Amanda Rose

by Karen Robards

  Amanda smiled back, suddenly liking the woman. When she reverted to her true self, she was much nicer than when she assumed the role of the formidable Madame Duvalier.

  “This dress you will have tomorrow early,” Madame decreed, reverting to her original manner as Marie lifted the dress over Amanda’s head, careful not to disturb the pins. “And accessories, of course. The others—one or two the next day. The rest—a week.”

  “Thank you for coming, Madame,” Amanda said as she stepped back into her breeches and shirt, which the women eyed with severe disfavor. Rose had packed everything in the valises and they were ready to leave.

  “It is my pleasure,” Madame said formally. “For Matt or Zeke, which one it doesn’t matter, I am always available. You will have the dress tomorrow,” she repeated as she preceded her assistants out the door. Amanda stared bemusedly at the closed door for some little time after the trio had gone.

  The prospect of new clothes relieved one of Amanda’s nagging worries. She had been wondering how she was to get about in New Orleans clad in ill-fitting male attire. In England it would have been considered scandalous for a lady to appear in such garments, and she doubted that the New World was much different. But without a skirt to her name, she had had no choice. It was thoughtful of Zeke—or Matt—to think of her difficulties and take steps to remedy them. Which brought her to another problem: it was less than respectable for either Matt or Zeke to pay for her clothes, but as she had no money, she didn’t suppose that there was anything she could do about it. Besides, so much of what had happened to her since she had met Matt had been unconventional, to say the least, that she must now be quite outside the social pale. Losing her virginity had been dreadful, but no one but herself and Matt need ever have known of that. But she had been missing for nearly two months now, and she was sure that most of the people who mattered to her must be aware that the Duke of Brookshire’s young half sister had disappeared. Even if no one had associated her disappearance with Matt—who, after all, was presumed dead—an unexplained absence of such length inevitably meant social ruin. And if it became known that she had spent the time with a company of men, one of whom had shared her bed . . . She shuddered; she would be lucky to find a convent that would take her in.

  Amanda frowned. She was in a strange country, without friends or money, and with no place to go. She doubted that Matt would see her in want—indeed, he seemed to take it for granted that she would make her home with him and Zeke—but she could not allow him to support her for the rest of her life. The knowledge that she was now indebted to him for every morsel of bread flayed her pride. What would it be like in the future, when he had another woman and she was merely an object of charity living in his home? Unbearable, she thought with a grimace. True, he was solely responsible for her presence—he had stolen her away from her school; she certainly hadn’t begged him to take her with him—but that didn’t alter by so much as a hair the situation in which she now found herself.

  Painful as it was, it was time to face facts: socially she was ruined as thoroughly as ever Susan had been. No gentleman would marry her now. As she saw it, she was left with three choices: she could continue to live with Matt, labeling herself his mistress in the eyes of everyone and thereby cutting herself off forever from the respectable society of the wives and daughters of gentlemen; she could leave Matt’s protection (if he would let her go, which was unlikely) and make a life for herself independent of him, which would undoubtedly include genteel starvation; or she could return to England, and eventually to Edward, whose family pride would at least ensure that she did not starve to death—if he did not plan a worse fate for her.

  She was happier now than she had been since before her father died, she acknowledged. For the first time in years she felt alive, free; every day was an adventure. Matt’s coldness was the only cloud in her newly blue sky. But with a sudden flash of insight, Amanda knew that she would rather be with Matt, coldly angry or not, than without him. He had become the focal point of her life—and that was something she hated to admit to herself. Damn the man, Amanda thought despairingly, and damn me, too, for being foolish enough to fall in love with him. But at least it solved her dilemma: feeling about him as she did, she could not bring herself to leave him. It would be easier to live without her pride than without her heart.

  It was long after dark when Matt and Zeke returned. Amanda was curled up on the bunk with a book when she heard Zeke’s laughing voice and Matt’s muted reply. They undoubtedly intended to go to their cabin without disturbing her, but Amanda was determined to resolve the matter of the clothes as soon as possible. She would be unable to sleep a wink if she did not.

  She flew out on deck, a small, slender figure, with streaming red hair and clad in too-big men’s clothes. The still-crowded dock was lit by flaming torches, which cast flickering shadows over the Clorimunda’s deck; the ship herself was lit by a few strategically placed lanterns. The two sailors who were assigned to remain topside as officers of the watch were nowhere in sight. Presumably they were at either end of the ship to sound a warning if someone unauthorized tried to board her. Matt and Zeke were just coming aboard, with Zeke in the lead and Matt a pace behind. As they stepped into a golden pool of light Amanda noticed that they both looked oddly disheveled, Zeke more so than Matt. His brown hair was wildly tousled and his shirt collar was standing rakishly on end. Matt’s black curls were untidy, too, but his clothes seemed to be in order. What struck Amanda was the dangerous glitter of his eyes.

  Zeke saw her first. She had stopped, eyeing them suspiciously. The thought came to her that they had been drinking. Then Zeke spoke, and the faint slurring of his words told her all she needed to know.

  “Good evening, Amanda,” he cried, bowing so low that he would have fallen flat on his face if Matt had not caught hold of his coattails. Zeke straightened, with the assistance of Matt’s balancing hand, and looked at Amanda, frowning. “What, no new clothes? Didn’t that pox of a woman come after all?”

  Her question had been answered for her without her having to ask. Amanda swallowed an aching surge of disappointment that it hadn’t been Matt, then summoned a smile for Zeke.

  “Thank you, Zeke. As soon as Madame Duvalier told me why she had come, I knew that you were the only one thoughtful enough to have sent her. It was very nice of you.” If those words had been selected with an eye to pricking Matt, Amanda wasn’t admitting it. She didn’t look at him as he stood a half pace behind Zeke, holding his brother unobtrusively upright. But she sensed his gleaming eyes boring into her.

  “It was nice of me, wasn’t it?” Zeke nodded, looking owlish and pleased with himself. Then he held out his arms to Amanda, grinning wickedly at her. “Won’t you thank me properly?”

  Ordinarily Amanda would have laughed at such a suggestion from Zeke. She knew it was made tongue-in-cheek, probably with a little-boyish desire to annoy his brother and shock her girlish sensibilities at one and the same time. But she, too, was conscious of Matt standing just behind Zeke’s shoulder, watching her, his mouth and eyes sardonic. With a little toss of her head and nary a glance at Matt, she moved into Zeke’s arms.

  They closed about her enthusiastically, and if he looked surprised, it was just for a moment. Then he was bending his head and kissing her heartily. Amanda hoped that Matt, standing behind him, couldn’t tell it was more the kind of kiss a brother might bestow on a beloved sister than a kiss between lovers. When Zeke let her go, stepping back from her with a lopsided grin, Amanda smiled at him, deliberately infusing as much warmth into that smile as she could.

  “That was . . . very nice, Amanda,” Zeke said, sounding faintly regretful. Amanda’s brows began to knit at something in his tone. “But if that was a thank-you, you thanked the wrong man. It was big brother who sent Madame Duvalier to you.”

  Amanda’s eyes widened and moved from Zeke’s grinning face to Matt’s dark countenance. He looked grim as he returned her stare, his eyes gleaming with mockery and somethin
g else she was afraid to try to define.

  “Aren’t you going to thank me with a kiss, too, Amanda?” His voice was very soft as he stepped out from behind Zeke and looked down at her. Dressed in a dark blue superfine coat, black breeches, and a white shirt and carelessly tied cravat, he looked very big and more than a little menacing. The silvery eyes glittered at her, and the lamplight painted a gilded nimbus around the halo of thick black curls. He had not shaved since early morning, and a faint black shadow roughened the lean lines of his jaw and chin. All in all, he looked so handsome that he nearly took Amanda’s breath away—and he was holding out his arms to her as Zeke had done. Amanda could hardly think as she walked into them.

  They closed about her so tightly that she feared he must crack her ribs. Then his mouth came down on hers, tasting faintly of whiskey, and she couldn’t think at all. He kissed her harshly, hungrily, as if he were starved for the taste of her mouth. He bent her back over his arm, his lips and tongue demanding and getting her total surrender. She clung to him helplessly, then, of her own volition, her arms were twining about his neck, drawing the black head closer, her nails embedding themselves in his nape. A sweet, wild trembling started somewhere deep in her belly and moved out along her limbs. She knew he had to feel it, holding her as closely as he was, just as she was totally conscious of every muscle and sinew of the hard male body enfolding hers—and of the growing arousal that he made no attempt to hide. Amanda forgot everything, their position on the open deck, where they were clearly visible to anyone who happened to glance their way, Zeke’s interested gaze, even the differences between herself and Matt. All she was aware of was that this was her man, and she was in his arms again at last. Her only wish was that he never let her go.

  He did, of course. His arms dropped away from her without warning. Amanda, lost in a kiss-induced dreamworld, tried to cling to him. He detached her arms from about his neck with brutal efficiency, holding them tightly for a moment as he stared down at her with a restless glitter in eyes that had become the color of smoke. Then, without a word, he released her, swinging on his heel and striding back the way he had come and off the ship. Amanda was left staring helplessly after him, tears filling her eyes. She felt as if she had just been kicked in the stomach.

  chapter twenty-one

  Three days later, Amanda was living in Matt’s luxurious town house in New Orleans’s exclusive Vieux Carré district. Matt and Zeke were out so much that Amanda barely set eyes on either of them. Matt had told Zeke to be ready to take another ship to England at the end of the week. The captain was ill, and the cargo—cotton destined for English mills—could not be delayed until his recovery. Amanda more than half suspected that Matt was exaggerating the urgency of the trip to remove Zeke from the scene, but if Zeke had similar suspicions, they didn’t seem to trouble him. He seemed almost glad to be going.

  Amanda, on the other hand, was despondent every time she thought of being left alone with Matt. Since the night he had kissed her, his attitude toward her had changed from cold civility to a hateful, biting mockery. He seemed to take positive joy in hurting her. And if she was unhappy during this brief period in New Orleans, with the shops and colorful street markets to entertain her, what would it be like when she and Matt were alone at Belle Terre? Because as soon as Zeke was gone, that was where he intended to take her.

  The servants were another source of discomfort to her. Slavery was an accepted practice in New Orleans, but it made Amanda uncomfortable to be waited on by human beings that Matt actually owned, as he did a horse or a dog or a ship. And, what was worse, they seemed to disapprove of her. Lalanni, the coffee-skinned housemaid who Matt had assigned to accompany her whenever she set foot outdoors and to act as her personal maid at home, let slip in her soft creole voice that moral outrage was the reason for the servants’ stiffness. In New Orleans, a gentleman did not have his mistress live with him. He bought his inamorata her own house, in a discreet section of town, and visited her at night. That was the way it was done, the way it had always been done, the right way. That Matt had set up his mistress in his own establishment was a scandalous breach of propriety.

  The knowledge that all the servants considered her Matt’s mistress humiliated Amanda. Never had she imagined she would be reduced to such a state. Even the fact that it wasn’t strictly true was no consolation. Matt had given her her own room in the three-storied house, and he never entered it or laid a hand on her. But her mere presence—a young, unmarried, unprotected girl in a bachelor’s household—was enough to cause a scandal. Amanda burned with the knowledge that she was no better than a fallen woman, and sometimes, when people stared at her in the streets, she wondered if her shame was so intense that it was somehow visible in her face.

  She was, of course, totally cut off from any contact with New Orleans society. Her position in Matt’s household made that inevitable. The world of afternoon barbecues and evening dances, mornings spent receiving and returning calls, elegant teas and all the other pleasant little activities that made up a lady’s life was closed to her—she feared forever. Aside from Matt, Zeke, and the scarcely friendly servants, and an occasional word exchanged with a shopgirl or tradesman, she spoke to no one, and no one spoke to her. Sometimes when she wandered through the markets with Lalanni at her heels, she would encounter ladies who, under other circumstances, would have been Lady Amanda’s social inferiors. They acted as though she didn’t exist. After her first few tentative smiles were deliberately—and rudely—ignored, Amanda learned to treat them as they treated her, as if she were invisible. But, secretly shamed and hurt by such encounters, she took to staying within doors to avoid them. Used to Susan’s easy friendship and to the camaraderie of the other girls at the convent, Amanda found it hard to be totally deprived of female companionship. She realized that until now, when it was lost to her, she had never truly appreciated the value of respectability.

  One afternoon, when she was feeling particularly lonely, she gave in to a compelling urge to write to Susan. She thought it would be safe enough—the missive was carefully worded to reveal no hint of her whereabouts or whom she might be with. It said merely that she was well and happy. By the time she had sealed the envelope tears were coursing down her cheeks. She missed Susan terribly and knew that Susan must miss her just as much. It hurt to realize that, under the circumstances, she was unlikely ever to set eyes on her dearest friend again. But then she realized that, if she could choose to return to the convent, to the days before Matt had turned her life upside down, she would not. Dear as Susan was to her, Matt was far dearer. In the space of a few short weeks he had become the most important person in her world. But it was steadily being borne in upon her that she could not continue to occupy her present ignominious position in his life. Her self-respect would not permit it. Wiping her cheeks, she sniffed once and began anew to consider the alternatives.

  As the days passed, and the time of Zeke’s departure drew nearer, Amanda realized that she would have to confront Matt. Things simply could not go on this way. She was grateful for his care, for the food and shelter and truly lovely clothes he had provided, but she could not continue to live off his bounty. If she was ever to hold up her head again, she had to live within the conventions that governed the behavior of a lady. And that meant, at the very least, leaving Matt’s protection and supporting herself.

  She could work, Amanda thought, but what could she work at? Her needlework hardly qualified her to be a seamstress, and there was little other decent employment open to a lady. A post as a governess would probably be best, for she had had an excellent education thanks to the nuns, but to obtain such a post someone would have to recommend her, and the only people she knew in the whole of America were Matt and Zeke. And she hardly thought that a recommendation from either of those gentlemen would help her cause.

  Still, there had to be something she could do. She would talk to Matt about it.

  Amanda got her chance the next morning. Instead of sipping a cup of ch
ocolate and nibbling a croissant in bed, as Lalanni seemed to expect her to do, she arose early with the intention of catching Matt at the breakfast table. She did—but only just. He was finishing a cup of coffee when she walked into the room. From the looks of the serving dishes, he had recently polished off a large plate of ham, eggs, and something the servants called johnnycakes. Amanda eyed his empty plate with some distaste, her stomach churning in revolt at the idea of consuming such a quantity of food so early in the morning. Why, the sun was barely up.

  Matt’s eyebrows rose as she came into the room, and his eyes moved over her. Amanda had dressed hastily, so she wasn’t entirely comfortable under the insolent scrutiny. She didn’t know that her full-skirted, tight-waisted morning gown of palest peach cambric made her skin glow like a pearl, or that the simplicity of her hair drawn back from her face with a peach satin ribbon gave her a young, untouched look that smote Matt’s conscience. And was the reason for the sardonic curl of his lips.

  “Back to impersonating an angel, I see,” was his greeting; he drained his cup and stood. “Rather wasted, under the circumstances, isn’t it?”

  Amanda felt her cheeks color angrily at the derision in his tone, but she was determined to say what she had come to say and she refused to let him sidetrack her. She crossed to stand at the end of the table, clutching the back of one of the graceful rosewood chairs for support.

  “I want to talk to you, Matt.”