Enemy In The House Read Online Free Page A

shape. Her father had ordered it from London.
    Willie let down the steps. Her small trunk was already hoisted to the roof. The breath of the horses made steamy plumes in the cold night air. Simon, a tall and now very quiet figure in his caped greatcoat, helped her into the carriage and then to her surprise said that his horse wouldn’t lead well; the roads were unsafe at night; he would ride beside the carriage. She saw him looking to the priming of a long pistol he carried; the carriage door shut. The lighted doorway of the house and the figures standing in the light disappeared. The carriage rolled away. As the night grew windy with a driving, sleety rain, it jerked and wavered and swayed on its great straps.
    She wished Simon were riding in the carriage with her. But then their marriage was forlornly unlike most marriages. It did not resemble anything her fancy had built up. Her fancy had been theory, the accomplished fact was altogether different.
    Alone in the carriage with the sleet rattling against the windows, she felt cold fact take over. Conscience came into its own and was merciless. She had forced Simon to marry her; she had seized the advantage of his obligation to her father and his loyalty. Even her motive which in theory had seemed sane and sensible now lost its validity, it became at best a sheerly mercenary motive and it was a poor best. Simon had intended to marry for love.
    So she had cheated Simon; in another way she had cheated herself, for in the circumstances she herself had brought about he could never love her, not really. She had been a fool. China had been right. Already Amity regretted her own headlong act. She huddled her red cloak around her but it brought little warmth and no comfort.
    They met no one that stormy night, no one stopped them; there were no prowling bands of riffraff, bent on taking advantage of the troubled times for a little private looting. Several times she knew that Simon had ridden ahead and heard some shouted words with Willie. She didn’t know when they crossed the boundary between South Carolina, settled and civilized, and the new, young province of Georgia. The roads became rougher.
    She must have slept at last, for she awoke about dawn with a warm sense of having been cradled in someone’s arms, her head on someone’s shoulder. Yet when she struggled out of the mists of sleep she was sitting in a corner of the carriage, and Simon was sitting beside her. At her movement he turned, half smiling at her through the pallor of the gray dawn.
    “You’ve slept well. You didn’t even wake when we crossed the river. We’re in Savannah.”
    She leaned forward to peer through the narrow window. There were scattered lights around them. The carriage swerved suddenly to one side; a party of horsemen trotted quickly, somehow urgently out of the gloom and past them. Simon said, “Trouble. There must be news of the British ships.”
    “The British—”
    “They’ve been off the coast, headed south. We haven’t known whether they intend to attack Charlestown or Savannah.” He jerked open the tiny window above them and shouted at Willie. “Pull up, Willie. I’ll guide you from here.”
    She caught at his arm as he prepared to get out of the carriage. “Where are we going?”
    “There is a privateer, the Southern Cross, due to sail for Jamaica soon. If this news is bad she may be delayed. In the meantime I’ll take you to Madam Holiday. Her husband is my colonel. They’ll see to you.”
    Amity was now thoroughly awake; cold fact and conscience awoke, too. “Simon,” she said in a burst. “I was wrong! I shouldn’t have done this! I’ll not hold you to it. You can send me back now. Willie will take me—”
    “What you need is a good hot cup of coffee,” Simon said calmly and disappeared.
    The carriage lurched and turned and the lights grew more numerous. Groups of men, soldiers obviously, for their muskets made sharp lines of black, jogged hurriedly along the now