“It isn’t—right!” She gasped.
Angrily he held her against him, lifting her chin once more to meet the tumult in her eyes. “Not right? Lady, you are not a harlot I have chosen for the night. We are to marry.”
She lowered her lashes. “Let me go, please! We are not married as yet.”
He did not let her go. “Tomorrow we will be. And when the words are said and you are my wife, don’t think that you can turn to me and trust in my honor to leave you be. I am taking a wife because I desire one. You do understand that.”
“Yes!” She wrenched free from him and turned and ran down the steps. He started to follow her and then paused, then turned to reenter the house.
That night Amanda was too nervous to remember the dark-haired man with whom Danielle had been having her curious animated conversation. She paced the room endlessly, having preferred supper on a tray to the gentlemen’s company that evening. She walked back and forth telling Danielle that she was insane, but that she did not know what else to do. Danielle was quiet, but Amanda did not even notice.
She ceased her pacing when a knock came on the door at about eight o’clock. She did not answer it—her father opened the door and stepped into the room. He took one look at Danielle and said curtly, “Go.” The woman glanced toward Amanda but obeyed him quickly enough.
He closed the door behind Danielle. “So you are going to marry him tomorrow.”
“Yes, Father. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But I want you to remember that even if you are his wife, you remain my daughter.”
“Meaning?”
“You will do as I say.”
She smiled, glad of her coming marriage for one reason. Eric Cameron could protect her from anything. “He is a forceful man. He might disagree.”
“He cannot save Damien Roswell’s neck from the hangman.”
She paled, her pleasure cleanly erased. Sterling kept talking, ignoring her. “Damien is accompanying Lord Cameron to the front, did you know that? No, I did not suppose so. Perhaps one of them will die. It will be interesting to see.”
He turned to leave her. “Don’t forget how very much of your future I still hold, my dear, dear child.”
The door closed. Amanda sank down on the bed, shaking.
Eric Cameron could not protect her from everything.
In the morning Danielle came to her very early. Amanda dressed numbly. Danielle had chosen a soft blue-gray gown for her with pearls stitched into the lacing. She did not bind or cover Amanda’s hair, but let it stream down upon the gown like a ripple of dark fire. When Amanda was ready, she walked down the stairs. The servants were lined up on the stairs. A glass was raised to her, and she was welcomed among them as Lady Cameron. She thanked them but had gone so pale that she could not manage a smile.
She remained numb for the long drive back to Williamsburg. She and Danielle rode alone, for Eric had gone in with the others even earlier to make the arrangements.
Danielle was pleased about the marriage, if distressed about the rush. “There should have been time for a wedding gown, for the church to properly announce the ceremony. But it is good,mais oui, it is good. You will be out of that monster’s clutches forever!”
“That monster,” Amanda knew, was her father. But Danielle was wrong. She was not out of his clutches.
In Williamsburg she was taken to the governor’s palace. His countess very kindly and enthusiastically helped her freshen up from the journey. She chatted very happily about her wedding day, and apologized for the indisposition that had kept her from entertaining Amanda on her last visit. “I do hope that John was gracious.”
“Very gracious,” Amanda agreed. He had threatened her cousin’s life—graciously.
But then the countess offered her a stiff brandy. “A gentleman’s drink perhaps, but for the prewedding tremors, a lady’s drink as well!”
Amanda drank a lot of it. It seemed to be one way to endure the ceremony.
Despite the haste of the wedding, the Bruton Parish Church was quickly filled. Many of the men who had been in town for the dissolved House—who would soon be attending the Continental Congress—came to see Lord Cameron take his bride. As she walked down the aisle on her father’s arm, Amanda noted that it was a curious assembly indeed. The governor laughed and joked with the very men whose meeting he had so recently dissolved. Lady Geneva had come, and squeezed her hand as she passed by. Colonel Washington was there, she saw, nodding to Eric with a pleased grin on his sober countenance. She did not see Damien, and that worried her, as he had been invited. Actually, everything worried her.
She was going to pass out, she thought. But she could not. Nigel Sterling passed her hand over to Eric, and the reverend stepped forward to tie their wrists together with white ribbon.
And then he began to speak.
Amanda did not hear his words. She felt the heat of the small church, and she heard the muffled whisperings of the people in the pews. She felt Eric standing beside her, and she heard the clear, well-modulated tones of his vows. Then she heard a pause, and she forced herself to speak even as she wondered at the words she said. She swore to love, honor, and obey.
