs cramped from the many hours spent traveling from London to the small posting inn just past Reading. He stood in the courtyard a moment and surveyed his moonlit surroundings. Jacques alighted behind him, and together they entered the inn to secure their lodging for the night.

The dim interior was quiet. Only a few patrons remained in the main room; the rest had retired. The necessary arrangements were quickly dealt with, and shortly, Colin found himself in a small, sparsely furnished room that was clean and comfortable.