Longing to pull his hair out, Amanda let loose with a startling oath. “Damien, don’t you dare say such a thing to me! After all that he has said and done that you have seen or heard!”
“He has been honest,” Damien said quietly. “Which you are not, cousin,” he added.
She longed to rail at him and barely managed to hold back her words. “Leave me be, Damien.”
“Amanda,” he said softly.
“What?”
“I love you, you know,” he reminded her.
She exhaled. “Oh, Damien! I love you too.”
He reached across the dark carriage and squeezed her hand as Cato drove up around the driveway to the front door of the palace. “I’ll deliver you to your father, and then Cato and I shall retire for the evening.” He lifted her from the carriage and set her upon her feet, grinning. “I shall face my uncle the ogre with you!” he said dramatically.
“I will be all right,” she assured him.
He shrugged. “Come.”
The door was already being opened by a servant in handsome livery. They entered the hall and Amanda saw her father coming down the stairway, hurrying toward them.
“I’ve brought her home, Uncle, well and in good time, I pray,” Damien said.
Nigel Sterling nodded curtly to Damien. “Fine. You may call upon her again, nephew.”
Damien quirked a brow at Amanda, then wished her good night and made a hasty retreat.
When the door closed behind him, the servant discreetly disappeared and Amanda faced her father alone.
“Well?”
She shrugged. “Lord Cameron intends to leave on the governor’s behalf to the west country to fight the Shawnee.”
“He does intend to go?”
“Yes, definitely. Dunmore knew that already.”
“Did Cameron introduce you to his acquaintances?”
“No.”
“Then you failed! He did not—”
“He asked me to marry him again, Father,” she said coldly, “so I did not fail.”
Sterling fell silent, stroking his chins. She returned her father’s stare and felt distinctly uneasy. He hated her and she was quickly learning to hate him.
She felt the letter in her pocket. She had brought it to turn over to her father.
Yet she could not do so. Not until she had read it herself.
“When he comes back, you’ll see him again.”
She smiled. “I understand that the Shawnee are fierce and merciless. Perhaps he will not return.”
“Then there will be no worry on the matter, and we will decide a different future for you.” He smiled pleasantly. “Lord Hastings has been a widower for some time now. He would be delighted to take you in marriage.”
Lord Hastings was well over sixty with a girth the size of an elephant’s and a penchant for whipping his slaves.
