Then her heart began to thunder anew, and she wondered what she could discover that she could give to her father that would cause the least peril among all men, the patriots and the redcoats.
And to her husband.
Perched atop Joshua on the heights overlooking the city of Boston, Eric was cold, bitterly cold. It was winter, and there was a very sharp bite to the wind, a dampness that seemed to sink into the bones and settle there.
Sieges were long and tedious, but Eric had come to admire the men of New England who ringed the city. They had already met the gunfire and the bloodshed of the war, but they held strong, despite the hardships, the cold, the monotony. It had been feared by some that the northern men might not take to the idea of their commander being a Virginian, a southerner, but not many people had questioned his military experience, and it seemed now that the colonies had really banded together at last to stand against a common tyranny.
“Major Lord Cameron!”
Eric turned, lifting a hand in a salute and smiling as he saw Frederick Bartholomew hurrying toward him. The young printer had come a long way since the day he had run through the streets, wounded and desperate. He had been commissioned a lieutenant. Just as Washington had found certain men indispensable to him, Eric had discovered quickly that Frederick was a man he could not do without. Though the siege itself was tedious, military life was often hectic for him. There were the endless meetings with Washington and Hamilton and the others, the continuous necessity of communications, the need to gather information about his ships, and his desperate need to know at all times what was happening in his native Virginia.
Frederick waved an envelope in his hand. “A letter from your wife, my lord!”
Eric leapt off Joshua’s back, grinning good-naturedly as a chant went up from the men ringed about him. “Thank you, Frederick,” he told the young printer, taking the letter. He didn’t mind the camaraderie of the men, but he did want to be alone with the correspondence.
His nights were miserable. He lay awake and worried, and he slept and dreamed. He dreamed of Amanda with her fiery hair wrapped about his flesh, her eyes liquid as they met his, her kiss a fountain of warmth that aroused and enwrapped him. But then his dreams would fade and he would hold her no more, she would be dancing away in the arms of another man, and her eyes would catch his again, and the laughter within them would tell him clearly that she had played him for a fool all along.
Eric led Joshua away from the siege line, back to an empty supply tent. He sat at the planked table there with his back against the canvas and ripped open the letter. His heart quickened as she wrote that her father had come to Cameron Hall with a warship, but that he had simply left and gone back to join Dunmore when she had told him that she was going to stay.
Her letter went on, but she wrote no more of her father. Instead she wrote about the military state of Virginia, the fish being brought in and the smoking going on, about the repairs done to the mansion, about the cold. It could have been a warm letter. Yet it was stilted somehow, as if there were something she wasn’t saying.
As if she were lying to him…
Eric cursed softly. If only he could trust her!
“Trouble, my friend?”
He started, looking to the entrance to the tent. George Washington had come upon him. As he entered the tent, he swept off his plumed and cockaded hat and dusted the snow from his cloak. Then he sat across from Eric. Alone together, neither man bothered with military protocol.
“You’ve a letter, I understand.”
“A personal letter.”
George hesitated. “There’s a rumor, Eric, that someone in Virginia is supplying the British with helpful information. Areas to raid for salt and produce. Information that has helped Dunmore create such fear all along the coast.”
Eric shrugged. “We all know of his burning Norfolk. That could not possibly have been caused by a spy!”
Washington was quiet for a long time. Then he leaned across the desk. “I trust your judgment, my friend. I trust your judgment.”
He left without saying any more. Eric sat back, then rose and called for Frederick. He asked for writing supplies to form his reply to his wife. When the printer returned, Eric sat to his task.
He closed his eyes for a moment, shivering. He had wanted her to come to Boston for Christmas. Washington, however, had specifically requested that he not do so, promising that he could return home in the spring.
Eric exhaled, then he began to write. Very carefully. False information that might look like it could be invaluable to the British.
He finished the letter and sealed it with his signet. Then he called to Frederick again to see that his correspondence moved south as quickly as possible.
When the letter was gone he stared out at the snows of winter, feeling as if they swirled about his heart and soul. “Damn you, Amanda!” he said softly.
As soon as winter turned to spring, Amanda decided on another trip into Williamsburg. She announced her intentions to travel with just Pierre and Danielle, but when she came downstairs on the morning when she was to leave, she wasn’t surprised to discover that Jacques Bisset was dressed and mounted and ready to ride behind her coach.
“Jacques! I did not ask you to accompany me,” she told him.
He looked at her strangely, and replied as he had every time Amanda had left Cameron Hall after Eric had departed in the fall. “Pardonnez-moi, but Lord Cameron has charged me to guard you, and that I will.”
To guard her. It was a lie. He was to watch her and discover if she betrayed her husband or his cause, Amanda knew. It didn’t matter. There was really no way for him to discover anything of what she was doing, and she liked Jacques, liked him very much. She nodded slowly. “Fine,” she said softly. “I will feel ever so much safer if you are along.”
Danielle stepped into the coach and sat across from her. Amanda smiled wearily. The coach jolted, and they were on their way. The road was slushy with spring rains, and the day was still chill. Amanda shivered again as she looked out the window, back to the house.
