Straight For The Heart by Canham Marsha

Author:Canham, Marsha
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, historical, historical romance, gamblers, historical 1800s, marsha canham, riverboats, antebellum south
Publisher: Marsha Canham

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Natchez banker was standing in a bank of sunlight. His hair, already a painfully bright shade of red, looked as if it were blazing on fire. The lower half of his face was prickly with copper stubble; his hawkish eyes were bloodshot and the heavy smudges beneath bespoke a long, sleepless night that had not been spent in pleasurable activity. His clothing was rumpled, his cravat askew. The bottoms of his trousers were stained with mud and water, and one of his shoes was missing a heel.

“Well, well, well,” he said slowly, his eyes taking their time sweeping down the length of Amanda’s body and back up again. “So it’s true.”

“Mr. Wainright.” Amanda’s mouth was suddenly as dry as day-old ashes. “How … did you know I was here?”

“How indeed,” he mused, his eyes glittering and hard. “I might still be waiting by the side of the road, hat in hand, were it not for the rain … and this.”

He held up a small gray glove—the one she had thought she had dropped on the floor of the coach last night.

“The fresh wheel tracks were distinctive and easy enough to follow. The preacher was somewhat less cooperative, having been wakened for the second time in as many hours, but he eventually told me all I needed to know.”

Amanda tried to moisten her lips, but her tongue had been reduced to chalk as well. “Please, you must believe me. It was not planned.”

“What part of it?” Wainright asked casually. “Marrying Tarrington or deliberately humiliating me?”

“Neither,” she said. “It just … it all happened so quickly …”

Wainright’s gaze took in the almost perfect fit of the blue muslin gown, the softly brushed fall of her hair. “Yes, I can see it was all spur-of-the-moment.”

Amanda twisted a bit of lace on her sleeve and heard it tear. “Mr. Wainright—”

“You came to me, remember. You made certain promises and commitments which I, in all sincerity, was prepared to accept in exchange for relieving you and your family of considerable financial burdens. You gave your word, Amanda,” he added in an ominously low voice. “Is it of so little value?”

“I did not deliberately set out to break it. I was there last night, on the road, at midnight. Just as we had arranged.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t, was I?” he hissed. “Your lover made damned sure of that.”

“He … he wasn’t my lover,” she insisted softly.

“And none of this was planned,” Wainright said belligerently. “Not the broken axle, not the ride to Jamestown or the furtive ceremony. Not the fine house or the fine clothes … which, by the way, seem to fit remarkably well for all that you claim to have been so surprised. What game were you playing, Amanda? Was it your idea to humiliate me this way, or was it your brother’s?”

“Ryan knew nothing about it,” she cried. “He knows nothing about it. It was all my idea, and—and my fault, I suppose, that it all went so terribly wrong. You can believe me or not, but I had every intention of keeping my word.

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