Elizabeth Elliott by Betrothed Page B

family I acknowledge is my brother, Dante. His last missive arrived from London nearly a year ago, but if I can find him I know he will take me in.”
    “I thought you had two brothers. Why look for this Dante if he is so hard to find? Why not go to the other?”
    “My oldest brother died many years ago. Dante is all I have left.” She lowered her gaze to the floor. If Guy discovered the name of her eldest brother, he would never consider her request. She hurried on before he could ask any more questions about Roberto. “If you help me escape, I would hire a company of your men to help me search for Dante. I have a necklace that belonged to my mother. In London I can sell the necklace to pay your men. Perhaps there will be enough to compensate you for your trouble as well. You will be free of me soon enough, and free of any claims my uncle might try to make. ’Tis the easiest way to rid yourself of me for good.”
    “Nay, ’tis not the easiest way,” he mused. He folded his arms across his chest, then rubbed his chin. “Many of the problems you present would go away if you were to die.”
    Claudia backed up a step, even though she doubted he would carry out that foul threat. He was bluffing. Wasn’t he?
    He continued in a firmer tone. “If I find out that—” A shadow fell between them and Guy lunged toward her. “Nay!”
    Claudia tried to flee his attack. Before she could move, something large and solid struck the back of her head. Guy’s alarmed face swam before her, then everything went black.
    “Christ! I thought you meant to cleave her in two!”
    “I have apologized twice already, Baron. When I returned from the guard walk I saw her standing in the doorway with her back to me. I knew you saw me there, and I mistook your words for an order to kill her. Had you not called out at the last moment, she would indeed be dead. She was lucky to take no more than the broadside of my sword to her head.”
    “I meant to frighten her into telling me the truth, not to murder her.”
    “Aye, well, we both know that now, although you may soon wish the mistake was uncorrectable. She is dead weight. You will never manage your way down the wall with her tied to your back. I say we toss her over the side and be done with the problem. At this time of night, no one will hear the body land.”
    Claudia awoke in time to hear that vile announcement. The hushed, male voice sounded familiar. Or were there two? It took another groggy moment to get her bearings, to realize she lay in a careless heap atop one of the gatehouse towers. Her eyes popped wide open when she realized who might be the most likely candidate to get tossed from the tower wall.
    “I will not have the blood of a woman on my conscience. In any event, what if she awakened halfway down? Her screams would rouse every soldier in the garrison.”
    “I’ll slit her throat first,” came the matter-of-fact answer.
    Claudia’s hands went to her throat in a protective gesture.
    “Damnation,” the throat-slitter continued. “She is awake.”
    A cloaked figure loomed over her. As she sat up and pressed her back to the tower wall, the clouds that obscured the half-moon drifted away. She had intended to bolt to oneside, but found herself startled to immobility by what the moonlight revealed. “Friar Thomas?”
    The realization that a holy man wished to slit her throat shocked Claudia more than she thought possible this night. Friar Thomas was such a gentle, soft-spoken man. He was her friend!
    The friar ignored her pointless question and looked to his right. “Now what do we do?”
    Claudia’s gaze followed the friar’s and she saw a man standing a few feet away, his attention on a rope he had secured around one of the raised stone sections between the tower’s crenels. Guy’s face looked harsh and forbidding in the moonlight. After a quick test of the knot’s strength, he tossed the long coil over the side then turned to give her a scowl as dark as the