Eric would never forgive her.
Somewhere during the journey she must have slept. She awoke to discover that they had come to the town house, that it was night. The door to the coach opened, starting her awake.
“We’re here, Amanda,” Danielle said to her.
Amanda hurried toward the house. She walked up the steps, pulling off her gloves, calling to the housekeeper at the same time. “Mathilda, I’ve come!” She twisted the knob, found that the door was open, and walked on into the house. “Mathilda!” she called again, walking on through to the parlor. She tossed her gloves absently upon the desk, thinking idly of that first night here when she had begun her game of chess with Eric. He had been right. She had been in check all the time.
A sound suddenly startled her and she looked across the room. Her heart leapt to her throat and caught there, and she had to clutch the desk to steady herself.
Eric was there, an elbow leaned upon the mantel, a snifter of brandy in his hand. He looked wonderful in his tight white breeches, deep-blue frock coat, white laced shirt, and high boots, his lips curved in a slowly lazy smile as she realized his presence at last.
“Eric!” Her hand fluttered to her throat.
“Amanda!” He tossed his snifter into the fire, heedless of the cracking of the glass, of the hiss and steam and ripple as the alcohol sent the flames rising high. In seconds he was across the room, and she was in his arms. In seconds she was achingly aware of him, of the scent of him, of the texture of his face, the ripple of his muscles, the rough feel of his fabric, the intoxicating feel of his lips. She felt as if she were sinking into clouds, rising into acres of heaven. It had been so long since he had touched her.…
She was going to fall. It didn’t matter. Not at that moment. He was kissing too hungrily. When her trembling caused her to slip, he lifted her into his arms. Then she forgot her fears again as his fingers moved through her hair, and she found a simple fascination in the way that it sprang beneath her fingers. She was barely aware that they moved upstairs, she was desperate to touch more of him, to feel more of his kiss. And then, in the darkness, there was nothing but the feel and the warmth and the sex of the man, and the throbbing pulse of an ancient music, wrapping them in a world where words meant nothing. She tried to speak, whispering his name with wonder. She didn’t know how he was there, but he was, glistening muscle rippling beneath her fingers, his lips feverishly upon her, upon her body, upon her breasts. The night seemed to come alive with the ragged harmony of their heartbeats, with the pulse that pounded between them, with the fever and flames that leapt and crackled and caused beautiful colors to explode even within the darkness.…
The night …
It remained alive with the beauty, and the hunger, and when passion was sated, it was still not time for words, for they needed just to touch, to hold one another, to relish something that had become exceedingly precious just to be wrenched away.
It was morning before they talked. Before Amanda worried again. Before Eric was able to explain his presence. He was still in bed, leaning against the frame, his fingers laced behind his head. Amanda had risen at last and sat before the dressing table, trying to detangle the wild mass of her hair.
“It ended. The siege ended. St. Patrick’s Day brought an Irish surprise. The Brits had evacuated Boston.”
Amanda met his eyes in the mirror. “I’m glad for you, Eric.”
“But not for the Brits, eh?”
She shrugged.
“Well, Amanda?”
“Eric, I am trying very hard to be a neutral.”
He leapt up from the bed. She felt as if she were being stalked by a tiger as he walked up behind her. “Are you, Amanda? Are you really?”
His hands were upon her shoulders. She prayed that he would not feel the way that she shook, and yet she was not lying when she spoke. “Yes! I swear that I would be neutral now, if I could.”
Some passion must have touched her voice, for though he still seemed frustrated, he seemed to believe her too. He stalked back to the bed, then stretched out upon its length, casual, bold, and brazen, and catching her heart all over again. “I have heard that some of the things I told you in my letters came to be discovered.”
Fear clutched her heart like an icy hand. “Much of what you have told me has been common knowledge!”
“Aye, that it has. But since I have come home, I have realized that many a good Virginian politician and military man is alarmed by the rumor that a spy rests closely among us. A woman spy, my love. They are calling her ‘Highness.’ Actually, her fame had even reached Boston. Washington thinks that it might be you.”
His voice was cool, ironic. Her heart thundered drastically and she could scarcely breathe. She shook her head. “Eric—”
“You have never denied being a Tory, my love.”
He sprang to his feet and moved up behind her. He set his hands on either side of her head and stroked her cheeks and her throat. How easily his fingers could wind about her throat!
“I am your wife,” she reminded him, her eyes falling.
“But are you innocent?”
She met his eyes again in the mirror. “Eric!” she told him passionately and sincerely, “By God, I swear that in any matter of choice, I would never seek to hurt you!”
“Or my cause?”
“Or—or your cause!” she swore softly.
“Am I a fool to believe in you, Amanda?”
She shook her head, unable to speak. Her hair moved against his naked belly and he bent over her, finding her lips. He spoke just above them in a whisper. “Don’t ever let me catch you, lady!” he warned huskily, then kissed her. He pulled away.
“Oh! God!” he said suddenly. “How could I have forgotten, when it is so very important! I have seen Damien!”
“What?”
She nearly screamed the word, spinning around. Eric grinned, pleased. “Yes, well the Brits had him, but he managed to escape. He had some friendly guards and they shared some ale. He managed to swim his way to some flotsam, and then he was picked up by a colonial ship. He was delivered to Baltimore and hurried back to Boston. I was able to see him just before I left.”
“He’s—free?” Amanda asked.
“Yes—free as a bird.”
She screamed out something incomprehensible, then jumped to her feet and hurtled herself upon his naked form, bearing them both back down to the bed. He grunted and groaned, and then laughed. She showered him with kisses that caused his groaning to take on a different timbre. Laughter faded and they made love again, desperately again, until they were exhausted and glistening and unable to find words for they could not find breath. And yet finally Amanda managed to speak again. “Eric, how long do you have?”
He exhaled unhappily. “Less than a week. And so much is happening here! I’ve already heard that when the Virginians meet again, they plan to declare the land a commonwealth—to vote for independence! Before it is even done in the Continental Congress! History, my love, in the making, and I shall be back in New York, for that is where Washington believes they will attack next. We must plan a defense for the city.”
Less than a week. So little time between them. So much that might be discovered.…
But Damien was free.
She twisted in his arms suddenly, smiling. “I shall never betray you, Eric!” she promised him. She almost continued. She almost told him that she loved him, but some dark shadow in his eyes held her back. He did not really believe her. He did not trust her. He was not saying as much, but it was true. He was watching her, and now she was going to have to prove that she was loyal to him, if a Tory still at heart.
“See that you don’t,” he warned her. She lay still against him. In a while, she realized that he slept. There were new lines about his eyes, about his mouth. Battle was taking its toll upon him.
She rose, needing to leave him to sleep, and reflect upon her new good fortune.
She dressed quickly and hurried out of the room. A pair
of boots rested before one of the bedroom doors. Someone had traveled with Eric, she realized. One of his men. More danger, she thought, her heart beating fiercely.
She hurried on down the stairs and slipped into the parlor. There she knelt down before the desk and drew open the door.
And then she felt the knife against her throat, brought around her from behind. She froze.
“Good day, Lady Cameron” came a husky voice. It was the tall black man. Her father’s emissary.
She forced herself to speak. “You’re a fool. My husband is home. Williamsburg is run by colonials. All I need do is scream, and they will hang you—”
“Ah, but your blood will rise in a pool long before that moment, and as I’m quite sure Lord Cameron might be surprised, there is a chance that his blood might also stain the floor. Think carefully, Lady Cameron …” The knife came so tightly against her throat she could barely speak.
And still, she was determined on her own freedom. “Damien is free, and I am done, ‘Highness’ no more! Kill me if you will, but tell my father he will get nothing more from me!”
“We were afraid that you had heard of your cousin’s escape, my lady. Your father sends this message—if he comes to Cameron Hall again, it will be to burn the wretched mansion to the ground. And Lord Tarryton wants you to know that if he comes, you will be his prisoner, his mistress. He is most anxious.”
“If they come anywhere near Cameron Hall,” she said, “they will die!”
He did not reply. A second later she no longer felt the knife against her throat. With a soft rasping cry she leapt to her feet, spinning around.
He was gone. The man was gone. The window was open, the spring breeze was rushing in. She ran to it but could see nothing.
She sank into a chair and sat there, motionless, feeling the breeze. She should tell Eric. She should admit everything that had happened, she should explain that it was all because of Damien.
She should, if she could just find the courage!
But it was over now. All over. She never had to play the spy again. Never. Eric need never know. And if she told him, he might despise her, he might never forgive her.…
Later Mathilda came and served her breakfast. She discovered that the boots belonged to Frederick, who had accompanied Eric, and she sat and drank coffee with him.
Eric slept most of the day. And when he came down, and his eyes fell dark and brooding, upon her, she knew that she could say nothing. It was finished. It had to be. She prayed with all her heart that it should be so.
Unless … unless the British did come to Cameron Hall.
They did not stay in Williamsburg long. General Charles Lee, a highly respected military man and an Englishman who had cast his lot with the colonies, was in Virginia to oversee militia troops. He was learning that the Virginia political machine was very competent and that he would do best to work with the local leaders. Eric was interested in seeing Lee and other of his friends and acquaintances, but he was most interested in returning home to Cameron Hall.
They rode the estate there, and Amanda was delighted when he applauded her various efforts to keep things moving smoothly. It was still spring, and cool, but they came to the little cover by the river, and they laid their cloaks there and made love beneath the rippling branches of the trees overhead.
Amanda still agonized over telling him the truth of what she had done, yet she was not sure that she could make him understand, and since Damien was free, no one could coerce her again.
And Eric watched her. When she would move about the house; she would catch his eyes upon her. When they rode, when they lay down to sleep together, and sometimes even when he held her. If she awakened with her back to him, she would sense that he leaned upon an elbow, watching the length of her, and she would turn and would discover it to be true, and the shadows would fall over his eyes again.
On his fifth day home the Lady Jane sailed brilliantly past Dunmore’s ships and came in to her home berth. She had just returned from Italy, so Eric told Amanda. But when she awoke that night, Eric was not beside her. She caught a sheet about her and hurried to the window to see the activity down by the docks.
“Spying, my love?”
The question startled her. She spun around to find Eric in a simple white shirt, tight breeches and boots, his hands on his hips, framed in the doorway of her room. He strode over to stand beside her. She tried not to allow her pulse to leap. “I was looking for you. I awoke, and you were gone.”
He nodded, his eyes heavy-lidded and half shielded beneath his lashes. His hands rested on her shoulders and he pulled her against him.
“The real cargo was arms, wasn’t it?” she whispered.
“And powder,” he agreed.
She spun around to face him, her head tilted back. “If you so mistrust me, why on earth tell me the truth?”
“You are hardly a fool. I could not convince you that I unloaded leather goods and wine by night, could I?”
He turned away, sitting at the foot of the bed, stripping off his boots, shirt, and breeches. He glanced around to see her still standing by the window, hurt by his tone of voice.
Even if she was still a spy, she would never betray Cameron Hall. He had to know that.
“Come to bed, Amanda. There is something left of the night,” he told her.
She walked slowly back to the bed. She sat upon her own side, still swathed in sheets, and she watched how the moonlight played upon his shoulders and chest. He was more bronzed than ever, more tightly muscled. He stretched out beside her, and despite her anger with him, she wanted to touch him. But she didn’t want to make a first move.
She didn’t have to.
He emitted some impatient sound and reached for her. She cried out softly, allowing the sunset and fire of her hair to sweep over the naked length of him, and then she nipped delicately upon the flesh of his chest, at his nipples, his throat. He caught her tightly to him, sweeping her beneath him, and they made love as if in a tempest, as if a storm guided them, and perhaps it was true. Time was their enemy; they had so little of it. They were strangers in the long months between his visits, and in this maelstrom they thought, perhaps, to find one another again.
And still, when they lay spent and quiet, she knew that he watched her. His fingers moved slowly off the slope of her shoulder to her hip, and he watched her, pensive, distant.
“Lord Dunmore is dangerous,” he said at last. “Some men are afraid that he intends to sail to Mount Vernon and kidnap Martha Washington.”
“Surely he wouldn’t dare!” she murmured.
She felt him shrug. “I am afraid, too, that he might come here.”
“Because of the arms?”
Eric was silent for just the beat of a second. “But the governor knows of no arms, my love.”
She swung around, facing him. “I would never betray this hall, Eric, never!”
“But who, then, is ‘Highness’?” he asked her.
She shook her head, lowering it against his chest. “I would never betray my very home!” she promised him.
“Pray, lady, that you do not,” he whispered, and he held her close. She said nothing, and she luxuriated in his warmth. But it wasn’t enough. She was shivering, and she was afraid.
When he left, he was gone so very long. Days passed and the weeks passed and then months.
“You tremble,” he told her.
“With the cold.”
“But I am holding you.”
“But you will leave,” she told him desolately.
She couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness. He stared down at her, and the depths of his feelings for her were on the tip of his tongue. He loved her so deeply. Her beauty, her fire. He loved the way that she came to him now, so naturally, so givingly. She made love with passion and with laughter, and in the midst of it, her eyes were ever more beautiful. And yet …
They could be ever treacherous.
She held so much in her hands now. She knew about the arms a
nd weaponry stored at the docks. If she betrayed them now …
She would not! he thought with anguish. She would not!
XIV
New York
May 1776
She would not betray him! Bah!
That was his thought two months later when he sat in Washington’s large white canvas tent in New York and stared at his old friend. The general had just written him orders, commanding him to take a ship south. His old friend and partner, Sir Thomas—now Colonel Sir Thomas—had managed to have their ship, the Good Earth, brought down from Boston.
“For one,” Washington told him, “Congress has now sanctioned privateering. Whatever damage you may do upon the sea will be appreciated.”
It was late May, and they had spent the last weeks preparing earthworks and trenches for the attack they knew was to come upon New York. Brooklyn Heights and Manhattan had been fortified and manned, and Congress had ordered Washington to hold New York. The colonials were aware that the British general Howe was due to sail south for New York from Halifax, Nova Scotia. His brother, Admiral Richard Howe, was to sail from England with reinforcements. The ragtag colonial army—in trouble now as many enlistments came to an end and the men yearned to return home—would be hard put to meet the British menace. They all knew it. Despite the victories in Virginia and the Carolinas, they desperately needed to hold the north. Benedict Arnold was losing his tenacious hold of the area outside of Quebec, and General Burgoyne had arrived with reinforcements. It was a tense time for the colonials.
And in the midst of this, Eric was sitting before Washington, hearing a confiscated message that warned Lord Dunmore of the arms and powder stored in the warehouses at Cameron Hall. There was also an urgent appeal from General Lewis of the Virginia militia that Eric come with all haste to seek to oppose an expected attack from the sea.
His hands felt cold. In the heat of coming summer, he felt as if icy fingers stroked him up and down the back in cruel mockery. He had given Amanda the benefit of every doubt. He had known that she had once practiced treachery, but he had believed her when she had sworn herself to him. He was ever the fool. The greater her passion, it seemed, the greater the betrayal. While he dreamed of the nights they had lain together, tortured himself with images of her hair curled about his naked flesh, her eyes as bright as emerald seas, her breasts full and rich within his hands and the scent of her so sweetly intoxicating it invaded even a dream …
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