“Many people find being alone intolerable.”

“They have no imagination. I, on the other hand, have too much imagination.”

“Oh?” He canted his body toward her. The pose caused his doeskin breeches to stretch tautly across the powerful muscles of his thighs. With the gray satin spread out beneath him in contrast, she could see every nuance and plane, every hard length of sinew. “What do you imagine?”

Swallowing hard, Amelia found she could not look away from the view. It was a lascivious glance she was giving him, her interest completely carnal.

“Umm…” She tore her gaze upward, dazed by the direction of her own thoughts. “Stories. Faery tales and such.”

With the half mask hiding his features she couldn’t be certain, but she thought he might have arched a brow at her. “Do you write them down?”

“Occasionally.”

“What do you do with them?”

“You have asked far too many questions without answering my one.”

Montoya’s dark eyes glittered with warm amusement. “Are we keeping score?”

“You were,” she pointed out. “I am simply following the rules you set.”

There! A dimple. She saw it.

“She was audacious,” he murmured, “like you.”

Amelia blushed and looked away, smitten with that tiny groove in his cheek. “Did you like that about her?”

“I loved that about her.”

The intimate pitch to his voice made her shiver.

He stood and held his hand out to her. “You are cold, Miss Benbridge. You should go inside.”

She looked up at him. “Will you go inside with me?”

The count shook his head.

Extending her arm, she set her fingers within his palm and allowed him to assist her to her feet. His hand was large and warm, his grasp strong and sure. She was reluctant to release him and was pleased when he seemed to feel similarly. They stood there for a long moment, touching, the only sound their gentle inhalations and subsequent exhales…until the gentle, haunting strains of the minuet drifted out on the night zephyr.