Free Awakening Amelia by Kate Pearce

think. Jem took him into the inn to have a pint of ale and some supper, an offer that Marcus accepted with gratitude.
    Eventually, they were ready to leave and Jem had the horses harnessed while Marcus held their heads.
    “Come on then, Marco. Let’s go.”
    Marcus walked around to Jem, who had already mounted his box, and looked up at him.
    “I can’t come back yet.” He swallowed hard. “Will you give Mrs. Smith a message for me? Tell her I have discovered important information and I’m pursuing it. Promise her that I will return when I have news.”
    Jem nodded and gathered the multiple reins in one capable hand. “Aye, I’ll tell her.”
    Marcus stepped back. “Then Godspeed.”
    He watched the cart trundle off, the barrels swaying ponderously in the rear and then turned back toward the city. There was one man whose name he had remembered who might be able to help him discover more about his past. Now all he had to do was find him.

Chapter 6
    Two weeks left before she would be leaving Dove Cottage…with no occupation, a small pension and nowhere else to go. Amelia forced herself to pick up her quill pen and draw the sheet of paper toward her. It was well past midnight. Betty was asleep and Amelia was… contemplating her uncertain future.
    She couldn’t go back to her family. Even if she begged, she knew they wouldn’t help her, and she had no intention of asking them. Her decision to marry Matthew had permanently cut all ties. She’d known it then, and she still didn’t regret it. She let out her breath and the candle flame wavered and then straightened again. All her applications for positions as a governess had been ignored, and no one seemed to need any schoolteachers.
    Even as she completed that dismal thought, she remembered that her old governess, Matilda Stone, now worked at a girls’ school in Tunbridge Wells. Dipping her pen into the inkpot, she composed a letter to Matilda about her current circumstances and asked for advice.
    After searching for Matilda’s address and sealing the letter with wax, Amelia tidied up the desk. She had to make Betty believe that she was leaving voluntarily for something better, or her aunt would worry terribly and might even refuse to accept her decision. Despite all his stuffiness, she knew that Jonathan and his wife would take care of Betty for the rest of her life.
    Tears rose in her throat, and she resolutely pushed them down. She would survive. She wasn’t a pauper. If the worst came to the worst, she could move to London, find lodgings and seek a job there. She glanced across the table at the empty chair where Marco usually sat and pictured him there—his expression serious, his attention fixed on her. She missed him. He was the first man since Matthew who seemed to like her exactly as she was. Ever since he’d left she’d dreamed about him, the curl of black hair that fell over his forehead when he was concentrating, his wry smile that hid so much pain, and the intensity of his regard when he touched her even in the smallest way.
    Amelia pressed her hands to her cheeks as she relived each and every one of his caresses. He’d made her feel alive again. Made her want things that she’d thought had died along with Matthew. If she’d known her future was so precarious before he’d left, would she have allowed him further liberties? Would she have allowed herself to want him back?
    There was a tapping sound on the glass, and she stifled a gasp as a ghostly figure appeared at the window and disappeared around the side of the cottage toward the kitchen.
    Heart thumping wildly, she tiptoed through the silent house and unlocked the back door.
    “Mrs. Smith. I do apologize for disturbing you at such a late hour but the coach lost a wheel and I had to walk from the previous village.”
    “Marco.” She congratulated herself on the calmness of her tone, and then took in the differences of his appearance. Had she conjured him with the intensity of her need? Was