“My mother was Spanish.”
“And you are enchanting.”
Amelia inhaled sharply, startled by how the simple compliment affected her. She heard such platitudes daily, and they held as much meaning as a comment on the weather. But Montoya’s delivery altered the words, imbuing them with feeling and an underlying urgency.
“It appears I must apologize again,” the count said, with a self-deprecating smile. “Allow me to escort you back before I make a further fool of myself.”
She reached out to him, then caught herself and clutched the stick of her mask with both hands instead. “Your cloak . . . Are you departing?”
He nodded, and the tension in the air between them heightened. There was no reason for him to linger, and yet she sensed that they both wanted him to.
Something was holding him back.
“Why?” she asked softly. “You have not yet asked me to dance or flirted with me or made a casual remark about where you intend to be in the future so that we might find one another again.”
Montoya reentered the small circle. “You are too bold, Miss Benbridge,” he admonished gruffly.
“And you are a coward.”
He drew up sharply just a few inches from her.
A cool evening breeze blew across the top of her shoulder, carrying with it one of the long, artful curls that hung down her back. The count’s gaze focused on the glossy lock, then drifted over the swell of her br**sts.
“You look at me as a man looks at his mistress.”
“Do I?” His voice had lowered, grown softer, the accent more pronounced. It was a lover’s tone, or a seducer’s. She felt it move over her skin like a tactile caress, and she relished the experience. It was rather like exiting a warm house on a frosty day. The sudden impact of sensation was startling and stole one’s breath.
“How would you know that look, Miss Benbridge?”
“I know a great many things. However, since you have decided not to acquaint yourself with me, you will never know what they are.”
His arms crossed his chest. It was a challenging pose, yet it made her smile, because it signaled his intent to stay. At least for a short while longer. “And what of Lord Ware?” he asked.
“What of him?”
“You are, for all intents and purposes, betrothed.”
“So I am.” She noted how his jaw tensed. “Do you have a grievance with Lord Ware?”
The count did not reply.
She began tapping her foot again. “We are having visceral reactions to one another, Count Montoya. As attractive as you are, I would venture to say that you are accustomed to snaring women’s interest. For my part, I can say with absolute certainty that a similar situation has never happened to me before. Stunning men do not follow me about—”
“You remind me of someone I used to know,” he interrupted. “A woman I cared for deeply.”
“Oh.” Try as she might, Amelia could not hide her disappointment. He had thought she was someone else. His interest was not in her, but in a woman who looked like her.
Turning away, she sank onto the small bench, absently arranging her skirts for comfort. Her hands occupied themselves with twirling her mask between gloved fingertips.
“It is my turn to apologize to you.” Her head tilted back so that their gazes met. “I have put you in an awkward position, and goaded you to stay when you wanted to go.”
The contemplative cant to his head made her wish she could see the features beneath the pearlescent mask. Despite the lack of a complete visual picture, she found him remarkably attractive—the purring rumble of his voice . . . the luscious shape of his lips . . . the unshakable confidence of his bearing . . .
But then he was not truly unshakable. She was affecting him in ways a stranger should not be able to. And he was affecting her equally.
“That was not what you wished to hear,” he noted, stepping closer.
Her gaze strayed to his boots, watching as his cape fluttered around them. Dressed as he was, he was imposing, but she was unafraid.