Free The Prince in the Tower by Lydia M Sheridan

sideboards.  Curtis appeared.  His neckcloth had been straightened, his shirt tucked in.  He looked as if he’s just stepped out of Kensington Palace.  The doorknocker crashed again.  He paused, picked a speck of lint off his sleeve in a manner highly reminiscent of Mr. Dalrymple when he was in his high flights, and proceeded to the door, his demeanor that of outrage that some obviously vulgar person would commit the solecism of pounding so loudly at such an unseemly hour.
    Kate stepped closer to the shadows.  It suddenly occurred to her that she was covered in dirt, so she nipped back to her room, threw water on her face, scrubbing away the last of the sap, then hurried back to the landing.  She looked reasonably respectable, but her hair was such that tidy might be a forlorn hope.
    The doorknocker boomed a fourth time before Curtis deliberately set down the candle, threw the bolts, and opened the door before the impatience of the visitor outside could succeed in breaking it down. 
    There was a movement on the stairs.  Such was the tension that Kate jumped as Lucy appeared next to her, wrapped in a worn flannel dressing gown.  Her face was study of sleepy confusion.  She looked apprehensively at Kate, but her sister could do no more than shake her head slightly in mute warning, her attention focused on the open doorway.
    She could hear men’s voices.  They seemed angry, but no matter how she strained, she could hear no words.
    There were more light footsteps.  Caro joined them.  Lucy wasted as much as a second before she clapped a hand over her sister’s mouth.  Caro glared, pulling away, but one look at Kate and she became still.  Lucy took her hand away, and the three sisters stood on the landing, watching fate unfold below.
    Even Kate gave a gasp when the door opened to admit the last person anyone who has been robbing coaches wants to see. Her hand gripped the bannister so when Major Goodwillie stepped through the door on His Majesty’s official business she didn’t tumble down the stairs in shock.
    The broad-shouldered, red-coated major was followed by two of his men, one of whom Kate recognized as the young man who had stopped her that evening.  Her heart flipped in her chest.  She went dizzy, then cold and hot at the same time.  Her insides shook, but she willed herself to outward calm.  Suddenly she could see, almost as if outside her body, everything happening in almost slow motion. 
    The major continued to talk to Curtis, the tone of his voice rising and falling.  Finally, with a gesture of command, the he motioned for his dragoons as if for them to search the house.  Curtis looked up to Kate on the landing.  His face was ashen.
    Serene now that the worst was at hand, Kate turned to her sisters.  Hugging them as they stood there, unable to voice the love in her heart, the heart which was now breaking, she simply took them both in her arms at the same time.  It was the last time she would ever see them as a free woman, she realized, wishing the moment had never come, would never end, but would pass quickly, so bittersweet it was.
    She conjured up a smile.  Lucy, obviously terrified, was crying silently.  Caro had narrowed eyes, her jaw clenched at a pugnacious angle as she glared down at the men looking upwards at her sister.  Kate spoke quietly.
    “No matter what happens, do not come down.  Do not follow.  I don’t want you to see it.”
    “Kate--” Lucy’s voice quavered.  Her tone asked the question which she could not yet voice, could not yet name.
    Smiling again, Kate brushed back a lock of her sister’s hair.  “I’m so sorry, Lu.  Please know that whatever I did I thought it was for the best.”  She turned to Caro.  “Don’t do anything rash, my dear. That’s how I got in this mess in the first place.  Promise me.”
    Caro opened her mouth to protest, but shut it.  She nodded, her hand gripping Kate’s painfully.
    "This is very important.  Please don’t