“I’m sorry,” he said softly. He moved over on the wall and placed an arm around her shoulders. “I’m truly sorry.”
His voice was soft and compassionate, but she wasn’t ready to accept sympathy just now. It made everything too real.
“I…” His arm tightened around her. “I don’t understand. Your father, why he went back inside. When the shop was aflame.”
Slow tears overflowed, quiet tears, not a storm like earlier in the day when he’d found her. They burned in her eyes and traced hot paths down her cheeks.
She was so exhausted.
“He wanted a painting of my mother.” She brushed at the tears with the back of her good hand.
“A painting?” She could feel Lord Greystone beside her, shaking his head in disbelief.
“He had to have that picture. A miniature. He used to sit for hours, staring at it. Perhaps—perhaps he didn’t really want to live without her,” she said with a flash of insight that felt like a knife in her chest. “Now I have no one. I’m all alone.”
He jumped down and stood before her, gripping her shoulders. “You’re not alone, Amy.”
“Yes—yes, I am. My parents are gone…my home is gone…”
Well, there was Robert, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her.
But there was no one to make her marry him now.
“You must have family, somewhere?”
“Only my Aunt Elizabeth.” The words came out a whisper, forced through her painfully tight throat. “She lives in Paris. Last year when I stayed with her I was miserable.”
“You’d just lost your mother,” he reminded her gently. “You would have been miserable anywhere.” With him standing and her seated on the wall, they were of a height. His eyes searched hers, an intense gray, their color neutralized by the darkness. “It’s not so bad as all that.”
More tears brimmed over, and she saw his brow crease in response.
“I wish I weren’t alive,” she whispered, dropping her head to escape his penetrating gaze.
“Never say that,” he said vehemently. “It’s good to be alive. Never ever say that.”
Hesitantly, almost shyly, he leaned forward and reached his arms around her, pulling her to him. Her downturned face was squished against his shoulder, her body rigid with tension and uncertainty. She finally had to raise her chin to breathe and felt his cheek graze hers, warm and a bit rough. The unfamiliar sensation took her aback.
“Dear heavens,” she whispered.
It was the first human connection she’d felt since she saw her father disappear into the raging inferno that used to be her home.
Suddenly, here in Lord Greystone’s arms, she was far away, removed from her hostile reality, and she wished she could stay here in his arms forever. He stroked her hair, and she let him, lulled by the gentle tug of his fingers working slowly, patiently through her tangled curls. Some of the tension drained from her body. She was only half-aware of her arms snaking around him, her chin settling snugly in the crook of his neck.
Dimly realizing that his attempts at comfort were edging too far toward impropriety, Colin tried to pull back. But Amy came off the wall with him, sliding down his front until her feet came to rest on the grass, her face pressed into his shirt, her tears soaking the thin linen.
Criminy. Despite her gut-wrenching misery, he couldn’t help but think how good she felt in his arms. It was absolutely…flustering.
In fact, with Amy pressed up against him, he could hardly think at all.
When she wiped her eyes and tilted her head back to look up at him, he pulled her even closer and touched his lips to hers.
The travelers rumbling by in the background, the crickets in the hills, the wind blowing past…all faded away. Like magic.
Amy was so surprised, she kept her eyes open instead of squeezing them tight as she always had against Robert’s kisses. But then, this was nothing like Robert’s kisses. This kiss was soft and sure, warm and welcoming. It was like a potion—she couldn’t remember who she was or whether she had any problems. Lord Greystone smelled smoky and salty but tasted like the ale they’d had at dinner, only sweeter, and he was just as beautiful up close, especially when he opened his startling emerald eyes and looked straight into hers—
Colin wrenched away, his arms falling to his sides. His breathing was sharp, his nerves jangling. What was he doing?
Kissing a girl who wasn’t his betrothed, that’s what.
And even worse, he was taking advantage of Amy’s grief, her vulnerability, her overwhelming loneliness. What on earth had come over him? He wasn’t that kind of person. He’d always thought of himself as cool and rational, never carried away by impulse.
And certainly never anything less than a gentleman.
He was thoroughly disgusted with himself.
Amy stared at him, dazed, her legs wobbly.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He didn’t sound like Lord Greystone, Amy thought. His voice was rough, and he did look sorry—ashamed, even.
“Sorry?” Amy’s senses were still spinning. She wasn’t sorry, not one bit. She’d never imagined any person could make her feel like someone else, in a different time and place, and she’d wanted that feeling to go on forever.
And, unless she was mistaken, he’d felt much the same. Surely he couldn’t have kissed her like that if he hadn’t. Or could he? She realized she had no idea.
“You’re sorry?” she pressed.
“Well, not sorry exactly,” he said in that unfamiliar rough voice, fumbling for the words. “It’s just…I shouldn’t have done that…taken advantage of you like that. Not that I didn’t want to—oh, a pox on this!” He took a step toward her and put his hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length, clearly exasperated. “You’re a proper young merchant girl, and you’ve suffered a frightful tragedy, and I mean to protect you, not—not ruin you.” The flush rising up his neck was visible even in the dark.
His words sounded sensible enough. The
