Love Not a Rebel (17 page)

“It would delight me to take a bullwhip against you. I can do that, as well as see that Damien hangs.” He paused, staring into her eyes with an assurance that he did not threaten her idly. “Perhaps you should get ready for an evening out. Damien is here, in Williamsburg. I’ve told him that we are coming, and I’ve assured him he has my permission to take you for a ride this evening. You should get dressed. I expect him by seven. Such a young lad. Many will cry to see him hang, I am certain. Don’t make the mistake of warning him. He is a dead man if you do.”

Nigel released her and walked away, leaving her alone in the garden.

The scent of the summer flowers rose high all around her. The birds continued to chirp, the breeze to flutter the foliage. She sank down on the garden seat, her fists clenched in her lap, and feared that she would be sick.

Somewhere inside the mansion the countess was lying back on her bed with a smile upon her lips. She probably dreamed of her child, and when that child was born, both she and Lord Dunmore would cherish it, and plan a future for the babe with love and care.

What had gone so horribly awry in her life that her own father could despise her so? Label her mother a whore, and send her out to play a harlot’s game?

She brought her knuckles to her mouth and bit down hard upon them, silently damning Damien for his foolish ways. But Damien loved her, honestly, with his soul and his heart. She had so little of value in life, of love sincere and untainted.

They were casting her to Lord Cameron. Casting her to the very wolf. Wolf? Aye, he was that! But if he had wanted her—even to devour her!—he would have come to her to do so. What could she do? Her father could not know how crude or harsh the words had been between them. He could not understand that it would be dangerous indeed for her to suddenly appear to have a change of heart.

She rose slowly and turned back toward the mansion. It had to be nearly seven now.

She did not mind serving England, there was so much that she would have done gladly for Lord Dunmore!

But this …

She started to shake, and so she walked faster. She was still shaking when she entered the mansion and hurried up the stairs to the guest room she had been given. She knew she had to wash and dress, but she threw herself on the bed, still shaking.

She remembered Eric Cameron’s face, the strength of his features, the laughter in his eyes and then the hardness.

And then she knew why she shook so badly. She had said it, and it was the truth. The man was no fool. And if he suspected her of betraying him, if he caught her …

She swallowed hard, and she knew that she was afraid. Very, very afraid.

* * *

A hush fell over the crowd as Eric entered the public room of the Raleigh Tavern. It was known to be a place where men of different minds gathered, and Eric was looked upon with a certain distrust, for he was a lord, and it was expected that his allegiance was with the king. After all, he had great estates in England to consider.

Men, mostly planters and farmers, some merchants and shopkeepers, looked about, nodded his way respectfully, then looked nervously back to their meals or their ale. In turn he bowed, then ignored their suspicious gazes. He strode in, doffing his tricorn and cape and taking a table near the rear door.

The owner rushed forward to greet him. “Lord Cameron, come to visit with us for a spell, eh? Well, it’s honored we be, and that’s a fact.”

“Is it? Tell me, is Colonel Washington about?”

The man went red in the face. “Well, now, I don’t know—”

“It’s all right” came a laughing voice. Washington himself was looking in from the hallway that led to the private rooms. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered, with dark hair—graying now—neatly queued at his nape. “He’s my friend, and he’s come to see me. Eric! Come along, will you? I’ve some people eager to meet you.”

Eric rose, nodded to the innkeeper, and followed the colonel down along the hallway. Washington was a good many years his senior, a man hailing from the Fredericksburg area and now living closer to the coast at Mount Vernon, when he managed to be home these days. Mount Vernon was a beautiful plantation, and much like his own, Cameron Hall. Both homes had large main hallways and graceful porches with a multitude of windows facing the water in order to take advantage of the river breezes. Washington loved his estate, his lands, his horses, everything about home. But he had always been an ambitious man as well as a smart one. Eric shared his love of botany and respected his business sense. They were both heavily invested in the Ohio and Chesapeake Canal, and eager to see more westward expansion across the mountains.
Washington had married a very prosperous Williamsburg widow, Martha Custis, and though it had been whispered at the time that she was a somewhat dowdy little thing, she apparently offered him the warmth and domesticity that he needed. Eric knew Martha well and liked her very much. She had the touching ability to listen, to weigh a man’s words carefully, and to respond with a gentle intelligence.

Following his friend down the hallway, Eric thought that George had aged rapidly in the last year. He and Martha had had no children of their own, but he had doted on his stepchildren, and last year his stepdaughter, Patsy, had died. The loss had taken its toll upon the man.

Perhaps all these whispers about war were good after all. They kept George’s mind busy.

But then so did his estate. He had inherited Mount Vernon, his brother’s property, after his sister-in-law and niece had both passed away. The property was his passion, as Eric could well understand. He felt that way about Cameron Hall. He never tired of studying the house, of adding on, or improving, just as he never tired of the land, moving crops, studying the growth of his vegetables, experimenting with growth cycles. The men had met in Williamsburg a few years after the French and Indian Wars. As they discussed the differences between the colonial and British soldiers, they had both reached the sad conclusion that the Crown did not treat the colonials at all well. Ever since his adventures in Boston on the eve of the tea party, Eric had joined Washington and members of the House of Burgesses more frequently in their conversations. Many men did not trust him as yet. Many others did.

In 1769 Lord Botetourt, then governor of Virginia and a popular and well-liked man, had made enemies when he dismissed the Virginia legislature because of the representatives’ protest of the Stamp Act. Eric had been young then, a new member of the Upper House, and his voice had had little effect upon the decision. Eric had maintained his position—and his opinion, and eventually, the situation had evened out. The Stamp Act had been repealed.

Now the legislature had been dissolved again. During the first dissolution there had been a strained period between Eric and many of his more radical friends, but this time, he had offered to resign from the Governor’s Council—an unprecedented event. Eric was walking a dangerous fence, and he was well aware of it. His ancestor Jamie Cameron had carried over a title, and because of that, Eric should be a staunch loyalist, a Tory to the core. But something about his meeting with young Frederick Bartholomew that night in Boston had changed him. There was danger in the air, but there was excitement as well. It seemed to Eric that it was becoming a time of great men and a time of change. He had heard Patrick Henry speak on several occasions, and though many people considered him a brash and foolish rabble-rouser, Eric found him to be amazingly eloquent, and more. Henry believed in his principles, and he was not afraid to risk his life or material possessions or position to speak out.

This was the New World. Cameron’s own family had been living in Virginia since the early 1600s. But that was less than a score of decades. When compared with the age of the mother country, Virginia and the other colonies were young, raw, and exciting. Eric had attended Oxford; he had seen the Cameron estates in England, he had traveled to France and Italy and many of the German principalities, and he had learned that he loved no land as much as he did his own. Because of the very rawness, the newness, the excitement. Men and women traveled ever westward, seeking expansion, seeking a dream.

He didn’t even like to think it, and yet Eric was convinced that the time was coming when the colonies would break away from England. And though even the supposed hotheads who met at the taverns decried the possibility of war, it was becoming increasingly evident that a split was looming before them.

“Come on in here,” Washington said, opening the door to one of the smaller parlors. “It is just Thomas, Patrick, and myself tonight. I’m preparing to leave.”

“Leave?”

“Our First Continental Congress meets in September.”

“Oh. Of course. There are seven of us representing Virginia. Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, and myself.”

“A noble assembly,” Eric complimented.

Washington grinned. “Thank you.”

They entered the private room. Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson were both sitting before the fire. Henry leapt to his feet first. “Ah, Lord Cameron. Welcome!”

Eric walked across the room and shook his hand. He admired the man. His speeches were incredible, his energy was undauntable, and his passion for his cause was contagious. Henry, opposing the Stamp Act, had spoken openly about the severity of the friction between the king and the colonies a very dangerous time. “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third—”

He’d been forced to pause, for there had been such staunch cries of “Treason!” But then he had gone on.

“George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!”

He was from the western counties, and to many he was a crude man, rough and rugged. His clothing was not cut to eastern standards. He was intriguing, Eric thought, capable at times of a brooding temperament, but still possessed of a fascinating fire that brought men rallying to his cause.

Jefferson was a quieter man, calmer, far more elegant in his dress and manner. But as time passed, he was becoming every bit as passionate.

“Eric, sit, have a brandy,” Jefferson encouraged him. There seemed to be a twinkle in his eye. He looked older too, Eric thought. As the political situation grew more and more grave, they were all aging rapidly.

“Thank you. I shall be delighted,” Eric said. He drew his chair to the fire with them, accepting a glass from Washington. “How are you, gentlemen?”

“Well enough,” Jefferson said. “I have heard that you are about to leave with Governor Lord Dunmore’s militia for the west to suppress the Shawnee uprising.”

Eric nodded. It hadn’t really been decided until tonight, but it seemed like the proper move for him. “It’s an easy decision, isn’t it?” he inquired softly. “I was asked to lead some men against a common enemy. Here it’s difficult to decide.”

Washington stared at him hard. “My friend Lord Fairfax is preparing to return to England. Perhaps you should do the same.”

Eric smiled slowly and shook his head. “No. I cannot ‘return’ to England, sir, for I did not come from England. I am a Virginian.”

The three exchanged glances. Jefferson smiled again. “I’ve heard rumors that a certain brash lord arrived in the nick of time to save an injured, er—Indian—in Boston. Have you heard this rumor?”

“Shades of it, yes,” Eric said.

“Take heed, my friend,” Washington warned him.

“Tell me—was there proof of the rumor?”

“Not a whit of it!” Henry replied, pleased.

Eric leaned forward, feeling the warmth of the fire, hearing the snap and crackle of it. “I tell you, the three of you, that you must take heed. There are more rumors about. Thomas Gage has been sent as governor of Massachusetts, and the king has ordered him to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock.”

“They shall have to find them to arrest them, right?” Henry said. He rose and walked to the fire, tense with energy. He leaned against the mantel, then swung around to look at Eric. “God knows the future now, for none of us can read it, Lord Cameron. Yet if—”

“When,” Jefferson said softly.

“If it comes to that point, Lord Cameron, I shall hope that a man of your wit and wisdom chooses to cast his lot with us. Yet even I would have difficulty in your position. I have watched the members of our house weigh their thoughts, and it is a difficult process indeed.”

“Perhaps war will still be averted,” Eric said.

Washington, who was careful with his language, swore beneath his breath. “Every man among us has hoped that a force of arms be our last resort! And so we continue to
pray. But, Eric! Think back on the war. I resigned my commission because they demoted me—for being a colonial. This has long simmered and brewed.”

“They repealed the Stamp Act and came back at us with the Townshend Acts, further restricting our freedoms. We thought of ourselves as Englishmen—but those thoughts faded as we were denied the rights of Englishmen,” Jefferson said.

“The Townshend Acts were repealed—” Eric said.

“Except for a tea tax,” Jefferson reminded him complacently.

“And they were repealed,” Henry said vehemently, “merely because Lord North discovered that it cost more to collect the taxes than they were worth!”

They all laughed, and then their laughter ceased abruptly as there was a rap upon the door. Washington quickly rose to answer it. The innkeeper stood there.

“There’s a woman here,” he said.

“A woman?”

“Lady Sterling. She is looking for Lord Cameron.”

“Cameron!” Washington swirled around, looking at Eric who was about to light his pipe. He arched his brow and shrugged. A slow, curious and rueful smile appeared on Washington’s face.

“Truly one of Virginia’s great treasures,” Jefferson said.

“The daughter of Lord Sterling,” Patrick said, his tone indicating the care one should take with such a man.

“Mmm, yes,” Eric murmured. “You see, gentlemen, I did ask Lord Sterling’s permission to court the young lady, but alas, her heart lay elsewhere and she rather adamantly turned me down.”