“Lady Geneva?” she inquired sharply.
“I do believe you’re jealous. Marry me,” he insisted. “And do so quickly. Before I leave. Then, if the Shawnee split my head, you shall have safety and peace.”
“I cannot marry you so fast—”
“Ah! You will consider it then.”
She couldn’t help smiling again. The world faded away when he was before her so vehemently, so adamantly. And she did feel safe. As if no man—not even her father—would dare to come against her. “You’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“I am a loyalist. That is not my father’s voice, nor Lord Dunmore’s, but my own. I fear the radicals and what is to come. And you, sir, are a patriot.”
“You are welcome to be a loyalist.”
“And your wife?”
“Yes. You may follow your convictions, just so long as you take no steps to betray me.”
Amanda inhaled sharply. How could she make such a promise when she had been cast into his arms for that very purpose? She looked down to where his hands lay over hers. His palms were rough from work he must have chosen to take on himself. Perhaps they were a soldier’s hands, roughened by his hold upon his horse’s reins. She didn’t know. She only knew that the roughness against the soft flesh of her hand was somehow good. She drew her eyes back to his, and she was suddenly very frightened, and not so much of the man as by the depths of the feelings that stirred within her. If he kissed her now, she would want to explore that touch.
Like a whore…like the whore her father claimed her to be. Her mother’s daughter.
Some darkness must have fallen over her eyes for Eric frowned, watching her. “What is the matter?”
“Nothing. Nothing!” she cried. She leapt to her feet, shaking her head. “I can’t marry you. I can’t. We—we’re on different sides. It’s impossible. If you want me to leave—”
“Leave!” He stood, watching the sudden torment that constricted her features. “Leave?” He smiled slowly. “Why, of course not. I should not want to cast you to Lord Hastings with his four-score chins. My God, what a travesty that would be!”
Amanda almost smiled; she could not. She turned around and fled the room, to race up the stairs. She entered her room. Her trunks had arrived, and a servant would come to hang her clothing on the hooks in the armoire and to set her hose and undergarments into the drawers of the dresser. But no one was there now. Night had come. A fire had been lit in the hearth to burn away the dampness. The windows were open to the river. She walked toward them and looked out on the night. Slowly her heart ceased to beat its rampant rhythm. As she stared at the James, a sense of peace settled over her. She was safe here. Eric Cameron might taunt and tease her and discard propriety, break into the governor’s palace and perhaps even manhandle her. But he would never force her to do anything against her own will. He would not strike her in anger, and he would not use her for his own cause. It was almost like being loved. She smiled to the night, then changed into a cool cotton nightgown. So mellow had she become that she dropped her stockings, garters, shoes, corset, shift, and gown upon the floor with no thought and curled into the comfortable bed to sleep. She did not dream, and she did not hear the knocking upon her door later when Danielle came to see if she would have supper.
Nor did she hear the connecting door open when the clocks about the house were striking midnight.
Eric stood and looked down on her as she slept. The dying firelight lay gently upon her face, and she looked very young. Fragile and vulnerable. Anger rose within him as he thought of Nigel Sterling, and he wondered how any man could so mistreat a daughter, especially one so beautiful and proud as this. He wanted to touch her, but he did not allow himself to do so. He did not want to wake her, and so he just watched her, the ache to possess her tempered by the very innocence of her appearance. She evoked so many things within him. From the moment he had seen her dancing at Thomas Mabry’s in Boston, he had wanted her with an urgent fever. From the night he had touched her in the garden, he had wanted her forever with something that burned and sizzled inside of him. But from the time he had seen her with her father, he had wanted to protect her with all of his heart. Her loyalty to the Crown was so very fierce! If she could but love a man so fiercely, then he would gladly lay down his life for her and smile in the dying.
He reached out but did not allow his hand to fall. He smiled and felt the cool breeze ripple over him, and then he turned to go back to his own room. The game had changed, if subtly so.
In the morning when Amanda walked into the dining room, Eric was nowhere about. The girl he had mentioned, Margaret, a fresh-faced farm lass with bright dark eyes and bouncing black curls, came to inform her that his lordship was about seeing to the mustering of his Tidewater troops. Margaret left then, and Thom served her—coffee that morning, rather than the berry tea—delicately seasoned fish and fresh-baked bread. When she was finished with the meal she decided to explore beyond the house. After exiting by the rear, she started down a path that led by the outbuildings, the smokehouse, laundry, bakehouse, kitchen, the cooper’s and the blacksmith’s, and the barns and stables. Men and women stopped in their work to look her way curiously, then quickly bowed or curtsied to her. She smiled to all she met in turn, wondering how many of the blacks were slaves and how many were freemen. Nor were the servants all black, and not just within the house. A white woman who spoke with a soft French accent was directing the smoking of a butchered hog. There were numerous Acadians here, she thought, and she was happy, for Danielle would be pleased to meet so many of her own people.
Just as she thought of Danielle she came upon the stables. To her surprise she saw Danielle there, deeply engrossed in conversation with a tall white man. Amanda hurried forward, then paused. The two were speaking French very quickly. And furtively. They whispered, they gesticulated.
Amanda instinctively slipped behind the wall of the barn and looked at the man. He was very handsome, perhaps forty years old, with dark hair and sensitive light eyes, eyes that haunted his face and gave it much of its appeal. His features were fine. He almost had the look of a scholar about him, except that he was tall and well muscled, and wore the plain breeches and hardy hose and shoes of an outdoors worker. He did not seem to be the blacksmith, which made Amanda wonder at his work.
“Lady Sterling.”
Startled—and caught in the act of spying upon the servants—Amanda swung around. Cassidy was there, towering over her. He seemed to glisten beneath the sun.
“Aye, Cassidy!” she said, annoyed and embarrassed.
He betrayed no emotion at all. “Lord Dunmore has come to look over Lord Cameron’s troops. Your father has accompanied him, along with Lord Hastings.”
“I shall come right away, Cassidy.” She fell into step beside him but he quickly let her precede him. She fell back, determined to be on her guard. “Then Lord Cameron has returned?”
“He has. They await you in the parlor.”
“Thank you.”
She walked ahead again. When she came around the trail, she could see that the rear yard was filling with canvas tents. Men were arriving, camping out on the open lawn. A captain drilled a company of foot soldiers near the river while others sat about on crates or on the ground, cleaning their rifles, drinking from tins, laughing with one another. She could not make out faces or men, but she estimated that at least fifty men had come, and they seemed to be dressed in the buckskin clothing that was associated with the West County men. She paused again and waited pointedly for Cassidy.
