Love Not a Rebel (13 page)

And then, abruptly, he released her, a negligent smile upon his lips. “You should marry me, milady, because I do believe that I could promise never to disappoint you.”

“I would fight you all of my life!” she exclaimed out, and then realized that it was she who still clung to him. She needed the support.

“You would fight me, but you would not be disappointed by me. Now, milady, if you’ll excuse me, I shall leave you to your own devices, since you are so capable.” He let her hand fall and bowed deeply to her, turning about to leave the maze.

Shaking, Amanda determined to have the last word. “You are a traitor, Lord Cameron! A traitor to the king, a traitor to your own kind!”

He turned back around, bowing deeply. “As you would have it, milady. Far be it that I should argue with your gentle tongue.”

He turned again and was gone.

Amanda sank down upon the bench, feeling the pressure of her tears come rushing to her eyes. She pressed her hands against them, determined not to cry. She was trembling still. He had awakened things inside of her, things she had never dared to dream of.…

And things she now despised.

She hated him. She had hated him in Boston, and she hated him now! How dare he come upon her so highhandedly again. He had known about Robert—dear God, all the world had known about Robert, all the world but she!

She touched her swollen lips, and all that she could remember was Eric Cameron’s touch. Yet it was true, the magic was gone, love was gone, and her belief in things beautiful and good and right was gone. Innocence had been cruelly slain, she thought, and then, despite her best intentions, tears did start to fall down her cheeks. Robert! How could he? How could he speak of his longing and
desire for her and then tell her that yes, he did intend to marry the Duchess of Owenfield?

How could he suggest that she become his mistress?

Amanda wiped the tears from her cheeks and forced herself to stand and smooth down her gown. She dusted bits of leaves from her skirt and swallowed hard and touched her fingers to her hair.

She had to go back. She had to lift her head and smile and return to the house and be her father’s most gracious hostess, and she had to laugh and dance and be certain that no one ever knew what had taken place in the Venus garden.

“Amanda!”

Hearing her name called, she leapt to her feet and forced a smile to her lips.

“Damien!” she called in response to that well-loved voice. She knew her cousin would quickly be upon her, for he knew the maze as thoroughly as she did. They had often played there as children. “Damien!”

He came through the last row of hedges, bewigged and handsome, looking fabulously elegant. He knew his appearance was quite proper and perfect, and he paused by the Venus statue to pose for her quickly. “The ultimate gentleman, the lord of leisure!” he said, then he laughed and raced toward her, and she threw herself into his arms.

“Damien! You’re back. I thought that you were staying in Philadelphia with your brother and that the two of you had been larking about from Boston to New York. And it frightens me when you and he are apart for I am ever afraid of what trouble you will find!”

He shook his head, and it seemed for a moment that sober thoughts clouded his dark handsome eyes. “I am ever quick to avoid trouble!” he vowed to her, then laughed. “I heard that Lord Sterling was hosting a ball, and I came quickly, thinking that my dear sweet cousin might need me.”

Amanda pulled away from him, watching his eyes. Then she sighed softly. “So you knew too. All the world knew about Robert and this Duchess of Owenfield except for
me, and, therefore, I made the most horrible fool of myself.” If she wasn’t careful, she’d start crying again.

“Amanda, he’s not worthy of you,” Damien told her swiftly. Setting an arm about her shoulder, he led her to sit down on the bench.

She smiled up at him lovingly. “Perhaps not, but I loved him, Damien. So what do I do now?”

“Forget him. There will be other men to offer for you, to love you—”

“Well, I’ve had the offer!” she said, and laughed bitterly. “But not the love. It was quite astounding. Lord Cameron appeared on the scene and offered himself.”

“Cameron!” Damien repeated, startled.

“Aye, the traitor. My night is beset by betrayal, so it seems, for Father had told him yes!”

Damien stood, hooking his thumbs into his waistband as he paced before her. He swung around and looked at her. “He’s been quite the bachelor, Mandy. You know that. Mamas have thrown their daughters at him for some time now, and he has never shown the least interest. You are deeply honored, you know.”

“You like him!” Amanda accused. “You were good friends in Boston, or so it seemed, but, Damien, you must take the greatest care! You know that the man is a traitor.”

Damien hesitated a long time, looking at her. “No, I do not know him as a traitor, cousin.”

Amanda gasped, leaping up to catch hold of his shoulder. “You can’t mean that! I … I know that he is guilty of evil deeds, I have seen him in action. And he follows the words of fanatics, of fools—”

Damien shook his head, watching her sadly. “I do not believe that these men are fanatics or fools, Mandy.” She stared at him blankly, and he suddenly gripped her hands with excitement. “In Philadelphia I met with the writer and printer Benjamin Franklin. I—”

“Benjamin Franklin? The newspaper man? The fellow who puts out that
Poor Richard’s Almanac
?” Franklin lived in Pennsylvania; his yearly book on weather and forecasts and sayings was like a bible to men from Georgia to Maine, and even up into the Canadian colonies.

“Yes, Franklin. Benjamin Franklin. He’s considered a great man these days there, a wise man indeed.”

“He prints insurrection, I take it.”

“You’d love him, Mandy.”

“Oh, Damien! You frighten me. I do not like the company you keep. Franklin wants war.”

“No! No man wants war. But if you listen to these people, you’ll come to understand.”

“Understand what? We are English. We must pay taxes for English defense! Come, Damien, think on it. Without our fine English soldiers, what would we have done during the French and Indian Wars? Our militia was sad and pathetic! Scant defense!”

“Not so scant!” Damien protested. “Why, it was only what our colonials learned about Indian warfare that saved us then. George Washington was a volunteer with the British regulars when General Braddock was overtaken by the French and Indians, and it was young Washington who saw the troops back to Virginia. And Robert Rogers’s rangers out of Connecticut were so adept and disciplined that they became part of the regular British army.”

“British reinforcements saved us in the end, and it was a horrible and long bloody war. Without the Crown forces we would have been lost, and you know it.”

He looked at her. “A Continental Congress is due to meet in Philadelphia this September to protest the closing of the port of Boston and other ‘intolerable’ acts.”

Mandy exhaled. “I am so tired of this endless talk of war.”

Damien laughed. “Cousin, you weren’t even born when the French and Indian Wars broke out in 1754. And you were a babe of eight when it ended in sixty-three, so tell me, what makes you such an expert?”

She lowered her head suddenly, remembering that it had been in 1763, when the last of the campaigns had begun, that she had first seen Eric Cameron. Lord Hastings had called a hunt just before some of the Virginia relief troops were due to leave. There’d been no reason for young Cameron to go, but his father had already been
killed in the fighting and his grandfather had not denied him the right to fight if he chose. He had been young, disdainful, and ardent, she remembered. Determined to fight. Assured, poised …

Abysmally rude to her.

She shook her head. Well, he had come back, and he had been given some officer’s commission. Even though his grandfather hadn’t allowed him to leave with one, he’d earned it on his own.

Mandy shivered. She couldn’t understand war, and although she’d been very young during the French and Indian Wars, she could still remember the tears of the women who had lost husbands, the sons who had lost fathers, the girls who had lost their lovers. And there had been greater tragedy before her birth, when the war had just begun, for the Acadians from Nova Scotia—Frenchmen who had loved their land and stayed with it when it had gone from French rule to British in a previous treaty—were no longer trusted. They were cruelly exiled from their lands and cast upon the shores of Maine and Massachusetts and Virginia. Although some were able to make it into the French Louisiana Territory, many had been forced to seek some livelihood among the hostile English and Americans. There were still Acadians at Sterling Hall, even though her father despised them. She had heard it rumored that her father had slain an Acadian, although it had been at her birth, and she had never known whether it was true or not. She pitied the women, and the beautiful little children, and she had always done her best to be kind to the Acadians who remained with them. Indeed, Danielle was Acadian.

And still men went to war.

They had gone before, and it seemed now that they were growing eager to do battle again, that they might soon be eager to stand before flaring muskets, to allow themselves to be brutally ripped and torn and maimed.

“I’m not an expert on war, Damien, and I don’t want to be,” she assured him. “And I’m very worried about you.”

“No! Ah, cousin, please, for the love of God, don’t worry
about me. This is Damien. I land on my feet, always. Remember that.”

“I’ll keep it in mind when they hang you.”

“They’ll not hang me. And they’ll not hang your new betrothed either, love.”

“Betrothed!”

“You said that Lord Cameron proposed—”

“Proposed? No, I did not say that. He burst upon Robert and me with an announcement that Father had agreed to his suggestion that he and I marry. But then …”

“Then what?”

“He was quick to assure me that he did not want me without my consent.” She paused, looking at Damien. “Why would Father do such a thing so suddenly, though? Father is an ardent loyalist. Could it be true?”

“Zounds—”

“Damien, don’t swear.”

“Me! Why, Mandy, when you’ve the mind, you swear like a seaman!”

“Don’t be absurd. Ladies don’t swear. But if I were to swear, I wouldn’t do silly things like turn the words around. I should say, ‘God’s body!’ and that would be that!”

“Tarnation! So you would, Mandy!”

“Damnation—and be done with it!” she said.

“If you weren’t such a lady, that’s exactly what you’d say!” Damien murmured with mock solemnity. But then he frowned in earnest. “Who knows anything about your father? He’s never much liked me, and that’s a fact.”

Amanda frowned. It was true. Damien was the child of her mother’s younger brother, and her father had tolerated him, keeping up the pretense of family, but had never shown him any affection. Michael, Damien’s elder brother, very seldom came near Sterling Hall. He would not pretend to tolerate his uncle, and though Amanda loved Michael dearly, she seldom saw him now for he had moved to Pennsylvania.

“Surely Father does love you—” Amanda began awkwardly, but Damien interrupted her, waving a hand in the air.

“Cousin, I do not mean to be cruel, but I wonder if he even loves you. Never mind, how callous of me. What a horrible thing to say. And still, let’s head into the house, shall we? He was asking about you, and I’d hate to bring his wrath down upon the two of us. And—”

“And what?” Amanda asked quickly as her cousin paused.

“And you need to dance, love. You need to dance and laugh and appear as if you’re having the time of your life.”

“Oh!” The blood drained from her face as she remembered that she had been rejected and humiliated. She tossed back her hair, adjusting the comb over her ear. “Am I all right, Damien?”

“All right? You are entirely beautiful. And we shall kick up our heels and make fools of the lot of them!” He caught her hand and led her quickly through the maze. “Remember when we were children? I loved this place so. You were going to marry a prince, or a duke at the very least. And I was going to kidnap the most glorious Indian maiden and strike out to conquer the world.”

Gasping as she hurried to keep up with his pace, Amanda laughed. But there was pain to the laughter, just as there was pain to growing up. Dreams were like clouds, created only to be shattered by violent, unexpected storms.

She stopped short, just outside the entrance to the maze. She could see the lanterns swaying brilliantly upon the porch, and she could see the silhouettes of their guests through the windows, elegant men, beautiful women with their coiffures piled high and their skirts most fashionably wide. Growing up. It was suddenly very frightening, and she had never felt so old as she did this night. Life was still a game, but it was for higher stakes, and she suddenly shivered.

“It’s all going to change again, isn’t it, Damien?”

“Who knows what the future holds?” he answered her with a shrug. “Come, hold my hand, and we’ll slip right onto the dance floor.”

They scampered up the steps and over the broad porch together, slipping into the house at the end of the hallway.
It wasn’t to be quite so easy as they had planned, for Amanda’s father was there, watching them as they arrived.

“Damien!” he said sharply. “I would have a word with you now. And you, girl—” He paused, his voice low and grating as he stared at her coldly. “You I will deal with later!”

“Ah, Lady Sterling!” A voice interrupted. She spun around, recognizing the deep resonant sound. It was Eric Cameron. He bowed to her father. “Alas, your charming daughter and I shall not wed, sir, but she did promise me this dance just minutes ago.”

“Minutes ago—”

“But of course, sir. May I?” He smiled at Lord Sterling and caught Amanda’s hand, swirling her out to the center of the hall where couples were just forming for a reel. The musicians started up and she could not move at first. His silver gaze lit upon her and a daring smile touched his lips.

“Dance, Lady Amanda. You’ve got it in you, I know that you do. Toss your head back with that glorious mane of hair and cast one of your dazzling smiles upon me. Laugh, and let the whole of the world go to hell. They are whispering about you, and your scandalous behavior, rushing into the maze with an engaged man. Gossips and old hags. Let them know that you don’t give a halfpenny about their opinions.”