Helen Dickson - Rogue in the Regency Ballroom

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.