The Turncoat Read Online Free Page A

it he snatched it back and trapped her extended hand in his empty one.
    His thumb slid over her palm, invading, intimate, alarming.
    Kate was a stranger to seduction. Youthful crushes had come and gone without the heady sensation his touch was eliciting, which she dimly recognized as lust.
    An excellent word choice, as lust was inappropriate desire, and nothing could be more inappropriate than a Quaker coupling with a soldier, a man of violence, a killer. All of this passed through her mind in an instant. She called upon common sense to extricate her from Tremayne’s grasp but discovered instead a latent talent for banter.
    “Now you possess my hand and my letter. That leaves you no hands free.”
    He slipped the letter into the breast of his tunic. “Now my left hand is free. What do you suggest I do with it?”
    She willed herself to look away from his long, elegant fingers and instead found her eyes trapped by his pale blue gaze. Her voice sounded tiny and far away when she spoke. “The Latin word for left was sinistra . Sinister. The Romans mistrusted the left hand.”
    His voice was very soft now. “So should you.”
    Her whole body was tensed, waiting for his touch, but it didn’t come.
    Instead he continued to caress her trapped hand, circling his thumb intimately in the center of her palm.
    He released her and stepped back just as the door opened behind them. He must have heard Mrs. Ferrers and Lytton in the passage. Kate had been deaf to the world.
    Mrs. Ferrers didn’t so much as glance at the open panel in the mantel. She breezed in on a raft of chatter, followed by a bright-eyed Lytton. “You’ll find a tub laid on in Mr. Grey’s room, top of the stairs. Dinner is being brought out to the barn for your men. We can dine after you’ve had your bath.”
    “We’ll pay for the foodstuffs we consume, of course.” Peter Tremayne kissed Mrs. Ferrers’ hand on his way out, taking Lytton with him. He sketched a polite bow in Kate’s direction, betraying none of what had just taken place.
    Mrs. Ferrers shut the door behind the men, and stood silent and still until the stairs stopped creaking and the door to the best bedroom closed above. She crossed the room, pressed the secret panel shut, and rounded on Kate.
    “You’re either a very stupid or a very clever young woman. I can’t decide which.”
    Kate felt very stupid indeed, but she met Mrs. Ferrers’ gaze steadily. The older woman scrutinized her. Kate couldn’t stop herself from pushing back her hair, and was distressed when pie crumbs fell out.
    Mrs. Ferrers laughed. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” She swanned out of the room on a tide of rustling silk, leaving the scent of gardenias behind her.
    Kate smoothed her apron and shook her plain skirts out. She was not clever, but she was sensible. Peter Tremayne had her father’s letter, and somehow she must get it back.
    *   *   *
    T he heat broke in the evening.
    Sara and Margaret were unused to serving dinner, and it showed. Flustered from their dealings with the soldiers in the barn, suspicious of Mrs. Ferrers, and terrified of Tremayne, they broke glasses, spilled wine, and, Kate suspected, finding what looked like a bit of quill caught between her teeth, had neglected to thoroughly pluck the chicken.
    Tremayne sat in her father’s chair at dinner and noticed none of this. Mrs. Ferrers sat opposite. In between, Kate, Phillip Lytton, and two of Tremayne’s junior officers made up the dinner party.
    Kate had contrived to seat herself beside the major. Mrs. Ferrers appeared to have abandoned her efforts to engage him, and turned her attention to dazzling the junior officers, who were now enjoying one of her anecdotes. The complete tale of Colonel Donop, Kate noted in passing, was far saltier than the version offered to the Quaker matrons of the morning.
    Phillip Lytton had progressed beyond casting surreptitious glances at Kate and moved on to enthusing about the London stage.
    “I