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‘So do I. Such a marriage is not for me.’
‘So, you do not run with the pack, Miss O’Connell?’
‘I have a mind of my own, if that is what you mean,’ she replied.
‘So you have. And how will marrying me solve your dilemma, should I agree to your offer? As I see it, when you return to England you will still be minus a husband.’
‘If I return a widow, then Father must respect the customary year of mourning. By the end of it I shall be twenty-one and able to do as I please.’
Kit looked at her hard. Despite her delicate features and feminine beauty, Amanda O’Connell was apparently a woman made of steel, a woman who put her own interests first. If nothing else, Kit decided as he appraised her, they certainly had that in common. And he had to give her credit. At least she was honest about what mattered to her. In retrospect, he rather admired her courage, if not her standards.
‘And how would you explain the demise of your unfortunate husband to your father, Miss O’Connell?’
Amanda lowered her head, feeling that her courage and control were beginning to slip. ‘I would tell him that you became ill on the voyage and died. After all, it’s not uncommon for people to die of fevers and all manner of things on board ships.’
Kit contemplated her bowed head. ‘Look at me,’ he said. His voice was very quiet. Unwillingly she met his eyes. ‘You must want to marry extremely badly—have you not had the good fortune to entrap the wealthy bucks of South Carolina’s society? Wasn’t there one who could cause your maidenly heart to beat to the strains of love?’
Amanda’s green eyes snapped with disdain, and for one brief instant Kit glimpsed the proud, spirited young woman behind the carefully controlled façade. ‘Love—what has love got to do with anything? The answer to your question is no, I am desperate, Mr Claybourne—had I been given any other choice I would not be here.’
‘It is kind of you to consider me the lesser of two evils,’ Kit remarked with smiling sarcasm. ‘But my answer is no.’
A deadly calm came over Amanda, banishing everything but her regret that she had been foolish to come to the gaol and humiliate herself before this common horse breaker. She knew with rising dread that no one could push Mr Claybourne into any decision not of his own making. For the first time since she had devised this wild scheme, she knew the real meaning of failure. Her small chin lifted primly, her spine stiffened, and before his eyes Kit saw her put up a valiant struggle for control—a struggle she won.
‘It’s the best I can do at this time. However, since you refuse to marry me, then I shall have to reconsider my options. Good day to you, sir. I am sorry to have wasted your time.’
Kit watched her move towards the door with her head raised haughtily. His stomach quivered and he felt the blood run warm in his veins as he observed her trim waist, the gentle sway of her hips and the train of her skirts stirring up the filth on the floor of the cell. He was a man well used to the charms of women—hadn’t he burned his fingers with Carmen? Preferring more honest, uncomplicated relationships, he regretted ever becoming entangled with her. He should have refused her request to break her horses, for hadn’t he been warned that Carmen Rider represented the worst kind of danger to a freedom-loving single male like himself?
Continuing to watch Miss O’Connell, he suspected her of being a quick-tempered, calculating vixen, but at that moment he perceived an air of seriousness about her. She must be pretty desperate for him to marry her to go to all this trouble, and somehow she had let herself hope that he would comply with her wishes. The thought that she wanted to marry him to secure her position and the use of his name was acutely distasteful to him. In truth he didn’t want to think of her, of her actions and desire, at all. She was not for him and never would be. He’d left her world long since. And yet she had created a situation that could prove useful to him.
‘Miss O’Connell, wait.’
She looked back. His tall, broad-shouldered figure seemed to fill the whole cell. Despite his shabby garb, never had any man looked so attractive or so distant, and never had her heart called out so strongly to anyone. His eyes were unfathomable, and at once she knew she must fight her attraction for him. Christopher Claybourne was out of her class, a social inferior. His standards were not hers, and the smell of scandal clung strongly about him.
Slowly she came back to him. Her senses felt dazed, snared by dark eyes that roamed leisurely over her features, pausing at length on her lips and then moving back to capture her gaze. They glowed with a warmth that brought colour to her cheeks, making her want to forget what his crime might be. Compared to the numerous suitors who had come her way, despite his deprivations, Christopher Claybourne was as near to perfect as she had ever met.
Mentally chiding herself for lacking the poise and behaviour of the lady she had been brought up to be, she reminded herself harshly that he was a condemned murderer and stepped back a pace, preferring to keep a secure distance between them.
‘Maybe I have been a trifle hasty in dismissing your offer,’ he said. ‘It could work out to be beneficial for us both. However, I do believe this to be the most outrageous proposal of marriage I have ever heard of. You really are the most unprincipled young woman, Amanda O’Connell, and you do seem to be in something of a fix,’ he said with a wayward smile.
‘Which you obviously find amusing.’
‘You have to admit it’s a little unusual.’
‘At the very least,’ she agreed.
‘Do you not think that by solving one problem you might be creating another?’
‘I hope not, but it’s a risk I’m prepared to take. The truth is that I don’t want to marry anyone, Mr Claybourne, just yet. I value my freedom and independence too much to let it go.’
‘So, 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.’
‘Thank you. It means a great deal to me. You have no idea just how much.’
Amanda would have to deal with the consequences. And yet what did it matter? she thought. Mr Claybourne’s crime was proved and he would hang for sure. This time next week she would be on the ship homeward bound, and her husband nothing to her but a name. And yet there would be his child to remind her.
‘When the ceremony has been performed, you can tell me where I can find her. Do you wish to see her before …?’
‘No.’ His word was final.
‘Very well. I will leave you now. Mr Hennesey will let you know about the arrangements. Are you a Catholic, by the way?’
‘Why?’
‘It could complicate matters.’
He grinned. ‘With a good Irish name as you have, Miss O’Connell, are you not of that persuasion?’
‘No. My father was an Ulsterman.’
‘And I adhere to any form of Protestant denomination, so that should not be a problem.’
Amanda turned to go. At the door she paused and looked back at him. ‘There is one thing I will ask you before I go—and I would appreciate the truth.’
‘And that is?’
‘Did you really murder Mrs Rider?’ With a mixture of dread and helpless anticipation, Amanda met his steady, dark gaze.
‘No, I did not. I’d like you at least to believe there is a possibility I’m telling you the truth.’
‘Then if you are indeed innocent, surely there are ways to help you—someone with influence and means.’
‘If you are suggesting there is someone out there to redress the wrongs done to me, then sadly the source is exhausted. However, your concern touches me deeply, Miss O’Connell.’
His voice was casual and his face was serious, but Amanda distrusted the gleaming, mocking humour lurking in his gaze. He did not believe for one minute that she or anyone else cared one iota what happened to those in his position.
‘Then if you did not kill her—where were you?’
‘Fishing.’
Amanda stared at him and then slowly her lips curved in a smile. ‘You were fishing? Oh, I see. Well, good day, Mr Claybourne.’
Kit watched her go. For the time they had been together her beauty had fed his gaze, creating inside him an ache that could neither be set aside nor sated. When the door had shut, at that moment the prison walls closed round him with a ferocious pressure. His filthy and torn clothing, the roughness of his unwashed skin, the stink of himself, his absolute hopelessness, stirred a rage in him that was almost overpowering.
As Amanda followed Mr Hennesey, a treacherous seed of doubt about Mr Claybourne’s guilt planted itself in her mind, and before she had left the prison that seed was taking root, nourished by her horror at the possibility that an innocent man would hang. Her mind argued that she was being a fool to think like this, but every instinct she possessed shouted that he was innocent. She knew it. She could feel it. And if he was, then she could hardly bear the thought of what he was to go through.
Of course the worst thing that could happen for her would be for Mr Claybourne to be released; yet, though she bore no feelings for him one way or the other, she could only admire his courage as he faced imminent death. He had impressed her, and the idea of such a fine-looking man, in his prime and full of life, dying in such a cruel manner, depriving a child of its father, was repugnant to her. Surprised to find her eyes were wet with tears, she raised her hand and wiped them away.
‘Mr Hennesey, if you please, may I have a quiet word?’
Hennesey stopped and turned to look at her. His pace had quickened and he was studying her with a keen eye. ‘Aye, a quiet word is it? And would I be right in thinkin’ it concerns Claybourne?’
His tone gave Amanda confidence—although she did wonder if he had had his ear to the door of the cell. In a low voice, not wishing what she had to say to be overheard, she said, ‘Yes, it does. Mr Claybourne and I wish to be married—before …’
‘He hangs.’
‘Yes.’
Hennesey gave a low whistle. ‘That’s a serious matter.’
‘I agree, but it is what we want—and I would like it carried out with the utmost secrecy. Time is of the essence. Can you help me?’
Hennesey rubbed his chin as he thought about her request. ‘Well, now—the governor has to know about such things happenin’ in his prison.’
‘Is that necessary, Mr Hennesey? Can’t we keep this between ourselves?’ Amanda knew that if she confronted the governor of the prison all kinds of embarrassing questions would be asked—and he might even be acquainted with Charlotte and inform her, which would dash all her hopes.
Mr Hennesey rubbed his stubbled chin thoughtfully. ‘Well, now, we could—but it will cost you.’
‘Money is not a problem, Mr Hennesey.’ Amanda’s relief was so great she almost sank to her knees. ‘Do you know of a minister who will agree to perform the ceremony?’
‘There is one I know of, although the gaol has its own chaplain, and ministers come and go all the time to visit prisoners, especially the condemned—hoping to save their souls,’ he said scathingly.
A sudden instinctive caution made Amanda add, ‘I will give you half the money before and half afterwards. I ask for the utmost secrecy for the present. No one must get wind of it—no one. Do you understand me, Mr Hennesey? And we must act quickly. I will leave you to make the arrangements—to appoint the time. Oh, and one more thing. See to it that Mr Claybourne is made decent—a wash and a change of clothes wouldn’t go amiss.’
On reaching the carriage, she lost no time in telling a shocked Nan of what she intended and that she would appreciate it if she agreed to be one of the witnesses at her marriage, along with Amos. Nan was so appalled she was momentarily rendered speechless, but when she recovered herself she lost no time in telling Amanda what she thought of the whole dreadful affair. As usual, however, the words of reproach went in one ear and out the other.
‘It’s unfair of you to make me a part of this,’ Nan persisted, ‘to ask this of me. What you’re doing is wrong and your father will probably disown you.’ But Nan could see from the stubborn set of Amanda’s jaw and the determined gleam in her eyes that nothing would change her mind. No one could stop Amanda O’Connell doing what she wanted once she’d got the bit between her teeth—and she’d had the bit between her teeth from the moment her father had summoned her back to England to marry the man he had chosen for her.
