He squared his shoulders and wondered how he would bear it, knowing that she was in France. At least she would be far away from Tarryton. And she would be safe. Bisset would see to that. He leaned against the wall in anguish.
He straightened at last, breathing deeply. Then he walked down the hallway, down the long portrait gallery. He paused, looking up at his ancestors, at the men and women who had carved out this Eden from the raw wilderness.
The fires of war were burning brightly in his Eden.
He turned and walked again. Lewis would be awaiting him and his men. They had to break the British menace, and he had to return to Washington soon. The Congress was meeting; any day the colonies would declare for freedom.
And he would risk all in that struggle.
But he would not lose! he swore, and he paused, looking back to the bedroom. Poignant, wistful pain swept into his heart. If only she were with them!
If only she did love him.
In the gallery he stared at the portraits. Theirs were the last ones. Her hair was swept up in ringlets and fashionable curls, her beautiful eyes had been caught in all the majesty of their color. Her smile was one that could make a man willing to die in any manner for a mere whisper from her lips.
He was beside her, in the very uniform he wore now.
Lord and Lady Cameron of Cameron Hall, one of the finest properties in Tidewater Virginia! he thought with some bitter irony. They graced the gallery as finely as any of his illustrious ancestors, when they might well be the very fall of the house. Was he the first Cameron to sell his soul for love, his birthright for some vague dream of new country?
Amanda…
He had not left the house, and already his blood warmed and his muscles tensed and tightened when he thought her name and conjured before his eyes a vision of the woman he had left behind. He was tempted to turn back, but he could not. There were battles to be waged. In Philadelphia men were busy writing the words for the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson was drafting the document, he had heard. The Virginians were very proud of that fact, just as they were proud that many of the ideas were coming from words penned for Virginia by George Mason.
The British would hang him, he thought, if they ever got their hands upon him. Dunmore, his old friend, would hang him higher than any other.
He looked up at the portraits again and smiled wryly. “What do you say, monsieurs? Am I a fool? Casting this heritage to the winds of war?” Perhaps not, he thought, his smile deepening. His forebears had left behind a safe and guarded world to strike out into a wilderness. They would understand that he gambled all in a dream of liberty and honor. Even if his wife did not.
He turned, fighting the urge to go back to touch her just once again. He left the portraits behind and hurried down the stairs. Cassidy waited for him at the front door, holding his mount.
“There’s a flagon of whiskey in your saddlebag,” Cassidy told him.
“For breakfast, eh, Cassidy?”
Cassidy grinned. “Thought you might be needing it.”
Eric agreed. “Aye, that I might. But I’ll have to get the troops moving first. Wouldn’t do to show them a drunken example, eh, Cassidy?”
“No, sir, it wouldn’t do at all.”
Eric mounted upon his horse and looked down to Cassidy. “You’ll go with her to France?”
“Wherever you send me, milord, I will go.”
Eric stretched out his hand and took Cassidy’s dark one. “Thank you. And Pierre. And see that Jacques sails with her too; that is very important. He will let no harm come to her.”
Cassidy nodded. “Jacques will guard her with his life. His loyalty to her is deep seated.”
“It should be,” Eric murmured.
“Milord?”
He hesitated, looking down at Cassidy. “I believe that she is his daughter,” he said quietly, then grinned at Cassidy’s dumbfounded expression. “Say nothing.”
“No!” Cassidy agreed. “You mean Lord Sterling—”
“Is a monster,” Eric agreed, but said nothing more on the subject. If there was a God, and if there were a multitude of battles, surely Sterling would be taken home to his eternal rest before it was all over. “I will come as soon as I can. God alone knows when that will be. If I am killed—”
“Lord Cameron, please!”
