Read Online The Mistress of Tall Acre by Laura Frantz - Free Book Online

she’d signed her name. But Polly, sadly, inspired fear much like the girl’s father.
    “When will the gen—Papa—be back?” Lily Cate asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
    “Any time now,” Sophie answered quietly, unsure what the day would bring. She braced herself for the likelihood of a new bride for Tall Acre, hating herself for her dismay. When had Seamus Ogilvy gained a foothold in her needy heart? ’Twas more than the loss of Lily Cate that rubbed her raw.
    “Well, I’d like for him to stay away a little longer,” Lily Cate whispered.
    Sophie studied her, the soreness inside her easing not a whit. Since Seamus had left, she’d not stopped thinking of why and what it portended. Lily Cate shied from a strange father and might a strange mother too. Her small world had been turned upside down since she’d been born. Would she now have to adjust to a new mother? A new life?
    As the hours passed, the waiting turned tenser. Lily Cate chewed her fingernails to little bits. Sophie’s own nerves felt frayed. Even Glynnis seemed a bit on edge.
    “A rider’s coming down the drive, Miss Sophie.” Glynnis hastened away to answer the door before Sophie could ask any questions.
    Leaving Lily Cate to her letters, Sophie met a post rider in the study, news of Curtis no longer uppermost.
    “From Richmond, miss.”
    Richmond had assumed dire proportions in her mind. She took the letter, smudged from its journey in a damp, crowded saddlebag, her thoughts whirling. Might the general have married and gone on an extended honeymoon? Left Lily Cate in her care indefinitely? The troubling uncertainty sent her to her father’s desk chair, a throne-like monstrosity that was a testament to his pride. Then and there she decided to chop it into pieces and use it for firewood.
    Praying for good news, she opened the post. Not the general’s handwriting after all. An official letter from Richmond, it was addressed to the present occupant of Three Chimneys, the first paragraph a scolding about back taxes. She reckoned she deserved the rebuke given she’d never paid them, but she’d had no means, and with the war on no one seemed to care about collecting them either.
    It was the second paragraph that stole her breath. Three Chimneys was . . . what? In the possession of the newly formed, independent American government? No longer belonging to the Menzies family, it had been confiscated as Tory property. The new occupants, yet nameless, were to move in the first of April.
    Her emotions began to roil, half fury, half disbelief. She’d feared a formal notice was coming. Hope had held it at bay. Three Chimneys. Her home. The house where she’d been born. The dowry her British-born mother had brought to her ill-suited marriage. Her father had assumed ownership yet had always preferred Williamsburg and Edinburgh. But Sophie loved it, every inch, every crumbling, ivy-covered eave. She latched on to the small flag atop the desk with its stars and stripes she’d painstakingly sewn in a moment of deep desperation.
    Did it not mean liberty for her too?
    Letting the letter drop atop the desk, she covered her face with her hands, glad the rising wind helped mask her weeping. What of endless days and nights quartering British soldiers against her will when she feared they might burn Three Chimneys to the ground? What of her unwavering loyalty to the cause despite it all? What of Curtis’s fighting with the Continental Army?
    Would her brother not come? She had tried to hold on, refused to let go. Anything else seemed like giving up. Her mother was gone. She had no coin. She’d soon grow lean and tired and hungry again, only this time, save Glynnis and Henry, she’d be alone.
    Could Seamus Ogilvy do something? If she swallowed what was left of her pride, she might plead for him to intervene lest she end up in the poorhouse.
    Surely a hero of the Revolution had the clout she didn’t.

    Williamsburg was as altered a place as he was a man