Love Not a Rebel Read Online Free PDF Page A

Cato and Jack are bringing up water for the hip bath.”
    “Thank you, Cassidy,” she told him. She smiled awkwardly at him. His accent was wonderful, with traces of Eric’s own enunciation, as acquired at Oxford. He was in white and black, very much a lord’s gentleman. He was born a slave and had become a free man here.
    She was no longer free, she realized.
    She was a prisoner in her own room in her own house. More than any slave the Camerons had ever owned, she was a prisoner here. The slaves were allowed to earn their freedom if they chose. She would not have that luxury.
    Cassidy said no more to her, but set the tray down upon the table. Jack and Cato, in the red, white, and green Cameron livery, came with water, and the bath was dragged out. She waited until the hip bath was halfway filled with the steaming water and then thanked the men. Her fight was not with them. Margaret might well call her a Torybitch, but perhaps the others understood that life was far more complex than any neat little label.
    “Where is Lord Cameron?” she asked Cassidy.
    “Involved with affairs, milady. They plan to follow on the heels of Lord Dunmore and see that he is pushed from our coast once and for all.”
    Affairs … so he might not come back to her at all. She might spend day after day in this room, awaiting her sentence. She cleared her throat. “Is he … is he coming back, do you know? Or am I perhaps to be turned over to some Continental official?”
    “Oh, no. Lord Cameron will come.”
    His words were not reassuring.
    She wished that she
had
been dragged before some Continental court. Any man would deal with her more gently than her husband, she thought.
    “May I see Danielle?”
    “I am sorry, milady.”
    “Is she all right?”
    “Yes, she is well.”
    Cassidy bowed to her and left with the others. The door closed. She heard a key twist, locking her in, and she sank down at the table and tried to eat. The food was delicious but she had no appetite so she sipped wine and stared at the darkness beyond the windows.
    At length she realized that the bath water was growing cold and that the charred smell of her clothing and hair was distasteful. Glancing at the door, she felt her numbness leaving her as she wondered if her husband would return.
    He could be gone for days, she reminded herself.
    She finished the wine for courage, then shed her rich gown, hose, corset, and petticoats and stepped into the water. The warmth was delicious. She sank beneath the water to soak her hair, and scrubbed it thoroughly, as she scrubbed her flesh.
    She could not wash away her fear or her thoughts. What would Eric think if he knew that she had bargained with Robert Tarryton to save the house? He would not believeit, or worse. He would think that she had sought to leave with Tarryton.
    The evening was cool. Rising from the tub, Amanda folded a huge linen towel about herself and shivered, wishing that she had asked Cassidy for a fire. She walked to the window and pulled back the drapes. Down the slope by the docks she could see tremendous activity. Half the militia was camped out on their property, so it seemed.
    God, give me courage! she prayed. And if you cannot, please let me disappear into the floorboards.
    God did not answer her prayer.
    She started, hearing a sound, and whirled around. Eric was there. He had come, opening the door in silence, standing there now in silence, watching her. Their eyes met. He turned and closed and locked the door, then leaned against it, his eyes fixed on hers once again. His tone was soft, its menace unmistakable.
    “Well, Highness, it has come. Our time of reckoning.”
    Amanda’s heart slammed against her breast. She wanted to speak but words failed her.
    He awaited her reply, and when there was none, a crooked mocking smile curled his lip, and he walked toward her, dark, towering, and determined.
    “Aye, milady, our time of reckoning at last.”
    A time of reckoning.
    It had been coming a long