She went from nervous to near panic in the space of a heartbeat. The lock on the kitchen door at the back of the house was a simple one and wouldn’t resist a determined housebreaker, and the servants’ stairs ran up from the kitchen. The noise of marching troops must have drowned out any sounds until now.
Clutching her pistol, she headed for the stairs to investigate, but before she could start up, a ragged blast of rifle shots boomed from directly over her head. Hell and damnation! Some American soldiers weren’t giving up, and they had chosenherhouse as a sniper post!
Her horror at the thought intensified when she ran to her front window and saw General Ross’s horse crash to the ground, taking its rider with it. Several soldiers behind the officer also pitched over, wounded or dead.
Furious and disciplined, his troops immediately returned fire to the upper stories of Callie’s house. Thunderous gunshots and shattering glass, followed by heavy feet pounding down the servants’ stairs. She heard her back door slam as the shooters ran.
Out on the street, General Ross scrambled to his feet, apparently unhurt, praise God. But some of his men had not fared so well. From the reactions of the other troops, some soldiers had died or were seriously injured.
Ross called for another horse. After he remounted, he barked a command that caused the rider with the truce flag to hurl it to the ground.
Callie stood frozen, caught between an impulse to rush outside to see if she could aid the wounded and an equally strong desire to flee. She didn’t want to abandon her home when she’d done nothing wrong. But would the British soldiers listen to her?
A mighty crash sounded against her front door and the glass panes at the top shattered as the wood splintered. Another two blows broke it down completely, and soldiers barreled into her drawing room.
“Find the bloody snipers!” one bellowed.
Instinctively Callie raised her pistol, gripping it with both hands. She was a good shot and could kill or wound one of the soldiers. But which one? She aimed at a slight youth in the lead, but he looked soyoung. They all looked so young!
Killing one man wouldn’t save her. She lowered the pistol and said in her most English voice, “I don’t know who fired those shots! I think some American soldiers came in the back of my house and fled after shooting at you.”
“We’ll get ’em!” Two soldiers shoved past her and ran toward the back of the house, but the others stayed.
A corporal wrenched the pistol from her hand and struck her on the side of the head with the barrel. “You shot my mate, you treasonous bitch! You’ll pay for that!”
Dizzy and near collapse from the painful blow, she cried out, “I’m Catherine Audley, an English widow from Lancashire! I would never shoot a British soldier!”
The corporal snarled, “You carry a gun and your mates damn near killed General Ross!” He glanced at the pistol, then shoved it under his belt. To his men, he barked, “Break up that furniture and pile it here to start the fire.”
On the verge of blacking out, Callie again said vehemently, “I’mEnglish! I am not your enemy!”
“Too late to play the innocent!” As the corporal grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the door, the other soldiers began smashing furniture and tossing it into the center of the room. One soldier grabbed a chair and began battering the shelves that held fabrics and trims.
The glass-fronted cabinet that contained special buttons and delicate china cups for serving tea to her clients shattered when smashed with the butt of a musket. The soldier spotted a bowl of expensive silver buttons and poured them into his knapsack, then dragged the remnants of the cabinet to the center of the room. Another soldier found the silk gown she’d been carefully trimming and balled it up to add it to the pile.
She looked away, shuddering, unable to bear the sight of these vandals destroying the life she’d painstakingly built, the beautiful objects she’d cherished. Then her captor yanked her out the front door onto the lawn. She tried to fight back, but she was too dizzy and he was too strong. Down the side street she saw Edith Turner watching with her hands pressed over her mouth and her eyes wide with horror.
Ross and Cockburn and most of their troops had moved on, leaving this squad to wreak vengeance for the attack. The white flag of truce that had been thrown to the ground was now filthy with hoof and foot prints.
Swaying dizzily, Callie watched through the shattered front door as torches were thrust into the pile of broken furniture. Flames flickered, then caught hold and flared toward the ceiling. A soldier yelled, “Mick, fire in some of them Congreve rockets!”
Mick pulled two rockets from his knapsack and fired first one, then the other, into the house through the broken windows. The rockets exploded noisily and flames engulfed the drawing room and began racing through the rest of the structure. She stared numbly, hardly able to grasp how quickly her beloved home had become an inferno.
As the flames roared upward, her captor yanked her farther away, more likely for his safety than for hers. Even in the middle of the side street, she felt the searing heat.
There was worse to come. A soldier emerged from the back of the house swigging from a bottle of brandy he’d found in the pantry. It was swiftly emptied as he passed it around to his mates. The last man to drink hurled the empty bottle into the blaze, then turned to Callie with dangerously glittering eyes. “I say we string her up! She hurt my mate bad and coulda killed General Ross. Why should she be breathin’ when so many of our lads died today?”
The man who held her arm retorted, “Mebbe later, but she’s a fine-lookin’, highborn lady and we shouldn’t waste ’er. Let’s show ’er what British soldiers are made of.” He pulled her against him and clamped one hand over her breast.
Revolted, she began fighting frantically to free herself. She managed to knee her captor in the groin. He screeched and let her go, but two other men grabbed her, their expressions wolfish. She grabbed for one man’s rifle and had managed to wrench it from his grasp when a ferociously aristocratic voice bellowed, “Be damned to you all!”
She and the soldiers all swung around, riveted, as an English gentleman galloped up on a white horse. He was garbed in clothing that cost more than a soldier’s annual salary, and his eyes blazed as he commanded, “Unhand my wife!”
Chapter 6
The young woman’s bright hair had fallen around her shoulders, her elegant blue gown was streaked with soot, and her eyes were wide with shock, yet Gordon recognized her instantly. There was no one like Callie,no one, and he’d visited six continents. But what the devil was his childhood friend doing in the middle of a battle zone?
Explanations could wait. Heart pounding, he swung off his horse and cocked the pistol he held in one hand. “Release her or die, you villains!”
