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XV

A manda stared at Eric wordlessly, unable to believe that he could have become the stranger standing there with the brutal lock to his jaw and the icy expression in his eyes.

She wanted to cry out so badly that she had betrayed no one. As Eric strode on into the room, she thought that he meant to come straight to her, to wind his fingers around her throat, and she tried not to flinch. His eyes were dark now. They had that ability to go from silver gray to deepest cobalt, and now, by candlelight, they were dark indeed and fathomless.

He did not come to her. Perhaps he was afraid to do so. Afraid of what he might do to her if he touched her.

He pulled out a chair at the table and sat, wincing slightly as he lifted his foot to set it upon the opposite chair. She could scarcely breathe as he stared at her relentlessly, and neither could she move. Her fingers clenched about the snowy towel that enwrapped her, and other than that, she could do nothing but return his stare. He poured himself some wine, using her glass, and cast his gaze upon the tray of barely touched food. He sipped the wine, staring her way once again. “Is there a knife you harbor at your breast, my love?” he asked softly.

She shook her head. “I have never desired your death.”

“No? That’s not what you’ve said at times.”

“I’ve spoken in anger.”

“And you leveled a musket upon my heart this very day.”

“I never wanted to kill you! And I do not carry a knife. Were I to desire your death, I would not be fool enough to carry a knife. You could too easily use it against me.”

“Ah.” She didn’t like the way that he softly whispered the sound, nor did she like his manner as he continued. “Because you are weak, and I am stronger. Amanda, you do have the most exceptional talent for crying out about femininity the moment that you are cornered.”

“I am not cornered. I am innocent.”

“Innocent?”

Her fingers clutched convulsively about the towel before she realized that it did seem she hid some weapon at her breast. She did not reply quickly enough and he suddenly and violently stood. This time there was no hesitation as he strode across the room toward her. His walk was so filled with menace that she gasped, seeking to elude him, but he was upon her too quickly, wrenching her arms from their taut wrap. The linen towel fell to her feet, her hair streamed damp red streamers down her back and over her shoulders, and but for that she was left naked before his gaze.

And his eyes went darker still.

She longed to reach for the towel quickly, to retreat, but they had now taken their battle farther than they had ever gone, and she could not play the coward. She lifted her chin and spoke mockingly instead. “No blade, milord, as you can see.” She waited, condemning him with her eyes. Then she did begin to slowly bend to retrieve her towel. “If you’ll excuse me—”

“If I’ll excuse you? Madame, do you think that I intend to engage in some drawing-room conversation. No, my love, that is the point here. I am done with excusing you!” he thundered out vengefully. His hands were upon her shoulders, wrenching her up to face him. His fingers lay upon her naked flesh, biting and cruel, and he drew her hard against him. Fire burned brightly within his eyes as they tore into hers. “I knew from the beginning that you followed the Crown, and I even knew that you were Dunmore’s spy, and that didn’t matter to me, lady. When we married I had you watched and followed, not so that you could not give away the information you had been given, but because I feared for your safety.”

Her face went pale. He nearly ceased in his tirade. He could not. He had missed her too long. And she had played him false when he had believed that if not her love, her loyalty to the very house she called home would have kept her true. He was too shaken to cease. Too shaken to take his hands from her. He clenched her shoulders even more tightly. “My God, lady, if there is an excuse, tell it to me now!”

“I didn’t do it!”

“You lie!”

“I do not!”

She brought her fists up between them to beat against him, but he swung her around and she stumbled, falling to her knees before him. She cast her hair back again, fighting tears. There had been so many times when she had deserved his wrath! She had fought him and hated him at every turn, but not now. Now she was in love with him, and, innocent, she had no defense.

“There is nothing that I can say!” she cried out to him. “Cast me before your courts, hang me for a traitor if you will, but by God, leave me be—”

“Leave you be!” He hunched down before her. His ruffled shirt was torn and powder smudged, his waistcoat and frock coat both showed signs of the day’s wear. “I am called back from service in New York because my wife is planning my very doom! Handing my very property to the enemy! My God, you might very well have set fire to the house with your very own hand!”

“No!”

“You might have sailed the ship!”

She couldn’t believe that there seemed to be no mercy, no reason in him at all. And still, she was desperate to make him understand. “I did not fire the house! Eric, I pleaded that they not burn the manor. I said that I would go if only—”

“Stop it!” he hissed, and his hand lashed out in a fury, stopping just short of her cheek. “You did what?”

“I said that I would go along willingly if they did not burn the house! And it didn’t burn, Eric! It—”

“Bitch!” He swore to her, low and trembling. “You went with him willingly! Into Tarryton’s arms! You forget how we met, my lady wife!” he charged her scathingly. “That you would need bargain with Robert Tarryton! The army lies languishing and I need run to capture my own wife, the Brit’s courtesan!”

“How dare you!” she cried, near tears of anguish and fury. She could not fight. Not even the truth stood in her defense. Rising, she lashed out at him. The fight had been simmering and brewing between the two of them, and he was glad of it. He seized her arm and dragged her up to him. In panic she struggled against him. She had never seen this dark rage take hold of him, and it terrified her. “Let me go! Eric, you’re hurting me, let go of me, Eric!”

He flung her hard on the elegant bed and fell atop of her, his thumbs and forefingers caressing her temples as he stared down at her.

“I’ve wondered. I’ve lain awake nights, and I’ve wondered if you were here, alone, in this bed. I agonized over leaving you so, yet I believed that you had vowed yourself into this marriage and that you would honor the promise sworn between us. I’ve faced bullets and steel time and again, and never have I sweat as I did nights, lady, torturing myself with visions of you as I have found you this night, sweet and fragrant from the bath, your flesh like alabaster, your heart beating that pulse to your veins. I’ve tried not to think that Tarryton might find his way to you, that his hands might close over your breasts, as mine do now.”

“I never betrayed you with any man!” she cried out, and she felt as if her teeth chattered harshly within her mouth. “I cannot bear Robert now! You know that—”

“I do not know that. I know that you walked out of this house with him this morning—willingly.”

“The servants—”

“The servants would not lie.”

“But I…”

“You what, milady?” he asked scornfully.

The words fled from her; she could not whisper them. I love you. They echoed within her skull, but she could not say them. They came too late, and they would not be believed.

“I did not do this!” she cried, and his lip curled in disbelief.

“I wanted to kill Tarryton—and you,” he told her. “From the time that I was summoned here, I felt an almost primal desire to draw torment and blood.”

“Eric—”

“Fear not, milady. I do not intend to go so far.”

“Eric, please—”

“Please what?”

“Let me up!”

He hated her at that moment, she was certain. Almost as much as she hated him for the disbelief and mockery in his eyes. And still he lay against her bare flesh, pinning her against the bed that they shared as man and wife. Love and hate…the emotions were close indeed. Though she thought she despised him desperately and burned to be free of him, she was filled by a greater need, to feel him close again, his hands and lips upon her, caressing, demanding.

“You’re forgetting that you’re my wife,” he reminded her. “And that I am a soldier, returned from the front.”

“I am forgetting nothing! We are bitter enemies, milord, and no matter how I try, you refuse to believe me.”

“You speak of war again. You chose to fight this particular battle. Well, I won, madame. You lost. And you are my wife.”

“Your despised wife! Eric, for the love of God—”

“For the love of God, lady, no. I will not free you this night. If it is war, madame, then know the truth of it. If we shall win this fight, then I am a hero. If the king is victorious, then I am a traitor indeed. But this night, lady, I am the conqueror, and the rewards of conquest are as old as time.”

Anguish and tempest struck her anew. She could not surrender, not to his touch, not even to the ardent fever that swept about them both like a relentless tide. She had not seen him in so long. It had been more than two months. Two months in which she had done her best to be a Cameron wife, to cherish and nurture the land and the hall, to stand fast against any enemy. And then…

After everything, the British ships had appeared that morning and Robert had come to her bedchamber. And now everything that she had ever feared in Eric had been unleashed. He hated her with a passion, she could feel it in his touch each time his fingers brushed her or curled around her. His temper was on a taut string, barely held from total explosion.

But not even the bitter fire of his anger nor his absolute mockery could still the things he evoked in her when he came too close. Dear God! That she could go back to a time when she had despised him! But that time was gone. And now she longed to forget this day, this horrid, horrid day. She longed to embrace him. She hadn’t tasted in so long the sweetness and decadence of once-forbidden pleasures, felt his lips, his hands upon her. But she could not give to him now. Not when she knew so little of his mind, when his fury was so sharp, so blinding.

She parted her lips to speak, but she did not. She saw the wrath of his gaze and fell silent, unable to read his thoughts.

They were easy to fathom, he could have told her. But he hadn’t told her what others dreams had kept him awake at night. Dreams of her, as he saw her now. Her eyes so green, shadowed and shaded by the rich sweep of her lashes as they fell over the emerald orbs, fluttering open again. Even now her hair dried in tendrils both deep, dark sable and flaming red, depending how the locks curled or waved or lay upon her flesh.

He moved his hand to her cheeks, tracing the excellence of her features, the high set of her bones, the slight heart shape of the face, accented by the widow’s peak at her temple and the sweeping richness of her hair. Her lips were beautifully shaped, naturally rose, the lower lip full and the curve of the whole evocatively sensual. At rest she was exquisite, as a statue was exquisite. Her flesh was like marble in its perfection, from the slope of her shoulders and rise of her breasts to the shapely curves of her hips and calves. In motion she was more than beautiful, for she was energy and tension and passion, and her eyes were haunted with what emotion ruled her thoughts, always exciting, always eliciting his own passion, be it yearning need or a cyclone of fury.

And now…now her lips lay parted beneath his. Her breasts rose and fell with each whisper of her breath, and the length of her perfection lay beneath him. Theirs had never been a soft or quiet relationship, yet he had never thought it would come to this. He knew he would take her that night by any force, rather than see tomorrow come without the memory of the night.

His mouth came closer. Their eyes met at just a breath of space.

“No! We will not—do this!” Amanda managed to protest. “Not like this! Not when you do not love me!”

“Love, madame? When did that enter into your priorities? Certainly not when you married me. Not when you discovered maps within my library to give your father. Not when you betrayed this very house.”

“But I did not! Oh, Eric, you fool! Listen to me! Perhaps I am guilty of giving away past…secrets. You don’t understand! They held Damien—”

“What?” he demanded sharply.

She swallowed. “My father had Damien. He always threatened me with Damien. First he swore that he would have him arrested and hanged. And then he did have him, Eric. The horse! Remember at the governor’s palace on New Year’s? Damien’s horse died, and I knew that Father wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to a man. And then they actually held Damien! They were threatening me—”

“I see. But Damien has been freed for some time now, milady.”

“And that is what I am telling you! There is another spy out there, and it isn’t me!”

He smiled. “A pretty tale,” he told her.

“Eric, please—”

“Amanda, I do not please, milady! But before God, I swear it! I have missed you.”

“Oh!” she cried, then gasped and swore in fury, surging against him to escape him, feeling him ever more pressed against her body. Little was hid by the tightness of his breeches. Her eyes widened as she felt the strength of him. She shuddered violently, hating him and hating herself all the more because she did not care about pride or reason, only that he held her, even if it was all a lie.

“We cannot!”

“But you are my wife.”

“Who betrayed you, so you say.”

“It does not matter. Not now. Not tonight.”

“No! Eric!” She was very close to tears. “Not after today. My God, let me up!” She surged against him anew, trying to dislodge him, to free herself by any means. Darkness seemed to surround her in a rise of mist like the steam of a summer’s sun. She felt his hardness against her again, pulsing, vivid, and it seemed as if a thousand pagan drums began to beat within her heart and core and blood. She fought him, and she fought herself, but he held her firm, his eyes ever upon her until she blushed radiantly even as she choked and swore and struggled. “Eric! No!”

He smiled, and his gaze was taunting, provocative. “Ah…Mandy! Don’t you seek forgiveness?”

She went very still and moistened her lips.

“What?” She gasped.

“Perhaps I will.”

She watched him for a moment, but she didn’t trust him. He leaned against her, imprisoning her hands. “You cast yourself upon Tarryton, why not me? We even have the sanctity of marriage upon us, my love.”

“I never cast myself upon Tarryton!” she swore. She tried to kick him. He laughed, for his weight was well upon her, and he was in no danger. Fury filled her. “You want me to beg your forgiveness in this manner!”

“It is a way to start,” he commented dryly. But his eyes were silver and blue flame and a vein ticked rampantly against his throat. She caught her breath, but then her heart fell again and she defied.

“Then you would call me a whore!” she retorted. “Giving in for—for what I might get in turn.”

“The words are yours,” he said.

“Oh! Never! Eric—”

“Shh! The words do not matter, truth does not matter, nay, not even love! You are my wife, and I have been away too long, and, lady, this thing between us is ever fierce, and I will not be denied.”

His lips pressed against hers with searing hunger, stealing away her words. She tried to twist her head, but his hands were powerful upon her head, holding her still to his leisure. She felt the heady fullness of his tongue as he played against the barriers of her lips and teeth and filled her mouth, seeking and giving, bringing a rush of heat to rise within her. She tried to push against him, but he caught her hands, and laced his fingers with hers, pinning them to her sides. She tossed and turned and writhed, and felt the fires burning ever more brightly, more fervently about her. She sank into the heat, into the desperate rise of passion, where thought knew no place and the heart and hunger ruled all.

She loved him. Pride be damned, for it was lost, cast along with dignity upon the shores of emotion, for come what may, in truth she could not deny him, nor herself.

Her hand was free. He stroked her open palm with his fingers, and then his hands moved over her, trembling, and yet with sureness and relentless hunger. He cupped her breast, and explored her hip, and his lips left her mouth to trail against her throat and breasts. She gasped with the startling pleasure as he took the rosebud of one crest within his mouth, teasing with his teeth and bathing it again and again with the lavish sweep of his tongue. Her hands were upon him, she realized. Her fingers fell upon his shoulders, and she felt the ripple of his muscle beneath the fabric of his uniform. She threaded her fingers into his dark hair and marveled at the texture of it. And still he moved against her.

“Give to me, my wife, my love!” His whispers coursed her ears and the heat of them filled her with heightened excitement. “Fill me with your beauty, with the magic of the night.…”

The threat of war receded, and battle was forgotten. The night breeze rushed in with its scent of river salt, caressing her flesh where he did not, but nothing else of the world could touch her. It had been too long since they had lain like this, lovers entwined. She closed her eyes, and he moved against her. He shifted his weight and stroked her abdomen and her hip and the flame trail of his kiss followed along. The stroke of his lips and teeth and tongue fell again and again upon her. She tried to thread her fingers into his hair, to somehow capture the heat and flow of passion, but it was far beyond her. She trembled at his touch, she moved as he manipulated her, feathering his fingers down the length of her spine, gently nipping against the rise of her buttocks, lying her back down again to bathe her breasts anew with the hot liquid tempest of his mouth. He rose then, and she watched him with half-slit eyes, certain that he would cast aside his uniform and come to her. And she would watch him as he shed his clothing, and came back to her, walking with his particular grace and determination, almost like a wildcat assured of his every movement.

He did not cast aside his clothing then, but caught her foot and delicately teased the arch and heel and toes. Then his tongue ran a straight trail down her calf and along her inner thigh, and even as she gasped he wedged the hardness of his shoulders there and delved his kiss into the very center and secret place of her most haunting desire. She bit her lip, longing to cry out. She tugged upon his hair and her head began to thrash. Sweet waves of ecstasy wracked her, sweeping through her body like waves upon the shore. She fought him, yet her head tossed upon the pillow and wild cries escaped her as her body surged of its own accord against her. He led her on and on, and when she thought that she could stand no more, he was gone again.

And this time it was to shed his clothing.

Naked, he came back to her. His shaft as hard as steel, he thrust within her, and was welcomed by the warm encompassing sheath of her body. The waves began again, they came to crest and build and crest again with each stroke of his body. He rose high above her and his eyes met hers, dark with passion, or with anger, she knew not which. Did he make love…or hate? She did not know. But the passion could not be denied. It stormed upon them, and music of their every breath and whisper and cry. It made the air a silken cloud, it made the night a bit of magic in a world gone destitute of fantasy. Still his eyes held her, and still he stroked within her, urgency filling him. The waves coming upon her seemed to rise and shatter and sprinkle down again in tiny flakes of silver rapture. Again and again climax seized her, and she shuddered and trembled and shook in his arms. He thrust again with vehemence, and she felt the startling heat and liquid as his seed rushed into her, filling her.

He touched her cheek and tenderly kissed her lips, then he fell from her, coming to her side.

Moments of silence passed. Then she started to speak, and he touched his finger to her lips. “No. Not now. Not tonight.”

“Eric!” she cried. “Please listen. I—I love you!”

Tension filled him, the muscles of his arms tightened and bulged and his features constricted until they were taut and anguished. She thought that he would strike her then, or that his fingers would wind around her throat and crush away her air.

“By all the saints, madame, play your games no more this night!” he swore violently.

“But it is no game, no ploy, no taunt!” she insisted, challenging his anger. “Eric!” She choked upon his name, tears rising to her eyes.

He exhaled, forcing his body to ease, and he shook with a sudden venom. “Would God that I could believe you!” he said, his voice low, harsh.

“Please…”

“No! No more tonight! If you would give love, lady, then prove love.”

And so she fell silent, and in seconds he let out a hoarse cry, pulling her close once again. And after the breeze had come in to gently cool the heat that had remained so slick and damp upon their flesh, he kissed her upper arm and then began to make love to her again. This time she touched him in turn. Freely. Allowed herself to stroke the hard muscles of his arms and chest, the lean sinew of his hips, the tightness of his buttocks. She teased and seduced, taking him into her hands, sweeping her hair over his naked flesh and touching him with the tip of her tongue, with her kiss, the lash and lave of her tongue.…

When the tremors of ecstasy faded next, he held her. And in the darkness and quiet of the night, sleep, deep and dreamless, came to them both.

When she awoke, he was dressed again. A new white shirt, clean white breeches, his doublet and his frock coat in blue and red, his cockaded military hat upon his head. He stood by the window, as if he waited for her to awake.

She knew instantly that things had changed, that the night was over. She drew the covers against her breasts, and she stared at him. He turned slowly toward her. The eyes that fell upon her were the eyes of a stranger, deep, dark, and distant.

“You’re leaving,” she said.

“We’re going after Lord Dunmore. You knew that.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Am I—am I to be a prisoner here?”

He shook his head. For a moment the beginnings of elation filled her. If they had time…if they just had time, perhaps there could be a separate peace between them. Perhaps she could explain that her heart had not changed, but that she was no longer fighting. She was his wife and would take his side. She could even learn to be a patriot.

“Then I am free,” she said.

“No.”

“What?”

He moved across the room, picking up his saber, his musket and dirk. “You are going to France.”

“France! No, Eric, I will not—”

“You will.”

Stunned, she swept the covers around her and tried to leap from the bed. She stumbled within her swath of sheets. He caught her, and her eyes, in tempest, met his. “Eric, I beg of you, leave me here. I did not betray you and I’ll not—”

“Alas, I cannot believe you,” he told her softly.

“But you said that I—” She broke off, and his brows raised expectantly. His lip curled as he awaited her words.

She flushed furiously. “You said—”

“You have my forgiveness. Just not my trust.”

“I will not go to France, I’ll escape to England!” she threatened, afraid of the tears that burned behind her lids. He was casting her away, she realized.

“No, you will not. You will not be alone,” he promised her.

“Eric—”

“No! Don’t beg, plead, or threaten! This once, my love, you will obey me.” He hesitated, and his words were bitter when he spoke again. “In France, my love, you can cause us no more harm. I suggest that you dress. Your escort will be here any minute.”

“My escort?”

“Cassidy, Pierre—Jacques Bisset.”

Bisset. She would never escape him to run to England. She knew that. Jacques had never forgotten what the English had done to the Acadians. Nor did he forgive. He was a better guardian than a father might be.

“You cannot do this!” she charged him. Her fingers curled about his arms and she shouted with fear and fury. “Eric, please! Listen to me. I did not do this! You are a fool if you will not believe me. You will be hurt, because the person who did give out this information will betray you again.” He ignored her, moving about. Fear rose, and desperation, and before she knew it, she was shouting in fury, severing anything that remained between them. “Oh, you bastard! I will hate you, I will never forgive you!”

“Cheer up. Dunmore may reach me yet.”

“You should die by the hangman’s rope!”

“Should I? Will you cry—since you do love me so much?”

“Oh, Eric! Please! Don’t send me away!”

He swept her up into his arms and redeposited her upon the bed. He looked into the tearful liquid emerald of her eyes, and for the life of him, he wanted to recant.

His heart hardened. Cameron Hall could have burned to the ground. She had gone with Tarryton. By her own admission, she had gone with the man. More than anything in the world, he wanted to believe that she loved him. He wanted to believe her innocent.

But he could not trust her. He had done so before, and he had been betrayed. Time and time again she had betrayed him. Other lives were at stake.

He smiled, then bent down and kissed her lips. He had to leave, but he could not resist. He cupped her breast with his fingers and felt the anguish of longing burst upon him. He kissed her long and slowly, and stroked her flesh as if he could memorize with his hands as well as his mind.

Then he rose and gazed down upon her ruefully. “ Au revoir , my love.”

He turned and walked to the door. She was on her feet again, flying after him. “Eric!”

He closed the door. He heard the thud of her hands against it and then he heard her curses. He stiffened as he listened to the words upon her lips. Then he heard her fall against the door. And he heard the anguish of her tears.

He squared his shoulders and wondered how he would bear it, knowing that she was in France. At least she would be far away from Tarryton. And she would be safe. Bisset would see to that. He leaned against the wall in anguish.

He straightened at last, breathing deeply. Then he walked down the hallway, down the long portrait gallery. He paused, looking up at his ancestors, at the men and women who had carved out this Eden from the raw wilderness.

The fires of war were burning brightly in his Eden.

He turned and walked again. Lewis would be awaiting him and his men. They had to break the British menace, and he had to return to Washington soon. The Congress was meeting; any day the colonies would declare for freedom.

And he would risk all in that struggle.

But he would not lose! he swore, and he paused, looking back to the bedroom. Poignant, wistful pain swept into his heart. If only she were with them!

If only she did love him.

In the gallery he stared at the portraits. Theirs were the last ones. Her hair was swept up in ringlets and fashionable curls, her beautiful eyes had been caught in all the majesty of their color. Her smile was one that could make a man willing to die in any manner for a mere whisper from her lips.

He was beside her, in the very uniform he wore now.

Lord and Lady Cameron of Cameron Hall, one of the finest properties in Tidewater Virginia! he thought with some bitter irony. They graced the gallery as finely as any of his illustrious ancestors, when they might well be the very fall of the house. Was he the first Cameron to sell his soul for love, his birthright for some vague dream of new country?

Amanda…

He had not left the house, and already his blood warmed and his muscles tensed and tightened when he thought her name and conjured before his eyes a vision of the woman he had left behind. He was tempted to turn back, but he could not. There were battles to be waged. In Philadelphia men were busy writing the words for the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson was drafting the document, he had heard. The Virginians were very proud of that fact, just as they were proud that many of the ideas were coming from words penned for Virginia by George Mason.

The British would hang him, he thought, if they ever got their hands upon him. Dunmore, his old friend, would hang him higher than any other.

He looked up at the portraits again and smiled wryly. “What do you say, monsieurs? Am I a fool? Casting this heritage to the winds of war?” Perhaps not, he thought, his smile deepening. His forebears had left behind a safe and guarded world to strike out into a wilderness. They would understand that he gambled all in a dream of liberty and honor. Even if his wife did not.

He turned, fighting the urge to go back to touch her just once again. He left the portraits behind and hurried down the stairs. Cassidy waited for him at the front door, holding his mount.

“There’s a flagon of whiskey in your saddlebag,” Cassidy told him.

“For breakfast, eh, Cassidy?”

Cassidy grinned. “Thought you might be needing it.”

Eric agreed. “Aye, that I might. But I’ll have to get the troops moving first. Wouldn’t do to show them a drunken example, eh, Cassidy?”

“No, sir, it wouldn’t do at all.”

Eric mounted upon his horse and looked down to Cassidy. “You’ll go with her to France?”

“Wherever you send me, milord, I will go.”

Eric stretched out his hand and took Cassidy’s dark one. “Thank you. And Pierre. And see that Jacques sails with her too; that is very important. He will let no harm come to her.”

Cassidy nodded. “Jacques will guard her with his life. His loyalty to her is deep seated.”

“It should be,” Eric murmured.

“Milord?”

He hesitated, looking down at Cassidy. “I believe that she is his daughter,” he said quietly, then grinned at Cassidy’s dumbfounded expression. “Say nothing.”

“No!” Cassidy agreed. “You mean Lord Sterling—”

“Is a monster,” Eric agreed, but said nothing more on the subject. If there was a God, and if there were a multitude of battles, surely Sterling would be taken home to his eternal rest before it was all over. “I will come as soon as I can. God alone knows when that will be. If I am killed—”

“Lord Cameron, please!”

He waved a hand impatiently in the air. “It is only a matter of time before independence and war are proclaimed. Virginia will set herself free before the others, I believe. Death is a fact of life, and very much one of war. If I am killed, care for my lady still, Cassidy, for I love her.”

“Always, milord,” Cassidy assured him, his dark eyes grave and misted.

Eric saluted quickly and rode away toward the fields where the troops were encamped.

He did not turn to look back at the house.

He did not dare. If he saw her face in the window, he would not be able to ride away.