Amanda Rose Page 2

  “Escape! Grayson’s escaped!”

  “Look out!”

  “Get out of the way, you fools!”

  The report of the rifle mingled with the screams of the crowd. They panicked at the sound of gunfire, taking to their heels like stampeding cattle. Matt ran with them, knowing it would be hard to spot him among so many fleeing bodies. Dirty and unkempt as he was, dressed in torn rags, he looked no different from many of London’s army of the poor. A tremendous burst of strength surged through his veins; he felt suddenly vitally alive, reborn. He had escaped—he would escape. Spying a fat burgher astride a rearing horse just ahead of him and to his right, near the fringe of the crowd, Matt fought his way through the screaming, streaming mass of people to the man’s side.

  “Get down,” he growled, and to make sure there was no possibility of mistake, he grabbed the frightened horse’s bridle with one hand and the man’s belt with the other. Before the perspiring burgher could do more than gape down at him, Matt had hauled him out of the saddle and vaulted up himself.

  “My horse,” the man cried. Then, with a note of horror, “It’s him.”

  But Matt had already set his heels to the horse’s sides. He sent the animal plunging toward the edge of the crowd, knocking down those who were slow to get out of his way. Curses and screams followed his progress. Another shot—from a pistol, by the sound of it—whistled frighteningly close to his head. This added to the crowd’s panic, which aided him. He reached the road at last and crossed it quickly, too canny to travel on it in either direction. They would look for him first along the road . . .

  Leaning low in the saddle, one hand pressed tight against his hip in an effort to stem the blood that ran warm and sticky down his side, he galloped across the field that ran at a right angle to the road. He had no idea whether they were after him yet; in his lightning glances back he had seen no one, no cavalry charge of soldiers brandishing rifles, no rush of guards on fat farm animals. Likely the crowd was hampering pursuit—not that it mattered. If they weren’t hard on his heels now, they soon would be. They would search the four corners of the kingdom for him if need be.

  His escape would be a hideous black eye for Queen Victoria’s government, and they would be tireless in their quest for vengeance. The odds were high that he wouldn’t get more than five miles before he was captured. Matt’s teeth gleamed brightly in the morning sun as he considered that. He’d always been one to bet on long shots, and as often as not, they’d paid off. That brief smile flashed again as he sent the horse over a low stone wall and into the valley below it. The odds had been considerably higher this morning that he would be dead by now. Instead, he was alive, free as the air, the sun warm on his face and a horse beneath him. He just might manage to cheat the devil one more time. Thinking that, for the first time in a long while Matt laughed out loud.

  chapter two

  “Damn .”

  Lady Amanda Rose Culver took intense satisfaction from uttering a word that, had they heard it, would have sent the good nuns with whom she lived into a collective swoon. Savoring the feeling of wickedness it gave her, she said the word again, louder. But it didn’t really make her feel any better. She doubted that anything could.

  As if to punish her for her naughtiness, the pale ghost that was all that was left of the moon stared at her reprovingly from the still-midnight-black sky while the early-morning wind whipped her hair across her face. Muttering impatiently, Amanda dug the offending tresses out of her eyes with both hands. Her hair—a heavy, wayward mass that fell down past her hips when released from the neat braids in which the nuns insisted it be kept confined—was the bane of her existence. Even the color annoyed her. It was a deep, true red, the shade of fine old port when the sun hits it. Coupled with the porcelain paleness of her skin, the inky blackness of her winged brows and thick lashes, and the strange, smoky violet of her eyes, it could be considered striking, she supposed. Certainly the nuns were much struck by it. They seemed to feel that it symbolized everything they found fault with in Amanda. Her quick temper, her impulsiveness, the many small rebellions with which she plagued them daily, they always attributed directly to the outrageous color of her hair. Which was why, she supposed, they required her to wear it in such a conventionally schoolgirlish style—braided and wound into a coronet on top of her head—a style she loathed. Which in turn was why she unbraided it every chance she got, and why it was free to fly in her face at that moment.

  Tucking the offending tresses firmly behind her small ears, she walked farther along the beach, her arms automatically wrapped about her slender body for warmth. She should have worn a shawl; even in the springtime this isolated bit of Lands End was cold at night. But the only shawl she possessed—the good sisters practiced poverty, as well as chastity and obedience, and saw to it that their pupils did the same—was a spotless, gleaming white cashmere. Against the background of dark gray cliffs and black water it would have stood out like a beacon, whereas the unfashionably high-necked, long-sleeved gray merino dress she wore blended almost invisibly into the night. Even in the murky, predawn hours, when she loved to walk the small shale beach at the foot of the cliff on which the convent perched, it was possible that one of the sisters would be up and about. If they saw her, they would not hesitate to report her to Mother Superior, and that would mean punishment, as well as the certain end of her clandestine walks. Even pretty Sister Mary Joseph, the youngest and most sympathetic of the nuns, would betray her, feeling duty bound to do so. After all, it was neither safe nor respectable for a young lady to be out alone at night anywhere, much less on a deserted stretch of beach that had been notorious some years back as a smugglers’ haunt; and just at present there was another, more acute danger: the whole of England was on the alert for Lord James Farringdon’s murderer, who three weeks ago had made a stunning escape from the very gallows itself.

  The man was said to be brutal and ruthless in the extreme—the exact details of his crime were too horrendous to have been told to Amanda or even to the nuns themselves—but it was known that he had callously slain a woman and several children, as well as the Tory lord, who had been his prime target. He was desperate, unlikely to stick at anything. Ladies across the land were being careful to stay in their homes at night unless escorted by a gentleman, and men were going about armed until the fellow was caught. As he would be; it was merely a question of when. He could be anywhere in England, although the authorities were most particularly scouring the coastal areas, certain that the man would try to flee the country. And Lands End was one of those areas under constant surveillance.

  Not that Amanda was unduly worried about coming face to face with a murderer. Of all the places in England that he could choose to run to, it seemed unlikely that he would pick her own small stretch of beach. No, she had more pressing worries on her mind than a madman who was probably hundreds of miles away. Only last evening she had received word from her half brother, Edward, the sixth Duke of Brookshire, that he had made final the arrangements for her marriage—arrangements that had been undertaken with nary a word to her. In four months’ time, he had written to her, just a week to the day before her eighteenth birthday, she would become the bride of Lord Robert Turnbull, a plumpish, balding forty-year-old, nephew to Edward’s late mother, the first wife of Amanda’s father, and cousin to Edward himself.

  She would not do it. Oh, she knew she had to marry, and marry well. There was no other course open to a lady of her background and breeding, and she had long since come to accept its inevitability. But not to Lord Robert. Why, he was old and fat, and had already buried one wife—who had been a considerable heiress, if she remembered correctly. Amanda knew that she would, upon her marriage—if that marriage met with Edward’s approval—come into a tidy fortune of her own. With that as her dowry and her own not-inconsiderable charms, she had thought to be able to look as high for a husband as she chose. She had always imagined she would be allowed to select a man from among the list of eligibles who would
no doubt pay her court after her come-out. For years she had dreamed of a brilliant season—she would, of course, take the ton by storm and be the year’s reigning belle—and of a handsome, wealthy young man of impeccable lineage who would fall madly in love with her and beg her to be his bride. There would be other gentlemen ready to die for the sake of her beaux yeux, of course, but she would have no one but him. At the end of the season there would be a dazzlingly lovely wedding, and she would waltz into the future with her adoring husband to protect and cherish her. But now Edward was going to spoil it all—as he had always tried to spoil everything for her—by insisting that she wed this cousin of his before any other gentleman had ever seen her, and make her bow to society as Lady Robert Turnbull.

  Edward had always hated her, just as he had hated her mother. His sisters, Lilian and Charlotte, hated her too. No matter that she was their half sister. They bitterly resented the bond of blood that tied her to them, and never let her forget that her mother had been, of all things, on the stage, and a “scheming, immoral creature” who had caught the eye of their widowed father when he was in his dotage. No matter that the fifth duke had adored Isabelle, his beautiful young second wife, and their child, Amanda, who was Isabelle’s mirror image. No matter that he had never fully recovered from his grief when Isabelle died when Amanda was only ten. No matter that he had loved Amanda dearly until his own death three years later.

  The fifth duke had scarcely been cold in his grave when Edward, a ponderous frown on his face, had summoned Amanda to his study—her father’s study—and told her that she was to be sent away to school. She had been pampered and indulged beyond belief all her life, he said, and there was to be no more of it. She was to learn humility and obedience and respect for her elders and betters. Amanda, still in shock from the loss of her beloved father, had born Edward’s tirade in drooping silence until he had dared to call her mother a painted whore. Even at the tender age of thirteen she had recognized fighting words when she heard them. Flooded with the fiery temper that went with the color of her hair, she had flown at Edward, kicking him soundly in the shins. The next morning she had been packed off to Our Lady of the Sorrows Convent, where the sisters of the Order of the Magdalene operated a school for young ladies from some of England’s best families who for one reason or another needed to be gotten out of the way. Amanda had heard only occasionally from Edward in the almost five years since, and every one of his communications had been unpleasant. But his letter of the night before was the worst yet.

  Engrossed in her thoughts, Amanda had moved some distance along the beach without realizing it. Her feet had somehow managed to pick their way through the debris thrown up by the storm that had come upon them just before midnight. Now, in the hour before dawn, the rain had stopped, but the wind still blew strongly, sending angry-looking waves rushing across the small bay to knock themselves against the shore. Heavy black clouds rolled above the cliffs, partially obscuring the moon from time to time and giving the silhouetted convent the eerie look of a medieval castle. There was just enough silvery moonlight to see by; in the darkness every rock and piece of driftwood took on a menacing appearance that bothered Amanda a little, although she would have died sooner than admit it. She had always prided herself on her courage, and she had weathered too much in her short life to let a niggling little fear of the dark chase her away from the one place she had always sought solitude—and solace.

  Then she heard the moan. Amanda stopped in her tracks, straining her ears, eyes wide as she assured herself that it was only the wind whistling through the caves with which the cliffs were honeycombed. But the sound came again, unmistakable this time. Throat suddenly dry, she stiffened, holding her hair out of her face while she looked warily around. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, but there were countless large rocks, scattered near the base of the cliffs, which could have hidden someone who cared to hide. If there were someone, which there probably was not. More than likely it was an animal, hurt or trapped. Of course it was.

  She had been poised to run, but that idea stopped her in her tracks. She could not bear the thought of an animal out here, alone and possibly trapped, surely injured, from the sounds it was making. Perhaps it was a raccoon or even a dog. At the third moan, she knew she had to see if she could find it, help it.

  She moved slowly in the direction of the sounds, looking carefully about her. The chances were high that it was an animal, but just in case . . . She picked up a sturdy chunk of driftwood from the shale, hefting it in her right hand while her left kept her hair out of her eyes. She would have no compunction about braining someone if it turned out to be necessary.

  As she cautiously approached a large rock nestled near the foot of the cliffs, she heard another sound, this time more of a whimper than a moan. It clearly came from behind the rock. Edging forward, her makeshift club raised threateningly, she could just make out a large, dark shape lying against the shale. It was too large for a raccoon or a dog . . . Was it a man? It was. Shock made Amanda jump backward, a startled cry rising to her throat. The piece of driftwood dropped from her nerveless hand.

  He made no move to come after her. Amanda relaxed a little, her hand pressing against her heart, which was pumping double time. Gradually it occurred to her that the man must be hurt: that would explain the sounds she had heard. Perhaps he was a local farmer, fallen from the cliffs while looking for a strayed animal, or even a sailor whose boat had sunk in last night’s seas. She couldn’t leave him there. She had to help him if she could.

  Still, her movements were cautious as she took a step closer, and then another. When the man continued to sprawl, unmoving, in the shale, she concluded that he was probably only semiconscious at best, and breathed a little easier. Hesitantly she bent to touch him, first his shoulder, then his averted face. He was soaking wet, his clothing half frozen to his body, his hair dripping water, and yet his skin was fiery hot. Clearly he was ill. That realization made her feel much better, and she was almost at ease as she knelt down beside him, her hand firmer on his shoulder as she attempted to shake him to his senses. His only response was a groan as he tried to pull his shoulder away from her importunate hand.

  “Can you hear me?” she asked insistently. “Sir?”

  Whether in response to her hand or to her voice she didn’t know, but he rolled over, lying now on his back, motionless, his eyes closed. His body looked long and large against the shale; it would be impossible for her to shift him without help. She started to get to her feet, knowing she had to summon assistance even if it meant that the sisters would find out about her nightly perambulations. Then the moon came out from behind a cloud to shine its light directly on his face. Amanda stayed where she was, crouched beside him, staring at his face, transfixed.

  His hair was as black as coal and curling, and she guessed that his skin would be dark, too, without the twin influences of illness and moonlight. His brows were thick and as black as his hair, and his lashes curled with incongruous and oddly disarming innocence against his lean cheeks. The rest of his face was hard, aggressively masculine though he was unconscious, with chiseled cheekbones, an arrogant blade of a nose, and a jaw covered with thick black bristles that effectively obscured the lower third of his face. But it was not all this that arrested Amanda’s attention, causing her eyes to widen with slowly dawning horror. It was the scar.

  It was a long, thin sear, faintly raised and paler than the skin around it, which descended from the outer corner of his left eyebrow down across his cheek to disappear in the stubble at the side of his mouth. Amanda could not tear her eyes away from it. Not that the sear was horrible in itself; it wasn’t, not at all. But Amanda had heard tell of a scar like that only once before, just recently, when one of the girls at the school had received a letter from her married Londonite sister. In the letter, the scar, as well as the man who bore it, was described thoroughly. And he was identified, too—as Matthew Grayson, the escaped murderer who had the whole country in a quake.

&nb
sp; Thank the Lord he was unconscious. That was the first thought that went through Amanda’s head as she made the connection. Her heart hammered against her breast as she imagined what would have happened to her if she had come upon him on this deserted stretch of beach when he was in possession of all his faculties. He would undoubtedly have killed her, to keep her from telling what she had seen . . . Dear God. At the thought of what could have happened, she quivered from head to toe. For once the nuns had been right. She should never have ventured out alone at night—and would never do so again. But now she had to get away, get to the authorities . . .

  Amanda started to scramble to her feet. As she did so her unconfined hair fell forward to brush against his face. To her horror he lifted his hand a little, trying to push her hair away. Amanda jumped back—but it was too late. His hand closed painfully on the trailing ends of her hair, jerking her back to her knees beside him. Frozen with fear, Amanda could only stare dumbly into that dark face as his eyes slowly opened. They were light, she noted distractedly, almost silver in the faint moonlight, and as cold as death. They fixed on her face for a long moment before moving on to stare at the silken length of hair wound so tightly around his fist. The expression in his eyes made her tremble; she shrank back as he lifted his other hand to touch the imprisoned skein of hair.