Highland Brides 04 - Lion Heart Read Free Page A

her, the dog would be halfway back to England before they found her. Elizabet called the hound again, praying she wouldn’t stumble upon the men at their business.
    “She’s not here!” shouted John from the bushes ahead, and Elizabet veered at once to avoid them.
    “I’m going to search for her,” she shouted back, grateful that he had spoken up so that she wouldn’t barrel through the bushes and embarrass herself.
    “Don’t wander far, Liza!”
    She smiled at John’s show of concern. “I won’t!”
    Mayhap she worried too much about him, but he seemed so fragile at times. His wit was sound and quick, but his frail body failed him far too oft. The youngest of her father’s legitimate children, he seemed ever ready to do battle over the least little thing—as though he always had something to prove—and Elizabet finally understood why. His fears had finally been realized. Like Elizabet, he had been too easily discarded.
    She had grown to love John, though she hadn’t known him long. He was the one person who had welcomed her without reservation when she’d arrived at her father’s house—not that her other siblings had treated her poorly, they had simply never really embraced her. There was not so much to go around that they relished having to share with yet another sibling.
    And yet, Elizabet had dared to hope she’d found a safe haven after so many years of having no family and no place to call her own. Until her father had gone and wed that horrid woman, and Elizabet had been put out of her bed within a fortnight of their nuptials.
    But she refused to allow herself to wallow in self-pity. This was an opportunity, she assured herself. Unlike her mother, she would never be shackled to some man, dependent upon his good graces to feed her and her children. Nay, moreover, she would have no children and no man to keep her. Here in the wilds of Scotia she would be free to live as she chose, unencumbered by the fetters of matrimony. She would beg Piers to return her dowry, and she would find a way to care for herself. She was determined to make the best of her life and take care of John as well.
    Anyway, she reasoned. It wasn’t as though anyone would have her anyway. She had nothing to bring to a union aside from her body and her mind. Her meager dowry hadn’t even been enough for her father to keep her.
    Indeed, she had learned quite young where men placed their value. A woman’s worth was determined by two things. The first and most important was what they could bring a man by way of riches and heirs. The second was what they could do in bed, and the latter would gain Elizabet no more than it had her courtesan mother.
    In truth, her mother had worked hard for every morsel of food the two of them had placed in their mouths, and in the end she had died alone. And her father’s wife—she who had borne him five children—had lost her husband’s heart to another woman whose body had brought him greater pleasure—Elizabet’s mother.
    In both cases, it was a matter of one man’s satisfaction and some poor woman’s unappreciated labors.
    It all seemed so unfair.
    But now was not the time for sorrow or regret. Her mother had been dead three years, and she must be responsible for her own wellbeing. As God was her witness, the first thing she intended to do after she found Harpy was go back and speak to that old woman in the little hut. There could be little harm in simply talking to her and once she realized who their father’s cousin was, she was likely to greet them courteously as Piers de Montgomerie was, after all, her neighbor.
    It really didn’t matter to Elizabet whether those accursed men approved or nay, because if they refused to go back to beg for directions, Elizabet would go alone—fie on them all!
    She was tired of aimlessly wandering these woodlands with four men who didn’t seem to be able to follow the noses on their faces, seeking a distant relative she had never met—who probably had