“Because of the arms?”
Eric was silent for just the beat of a second. “But the governor knows of no arms, my love.”
She swung around, facing him. “I would never betray this hall, Eric, never!”
“But who, then, is ‘Highness’?” he asked her.
She shook her head, lowering it against his chest. “I would never betray my very home!” she promised him.
“Pray, lady, that you do not,” he whispered, and he held her close. She said nothing, and she luxuriated in his warmth. But it wasn’t enough. She was shivering, and she was afraid.
When he left, he was gone so very long. Days passed and the weeks passed and then months.
“You tremble,” he told her.
“With the cold.”
“But I am holding you.”
“But you will leave,” she told him desolately.
She couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness. He stared down at her, and the depths of his feelings for her were on the tip of his tongue. He loved her so deeply. Her beauty, her fire. He loved the way that she came to him now, so naturally, so givingly. She made love with passion and with laughter, and in the midst of it, her eyes were ever more beautiful. And yet…
They could be ever treacherous.
She held so much in her hands now. She knew about the arms and weaponry stored at the docks. If she betrayed them now…
She would not! he thought with anguish. She would not!
XIV
New York
May 1776
She would not betray him! Bah!
That was his thought two months later when he sat in Washington’s large white canvas tent in New York and stared at his old friend. The general had just written him orders, commanding him to take a ship south. His old friend and partner, Sir Thomas—now Colonel Sir Thomas—had managed to have their ship, theGood Earth, brought down from Boston.
“For one,” Washington told him, “Congress has now sanctioned privateering. Whatever damage you may do upon the sea will be appreciated.”
It was late May, and they had spent the last weeks preparing earthworks and trenches for the attack they knew was to come upon New York. Brooklyn Heights and Manhattan had been fortified and manned, and Congress had ordered Washington to hold New York. The colonials were aware that the British general Howe was due to sail south for New York from Halifax, Nova Scotia. His brother, Admiral Richard Howe, was to sail from England with reinforcements. The ragtag colonial army—in trouble now as many enlistments came to an end and the men yearned to return home—would be hard put to meet the British menace. They all knew it. Despite the victories in Virginia and the Carolinas, they desperately needed to hold the north. Benedict Arnold was losing his tenacious hold of the area outside of Quebec, and General Burgoyne had arrived with reinforcements. It was a tense time for the colonials.
And in the midst of this, Eric was sitting before Washington, hearing a confiscated message that warned Lord Dunmore of the arms and powder stored in the warehouses at Cameron Hall. There was also an urgent appeal from General Lewis of the Virginia militia that Eric come with all haste to seek to oppose an expected attack from the sea.
His hands felt cold. In the heat of coming summer, he felt as if icy fingers stroked him up and down the back in cruel mockery. He had given Amanda the benefit of every doubt. He had known that she had once practiced treachery, but he had believed her when she had sworn herself to him. He was ever the fool. The greater her passion, it seemed, the greater the betrayal. While he dreamed of the nights they had lain together, tortured himself with images of her hair curled about his naked flesh, her eyes as bright as emerald seas, her breasts full and rich within his hands and the scent of her so sweetly intoxicating it invaded even a dream…
He was alone with Washington. The general watched him sadly, reaching into his private stock of whiskey to offer Eric a drink.
“You were last home at the end of March?”
Eric nodded. He pulled the confiscated correspondence—signed “Highness”—toward him, then he swore violently.
“Perhaps you judge too quickly,” Washington warned him.
Eric shook his head. His next words were harsh, and as cold and ruthless as he felt. “On the contrary, General, I have dragged my feet, and I may cost us much because of it!”
He stood, swallowing down the last of his whiskey, then saluted sharply. “With your leave, then, I will sail south.”
