The Price of Freedom Read Online Free PDF

man as God ordained, to bring forth life and nourish it in partnership with a man who loved her?
    Because she’d failed to resist temptation, she might never know.
    â€œI would like nothing better than to hide here, Mother. To stay here with Isobel. But he would only come looking for me, and I want him nowhere near St. Mary’s or Isobel.”
    â€œI will pray for you and your father, child.”
    They walked back through the stone-lined corridor, past the visitor’s chamber where she’d rocked little Isobel and to the front gate. Kathryn turned to the older woman, suddenly desperate for reassurance. She grabbed the nun’s arm. “Promise me you will keep Isobel here if I am forced to marry Lord Rodney.”
    â€œI am not young, Kathryn. I can only promise to see to her while I’m able. Perhaps you should have the papers prepared and give her to the Church.”
    Kathryn bowed her head momentarily, recognizing the truth of what Mother Superior said. “Aye. I may have no choice.” Should she send Isobel away to become a nun in order to keep her safe? But how would Kathryn survive if she could not visit her each week? Not see her take her first steps or celebrate her birthdays?
    Only God could hear her prayers and deliver Kathryn and Isobel.

TWO
    T HE LAST FORLORN NOTES OF THE BAGPIPE echoed off the nearby Lammermuir hills. A numbing mist shrouded the late May sun as Kathryn de Lindsay crumbled a handful of thin Scottish soil over the fresh grave of her father. Homelea’s small cemetery now held all of her family except Kathryn herself and Isobel. Precious Isobel, nearly a year old now and the light of Kathryn’s life.
    Crossing herself, Kathryn stared at the weathered headstones on either side. Mother. Sister. Knowing they were free from earth’s toils did little to comfort Kathryn at the moment. It had been bad enough to lose them, but the loss of her father changed everything. Through the years he had protected her and in the hours since his death she’d come to realize just how much.
    Father had indulged her independent spirit, had treated her more like the son he’d never had. But she was not a son; she was an unwed woman with an illegitimate child and no husband. Her father’s indulgence now threatened to be her undoing.
    How am I to go on?
    Raising her gaze from the ground, she saw Lord Rodney Carleton standing on the other side of the gravesite, and despair swept through her, cold as the day’s wind. Her unwanted suitor had arrived just yesterday, only a few hours after her father breathed his last.
    For that Kathryn was grateful; Papa had always despised Rodney for the way he had treated Kathryn and Fergus. Not once had her wonderful father suggested she marry Rodney, not even when his child grew within her. And Papa had supported her decision not to tell Rodney about Isobel.
    Rodney now stared at her as if to remind her that without her father to stand between them, she was powerless against him. How much longer could Kathryn avoid marrying him?
    Numbed by that thought as well as the unseasonable weather, Kathryn stood motionless, at a loss to know what she could do to protect herself. To protect Isobel from the man who had fathered her.
    Fergus gently took Kathryn’s arm. “Come, my lady, ’tis time to leave. ’Twill do ye no good to catch a chill.”
    As the cold seeped under her woolen cloak, Kathryn hurried to do as Fergus asked. She did not want to risk another encounter between him and Rodney. “What am I going to do, Fergus?”
    â€œTrust the Lord, lass. He will provide.”
    If only it could be that simple. Though she knew with all her heart that God would not desert her in this terrible time of grief and uncertainty, she felt just as strongly that she couldn’t trust Rodney. If God intended to provide a protector, it would have to be someone else.
    Avoiding Rodney’s watchful gaze, she returned with