Love Not a Rebel Read Online Free Page A

taken tender care of the bedding and furnishings they had left behind.
    A chill swept through her suddenly.
    He wasn’t going to hang her. What was he going to do with her? Could she vow that she would not leave the house, that she would take no more part in the war? She could never, never have set fire to the house. But he would never believe that now.
    She closed her eyes and heard the orders to dock. She imagined the men, pulling in the
Lady Jane
’s sails, furling them tightly as the ship found her deep-water berth. She heard the fall of the plank, and the call of victory as men walked ashore.
    The patriots had needed that victory! The British were heading toward New York, and Washington hadn’t enough troops to meet them properly. The colonials were up against one of the finest fighting forces in the world.
    Oh, couldn’t he see! she thought in anguish. The British would win in the end, and they would hang Eric! They would hang him and George Washington and Patrick Henry and the Adamses and Hancock and all those foolish, foolish men!
    The door opened again. Amanda sprang up. Her heartseemed to sink low in her chest. Frederick had come for her, the printer from Boston. Eric had saved his life once, and she knew Frederick would gladly die for him now.
    “Where is Eric?” she demanded.
    “Your husband will be with you soon enough, milady,” Frederick said. “He has asked me to escort you to the house.”
    “Escort me?”
    “Milady, none of us would seek to harm you.” He was quiet for a moment. “Even if you are a spy.”
    “Frederick, please, I—”
    His anguished eyes fell upon hers. “Oh, milady! Cameron Hall! How could you have betrayed his very home?”
    “I did not, Frederick,” she said wearily.
    “Then—”
    “I have no defense,” she told him.
    “Milady, I will take your word.”
    “Thank you.” She did not tell him that her husband would not do so. She lowered her eyes quickly, feeling that tears sprang to them. If he had condemned her, if he had spoken with fury or wrath, it would have been easier.
    “Come now,” he said.
    “Where are you taking me?” she asked him.
    “Nowhere but to your own home, milady.”
    Amanda nodded to Frederick and swept through the cabin’s narrow doorway. She climbed the ladder to the deck. As she came topside to the early-evening air, the chatter of the men died down, and one and all, they stared at her. They paused in their motions of cleaning the
Lady Jane’s
guns or in tying her sails. They were not navy but a ragtag outfit of militia men. She knew the men from the western counties by their buckskin fringed jackets, and she knew some of the old soldiers by the blue coats they wore, leftovers of the French and Indian Wars. Still others were clad differently, and she knew that they were the uniforms of the counties they had come from. Some were friends, and others were strangers.
    She tried to steady herself to walk before them, and yet it did not seem that they condemned her too harshly. Someone began to whistle an old Scottish ballad. Thenone by one they all began to bow to her. Confused, she nodded her head in turn as Frederick led her from the ship. She walked the plank to the dock.
    The small coach awaited them. Pierre was driving. He did not look her way. Amanda walked to the coach and hoisted herself up, Frederick close behind her. She looked back to the ship. The old captain in a green rifleman’s outfit saluted her.
    She glanced quickly to Frederick. “I don’t understand,” she murmured.
    Seating himself beside her, Frederick smiled. “All men salute a brave enemy in defeat.”
    “But they must hate me.”
    “Yes, some of them. But most men respect a fallen enemy who fights true to his or her heart. And those who do know the secret of ‘Highness’ might well wish that you had chosen your husband’s side.”
    “I cannot help where my heart lies!”
    “Neither can any man, milady,” Frederick said. He was silent then. Pierre cracked