Judith E. French Read Online Free PDF

head. Finley’s eyes dilated with anger as the soldier proceeded to wring the goose’s neck.
    “Don’t—” Cailin began, but before she could get the words out, Finley grabbed the dragoon’s horse by the bridle with his left hand and drove his right fist into the soldier’s belly. Another dragoon drew his sword and galloped toward them on a fiery roan. Cailin screamed. She dashed forward, trying to block the charge, but the horse’s shoulder knocked her aside, and she fell heavily to her knees.
    Finley groaned as the dragoon’s sword slashed across his back. The man struck again amid a flurry of goose feathers, and Finley fell beneath the hooves of the two animals. Blood splashed to the roan’s fetlock.
    “No!” Cailin cried.
    A third rider brandished a flaming torch and hurled it through a broken window into the house as still more mounted dragoons cantered into the courtyard.
    Cailin whirled to face the leader, a bewigged major in a bright red coat and gold buttons. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “There’s a sick woman and a babe in the house.”
    “This house and land are the property of King George,” he replied coldly. “Confiscated for treason against the Crown. You are trespassing.”
    Realizing that further conversation with this English tyrant was useless, Cailin turned and ran back into the house. Acrid smoke drifted from the scattering of ashes on the stone floor. “Grandda!” she called. “Get out of the house!”
    A dog’s insistent bark became a high-pitched howl as the sound of shattering glass and tramping boots came from the kitchen wing. Waves of icy sensation washed over Cailin as she rushed toward her sister’s bedchamber. “Jeanne! Jeanne!” she cried. But when she flung open the door, Johnnie’s great poster bed stood empty, the covers flung carelessly on the floor.
    Cailin glanced into the cradle; the baby wasn’t there. Bundling up a blanket in her arms, she retraced her steps down the stone corridor and nearly tripped over the sprawled body of old Angus. He lay, eyes staring blankly, gnarled hands outstretched.
    She paused long enough to kneel and touch his twisted lips. When she felt no breath of life, she leaped up and ran on. “Grandda! Grandda, where are you?” She raced down a flight of twisting stairs to his bedchamber. Soldiers were already there, overturning furniture and setting fire to the bed hangings. The hall passage was quickly filling with smoke.
    “Halt!” a man cried, but she paid him no heed. She dropped the blanket, darted around a corner, and slipped behind a heavy tapestry, taking the ancient hidden staircase to the rear of the house. More shots sounded from the courtyard, but to her relief, when she reached the postern door, she saw Jeanne and her grandfather huddled together in the rain. Jeanne was clutching a squirming bundle to her breast.
    “Cailin!” Jeanne shouted. “A soldier dragged Glynis away! There!” She pointed toward the stable yard.
    Cailin shook her head. Her knees were weak. She was breathing hard, and her heart felt as though it would burst through her chest. She didn’t care about Glynis. All she wanted was to throw herself into her grandfather’s arms and let him protect her from this madness.
    Then Glynis shrieked, and the plaintive cry for help sent shivers down Cailin’s spine. Glynis belonged to Glen Garth, and Johnnie would expect Cailin to protect her as much as he would expect her to look after Corey and Jeanne. Swallowing her own fear, Cailin glanced back once more at her grandfather and ran through the downpour to the old barn.
    Glynis was on her back in a pile of hay, skirts and petticoats awry, with a yellow-haired dragoon on top of her. She was kicking and screaming, fighting desperately, but it was plain to Cailin that the soldier was too strong for her. Glynis’s green bodice was ripped to her waist, and Cailin glimpsed a flash of bare flesh as the maid bucked and struggled against her