A Lady at Last by Brenda Joyce Read Free Book Online

gone.”
    â€œDon’t talk like that!” Amanda cried, shocked. “It’s not tomorrow yet and it’s not noon.”
    â€œIt is tomorrow, by damn, it’ll be dawn soon. She will be overjoyed to see you again. Amanda, girl, you will finally have that fancy home. You can be a real lady, not the spawn of someone like me.”
    Amanda stared, torn between terror and dismay. She’d had wild fantasies, of course, of one day seeing her mother and being embraced by the most beautiful, ladylike woman imaginable, of being safe and warm and loved. In those fantasies, she had become a lady just like her mother, and they had sipped exotic tea in a fragrant rose garden. But she was a sensible girl. Her home was the island, her life was her father’s. Although they had the farm, it was a life of plunder, and their prize possessions were stolen goods. Although they had one dairy cow and Amanda milked her, she was a pirate’s daughter. She was never going to England and she was never going to meet her mother. And it had certainly never crossed her mind to attempt to appear to be a lady, much less become one, except in a foolish flight of fancy.
    Was her father mad?
    â€œI’m not a lady—I couldn’t ever be one. I love the island. This is my home! I love sailing—I love the sea,” she protested with real panic.
    â€œIn that, you’re my own true daughter,” Rodney said, proudly and sadly at once. “God, girl, I don’t know what I was thinking, to teach you how to sail my sloop and fire the cannon, to fence better than a master, to shoot a pistol and mend sails. You climb the masts better than my best topmen. You’re a woman, not a lad! You should have stayed with your mother. I know that now.”
    â€œNo!” She seized his hand through the bars. “Papa, I love you.”
    He drew his hand away from hers and was silent.
    Amanda fought not to cry again, but it was a losing battle.
    â€œPromise me,” he finally said, “that when I’m gone, you will go to her. You got no one here. You need to go to Dulcea, Amanda.”
    Amanda was terrified. How could she make such a promise? Mama was a great lady. She was a pirate’s daughter. While she believed her mother had loved her once, that had been long ago. She was very afraid her mother would not care much for her now.
    â€œI’m your father and a dying man,” he cried, furious. “Damn it, you’re to obey me!”
    She knew that if the bars didn’t separate them, he’d whack her one. “You’re not dead yet. Maybe a miracle will happen!”
    He snorted. “There’s no such thing.”
    â€œThere was a miracle today,” Amanda cried. “Cliff de Warenne saved me from—” She stopped abruptly.
    Rodney stared, the whites of his eyes showing. “He what?”
    â€œHe saved me…I tried to seduce the governor,” she whispered.
    Through the bars, he hit her on the side of her head, hard. “You’re no whore, damn it! If there’s one thing I did right, it was to keep you innocent. You’re to give that maidenhead to a good man—to your husband!” he shouted, enraged.
    She held on tightly to the bars, until the stars spinning in her head dimmed and vanished. Then she inhaled, shaky from the blow. “I was trying to save you, Papa.”
    But her father didn’t seem to hear. “De Warenne’s a gentleman, never mind his command. You make him take you to England. He’s one you can trust.”
    Amanda was in despair. Her father was about to hang and if this was his dying wish, she would have to obey it. “He’s odd,” she heard herself say slowly, musing aloud. “Why would he help me, a stranger? Why would he fight with his own friend to do so?”
    â€œâ€™Cause that’s what them blue bloods do—they get all high and mighty and offer charity to poor sots like us.