One day Hartwell Howard would go too far. His blood pressure would shoot high enough to kill him during one of his outbursts, or he would hurt Amelia. Quinn knew that he could never live with a tragedy if he’d done nothing to try and prevent it. The problem of Amelia had to be solved, and soon. He wished he knew what had made his father change so drastically, and he decided that it was probably grief for the loss of his wife and two little sons.
If only Amelia felt a tenderness for Alan Culhane, he decided. A marriage between them would be a good idea, and it would put Amelia under King’s protection.
King disliked her, but he wouldn’t allow her to be harmed. King was always controlled, and he would never lay a brutal hand on her.
Now there would have been a match. If Amelia had been her old self she would have been perfect for King. Quinn was sorry that she’d changed so.
He laughed at his own folly in entertaining such thoughts of matchmaking. They were enemies, and it was better so. Better to let King cling to his misconceptions about Amelia and steer her toward Alan, who would be kind to her even if she never reached any great and passionate heights with him. He finished his rabbit, and without having solved the problem of Amelia, finally leaned back and drifted off to sleep to the crackle of the fire and the distant wailing of coyotes.
* * *
Amelia had seen King go out on the dark porch with Darcy, and something inside her grew small and withdrew. Nevertheless, she pretended gaiety, and Ted responded to her charm with every scrap of his.
By the end of the evening, he had promised to call on her the moment her father was back and they were home again. He didn’t realize how Amelia dreaded her father’s return and the certainty of violence when they were back at the boardinghouse. The one point in her favor she reminded herself again was that it was a crowded boardinghouse at the moment, and her father was forced to be more circumspect than usual.
But his job at the bank meant that soon they would be able to afford a small house, and that would place Amelia at his mercy as his pain and rage grew. And inevitably, soon, he would die….
She was standing alone at the drawing room door while Ted went to get her a cup of punch, and her face and eyes registered the panic she felt.
“Are you all right?” King asked suddenly.
Shocked by his silent approach, she looked up with wide, wounded eyes and heard his breath catch at the vulnerability in her flushed face. Their eyes held, and Amelia felt new and shocking sensations tingling all along her slender body.
“Amelia?” Darcy called sharply, and rapidly moved close to hold onto King’s arm with a look of pretended concern. “You do look ghastly, my dear. What is it?”
Amelia felt patronized, unsettled, and afraid. She looked around with blind apprehension for Ted, and relief flamed on her features when she saw him waving to her from the punch bowl, where he was waiting to be served.
“Oh, you’re thirsty, is that it?” Darcy dismissed the incident at once. “Ted will look after her, King. Do come and meet Mr. Farmer. Amelia will excuse us, won’t you?”
“In a minute, Darcy,” King said coldly.
Darcy looked taken aback, but she forced a smile and moved reluctantly away.
Amelia’s wide brown eyes met King’s, and she colored again, having lost the rescue she was certain of having.
King eyed her with speculation and renewed interest. The electricity that had flashed between them was shared. He knew she’d felt it, from the fear in her eyes and the color that was flooding her cheeks. He liked the sense of satisfied pleasure it gave him, to know that her reaction to him was violent and unpretended. It had been a long, long time since a woman had been attracted to him physically and not financially. It made him feel strange.
He moved closer, deliberately. Not blatantly closer, but enough that she could feel the heat from his body and smell the cologne he used. He could see her bodice move more rapidly as her breathing changed.
“What is it, Amelia?” His voice sounded different. Husky. Deep. Smooth, like a flow of molasses.
She could barely get enough breath to answer him. “As your … as Miss Valverde said, I’m … I’m only hot.”
His big, lean hand came up unobtrusively to lie against her bare arm where the sleeve of her gown was separated from the long, white opera gloves she wore with it. The touch of him was electric, frightening. Her pupils dilated wildly as she met his eyes.
“Your skin certainly is,” he said quietly, frowning. “Are you feverish?”
“No! I mean, no. It’s just the crush of people, I’m sure it is, so many in one room … !”
“You’re babbling,” he said gently, and a quizzical half-smile touched his firm mouth as he looked at her.
Her bow lips parted, and his eyes fell to their soft pink perfection. He saw the faint tremble of the full lower one and knew a hunger so violent and unexpected that it made his muscles contract all over his tall body.
Her hand went to the jacket over his broad chest, as much for support as for protest. “King,” she whispered in a soft plea.
He watched her lips move and wanted to take them under his, to part their softness and ease between them, to feel her body yield to his, and her arms slide around him. He wanted the softness of her breasts against his bare chest….
Her eyes lifted to meet his, and the silver glitter in them made her heart stop. She hadn’t dreamed of an emotion so sudden and shocking. She hadn’t known that she was capable of this violence of need. She certainly hadn’t expected King to react like this to her, when he’d as much as told her he was engaged to Darcy. She felt, and looked, all at sea.
“Do you want my mouth, Amelia?” he asked very softly, his eyes relentless.
The words shocked, appalled. “Mr … Culhane!” she gasped.
She started to jerk away, and his lean hand snapped around her wrist, staying her hand on his chest.
“Don’t struggle, or you’ll draw attention us,” he said roughly.
“What are you doing?” she asked frantically, her eyes drawing away from his finally to search the room. But, incredibly, no one was looking at them.
“Insane, is it not?” he asked in a low whisper. “We can feel the world spinning around us and not one other person seems to be aware of it.”
Her shocked eyes levered back up to his, finding his steady, glittery gaze intimidating even while it excited her.
“Oh, yes,” he said on a curt laugh. “I feel it, too. What a joke that is, Miss Howard, when my mind finds you nothing if not contemptible!”
She struggled for composure. She’d fallen right into his trap. It was another method of tormenting her, that was all. He’d discovered that she was vulnerable to him, and now he was going to use that against her.
“Your opinion of me will not keep me awake, sir,” she said with as much pride as she could manage.
“Your hunger for me will,” he
