Read Elizabeth Elliott for Free Online Page B

work. She used her chemise to blot up the last of her tears and stepped into the small room to dress.
    A carpenter had started work on the door when she emerged from the garderobe. A tray of food that sat atop the clothes chest held bread and cheese along with a mug of thin ale to break her fast. She pulled up the sewing stool next to the chest and started to eat. She would need her strength for what lay ahead. She glanced from the carpenter to the stonework around the fireplace. The lack of mortar along the crevices of certain stones was almost unnoticeable.
    When she first arrived at Lonsdale her brothers had teased her about the hours she spent exploring every inch of the castle, but she remembered her mother’s story that there were secret hallways within the walls, that only the eldest son could be told of their location and the concealed doorways that led into them. But Claudia knew how to find them.
    The secret passageways were the source of her troubles, the means by which Baron Lonsdale carried out his plot. Of that she was certain. Much more remained a blur. She could recall nothing more than flashes of the men who brought Guy to her bed, the half-formed images of shadowy figures and blinding torch light. It seemed a passing nightmare until she awoke to the gray light of dawn and seductive caresses. Guy had made her forget that anything might be wrong. Being with him felt so very right. His hands touched her and stirred to life emotions long denied in the years she spent at Lonsdale, feelings of tenderness, of being loved and cherished. For that brief, shining moment, she had lowered her guard and responded to him with all the love she kept bottled inside, the part of her that no one else wanted. Guy wanted her. She gave him her heart.
    Then the illusion came crashing down around her. She should have realized sooner that what seems too good to be true never is. Like as not, Guy had not realized who he was in bed with, or would even care if he did know. He had simply responded as he would to any naked woman wanton enough to return his kisses. She felt very sorry for herself. Then she got angry.
    Was that all she was to be allowed in this life, a brief glimpse of happiness? To be given that one small taste of what might be, then to have it snatched away forever was a cruelty she had never imagined. If she did nothing she would be tied for life to a man who despised her, to a man who could visit even greater cruelties upon her.
    The emptiness she felt inside was a bottomless pit, as black and cold as it was numbing. She would survive, just as she had survived the many deaths in her family. But she would never be the same. Each person she loved took a part of her heart when they left her. Guy took a part she had never known existed.
    She forced herself to swallow the tasteless food and washed it down with the last of the ale. The carpenter had finished his job and tried the latch several times to make sureit worked. He spoke to the soldier in hushed tones, then doffed his cap and departed. She carried her tray to the doorway and handed it to the guard.
    “A wench will bring your supper at dusk,” he told her.
    “Please ask her to bring a bucket of water as well.”
    He scowled at the request, but gave her a curt nod and closed the door. She heard the bolt slide into place.
    Hours later Claudia wedged herself further into the crevice, certain that a woman smaller than herself or a child had designed the secret passage behind the solar. In the long morning she spent alone in her chamber, a plan began to take shape in her mind. At first she thought to make her own escape from the fortress. If she could reach London she could begin her search for her brother, Dante, yet a woman could not make such a journey alone. The forests were filled with wild beasts and the roads preyed upon by robbers.
    Baron Montague had many well-armed men outside the walls of Lonsdale. Even they might seek to harm her if she stumbled across