“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.”
“What makes you think that I have ever cared about their opinions?” she countered. His hands touched hers, and suddenly they were swirling to the music.
“Perhaps you don’t. But you do care about your pride.”
“Do I?”
“Immeasurably.”
“Enough so that I should not be dancing with a known rabble-rouser?”
“Rabble-rouser? Ah, milady, I’ve not nearly the eloquence necessary to sway the populace!”
“They talk of you from here to the nether regions, Lord Cameron. How can you say that?”
“You haven’t heard the real speech masters, milady. They rouse the heart, and that is where change lies, madame. Not in arms, and not even in bloodshed. Change lies within the very heart and soul of the people.”
“So you do seek war.”
“No one seeks war.”
“You are infamous.”
“Perhaps, but as I said, I haven’t the eloquence to move worlds, milady.”
She shivered suddenly, not knowing why. He was scarcely a humble man, yet his words caused her to feel chills.
Someone walking over her grave.…
Or perhaps a warning. As if she would live to see the day when she would depend desperately upon his eloquence and his ability to sway the masses.
Never. He was the traitor.
“You are a liar, a knave, and a scoundrel.”
He laughed, lowering his head near hers, and she realized that all the room was watching them. “Am I all that, milady? Pity, for I felt that you fit so very well with me. And of course, I’m even daring to believe that you might realize it one day—once your heart recovers from its bruising.”
“I shall survive, but I shall never discover that I fit well with you, milord.” She smiled sweetly, and they swirled with an ever greater vigor about the floor. His eyes never left hers, and with each step she felt more fully the heat of the summer’s night, the sizzle of fire, as if lightning storms raged outside. His confidence in himself was outrageous, yet even thinking of his kiss, of his touch upon her, caused her breath to catch, her heart to thunder, and she realized there was one thing about him she could not resist—he was exciting. He infuriated her, and if she cared for nothing else, she did long to show him that she would never be beaten.
“Ah … careful, smile sweetly! Lady Geneva has her eyes upon us.”
“Perhaps she is jealous. Didn’t you recently share a dance with her?”
“Recently, yes. But I’ve never proposed marriage to her.”
“I see. But perhaps you have made other proposals to Lady Geneva?”
“The green eyes of jealousy, love?”
“I’m not your love, and my eyes are green by birth, milord.”
“Lady Geneva makes her own proposals,” he told her softly, and she almost wrenched from his hold, for she knew then that they had been lovers, and she was furious that she should be so bothered by the thought.
“I’m quite exhausted. May we cease this mockery?”
“Alas, no! Chin up, eyes bright, ’tis be damned with the world, remember?”
“ ‘Tis be damned with you, sir, and if you’ll excuse me—”
“Ah, but I won’t.”
And he did not. He held her close, and she was captured with the dance. Swirling and spinning, they passed by the other dancers, her hair and her gown flying out about her, making her a vision of beauty and fire in the night, on the arms of the tall, dark man. He twirled her from the dance floor out onto the porch, and then he had her laughing, for he did not quit then, but deftly brought her leaping down the steps and onto the lawn. Once there, he continued to swirl her beneath the moonlight. She cast back her head, smiling, for he was right about one thing. She longed to throw all caution to the wind, to show the gossips that she would do as she pleased, that she was not spurned and she knew no pain. He saw her smile, and some knowing glint came to his eyes.
“A temptress and a hell-raiser, milady? Shall we show them that life is to be lived to the fullest and that passion is its own master?”
“You are a hell-raiser. I am no temptress.”
“Ah! I beg to disagree!”
“Do you, sir? Amazing, but I do not see you begging at all.”
He smiled. “A matter of speech, milady.”
“Humility is surely your greatest virtue.”
“However you would have it, Lady Sterling, however you would have it.”
And then suddenly they were dancing no more. They stood beneath the moonlight. His mouth was hard and unsmiling. His eyes were as piercing as a silver blade as they stared down into hers.
“There are whispers upon the wind, Amanda. Harsh whispers. Should you need me, know that I will be there.”
“I will not need you!” she promised. But perhaps that was not so true, for even though the night was warm she was already shivering, and despite the entire debacle of the evening, she longed to cast herself into his arms and feel their warmth and security about her. And yet, she thought, for all the lightness of his words, this man would be no gentle master, but one determined upon his own cause. A woman who loved him was bound to be mastered by that iron will and determination.
No! she thought. I shall never lose my heart or my soul to one such as he! The pain that she felt this night was one thing. She realized that being entrapped by the fierce passion of this man could cause an anguish she could not begin now to fathom. The strange sensations touched her like mist, making her feel uneasy and hot. The strange tingling seized her body once again, dangerously touching places that it should not.
“You—you cannot love me, you don’t even know me!” she cried.
“I know a great deal about you,” he told her, and he smiled again. “And don’t forget—I am in lust with you.”
“You wish to best me! That is all. I have not fallen amorously into your arms, as others do too easily. You like to win, before you step upon your conquests. Well, you shall not win against me, sir.”
“Perhaps not. I’ll consider it a ch
allenge well met.” He was silent for a moment, then he indicated someone over his shoulder. “It’s an interesting evening. Your lost love is consoling himself, I see.”
“What?” Amanda swung around, stunned to see that Robert had come to the porch.
With Geneva. And they were close together in an intimate embrace. She had cast her arms about his neck. Her head was back and her laughter was throaty. And then she was kissing him.
Amanda gave not a thought to the night, the world, or propriety. Blindly she cast her arms about the man before her and came up high on her toes to press her length against him. Instinctively she arched against him, curling her fingers into his hair and then pressing her lips against his. Tentatively she pressed her tongue against his teeth.
And then the world seemed to explode. His mouth gave way, and he was not in her arms, but she was in his. She was barely upon her feet, swirling in the moonlight again, and his tongue raked her mouth as if it invaded the very soul of her and reached with his searing liquid fire to touch her heart. He laid his hand upon her breast, and something moved in her to that touch, something that pulsed with curiosity.
With desire.
“Oh …” She gasped against him, when his mouth lifted from hers at last.
He held her still, swept off her feet, in his arms. She stared up at him in the darkness and saw his slow rake’s smile just touch the corner of his lips as he spoke seriously. “Did that suffice for what you wished, milady? I do believe you’ve struck fairly in return. The poor dear fellow is on the porch. I’m afraid he’s just about ready to trip over his tongue. Shall I release you and ease his agony? Or do you wish to heap more torture upon him? I am ready to oblige you in any manner you choose.”
“Oh! Oh, you bastard!” She gasped. “Set me down! This instant.”
He started to do so. Instantly. She nearly fell flat and managed to save herself only by clinging to his neck.
“Lord Cameron—”
“Yes, love. What is it now? I never seem to be able to please you.”
“That’s because I absolutely despise you.”
“Ah, then I shall look forward to the kisses you will give when you’ve discovered that you love me.”
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