Amanda Rose

by Karen Robards

  When Edward walked through the door, the first thing Amanda felt was harassed. She could not possibly cope with Edward and his threats—to say nothing of Lord Robert—at the moment. Then she realized that here was a possible diversion if she could just determine how to make use of him. Perhaps she could provoke him into an argument—admittedly not too easy a task in front of an audience, for Edward was careful to maintain the illusion of being a kind brother and gentleman. But then the solution occurred to her, and it did not involve Edward in the least. In fact, it was simple.

  Casting a cold glance at Edward, who gave her a malevolent smile in return, Amanda moved to Sister Mary Joseph and whispered in her ear. As she had expected, the kindly nun nodded. Amanda started to quit the hall, only to be brought up short by Edward’s hand on her arm.

  “Going somewhere, little sister?” A slight smile was on his face for the benefit of the watching females, but Amanda looked up into his eyes and saw the hatred there. She tilted her chin at him defiantly, determined that, if he frightened her, he would never know it.

  “Like all of us, I must sometimes answer nature’s call,” she said haughtily, and tugged her arm free of his grip. He made no further attempt to hold her, which surprised Amanda. She supposed she could thank the presence of the nuns for his restraint.

  “Go, then, but don’t be long. We have a discussion to continue, you and I.” Amanda did not reply but hurried from the room. From the corner of her eye she saw Edward turn away to say something to Jamison, his valet, who accompanied him everywhere. Her lip curled as she remembered that Edward liked the constant attentions of a personal servant. She thought of the discussion they would shortly have, and shivered. He was more than capable of striking her again . . . But for the moment she had to push all thoughts of Edward from her mind. Her first concern was to warn Matt.

  The privy was in the back garden, situated a discreet distance from the convent and afforded even more privacy by the concealing shelter of a large pine. Amanda headed toward it only until she was sure she was out of sight, then, with a hasty look around to make certain she wasn’t being observed, she picked up her skirts and sprinted for the stairs. She would have to be quick to get down to the cave and back without someone wondering what had taken her so long. Her feet practically sprouted wings as she flew down both sets of cellar stairs, thankful that her soft-soled slippers made no noise.

  The trapdoor creaked. Oddly, she had never noticed that until Matt had pointed it out, but now the sound seemed as loud as a gunshot. Wincing, Amanda let herself through, leaving it open behind her so she could return quickly. Warning Matt should take no more than a minute . . .

  He was not in the cave. Amanda became convinced of that as she walked through the darkened rooms, calling his name in a voice that was as urgent as it was soft. Either he had already left—perhaps he had somehow learned of the intended search of the convent—or he was on the beach. But she had to make sure.

  He was on the beach. Amanda saw him walking moodily along the shoreline some distance away, his dark head bowed and his hands thrust into his pockets. The morning sun striking blue sparks off the gleaming blackness of his hair would have fascinated her at any other time, but not today. She was furious at him for taking such a chance as to walk along the beach in broad daylight. Although it was usually deserted, there was always the possibility that someone else would have a like impulse. And why had he chosen this morning to be so reckless? She didn’t dare call his name but ran toward him on silent feet as he continued to stroll with his back to her. He didn’t hear her coming until she was almost upon him. Then he whirled, his stance wary, as if he were poised for battle. When he saw who it was he visibly relaxed, and his hands came out to grip her arms.

  “Matt . . .” She was panting so hard she had to draw a deep breath before she could continue. His eyes grew warm and faintly amused as they surveyed her flushed cheeks and the fiery tendrils of hair that had escaped the prim coronet to curl wildly about her face.

  “In a hurry to make amends for the brutal way you treated me last night?” He was teasing, and she wanted to scream. How could he laugh when she was in such deadly earnest? Couldn’t he read the agitation in her eyes? “Don’t worry, Amanda. I’m quite ready to forgive you—if you can forgive me.”

  His tone became serious as he asked her to forgive him, and Amanda saw that, though he might have been joking about the rest, he meant that last. He sounded truly repentant . . . But there was no time now to savor the thought or to forgive him sweetly even if she had been so inclined, which to her surprise she found she was. She had to warn him . . . She drew a deep, shuddering breath.

  “Matt, there’s something I must tell you . . .” But he was no longer listening. He was staring over her shoulder in the direction she had come, and as she looked up at him his face hardened until it could have been carved from stone.

  “Matt?”

  He looked back at her. Amanda was startled to find that his eyes were ablaze with bitterness.

  “You little bitch,” he gritted, and his hands tightened around her arms until she gasped from the pain. Then he was thrusting her away from him and sprinting toward the water, running out into the waves.

  “In the Queen’s name, stop.” A shot rang out at the same time as the cry, and Amanda whirled to see the constable thundering down the beach with four militiamen at his heels. One of the soldiers was clutching a smoking rifle while another stopped to jerk his weapon to his shoulder. Another shot rang out. Amanda heard a cry behind her and turned back just in time to see Matt topple headlong into the waves.

  chapter fourteen

  Amanda passed the next three days in a daze. She felt as if she were trapped in a waking nightmare. Matt was almost certainly dead, although with all their efforts at dragging the bay, the constable’s men had not yet recovered the body. But she, and they, had heard the shot and Matt’s agonized cry, and had seen him fall. The vicious undertow, known to lurk in the depths of the bay, could account for the absence of a body. The constable was well satisfied that it had been swept out to sea. As much as it pained Amanda to do so, she was slowly being forced to admit that it must be true. For, if not, where was Matt? Surely he would have come to her . . .

  But perhaps not. After turning over and over in her mind his last furious words to her, Amanda had reluctantly come to the conclusion that he held her responsible for the presence of the soldiers on the beach. That he believed she had betrayed him, in fact. The thought that he might have died believing that made her sick at heart.

  No matter whether Matt was dead or alive, she loved him. Amanda knew that love was the only thing that could account for the awful desolation she felt. The world, which had once seemed a bright and shining place full of endless possibilities, had faded to a uniform shade of gray. She could not eat or sleep or smile or cry. It was all she could do to get up from her bed in the morning, get dressed, and go through the motions each day. She was certain she wouldn’t have been able to manage even that if she had not been terrifyingly conscious of eyes watching her every move, weighing her actions and demeanor. The question in the minds of everyone, from the constable to the girls and nuns, was, had she known that Matt Grayson was on the beach before she had gone there that day?

  Edward alone knew the answer. In the first horrifying moments after Matt had been shot, when she had joined the soldiers in running out into the waves, Edward had appeared from the mouth of the cave and dragged her back. It was Edward who had insisted upon her innocence, Edward who had used his authority to save her from immediate arrest. If Amanda hadn’t been so grief-stricken, she would have been astonished and disbelieving. As it was, she had been conscious of a mild softening in her feelings for him. He must care for her in some fashion after all, she thought dully, since he had gone to so much trouble to save her from jail.

  In less than two hours he had disabused her of that notion. When the constable had at last left her alone to return to direct the dragging of the bay, E
dward had steered her into the same private parlor they had used for their previous talk. Once the door was closed behind them, he dropped all pretense of brotherly concern. Pushing her into a chair, he sneered as he informed her that he knew all about her disgraceful, immoral behavior and—what was worse, at least in the eyes of the law—how she had sheltered and protected an escaped felon. She could spend the rest of her life in prison if he told what he knew—if they didn’t hang her in lieu of her lover.

  Amanda had been too horrified to question how Edward had come by his knowledge. That he had, she accepted. And that he would have no compunction in betraying her to the authorities, she also accepted. Edward’s hatred of her was too ingrained to allow for a sudden surfacing of affection or even of familial responsibility, as she would have known at once if her mind hadn’t been fogged by grief.

  In return for his silence, he demanded her immediate marriage to Lord Robert. If she showed the slightest hint of unwillingness and it put him off, or if she told her prospective bridegroom that she had made a whore of herself with a criminal, Edward would immediately turn her over to the authorities. He told her he would, relishing her helplessness. And she believed him.

  The wedding was to take place Sunday week, in the little chapel at the convent. Since she was willing, Lord Robert saw no reason to wait, and Edward’s urging was all that was needed to make him decide in favor of an immediate marriage. The banns were already being read; Amanda knew there was no escape, even if she had had the will, which she no longer did. If she protested in any way, she would be arrested, and her fate would be even more dreadful than marriage. If she tried to run away, it was almost inevitable she would be found and brought back. She could consider herself lucky that she was being allowed to remain here, among her friends, until the wedding. Amanda knew that was only because Edward thought that the presence nearby of the constable, who was already suspicious of her, would help to keep her in line.

  She spent much time in her room as the wedding day drew inexorably closer. Mother Superior had relieved her of all her schoolwork and other duties, as she was soon to be married and leaving them. The other girls tended to regard her as if she had suddenly grown horns and a tail. Either they gigglingly demanded to be told what the murderer had been like, or they fell silent and looked guilty when she entered a room. Only Susan still treated her much the same, her obvious affection overlaid by a silent sympathy. Amanda was grateful for her friend’s support, but she preferred her own company to Susan’s. Confiding in Susan was a luxury she could not afford to indulge in, for Susan’s sake as much as her own.

  If she had not been so heartsore over Matt, Amanda’s one consolation during that time would have been the acquisition of the skeleton of a wardrobe. So as not to be shamed by her obvious lack, Edward had been forced to pay for a simple wedding dress and a few other garments that would serve as a modest trousseau. Anything else she needed could be purchased after the wedding. Lord Robert assured her that it would be his pleasure to dress her properly once she was his wife and they had returned to London. At the reminder that she would soon be Lady Robert Turnbull, Amanda shuddered. The thought was enough to spoil even the slight pleasure she felt in the new clothes.

  The first of the gowns for her trousseau had been delivered that day. After supper Amanda retired to her room and, for lack of anything else to occupy her thoughts, decided to try it on. She was still young enough, and feminine enough, to appreciate the softness and shimmer of primrose-yellow silk. It felt cool and slithery against her skin. Settling the gleaming folds of the full skirt about her feet, Amanda was suddenly conscious of how impossibly shabby her underclothes were. Although her pantalettes and petticoat and chemise were spotlessly clean, the unadorned white linen, with the discreet repairs to the fabric, looked almost pitiful against the elegance of the gown. Not that it mattered. There was no one to see her underclothes—at least, not yet. When they married, Amanda supposed that Lord Robert would want to see her in various stages of undress. Unlike Matt, he might be repelled by her poor clothes. Fiercely she hoped he would. Maybe her lack of finery would disgust him enough to keep him out of her bed.

  Matt . . . Amanda could not swallow the lump that rose in her throat as she thought of him. His dark face rose before her in such sharp detail that she had to blink to make sure he wasn’t there. But he wasn’t—and was never likely to be again. She had to accept the near certainty that he was dead, and get on with her life. And Edward had killed him; she knew without being told that Edward was the “source” who had alerted the constable, perhaps had sent the soldiers after her onto the beach. How he had found out about Matt she had no idea; she knew only that she would hate Edward for the rest of her life.

  Amanda gave up trying to get out of the dress. Her fingers were shaking so badly she found it impossible to free the few hooks she had managed to fasten. Instead, in an effort to soothe her painful thoughts, she picked up her brush and crossed to the window. She would watch the sea while she brushed her hair, and perhaps tonight, for the first time since Matt had disappeared, she would be able to sleep.

  Tonight there was no moon. Only the rolling whitecaps as the waves crashed to shore allowed her to separate sky from sea. Amanda slowly unpinned her hair and loosened the braids, then began to pull her brush through the waving thickness. The night was lonely, like herself, she thought, staring out into the inky darkness without really seeing much of anything. Cold and alone and lonely. She shivered.

  A faint silvery flash caught her eye briefly, then vanished. A school of fish, probably, or one of the dolphins that occasionally came to frolic in the bay. But it was early yet for dolphins . . . The flash came again. Amanda strained to see through the darkness. When it was repeated a third time, she was sure. That flickering glimmer was not a school of fish or a dolphin but a light, perhaps from a lantern in the bow of a small boat. Most likely it was the smugglers, returned to the scene of their recent expedition earlier than usual. But perhaps it was Zeke Grayson, come for his brother, as Matt had seemed so sure he would. She had to find out. If it was Zeke, she owed it to Matt to try to contact him and tell him what had happened. And there was always the tiniest possibility that Matt might be alive, and Zeke might know it and tell her. Of course, if that was the case, Amanda realized with a resettling of the knot in her stomach, Zeke would hardly come here. Either he had no knowledge of Matt’s fate or he had come to find and claim the body.

  Amanda shook off the horrible thought as the light glimmered once more, then vanished. The boat, whatever it was, whoever was in it, must now be fairly close to shore, for the overhanging cliff hid it now from her sight. She had to hurry if she was to catch it . . .

  Amanda sped around the end of her bed, barely pausing to slip on her flat black slippers before hurrying from the room. Moments before, the ringing of the bell had signaled the girls to extinguish their candles, and now the convent was dark. The easiest, most convenient way to the beach was through the cave, but Amanda shivered with distaste as she thought of making even one more journey into its cold darkness. For her, it would always be haunted with memories of Matt; to go that way would be to increase her pain tenfold. Besides, the practical part of her cautioned, it was just possible that the constable had stationed one of his men down there, on the off chance that Matt had survived and might return . . .

  She would go along the cliffs and down the path. This route would be longer but less harrowing in her present state of mind. Until she determined who was in the boat, she would stay well out of sight. How she was to recognize Zeke or his men Amanda had no idea; but, she reasoned, if it wasn’t the smugglers, it almost had to be someone coming for Matt. Nocturnal visitors were a rarity in Lands End.

  It was a cold night. The wind was the first thing Amanda noticed as she let herself out through the back garden. She shivered, clutching her arms around herself for warmth, reminded irresistibly of the night she had first discovered Matt on the beach. The wind had been blowing then as now . . . But
she had been dressed in a long-sleeved wool dress, and now she was wearing a frivolous concoction of pale yellow silk, with little puffed sleeves that left most of her arms bare and a lace-edged neckline that revealed her shoulders and the tops of her creamy white breasts. Only her long, thick hair provided even a modicum of warmth, but suddenly the wind caught it and whipped it out behind her back like a crimson banner.

  She had to bend her head against the wind as she hurried along the top of the cliffs. It was blowing in bursting gusts that Amanda suspected presaged a storm before morning. Whoever was out on the bay in the small boat would be well advised to take shelter before the wind increased.

  She could no longer see a flashing light on the bay. Either the boat had reached shore or it was running without a light—dangerous in a sea like tonight’s. But perhaps she was imagining things, and the silvery flash she had seen had been only a leaping school of fish.

  It was so dark she could barely see a foot ahead of her. Instead of staring down at the bay to watch for the reappearance of the light, as her every instinct urged her to do, she was forced to watch where she put her feet. At this height, so close to the edge, one misstep could be fatal. The short brown grass beneath her feet provided fairly even walking, but she knew that in a few places treacherous rocks protruded nearly invisibly from the ground. And if she should trip . . .

  The path could not have been more than a few yards ahead of her when she first heard it: a creaking sound not in keeping with the wind-born noises of the night. Her head jerked up and her eyes peered suspiciously at the darkness around her, but she could see nothing. Still, she could not shake an uneasy feeling that something was out there with her, watching her.