Free So Worthy My Love by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss Page A

road. The din of the ride was liberally fused with loud shouts and questions, most of which were unintelligible to her constrained ear, but amid the windswept jargon she recognized her uncle’s loud bellow.
    â€œRide hard, lads! We’ll run that black-hearted son o’ Satan ta earth an’ stretch his neck for certain this time! He’ll not escape us!”
    Elise struggled to alert the horsemen to her presence, but the sudden thump of a foot on a straw bundle above her head warned her to be still. Warm tears of frustration coursed down her cheeks as the noise of the chase faded and silence once more regained its hold. In their haste to catch the fleeing rider, they had not even considered there was one nearby in desperate need of rescue.
    Cautiously the driver took to the road again, and he plodded along for what seemed an eternity to Elise. To be sure, the monotony of their passage became well-established. Her fingers had discovered no binding knot that could be plucked free, and though she wiggled around in a continuous effort to secure the ever-evasive comfort of her crowded straw bed, the jolting of the wheels rolling over stones and into holes made the ride almost unbearable. She grew more weary and numb with each furlong they traversed, and she was certain no other rack of torture could compare to the one she had been set upon.
    As the journey dragged on, doubts began to corrode her mettlesome spirit. Her mind, seeking random surcease from her distress, began to drift, and she tried to find some reasonable cause for her abduction. Why had these strangers taken her? What was their intent, and who was the lone rider on the road? The image of Maxim Seymour grew strong and tall amid the jumbled impressions that rushed at her. Surely he was the one who had passed them on the road, as affirmed by her uncle and the small band of wedding guests giving chase behind him. They would have gone after no other. But shecould not even imagine what auspicious end her capture would serve such a man. Had he been of such a mind to take her prisoner, he would have surely forbade her departure from the hall. Instead, he had dismissed her with barely a glance, not caring that she was fleeing. Nay, ‘twas not that traitorous renegade who wanted her. There were others who had more reason to see her taken. Cassandra and her whelps, for instance. Or the high
Earl Reland bent on mischief and revenge.
    The possibility that these men were working for people bearing the same surname as her own lent Elise no amount of confidence. If she became the prisoner of her aunt and cousins again, she would be hard-pressed to continue her defiance for any length of time. Cassandra would see to that. The woman would not waste time going over ground she had already covered. She would come swiftly to the point.
    Elise had overheard many whispered comments about the vindictiveness of her aunt during her childhood years, mostly from servants who had disapproved of the woman. According to gossip, the widow, Cassandra, had been in love with Ramsey Radborne even while his brother, Bardolf, was still alive. Cassandra had abhorred the beautiful, auburn-haired woman Ramsey had married, and had insisted that Deirdre was naught but a nameless wench whom he had taken pity on, much like the Stamfords who had found her as a babe. The fire flamed higher beneath the cauldron of jealousy and hatred when the young wife gave birth to a daughter, and in spiteful venom Cassandra had refused toacknowledge the girl as kin, suggesting as boldly as she dared that Elise was not a Radborne at all but the leavings of some wandering bard, just as her mother had been. Then came that sad day when Deirdre succumbed to some strange malady during the latter stages of a second pregnancy. Ramsey had grieved deeply over the loss of his wife, but much to
the vexation of his sister-in-law, he had turned his attention to his young daughter.
    The years had passed, and the