A LOVE WICKED AND BEAUTIFUL
“YOU’RE FORGETTING THAT YOU’RE MY WIFE,” HE REMINDED HER. “AND THAT I AM A SOLDIER, RETURNED FROM THE FRONT!”
“I am forgetting nothing! We are bitter enemies, milord, and no matter how I try, you refuse to believe me.”
“You speak of war again. You chose to fight this particular battle. Well, I won, madame. You lost. And you are my wife.”
“Your despised wife! Eric, for the love of God—”
“For the love of God, lady, no. I will not free you this night. If it is war, madame, than know the truth of it. If the rebels win, then I am a hero. If the king is victorious, then I am a traitor indeed. But this night, lady, I am the conqueror, and the rewards of the conquest are as old as time.”
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
Copyright © 1989 by Heather Graham Pozzessere
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
eISBN: 978-0-307-81578-1
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Part I: Tempest in a Teapot
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Part II: The Reluctant Spy
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Part III: Liberty or Death
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Part IV: But One Life
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Epilogue
Other Books by This Author
Prologue
BETRAY NOT THE HEART!
Cameron Hall
Tidewater Virginia
June 1776
“Amanda!”
The door to the bedroom burst open just as she heard the distant thunder of the cannon upon the sea. Amanda leapt up from her bedcovers and dreams to streak across the polished floor to the full-length windows. There were ships in the harbor. Flying the British colors.
Danielle stood behind her. Another cannon boomed; Amanda saw the explosion of black powder upon the sea.
“It’s Lord Dunmore! Aiming at the house!” Amanda gasped. She swung around to see that Danielle was watching her, her dark eyes condemning.
“Aye, ‘Highness.’ He’s come for revenge against Cameron—no matter what service you’ve offered him.”
Amanda’s eyes flashed in offense at Danielle’s blunt words while fury reigned in her heart. She had fulfilled her part of every bargain she had ever made with the royal governor. And still he was threatening Cameron Hall. After fleeing Williamsburg, he had asserted his royal vengeance from the sea, destroying so much of the coast! And now he was here.
Fear struck her heart. He knew! He knew about the weapons and powder that had been brought to the dock. He knew …
But she had not told him! She would never have gone so far. There had not been anything left to threaten her with, and she could not have done so … not now. Not against … Eric.
“Amanda—”
“Shush! I have to act quickly!”
Amanda ran to her wardrobe. “Help me!” she commanded Danielle sharply. She stepped from her nightgown, her fingers trembling as she tried to tie the knots of her corset.
Danielle came at last behind her. “What do you intend to do?”
“Send the slaves and servants and workers into the forest. I’ll go out and speak with Dunmore—”
“And if your father is with him? Or Lord Tarryton?”
“God’s blood!” she swore in panic, as no lady should. But the events of the last two years of her life had prevented her from being the lady she might have been. She stared hard at Danielle before the woman could offer reproach. “Stop! I cannot think—”
“You should have thought before taking on the role of spy, milady!” Danielle told her woefully.
“Leave off, mam’selle!” Amanda commanded her. She chose a shift and gown and quickly pulled them over her head, then stumbled into her garters and stockings. She gazed across the room to the now-empty bed and shivered in sudden fear of what was to come. What had she done? Should she be praying for British defeat or victory at this moment?
She didn’t dare think. “My shoes,” she murmured, sliding her feet into a pair of black leather slippers with rhinestone buckles. “Now, Danielle—” she began, but broke off. A British officer was standing in her bedroom doorway. Lord Robert Tarryton. She realized instantly that he had ridden in while the attack had been staged upon the sea.
“Hello, Amanda.” He paused for a moment, looking her over from head to toe, then taunted, “Ah, Highness! You are a sight. I feel that I have waited a long time to claim you.”
“You cannot claim me,” she told him flatly, despising him.
She stood warily watching the man. He was handsome, with light hair and light eyes and beautiful lean features. Once she had thought him the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Then she had come to notice that there was a twist to his smile which marred his good looks, for there was a hint of cruelty to it.
Alas, she had discovered the truth of the man too late.
“We’ve come for you,” he said.
Her heart quickened with horror. “I will not go with you.”
“What? The Tory princess is suddenly casting her fate with the rebels? Don’t be a fool. They say that Cameron knows you alerted us. Take care, lady! My touch would be ever more gentle than his!” Robert spoke swiftly as he moved into the room. He looked from the elegant bed to the wardrobe and the tables and the graceful length of the windows, and his jaw twisted further with some inner rage. The essence of the man who owned the room remained. And something of his power. Perhaps it disturbed Robert, Amanda thought.
It had often disturbed her.
“Eric knows!” She gasped suddenly. “But I did not betray—”
“Lady, you did. We are here. And I have come for you!” he told her with sudden fury.
Her mouth went dry as he came toward her. Danielle tried to block his way, and he shoved the Acadian woman to the side. In seconds he was before Amanda. She struggled with him, tearing her fingers down his cheek. He laughed as he caught her fingers, twisting them brutally. “Don’t play your games, Highness. You called, and I am here.”
“No!” She gasped, horrified. She was the one who had been betrayed. She knew that the arms had been stored at the docks, but she was no longer Highness! She had told no one.
She struggled furiously against him but he held her firmly in a viselike grip. Danielle lay on the floor where she had fallen, her eyes closed.
“You’ve killed her!” Amanda cried, trying to escape him. “God, how I hate you, loathe you—”
“The crone lives,” Robert replied. “Let’s go! Warn your people to get out. We’re firing the house.”
“I’ll never come with—” Amanda began, then she realized what he’d said. We’re firing the house. Firing the house. Cameron Hall. “No!” With a rage of energy s
he flung herself against him, tearing at his flesh again. His cheek bled as she fought for the house, bricks and chimneys and walls that suddenly seemed so desperately dear to her. “No, you can’t burn the hall, you can’t—”
He caught her fingers, his face white with fury except for the blood-red scratches her nails had left. “I have to fire the house,” he said. “But …”
“But?” She cast back her head.
“Walk out of here with me. Come aboard the Lady Jane, your husband’s seized ship, of your own free will, and I will see that the fires are set small, and that your people can come back and quickly put them out.”
She stared at him in anguish, thinking quickly. She knew that she had little choice. He could drag her away screaming anyway.
“I’ll walk,” she said, fighting the tears that threatened to fill her eyes. They could not burn the house! They couldn’t! She jerked away from him as he pressed a handkerchief to his face and prodded her forward.
The stairway was filled with the servants. Amanda swallowed hard and looked at them all—Pierre, Margaret, Remy, Cassidy. “You all must go outside quickly. They plan to burn the house.”
“Look at ’er—the Tory bitch!” Margaret cried out.
Amanda’s face went ashen. Robert stepped forward to strike the woman.
“No!” Amanda called.
He turned back to her, smiling, offering her an elbow. “Highness?”
She bit her lip and took his arm. Amanda didn’t turn back as he led her down the stairs. Remy spit at her, but she stiffened her shoulders, remaining silent. She was a Tory. That was the truth. But the rest of this was some bitter irony. At the door she pulled away from Robert and turned back to the servants. “Get out. Get out, please! They’ll—”
“This is a house of wicked rebellion against God’s own anointed King of England! Leave it or die in the flames of hell!” Robert shouted, pulling her along.
But on the porch he paused, conferring with one of his lieutenants. The young man cast her a leering gaze, then nodded to his superior.
“The house, lady, will survive. The docks will not,” Robert stated.
She could smell fire. One of the tobacco warehouses was ablaze. When the shed with the powder went, there would be explosions everywhere.
Robert dragged her along to his horse. The sun was shining high overhead and a multitude of birds were singing. The grassy slope had never appeared more green. But the fresh river air was polluted already by the acrid smell of smoke. Amanda could see far down the hill that Lord Dunmore had come in, that his men were rowing from his ships to the Lady Jane, at berth on the dock.
“Mount with me, lady. We will ride,” Robert whispered in her ear. Her stomach roiled. That she had loved him once she could scarcely believe. She shoved away from him and leapt upon his mottled gray stallion. He followed behind her. In seconds they were racing down to the dock. Her hands were cold, but no colder than her heart. She had gone numb.
They came to a halt. Robert reached for her, lifted her down.
Suddenly a cannon boomed out on the river. The men in British navy uniforms who were milling about the Lady Jane, preparing her for sail, twirled around to see the new angle of attack.
“God’s blood!” Robert swore. Dazed, Amanda stared out to the river. Ships were appearing. Ships that did not fly the colors of the British Crown.
“He’s come!” Amanda gasped. He should have been in New York, or in New Jersey. Far, far away.
“Aye, he’s come. And what will he do if he finds you? Hang you? Highness, you’d best pray that we are victorious! Now come!”
Robert set his arm about her, practically lifting her from her feet. Amanda seemed to skim the ground until they reached the Lady Jane, ready now to sail. They raced up the gangplank and aboard.
Captain Jannings, one of Lord Dunmore’s men, bowed to her regretfully. “Highness! We are under attack. Fear not, I will see you into Lord Dunmore’s hands, and then you shall be safely whisked away to England!”
Tears stung her eyes. Once she would have begged to hear those words. Now she had no choice. Her dreams had burned away in the fires that had raged on land.
Cameron Hall would remain standing. Yet from the moment the British had come for the arms stored in warehouses along the docks, she herself had been doomed. The truth would not matter now.
A cannon exploded near the ship. A man screamed as a shard of steel cut into his flesh. Battle was engaged, and they weren’t even out into the open water.
The young captain raced to the fore, putting his glass to his eye. “Be damned, but it is Cameron riding the ship! Gunners, to your weapons. Sergeant, call the orders to fire!”
Robert grabbed her hand and hurried her toward the aft of the ship where the captain’s large cabin commanded a fine view of the sea. He threw open the door and shoved her inside.
Then he followed her, closing the door behind him. His eyes were bright with the excitement of battle, with the pleasure of winning. “He will die, Amanda. I swear it.”
She felt as if she would faint. Cannon boomed again, and even as they stood there, the room seemed to fill with the black soot of powder and fire. “You’ll never kill him!” she vowed.
“I’ll kill him, I swear it.” Two steps brought Robert to her. She struggled as he swept her into his arms. “I’ll kill him, and I’ll have you naked beneath me while the blood still runs warm from his body.”
She lashed out at him, and he started to laugh. “Pray to the saints that it is so, lady, for he knows of this treachery, and he will kill you!”
She shoved her knee into his groin with all of her strength. He staggered back. Amanda gripped the wall, ready to do battle again. But the door was thrown open and a uniformed Highlander stepped in. “Lord Tarryton! You are needed, your Grace. Milady! I am here to die for your protection! Lieutenant Padraic McDougal at your service.”
Robert gritted his teeth against the pain and cast her a glance that promised sure revenge. Then he straightened, ever the military man, and exited the cabin. The Highlander nodded to her, closing the door and standing guard beyond it. Amanda clamped her hands over her ears as the cannon boomed again.
They would all die.
She raced to the velvet-draped windows and looked out to the water. A ship called the Good Earth was almost upon them, coming about with grappling irons. Men were leaping from the rigging to come aboard the Lady Jane.
Eric’s ship.
His ship, which the British had taken …
And now she was on board. He would never believe her innocent!
With a cry of anguish she rose, determined to have none of it. They could not have traveled too far from shore yet. She needed to reach the deck and be quit of them all. Robert would betray her. He would never take her to Lord Dunmore, never see her safely to England.
And Eric would …
Kill her.
She hurried to the cabin door. Beyond it she could hear the sound of clashing steel. Still she threw the door wide open, but then she halted in horror at all that she saw.
Battle had come hand to hand, and to the death. Even as she stood there, the captain fell dead, skewered by a blade in the hands of a mountain man. Amanda stepped aside as two boys, fighting with ropes and fists, crashed down before her. She nearly slipped in a pool of blood that oozed from the throat of a bearded redcoat. She looked forward, and her heart caught in her throat.
Eric was there.
On the bow of the Lady Jane, his rapier drawn, he and Robert were cast heavily into the fray. Both men knew their swordplay, yet no man was so subtle, so swift, as Eric Cameron. He moved forward suddenly, pushing Robert back, his black crackling silver beneath the sun despite the mist and smoke that hung over the deck. He was talented and dramatic, provoking Robert to angry lashes, taunting him then as he flecked his sword against his opponent’s chin. His left hand remained behind his back as he moved again with speed and grace, demanding that Lord Tarryton cast down his sword.
Five of Dunmore’s finest navy men turned at Tarryton’s call for help, daring opponents as they sprang forward.
She heard Eric’s reckless laughter. He lived on the edge now, and enjoyed it. He cared nothing for danger for they had attacked his very home. They had attacked her! Amanda thought.
But he would not see it that way.
Her hand fluttered to her throat as she watched him fight. Silently she screamed as men thrust and parried. Not knowing what she did, she dipped low to the deck, grabbing up a sword.
Robert Tarryton had turned. Amanda watched as he leapt to the rigging by the mainmast, then catapulted into the sea.
“So you’d give fight, eh?”
A cheerful young man in West County buckskins and a bloody shoulder stood before her. She looked down at the sword in her arm. It was covered with blood too. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cast the sword down and back away screaming. She’d never seen bloodshed like this before. War had always been distant; battle something one heard of in glorious accounts that didn’t mention the cries of the dying. She shook her head, but the lad had grown serious. “Milady, if you must give battle, then I shall engage you so!”
“Highness!” someone yelled out. “The woman must be Highness!”
Amanda held up her weapon in terror. She didn’t want to kill the man, nor did she want to die in a pool of blood, there upon the Lady Jane. “No, I shall not fight or surrender!” she claimed, thrusting the sword forward in warning so that the lad fell back. Then she turned and raced blindly back toward the captain’s cabin. Men streamed after her.
She raced through the door, breathless, slamming it closed behind her. Her Highlander was there, rushing forward to meet the enemy, carrying his loaded Brown Bess. He never lifted the weapon. A sword was thrust through his heart, and he came crashing down at Amanda’s feet. “Dear God, no!” she cried, falling to his side, trying to staunch his wound.
It was over, she realized. There was silence on the deck.
But the echo of the shots had barely ceased, the ring of steel had just gone silent, when the door to the captain’s cabin burst open, the wood shuddering as if it would splinter into a million fragments. A man stood there, towering in the doorway, framed by the combination of sea mist and black powder that swirled upon the deck. He was exceedingly tall, broad shouldered, lean in the hips, legs firm upon the deck. He stood silent and still, and yet from her distance, Amanda felt the menace of his presence, felt the tension hot upon the air.
Love Not a Rebel Page 1