Love Not a Rebel (21 page)

He started up the stairs again, murmuring to himself. “Perhaps you should marry him. If he is innocent, he is a man of the greatest prestige. And if he is guilty they will hang him, and his property will fall to you.”

The chill swept around Amanda, settling deeply into her heart. “I cannot marry him!” she cried, racing after her father.

He paused and looked down at her. “You will do as you are told,” he said, and kept walking.

She gritted her teeth, longing to run away, into the night. She didn’t care what happened to her, as long as she could escape him.

But then Damien would hang.

She waited until he had disappeared, then she tore up the stairs herself and slammed into her room. She fell upon the bed, breathing heavily.

Then she remembered the letter in her pocket, and she slipped her fingers into it, anxious to read the correspondence.

Her fingers faltered, and her heart began to slam. She had his life in her hands.

And before God, she didn’t know if she wished the letter to prove him a traitor or no. Pulling it from her pocket at last, she began to shiver. Even as she smoothed out the envelope, she felt again the fever of his kiss, the touch of his hands. Yes! She could condemn him. She had to! She was a loyalist; he was a patriot.

And it might well be Damien’s life against his.

She rolled over and looked at the envelope. There was a
name and address in the corner. Frederick something of Boston.

With shaking fingers, she reached inside.

The envelope was empty.

She lay back on the bed, and she began to laugh. She laughed until she cried.

And then she sobered with a gasp. She had spoken in haste.

And now she was condemned to play this torturous game still further. She was to go to his home; she was to make promises that she would never keep.

By God, she could not …

By God, she had to.

VII
  

T
here was a soft tap on Amanda’s door. She hastily stuffed the envelope back into her pocket and rose, hurrying to the door. “Yes?” she called softly.

“C’est moi, Danielle.”

Amanda quickly opened the door and Danielle, dressed in sober blue with an immaculate white pinafore, slipped into the room. She had taken her hair down, and it streamed in dark folds down her back.

She touched Amanda’s cheek. “You had a nice evening,
ma petite?
”

“It was … fine,” Amanda lied. She forced a smile that probably did not fool the woman in the least. “You know how I love Damien.”

Danielle nodded and crossed the room to a large wardrobe in the corner, opened it, and brought out one of Amanda’s nightgowns. It was soft silk, trimmed with Flemish lace at the throat and bodice and sleeves. “Lord
Sterling does buy for you the best,” Danielle murmured. “You have fought with him again?”

Amanda shrugged. “Not really. It is as it always is.”

“No. It is worse now. He sees you growing up.” She was quiet for a moment, her dark eyes luminous. “I should have killed him years ago!”

“Danielle!” Amanda gasped. “No, you cannot even think such a thing! They would hang you for it. And perhaps—perhaps not even God would forgive you.”

Danielle moved the silk against her cheek. “God would forgive me,” she said. She looked at Amanda, troubled. “That they should hang me, perhaps that is better than what he will do to you!”

Amanda was shaking again and she didn’t like it.

“He is my father. He would not really hurt me.” But she couldn’t help it; the shivers remained with her. She couldn’t forget the way that Nigel had called her mother a whore and suggested that she was just like her.

Danielle opened her mouth to say something, but then she closed it and helped Amanda out of her gown. Left in her stockings and corset and petticoats, Amanda hugged her arms about herself. “What was my mother like, Danielle?”

“Beautiful,” Danielle said softly. “Her eyes were the color of the sea, her hair was as radiant as a sunset. Her smile made others smile, and she was both gentle and passionate. And beautiful.” She hesitated, taking a petticoat as Amanda stepped from it. “You are her very image, Amanda. And that is why …”

“Why what?”

Danielle shook her head. “She was so very kind to me, and to Paul.”

“Paul?”

“My brother. He died before you were born.” Danielle untied the ribbons of Amanda’s corset, then slipped the nightgown over her head. Amanda murmured her thanks, then sat on the bed to remove her shoes and stockings and garters from beneath the gown, watching Danielle as she returned her things to the wardrobe and trunks.

“I can never forget,” Danielle continued. “It was so horrible.
We Acadians, we were farmers in Nova Scotia. When the British took over the French rule, we vowed to serve the English king. But then war broke out again, and the French feared that we would fight with the British, while the British feared that we would take up arms with the French. And so they simply stole our land and exiled us from the place of our birth. We lived in a little town called Port Henri. It had been named for our great-grandfather. We reclaimed the marshland, we had many cattle, we fished the Bay of Fundy. Then the British gathered us at Port Royal and told us that we must leave. We were huddled into ships like slaves, and the captains made money on the misery they inflicted upon us. They made their coin, whether we lived or died.
Mon Dieu!
Day after day, the human waste and sickness gathered upon us. They would not let us out of the hold … except for Marie d’Estaing, for the captain raped her again and again. She began to look forward to his violence, for she told me that it was better than smothering in the hold with the smell and the worms. She died before we came to port. I was barely alive when our ship came to Williamsburg. Your mother demanded that your father take some of us in, and he was forced to oblige her. So Paul and I had a home.”

Amanda rolled up one of her stockings, her fingers clenching against the pain and injustice done to Danielle’s people. Many who had lived had not been accepted upon the colonial shores, and they had left again, searching for a homeland with the French, to the west.

Danielle exhaled slowly, then sucked in her breath. “I’m sorry. This is long ago. In 1754. Before you were born.”

“But my mother was there. And she was kind. She was good then, Danielle. She was good and kind and beautiful.”

Danielle nodded. “She was very good. Has someone told you otherwise?”

Amanda shook her head hastily. She knew that the pain her father caused her would hurt Danielle even worse. “I just wanted to hear about her from you, that is all.”

“Then good night,
ma belle jeune fille,”
Danielle said
softly. She kissed Amanda’s head and hurried to the door. Then she swung back suddenly. “How long are we staying?”

“I—I don’t know,” Amanda replied. “Maybe not long. We have been invited to see Lord Cameron’s estate on the James. Perhaps we shall do so.”

Danielle’s eyes widened with pleasure. “We may go there?”

“Yes.”

“Away from your father?”

“Yes.”

Danielle nodded, pleased. “Lord Cameron is a far better man than the other you loved, Amanda.”

Robert. His memory tugged at her heart, even if she had forced it to grow cold. She had dreamed too often of his golden head beside her own upon a pillow. She still had visions of little children, their little children, laughing and running about the house on Christmas day.

“Goodnight, Danielle,” she said, more abruptly than she had intended. The woman stiffened, and Amanda immediately regretted her harsh tone. She raced over and hugged her. “I’m sorry, Dani. It’s just that—I loved him, you see. And Lord Cameron—” She paused, shivering. “He might well be a traitor.”

“Tell me,
petite
, what is a traitor but a man with a different cause? The British exiled me from my homeland. They took everything. The French were not there for me. I was Acadian, lost. And now I listen to the people on the streets and I know.”

“You are a Virginian.”

“I am an American,” Danielle said with quiet dignity, and she smiled. “Who can ever say? If one wages war and is victorious, he is a hero,
c’est vrai?
If he wages war and loses, then he is a traitor, it is so simple.”

Danielle pulled away from Amanda for a moment, studying her eyes. “Whatever else Lord Cameron may be, Amanda, he is a man who would be true to his own honor, and if he loved you, he would never betray you, as others have done.” Danielle smiled, and then left.

Amanda watched after her, then she locked the door
with the key and went back to the bed. She stared at the candle on the bedside, then snuffed out the flame, swearing. “Damn! He is a traitor, and a rogue, and so help me, I will use him as is necessary!”

She crawled beneath the covers, still shivering. It was not so cold a night, but the fire in the hearth was very low, and there was an autumn snap in the air. It was definitely the cold, she assured herself, that brought about her shivers, and nothing else.

She closed her eyes and prayed for sleep to ease her soul. No matter how she tried, though, she could not drift into slumber. She was haunted by visions of the day, of her father in the governor’s delightful rose garden, calling her mother a whore. Calling
her
a whore. Threatening her. And then her father’s face faded away, and she saw Eric Cameron before her with his steely eyes, watching her, knowing … something. Chess pieces moved before her. Gravely he leaned toward her. “Checkmate, milady. Checkmate.”

She jerked up suddenly. She must have dozed, because she had now awakened. She didn’t know why; she didn’t know what she had felt.

The fire had gone down to almost nothing, and the window was open—she could see the drapes flowing soft and white into the room. She could have sworn that the window had been closed when she had lain down.

She tossed her covers aside and set her bare feet upon the floor, then hurried to the window. The moon was sending down shafts of light and the breeze was picking up. The drapes swirled, and the soft silk of her gown rose against her legs, rippling around her.

She sensed a shadow in the room. She turned about, but the moonlight had blinded her, and now she could not see. But she wasn’t alone; she could feel someone else there.

“Who—who is it!” She gasped. She wanted to scream, but the words came out in a whisper.

There was a sudden motion. She saw the dark silhouette as it approached her, and she inhaled to scream. A hand fell across her lips. She kicked viciously and contacted human flesh, but then she was swept up high and tossed
down hard upon the bed. Dazed, she tried to roll away, and she was wrenched back as the dark shadow fell upon her. She twisted, freeing her knee and her mouth. She gasped, but again no sound managed to escape, for a hand fell back down upon her, firmly clamping down upon her jaw and mouth, and she felt forceful arms lock tight around her. Wildly she clutched at the fingers that held her, raking them with her nails. Her hands were quickly caught and she was pushed down deeply into the bed. The attacker was still behind her, a leg cast over her, his one arm beneath her as his fingers stifled her breath and words, his other arm around her like an iron band, his hand beneath her breast, holding her taut and hard against his body.

“Shush,” he whispered. Warm breath, scented with a pleasant masculine combination of brandy and good pipe tobacco, swirled against her cheek. She tried to bite, but she could not, she was held too tightly. She tried to squirm away, and she realized with horror that her movement brought the hem of her gown high up, baring her legs, and tugged the bodice of her gown even lower. She could feel his fingers upon the fullness of her breasts through the flimsy lace of the gown. “Lady, I mean it, not a whisper. And be still.” She went dead still, not to be obedient, but with shock. It was Lord Cameron!

With the realization she panicked. She tried to kick and thrash again. He swore with no heed for her fair sex, then wrested her beneath him, his thighs taut about hers, his hand now a brutal clamp upon her mouth, and the length of him leaned low and close to her. She had no breath; she feared that she would faint. She could see his eyes flashing in the curious combination of the dying fire’s glow and the moonlight, and there was no love, and no humor, within them now.