Read The Rebel’s Daughter for Free Online

reason at all.”
    “ Is that
where you’re supposed to be now?” Helena slanted a look at him
through long lashes, her pigeon-wing eyes flecked with
yellow.
    Her chestnut hair was wet, and hung down
her back in waves. Then he remembered she had had to wash it after
an incident in the dairy with a cow who had a particularly good
aim. The memory made him smile, though he had more sense than to
refer to it. “She won’t care where I am,” he snapped. “She spends
all her time with Ruth these days.”
    He continued watching Helena from the
corner of his eye, surprised at how he had forgotten how
good-looking she was - for a sister.
    She didn’t walk; she glided. She had a
unique smile that began slowly, like a flower opening up. Then as
you watched, it spread over her face, until you realised you were
smiling too.
    “ You
miss her don’t you?” Helena’s voice dropped to a near
whisper.
    He shrugged. “How can I miss her, when
she’s still here?”
    “ Because
I do, too.” Her startling grey eyes looked suspiciously moist, and
she kept sniffing. He suppressed an impulse to wrap his free arm
round her, afraid he might open the floodgates for them both.
Instead, he leaned back against the cushions with a
sigh.
    Mother had been so unpredictable since
their father left. She had abandoned her elaborate gowns, and went
around déshabillé in a loose manteau over a plain linen shift. Her
physical change upset him every bit as her mental one, though he
had no idea what to do about it. She met any display of affection
with copious tears and clasping hands, so he tended to avoid
her.
    “ She’ll
be better when Father gets back,” Henry said, with forced
lightness.
    “ When
Father gets back,” Helena echoed, but even less
conviction.
    The sun slipped behind a cloud and the
temperature on the landing dropped. A crow on a nearby tree set up
a high-pitched screech.
    Henry shivered.
    “ What’s
going to happen, Helena?” he murmured, his chin on his bent
knees.
    “ I don’t
know.” Helena chewed at a cuticle on her thumb, something she used
to do when she was little, though she had taken to the habit again
this past month.
    “ Then
tell me about Great Grandfather Julius, and how he built Loxsbeare
for his child- bride.” At his groan, she nudged him again. “Go on,
you’re much better at storytelling than I am.”
    The pleading look on her face made him laugh
aloud, shattering the tension.
    “ It was
the year sixteen hundred and thirty two…”
     
    * * *
     
    Jonathan ’s bay Iberian mount grew restless as
he and his commanding officer, Nathaniel Wade, led their infantry
onto the moor. They had been marching for almost an hour in
blanketing darkness, the smell of peat marsh strong in their
nostrils. Keeping the men quiet proved an added burden, as an
occasional muffled retching indicated some still suffered the
effects of the rough cider they had drunk the night
before.
    They had managed to negotiate the Black
Ditch without mishap. By Jonathan’s calculations, they ought to be
close to the Langmoor Rhine, though he could not be sure they had
yet passed the rock Godfrey said marked the edge of the ditch. In
this clinging mist, they could just as easily have passed it
without noticing.
    Cursing the infernal Godfrey beneath his
breath, Jonathan suspecting they were going the wrong way. Briefly,
the mist parted, giving a clear view of the cavalry ahead, now
bunched close together. The snorts of startled animals colliding in
the dark as they struggled through knee deep mud.
    “ Why are
they stopping?” Jonathan whispered, forced to halt.
    “ They
cannot find the pludgeon,” Wade said sotto voice. “The planking
Godfrey said was set across the ditch.”
    The moon was full, but the fog lay so
thick, his troop broke ranks and wandered about in the gloom. He
dared not issue an order to re-assemble, as they were still under a
strict order of silence. Johnathan cursed. Without knowing how deep
the water was, he