Rogue in the Regency Ballroom. Helen Dickson

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СКАЧАТЬ your goal in life is self-indulgence—to fill your head with nothing except gowns, parties and beaux, to break gentlemen’s hearts, gentlemen who will swear their undying love for you and promise you the earth and jewels and the like.’

      ‘If you want to think so.’

      ‘Well, Miss O’Connell, I’m afraid that at this time I’m unable to profess my undying love for you and I appear to be fresh out of expensive jewels right now.’

      ‘That’s not what I want from you. Your name will suffice.’

      ‘Then you can have it—but not for prison comforts or fine clothes in which to meet my maker.’

      ‘Then what do you want?’

      Taking a step back, he gave her a hard look, his jaw tightening as he stared into her bewitching eyes. She might look fragile, but he was beginning to suspect she was as strong as steel inside, and that he could trust her with the one thing that mattered to him most in life. She was also so stunningly beautiful he could feel himself responding to her with a fierceness that took his breath away. And she was offering herself to him, knowing, if he married her, that he could never take her as a husband should.

      With eyes intense with purpose, he moved closer to her. ‘If your cause is really so desperate, then a bargain we will make. You could be useful to me after all.’

      Amanda stared at him, already feeling the trap that was closing about her. Had her cause been less dire, she would have turned away in disgust at the thought of bargaining with the likes of a criminal, but there was too much at stake and so no limit to her patience. She tilted her head to one side and looked at him quizzically. ‘A bargain? I hardly think you are in a position to make bargains, Mr Claybourne.’

      ‘I’m not dead yet.’

      ‘You very soon will be.’

      He stared at her, the lean, hard planes of his cheeks looking forbidding in the dull light. ‘A bargain we will have or there will be no marriage. However, it will be a bargain that will have a high price for you.’

      ‘I am listening. What is it you want?’

      ‘The first part of our bargain is that our marriage will be legal and binding for the time I have left to live, with papers to prove you are my lawful wife. If I manage to secure my freedom, you will acknowledge me as your husband and become my wife in truth.’

      Alarm sprang to her eyes. ‘Why, is there some doubt that you will hang? Is there any chance of a reprieve?’

      ‘Don’t look so worried, my dear,’ he drawled. ‘Already I feel my neck straining at the noose. The second part of our bargain is another matter entirely. There is something you can do for me in return for my name—something that will make my mind easier when they hang me.’

      Amanda wouldn’t like what he was going to say, she could see it on his face. ‘What is it?’ she asked quietly.

      He turned from her, raking a hand through his hair in agitation, and when he turned back she had difficulty reading his expression, but she could see his features were taut with some kind of emotional struggle.

      ‘If it’s so bad, perhaps you should tell me outright,’ she said.

      ‘I was not being truthful when I said that what relatives I have are capable of taking care of themselves. There is one member of my family who is too young and vulnerable to care for herself.’

      Somehow Amanda knew from the look of pain and despair that slashed across his taut features that the person he spoke of meant a great deal to him. ‘Who is it?’ she asked softly. The pain vanished and his features were already perfectly composed when he looked at her and quietly answered.

      ‘I have a child, Miss O’Connell, a three-year-old daughter. Will you take her with you to England, when you go?’

      Amanda stared at him, feeling as if the breath had been knocked out of her. A child! Mrs Hewitt had said nothing about a child—and if there was a child, then surely there must be a mother. A wife? Suddenly she was confronted by a stumbling block the size of an unconquerable mountain.

      ‘A—a child? But—I know nothing about looking after children.’

      He grinned. ‘Take it from me, it’s easy. There’s nothing to it—and you have a maid to help, don’t you? You seem to be a sensible young woman. Look after her. Take her to my cousin in London. Is that too much to ask?’

      He was looking at her hard, studying her features for her reaction. ‘But—what would happen to her if I didn’t? Where is she now? What about her mother? Who is caring for her?’

      ‘Her mother—my wife, who was a Cherokee—is dead. She died in childbirth. My daughter is called Sky and she is being cared for by a good family. The mother, Agatha, has a loving heart, but life is a struggle, with five children of her own to raise and precious little money.’

      ‘But I could give her money,’ Amanda was quick to offer, anything to avoid admitting a strange child into her life, a child she would have difficulty explaining.

      ‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘That—is not what I want.’ His voice became strangely hesitant and Amanda thought he wouldn’t go on, and when he did it was almost as if he was testing his ability to talk about it. ‘I have nightmares when I think what might happen to Sky when I am no longer here to take care of her. And now you appear as an answer to my prayers. Can I give my daughter into your keeping, for you to take her to my cousin?’

      Amanda heard the appeal behind his words, sensed the desperation he must feel for his daughter’s well-being, and how much he must miss not being with her. ‘H-h-have you not seen her since you were arrested?’ she asked, not yet ready to give him her answer.

      He shook his head. Even now he marvelled at how profoundly he could be affected by one dimpled smile from a raven-haired child, how it felt to hold her, feeling the bond between them growing stronger and deeper than anything he had ever known. ‘I love her, and she knows it. She is the child of my heart, and I would not have her see me like this.’

      All the sympathy Amanda felt was mirrored in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, feeling a lump of constricting sorrow in her chest. ‘I realise how hard this must be for you.’

      ‘Best that she remembers me when we were together—happier times. I wish there had been some way to spare her this. What happens to me cannot be kept from her. She will not always be a child, and will hear the rumours sooner or later. So—what do you say? Do we have a bargain—or does marriage to me not seem such a good idea after all?’

      ‘A bargain is a bargain, I suppose.’

      ‘And do you pledge yourself to honour this one? Do you promise to look after my daughter until you have placed her in my cousin’s care?’

      Amanda hesitated as she thought of the enormity of what she was committing herself to. Dazed by confusing messages racing through her brain, driven by the need to help his child and by something less sensible and completely inexplicable, she conceded. Whether he agreed to marry her or not, this request was made from the heart and she could not—would not—refuse him.

      ‘I will make your daughter my responsibility and I will not fail you.’

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