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Millers, outspoken Tories, she realized, who had abandoned their property several weeks ago to seek the protection of the British.
    She was still sitting in the lolling chair when Mrs. Ferrers found her. The Widow was no longer dressed in the brocade robe she had worn earlier that night, nor her shell pink satin, nor her sensible Quaker ensemble. Now she was dressed for riding in dark gray wool. Only her cloak, edged with costly furs, hinted at her earlier élan. “We haven’t much time. I hope you can saddle your own horse.”
    “Yes, of course,” Kate said, and sat up. “But why?”
    “You can’t be here when they come back. Tremayne will realize that these”—Mrs. Ferrers flourished a sheaf of closely written pages—“are gone.”
    “You stole Howe’s letters,” Kate said hollowly. “How?”
    “It was simple. I waited for Tremayne to visit you in your bedroom. It was clear this afternoon that you had the best chance of distracting him. You’ve done well, but I can’t leave you here. Is there someone in the neighborhood who can take you in until Howe goes to ground in Philadelphia?”
    She could go to her friend Milly’s, of course. Milly’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Ashcroft, had been among the matrons fawning over Angela Ferrers that morning. Milly herself, six months gone with child and unable to travel, had stayed home. Kate considered what it would be like to shelter under her roof. To be the unwanted spinster guest, secretly pitied but welcomed as a pair of extra hands, though Milly would never treat her like that. Openly. But it would be true, all the same. Kate felt angry, manipulated. She had asked very little of life so far, and tonight she realized she had gotten even less.
    “I’m not leaving. Major Tremayne is coming back,” she said, but even as the words left her mouth she recalled Mrs. Ferrers’ story of Donop the Hessian colonel, tricked by the beautiful rebel spy.
    “Yes,” Mrs. Ferrers agreed. “He’s coming back. And not to steal ribbons from your jacket. Do you know what happens to spies, Kate?”
    “They hang.” She recalled the boy from Connecticut caught behind British lines. Hale. His name had been Hale.
    “No. They hang men. Women disappear. It’s only glamorous in novels, Kate. If we are successful, we can’t boast. Spying is a dishonorable trade for women, for precisely the reason you despised me this afternoon, and you despise yourself now. We exchange our virtue for their secrets. If we fail, we don’t have the privilege of a public trial and famous last words. Our reward for failure is an unmarked grave.”
    “What will happen to him?”
    “Tonight? Very little. They’ll find the Miller farm burning, much as the Millers deserve. Tomorrow, when he reaches New York without the packet, court-martial and a swift return to England, I should think.”
    “I think I’m going to be sick.”
    “Then do so quickly. I must reach Washington’s camp before Major Tremayne realizes we are gone.” Mrs. Ferrers turned to go, then paused in the door and betrayed, for the first time that day, a hint of unfiltered emotion. Kate realized it was pity. “I wouldn’t feel too sorry for him, Kate. He has money, power, and privilege at home. Even if he is just a decent man caught in circumstances beyond his control, he’s better off out of it.”
    *   *   *
    K ate paid Margaret and Sara two weeks’ wages each and sent the girls home across the tall rye fields. She watched their lantern bobbing in the darkness, until the waving grain swallowed the light. Then she saddled her horse.
    She had no desire for Angela Ferrers’ company on the road to Milly’s, and nothing further to say to her. The spy’s knowing manner and sudden, belated sympathy were an affront to Kate’s pride. But Mrs. Ferrers wouldn’t go away. She insisted on seeing Kate safely beyond the reach of Peter Tremayne before she continued on to the Continental lines.
    Kate knew the Widow was not motivated by