“My husband would kill you.”
“So—you’ve turned on England, joined the rabble.”
“I am loyal to the Crown.”
“Then give me something—or else I swear that Damien Roswell will not live to see the morning sun. One way or other, lady, I will see that he dies. And don’t deceive yourself about the state of this colony. Prompt and forceful action from London will quell this rebellion before it begins.”
She paused, staring at him. She believed him. He would kill Damien, or seize him and see him transported to Newgate. It might not be legal, but her father still had the power to see it done.
He started moving toward her. “Don’t come near me!” she warned, and he stood still, smiling again.
“Give me something! If you love the Crown, serve it!”
She thought quickly, her heart seeming to fall. She remembered the conversation in the coffeehouse, and it occurred to her that she could save Damien, serve the Crown indeed, and be sure, too, that no foolish young swain died in the serving. “There is a cache of arms,” she blurted out.
Sterling’s eyes glistened with pleasure. “Where?”
“On—on the river. At the Johnsboro warehouse.”
Sterling smiled, collecting his hat. “If you’ve told me the truth, girl, you’ve bought yourself Christmas. Good day, daughter.”
He left. For an endless moment Amanda could not move. She was so cold that she didn’t think that even the warmth of the fire could help her now. She didn’t feel that she had helped the cause of England. She felt as if she had betrayed not just the patriots…
But Eric.
She moved across the room to the brandy decanter, poured herself a liberal portion, and swallowed it down quickly. Then she repeated the action, and at long last some semblance of warmth, of life, poured back into her.
But that night when she slept she was haunted by the faces of the young men in the coffeehouse. They marched on her with fixed bayonets upon their muskets, with eyes of condemning fire, with features frozen into cold masks. They marched upon her and she backed away with a silent scream. And then they stopped, breaking apart, for a new man to make his way among them. She heard the sure purpose of his boots ringing as they fell against the ground, and then she saw his face, and it was Eric’s, and it was as cold as a winter’s wind, as devoid of love or passion. Like shimmering steel his eyes gazed upon her, and then he reached out to touch her, his fingers winding tightly about her.…
She screamed, thrashing about, for the dream was so real. Then she realized that it was no dream, she fought a real man, and that Eric was above her, truly with her, his eyes a curious glistening silver but his lip curled into a smile.
“Shush! My God, lady, what is this greeting? I reach to touch you, ready to die for the time and distance between us, and you treat me like a monster!”
She went still, the fear subsiding, yet remaining to haunt her, as it would forever. “Eric!” She gasped. And she reached up to touch his face. His hair was damp, he was naked as he sprawled atop her, and she realized that he must have come home, found her there, bathed elsewhere, and come to her. He was no dream, nor did he look upon her coldly or with disdain. His eyes were alight with fire, his body was hotter than flame, the length of him seemed to tremble against her with startling fervor. She moistened her lips, gazing at him, and she cried out, forgetting anger, forgetting everything. “Eric!” she cried his name again. She placed her hands on the clean-shaven sides of his face and pulled him to her, almost swooning as she tasted the warmth and hunger of his kiss. She drew away from him then, trying to speak, trying to recall her anger and not her fear.
“You did not write!”
“I had little time.”
“I worried—”
“Did you?” He paused, staring down at her, his eyes alight against the dim glow of the fire, a dark brow arched in a satyr’s mask against rugged angles of his face. Then he lay low against her and whispered with searing desire against her lips. “Forgive me this night, for I can bear the distance no more!”
His hands closed upon her gown, material ripped, and she felt the startling deliciousness of his body against hers. His hands, his teeth, his lips were everywhere. They moved upon her with wanton abandon, with wild demand. Soft moans escaped her as she discovered her body caught by his heat, alive in every way, her flesh begging to be touched, and the spiral of desire within her soaring. She arched her breasts to his lips, dug her fingers into his hair, and gasped and writhed as his fingers delved within the woman’s core of her, teasing the sable-red triangle at the juncture of her thighs, mercilessly finding the tiny bud of deepest sensation. Where he stroked and teased with his touch he followed with his tongue’s bold caress, sweeping the nectar from her until she surged against him, begging senselessly for she knew not what. He towered above her full of laughter, but she pushed him from her, crawling atop him, lashing him with the soft stroke of her hair as she rubbed the length of her body low over his. She kissed his chest and stroked his buttocks and thighs, nipping his flesh, lapping it with tiny kisses, and moving upward again. Gently, tenderly, wickedly, she stroked and teased him, then went on with her hair a shower about them both to lap and stroke and lick and tease the very shaft of him, so softly that it was torment, then with a sizzling force that brought forth a torrent of shudders and groans from his lips. Then the very force of his hands was upon her as he lifted her, catching her eyes, meeting them, then thrusting into her with deep, shocking passion that still seemed to burn her from the inside out, impale her until she was fused with him. His eyes held hers as he thrust, and thrust again, and sobs of sweet hunger and desperation fell from her lips. He held her steady and they rode the night and the stars and the painful distance between them and the shimmering passion that was explosive and primitive and so very undeniable.
She thought that she had died when she fell against him at last. Though she gasped for breath and lay slick and spent and awed and exhausted, his touch was upon her again, his fingers idly upon her breasts, her buttocks; his lips seared her shoulders, his hands stroked the slope of her buttocks.
“Eric…” she whispered his name, and she twisted, thinking that there were things to say. But even as she gazed at him the heat went cool within her. Even now her father was seeing that the rebels’ arms were seized. And that the man who touched her so fervently now might well wind his fingers about her throat if he only knew. She reached out to touch his damp, dark-haired chest, and she felt the shudder and violent ripple of muscle there and her throat constricted. “Eric—”
He rolled over, sweeping her beneath him with a sudden savage movement. His eyes touched deep into hers, dark and tempestuous, relentless. A hoarse cry escaped him and he buried his face against the fiery cascade of her hair and her throat. “Love me tonight!” he demanded of her raggedly. “Do nothing but love me this night!” he repeated, and his lips found hers, moving against them voraciously, then finding the sensitive spots at her ear, coming to the pulse as her throat, sweeping to secure the hardened bud of her breast with hunger and magic. She exhaled on a gasp, feeling the excitement rise in her again, the promise of the exquisite peaks of ecstasy.
There was nothing that she could say to him, and in moments she did not remember that there were things that she wanted to say to him.
He demanded that she love him; that night, she did.
XI
That Christmas season was one of the happiest times of Amanda’s life, or would have been, had the threat of what was to come not hung over them so surely. For the first few days of her husband’s return, Amanda waited anxiously for what would happen. But Virginia itself seemed quiet then.
