“C’est moi, Danielle.”
Amanda quickly opened the door and Danielle, dressed in sober blue with an immaculate white pinafore, slipped into the room. She had taken her hair down, and it streamed in dark folds down her back.
She touched Amanda’s cheek. “You had a nice evening,ma petite?”
“It was…fine,” Amanda lied. She forced a smile that probably did not fool the woman in the least. “You know how I love Damien.”
Danielle nodded and crossed the room to a large wardrobe in the corner, opened it, and brought out one of Amanda’s nightgowns. It was soft silk, trimmed with Flemish lace at the throat and bodice and sleeves. “Lord Sterling does buy for you the best,” Danielle murmured. “You have fought with him again?”
Amanda shrugged. “Not really. It is as it always is.”
“No. It is worse now. He sees you growing up.” She was quiet for a moment, her dark eyes luminous. “I should have killed him years ago!”
“Danielle!” Amanda gasped. “No, you cannot even think such a thing! They would hang you for it. And perhaps—perhaps not even God would forgive you.”
Danielle moved the silk against her cheek. “God would forgive me,” she said. She looked at Amanda, troubled. “That they should hang me, perhaps that is better than what he will do to you!”
Amanda was shaking again and she didn’t like it.
“He is my father. He would not really hurt me.” But she couldn’t help it; the shivers remained with her. She couldn’t forget the way that Nigel had called her mother a whore and suggested that she was just like her.
Danielle opened her mouth to say something, but then she closed it and helped Amanda out of her gown. Left in her stockings and corset and petticoats, Amanda hugged her arms about herself. “What was my mother like, Danielle?”
“Beautiful,” Danielle said softly. “Her eyes were the color of the sea, her hair was as radiant as a sunset. Her smile made others smile, and she was both gentle and passionate. And beautiful.” She hesitated, taking a petticoat as Amanda stepped from it. “You are her very image, Amanda. And that is why…”
“Why what?”
Danielle shook her head. “She was so very kind to me, and to Paul.”
“Paul?”
“My brother. He died before you were born.” Danielle untied the ribbons of Amanda’s corset, then slipped the nightgown over her head. Amanda murmured her thanks, then sat on the bed to remove her shoes and stockings and garters from beneath the gown, watching Danielle as she returned her things to the wardrobe and trunks.
“I can never forget,” Danielle continued. “It was so horrible. We Acadians, we were farmers in Nova Scotia. When the British took over the French rule, we vowed to serve the English king. But then war broke out again, and the French feared that we would fight with the British, while the British feared that we would take up arms with the French. And so they simply stole our land and exiled us from the place of our birth. We lived in a little town called Port Henri. It had been named for our great-grandfather. We reclaimed the marshland, we had many cattle, we fished the Bay of Fundy. Then the British gathered us at Port Royal and told us that we must leave. We were huddled into ships like slaves, and the captains made money on the misery they inflicted upon us. They made their coin, whether we lived or died.Mon Dieu!Day after day, the human waste and sickness gathered upon us. They would not let us out of the hold…except for Marie d’Estaing, for the captain raped her again and again. She began to look forward to his violence, for she told me that it was better than smothering in the hold with the smell and the worms. She died before we came to port. I was barely alive when our ship came to Williamsburg. Your mother demanded that your father take some of us in, and he was forced to oblige her. So Paul and I had a home.”
Amanda rolled up one of her stockings, her fingers clenching against the pain and injustice done to Danielle’s people. Many who had lived had not been accepted upon the colonial shores, and they had left again, searching for a homeland with the French, to the west.
Danielle exhaled slowly, then sucked in her breath. “I’m sorry. This is long ago. In 1754. Before you were born.”
“But my mother was there. And she was kind. She was good then, Danielle. She was good and kind and beautiful.”
Danielle nodded. “She was very good. Has someone told you otherwise?”
Amanda shook her head hastily. She knew that the pain her father caused her would hurt Danielle even worse. “I just wanted to hear about her from you, that is all.”
“Then good night,ma belle jeune fille,”Danielle said softly. She kissed Amanda’s head and hurried to the door. Then she swung back suddenly. “How long are we staying?”
“I—I don’t know,” Amanda replied. “Maybe not long. We have been invited to see Lord Cameron’s estate on the James. Perhaps we shall do so.”
Danielle’s eyes widened with pleasure. “We may go there?”
“Yes.”
“Away from your father?”
“Yes.”
Danielle nodded, pleased. “Lord Cameron is a far better man than the other you loved, Amanda.”
