Then rough hands were upon her as Robert Tarryton dragged her to her feet. When she stood he slapped her hard. “Bitch!” he accused her with a quiet smile. Then he wrenched her forward to where his own mount waited. He set her swiftly upon it and mounted in a leap behind her.
His whisper was chilling against her. “I’m just wondering, Amanda, whether to settle my score first with your husband—or with you. We do have a score to settle, milady, and I’ve imagined endless ways of just how it will be settled!”
“He’ll kill you!” Amanda promised on a whisper.
Tarryton broke into dry laughter. He lashed his horse’s haunches pitilessly. “No, he’ll kill you. You’ve always been a traitor to him. And here’s just another occasion of your treachery. Before I hang him, Amanda, love, I will be sure to let him know that you have been very cleverly planning his demise for the longest time!”
XIX
Eric had just returned to the hut after extensive drilling of the troops with Von Steuben when he heard his name called hysterically from outside. That the place seemed very empty and cold without Amanda about added to his feeling of icy anxiety as he hurried to open the door.
Geneva was practically falling from one of the broken-down old nags that had toughly survived the winter. Damien was rushing over from the blacksmith’s to catch her as she fell.
“Damien, oh, thank God! And Eric!”
“What’s happened?” Damien demanded.
“Bring her in,” Eric urged. “Out of the cold.”
In seconds Geneva was inside, sipping brandy, a blanket wrapped about her shoulders. “She insisted that we search for food. Amanda. She thought that we could contribute to the men by scouring the country ourselves. Then she fell …Eric, she’s alive but I think that her leg is broken. She needs you desperately.”
Cold…she was lying out in the cold, shivering, hurt, probably in horrid pain. There was a storm coming too. If the snows came on too densely, they might never find her, she might perish in her attempts to prove herself a loyal patriot…
“Dear God!” he whispered aloud, and then he was in motion. “Damien, tell Frederick to arrange for a wagon. Geneva, can you tell me where she is? How to reach her? Frederick will need you to guide him, and I must get to her with blankets and brandy. The cold is so very bitter!”
“Of course, of course—” Geneva said, rising.
But then the door swung open. Jacques Bisset stood in the doorway, towering and dark, a mask of fury upon his face as he stared at Geneva.
“The woman is lying,” he said flatly.
“What?” Eric demanded sharply.
“The woman is lying.”
“How dare you!” Geneva gasped. “Eric! Damien! You are not going to listen this—this—frog servant! And take his word over mine?”
There was something in her tone of voice that Eric didn’t like at all. He smiled slowly, leaning back against the wall. “I have known Jacques most of my life, Geneva. He has never lied to me. Jacques, tell me quickly, what is the truth of this?”
“I followed them. Lady Geneva came here and urged Amanda with her. I followed them when they rode out into the snow. I kept my eye upon it all when they were ambushed by a troop of redcoats. It was planned, Lord Cameron. It was a planned kidnapping.”
Eric felt as if his heart were catapulting to his gut and there lay bleeding. His mouth dry, he demanded, “Who, Jacques? Who has taken her?”
“Tarryton. Lord Robert Tarryton. She was lured to your side, and now you are being lured to hers. I didn’t know what to do! I could not bear to leave her with them, alone in the snow, yet I could not help her unless I came back to warn you. She is the bait, Lord Cameron. The bait to lure you to your death.” He hesitated, staring at Geneva. If eyes could kill, Eric thought, Geneva would have been lying in blood, slain with daggers through the core of her heart.
Damien backed away from the woman. The fire burned low in the little hut, smoke and soot seemed heavy on the air. Then he took a step toward her. She backed away from him, toward the wall.
“It’s a lie!” she cried out. “He’s lying and I don’t know why! I can’t begin to understand—”
“I can!” Eric interrupted harshly. He strode past Damien, wrenching Geneva around by the shoulders. “It was you. You were the one to see to it that Nigel Sterling and Robert Tarryton knew about the arms kept at Cameron Hall. It was you.”
“No!”
“Yes,” Damien said softly. “I told her. I told her while we lay in bed. The bloody whore!” he exclaimed.
Geneva spat at Damien. He cracked her furiously across the cheek with his open palm. Screaming, she cowered on the floor. “Eric, make him stop—”
“What do we do with her, Eric?” Damien asked, his jaw still twisted savagely, his fingers knotting into fists. “God forgive me, and Eric, would that you could forgive me too! The grief that this woman has caused us all with her treachery, and the fool that I was to believe in her!”
