The Turncoat by Donna Thorland Read Free Book Online

with Congress, but he’s home now. Milly’s having a hard time carrying.”
    Mrs. Ferrers cursed. “They’re coming to arrest him. You can’t stay here. We have to ride for it.”
    The Widow spurred her mount and cantered hard up the hill. Kate followed. They drew level with the house, but Angela Ferrers didn’t slow.
    Kate turned to look at the sleeping gables, where Milly lay heavy with child, then back down the still-empty road. There was enough time, just. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to warn them.” She plunged down the gravel-strewn drive toward the house.
    A lamp flared in an upstairs window as Kate reached the garden gate. The casements were open to the warm night air, and Milly’s long red tresses blew like pennants in the breeze.
    “Is that you, Kate? What’s that noise? What’s happening?” Milly’s pale skin was luminous in the moonlight, her freckles like fairy dust over her nose and cheekbones. Kate wasn’t surprised to see her up and restless in the middle of the night. For the first three months of her pregnancy, Milly had slept all the time. Now, three months further on, she seemed to sleep not at all.
    “Yes, it’s me, Milly. The Redcoats are coming for Andrew. He has to leave.”
    Kate was dimly aware of the spy reining up behind her.
    “Kate,” the Widow said urgently, “we can’t be found here.”
    The plans. Angela Ferrers and those damnable stolen plans. She and Angela would hang as traitors if they were taken with those papers. And Milly’s husband would be implicated. Kate had only brought them greater danger by stopping here.
    The muffled clatter of hooves was unmistakable. Now Milly heard it too.
    “What should I do?” Milly asked, bewildered.
    Angela Ferrers looked up at the girl in the window, whose hands were clutched over her round belly. For a fleeting second, the Widow appeared stricken; then she shook her head and said, “I’m sorry,” and led Kate, unresisting, into the woods.
    The farmhouse and barn were built on a hilltop, and the thickly forested ground fell away sharply behind it. It was a steep drop, and Kate was forced to crouch in her saddle, digging her fingers into her horse’s mane, to keep her seat.
    Angela Ferrers took the hill like a steeplechase on home ground. At the bottom was a cider house. The spy tied their horses up behind it and pressed her lips to Kate’s ear. “They will loot the house. We can’t risk attracting their attention by making for the road now. We must stay hidden until they leave.”
    From their hiding place Kate could see only the shadows beneath the eaves of the old house. The night was warm, but the cider-tinged air tasted like autumn and the press smelled sharp and metallic: sour apples and damp stone.
    Kate listened to the thunder above grow to a crescendo, then die away as the soldiers reached the hilltop. She heard the butt of a pistol hammering on the thick oak door. Then, faster than anyone could have answered, wood splintered, boots pounded over floorboards, glass broke.
    This was not supposed to happen here. The Ashcrofts were Quakers. Andrew was dangerously close to being read out of the meeting for his involvement with Congress, but that was just words, men talking in rooms. Peaceful men. Kate’s father had taken up arms both for and against the Crown, but Andrew Ashcroft had never raised a hand against man or beast in his life. Soldiers were supposed to protect people like them, not batter down their door in the middle of the night.
    Milly screamed.
    Kate was moving before she realized it, climbing the hill blindly, scrambling over rotting apples and dead leaves.
    It was hard, rocky, useless ground, churned with twisted roots and steeper here than where she’d descended on horseback, but it didn’t matter. She must reach the top. Her hands scrabbled at last over level ground, and she craned her neck to see over the crest of the hill, then froze.
    Kate had expected destruction, broken windows and burst