“Perhaps I shall not be gone so very long,” he told her.
She inhaled and exhaled in a shudder against his chest, breathing in his scent, feeling the rough texture of his shirt against her cheeks. She hated it when he was gone. She had yet to learn to tell him of her feelings, she could only show them, letting the fires rise and the passion ignite between them. But not even the intensity of that heat had dissolved the barriers that had lain between them since he had caught her returning to the town house that night in Williamsburg. She did not have his trust. She felt him watch her often, and she knew that he wondered just how seriously she had betrayed him in the past and just how far she might go in the future. She could not let down the wall of her pride and beg him to forgive—it would do no good, she knew. He would still look at her the same way. And yet, when they were together at Cameron Hall, life was good, despite the tempest of the world. There was planting to be done, meat to be smoked, a household and estate to run. There were intimate dinners together, evenings when she sat quietly with a book or embroidery while he pored over maps and his correspondence. There were times when he talked to her, when his eyes glowed so fiercely and his words came so eloquently that she was nearly swept into the storm of revolution herself.
And yet she had not lied to him, ever. Her loyalty had always lain with the Crown. She had never wanted to betray him, and she did not want to turn from him now. She was afraid for him. Dunmore might be attempting to rule from a ship now, but the British fighting force was considered the finest in the world. More troops would arrive. They would cut down the men outside Boston, they would take New York.
“They will hang you if they get their hands upon you!” she told him, swallowing back a sob.
He shrugged. “They must get their hands upon me first, you know.” He stroked her cheek and her throat. “There are some, you know, my love, who think that—were you a man—you might be a prime prospect for a hanging yourself.”
She said nothing, aware that she was safe among any of the rebels because of their respect for Eric. Suddenly she felt a rise of chills, wondering what might become of her if he ever withdrew his protection.
“Aren’t you ever afraid?” she whispered.
“I am more afraid of leaving you than I am of arriving at a battlefront,” he told her. But he was smiling, and his smile seemed tender. She thought that in that moment, he believed in her. Perhaps he even loved her.
She searched out his eyes anxiously. “You mustn’t worry about me at all. You must give all of your attention to staying alive!”
He laughed softly, ruffling her hair, catching a long strand between his fingers. “One might almost think that you care,” he said.
She could not answer him. She wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him, teasing his lips with her tongue, taking his into her mouth, touching him again provocatively with her own. A soft low groan escaped him, and he rose, meeting her eyes, his own afire. “This is what it should be, always then. There’s so little time. So let’s be decadent with it, my love. Let’s stay here, locked within our tower, and diela petite mortagain and again in one another’s arms.”
She smiled, arrested and aroused by his charm. Then they both started at some sound by the door. Eric frowned and rose, and strode quickly to the door, throwing it open.
There was no one there. He closed the door and slid the bolt. Then he turned to her. He pulled his shirt from his breeches, slowly unbuttoned the buttons, and cast the white-laced garment to the floor. Propped on an elbow, Amanda watched him. Eric pulled off a boot, then another, then faced her, his hands on his hips. “Well, wife, you could be accommodating me, you know.”
She laughed, so pained that he was leaving, so determined to hold tight to the moments they had left. Her lashes fell in a sultry crescent over her cheeks and she stared at him with lazy sensuality. “My dear lord Cameron, but I am too thoroughly enjoying this curious show! Why, ’tis scarce midday, and you seem to think—” She broke off, gasping, for he had taken a smooth running leap onto the bed, pinning her down with a mock growl.
“Conniving wench!” he accused her. His fingers curled into hers, his lips locked upon them. When the kiss was ended she no longer felt like laughing, but met his eyes with the hunger and the wonder fierce within her own. He rolled to shed his breeches, her gown was quickly cast aside, and they were then upon their knees together, eyes still meeting, a leisure seizing them again. They stroked one another softly, their knuckles upon naked flesh, running the gamut from shoulders to thighs. It was she who cried out first, and he who swept her down. But the day was long, and there was not to be a minute of it in which they were not touching in some manner. Hunger seized them, slow, sweet need. They each teased and taunted with lazy abandon, and each was caught in the tempest when the taunt and fever swept from one form to the other.
Morning did come. Amanda awoke to find her husband’s eyes upon her. For a moment she thought that she saw an anguish in their depths, but then the look was gone, and he was nothing but very grave as he stared at her. He touched her cheek and warned her, “Amanda, take care in my absence. Do not betray me again. Betray not the heart, my love. For I could not forgive you again.”
She pulled the covers closely about her. “How would I betray you!” she cried. “Patriots hold Virginia now!”
“But Governor Dunmore is in a ship out upon the James, not so very far at all, my love. Not so very far.” He sighed, curling a lock of her hair with his finger. “Amanda, I have claimed that I am your husband, that you will go where I beckon. But I am telling you now, if you would leave me, do so. Do so now with my blessing. I can set you on a ship out to meet the governor today, before I ride myself.”
“No!” she cried quickly.
“Can this mean that you have taken on the patriots’ cause?” he asked her.
She colored and shook her head. “No, Eric. I cannot lie to you. But…neither would I leave you.”
“Then dare I take this to mean that you offer me some small affection at last?”
She cast him a quick glance and she thought that he teased her, his eyes seemed so aflame with mischief. She flushed furiously. “You know that I…”
“Mmm,” he murmured, and it sounded hard. “I know that you are probably glad to be with me—the rebel—rather than within your father’s care. I can hardly take that as a compliment, madame.”
“Eric, my God, don’t be so cruel at a time such as this—”
“I am sorry, love. Truly, I am sorry,” he muttered. She seemed so earnest. Her hair spilled in a rich river of dark flame all about her. The white sheet was pulled high upon her breast and the eyes that beheld his were dazzling with emotion, perhaps even the promise of tears.
He pulled the sheet from her and crawled over her. “One more time, my love. Pour yourself upon me, let your sweetness seep into me, one more time. For the cold northern nights ahead, breathe fire into my soul. Wife, give yourself to me.”
Her arms wrapped around him. She gave herself to him as she never had before, and indeed, he felt as if he left something of himself within her, and took from her a flame, a light, that might rise in memory to still the tremors of many a night ahead.
And yet that, too, came to an end, and he was forced to realize that he must rise.
She remained abed, cocooned within the covers, as he called for a bath. When he was done, she bathed herself, and then she helped him to dress. She helped to buckle his scabbard, and when that was done she closed his heavy cloak warmly about him. He caught her to him, and as the seconds ticked by he pressed his lips to her forehead.
