As Myghal had convinced Ranulf he was trustworthy, and Hedyn and Sir Frioc, too.
Myghal pulled a piece of rope from his belt and began to tie her wrists.
“Myghal, please,” she said as he bound her hands behind her, “how can tying me up here help get Wenna back? We must go to the castle. Even if Ranulf is hurt, there are his soldiers, his garrison commander and Kiernan, too. We’ll find her and—”
“No!” Myghal snarled. “The men who have Wenna will kill her if we do that. They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want, and what they want, my lady, isyou.”
“Me?” she cried, aghast. “But why? For ransom?”
She was sure Constance and Merrick would pay for her safe return, but that didn’t lessen her fear, or her danger. Many things could go wrong between now and then.
Myghal pulled the bindings tighter and she thought she heard him sob.
“Let me go and we’ll get Wenna and her baby back,” she pleaded, trying not to sound frightened. “Let us help you. I won’t hold this against you. You’re not thinking clearly because you love her and you’re desperate.”
“It’s because of me they’ve got her and you, too.”
“But they don’t have me yet. There’s still time to—”
“No!” he snapped. “There isn’t. It’s now or never for Wenna and little Gawan. Be quiet, my lady. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t stop talking, I’ll have to gag you.”
He was going to have to gag her.
“You said you knew these men, Myghal. Who are they? French smugglers? Have you been in league with them all along? Did you help them murder Hedyn and Gwenbritha, and Gawan, too?”
“Stop talking!” Myghal ordered, and this time, he wedged a gag between her teeth. “I’ve got to get Wenna back the only way I can, and that means trading you for her. You’re worth more to them than she is. They only took her to make me bring you.”
He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. “I’m sorry, my lady, and I tried to find another way, but there isn’t any. I have to take you to them and trade you for Wenna and little Gawan. If I don’t, they’ll sell them into slavery instead of you.”
Instead of her?Bea felt faint when she heard the fate that awaited her. Terror and panic threatened to overwhelm her, especially when she realized Ranulf was hurt and probably not even awake. How could he save her? How long would it be before anyone realized she was missing?
As Myghal started to drag her to the door, she resisted as best she could. While she did, a hope lit the darkness of her fear. Maloren would soon wonder where she was. Others would have seen her leave with Myghal, know in which direction they had gone, realized they must have gone to visit Wenna.
Maloren would tell the garrison commander that she hadn’t yet returned, and likely Kiernan, too. Even if Ranulf was not yet awake, they would start to look for her. They would come here.
They must find something to tell them she had been here and taken against her will.
As Myghal opened the door and peered out into the deserted lane, she slipped off one shoe.
Seeing that the way was clear, Myghal pulled her across the threshold, his hold as tight as terror, his expression grim as death.
While her shoe lay on the floor behind her.
RANULF SLOWLY OPENEDhis eyes and blinked in the dim light. He was in his bedchamber at Penterwell. The bed curtains were open, but the room was dark, lit only by the single candle on the table beside the bed. It must be night, or evening at least, and his side hurt as if Titan had kicked him.
Then he remembered. The one-eyed man, the blow, the pain, the blood…
“Oh, Ranulf, you’re awake!”
A woman spoke, but it wasn’t Bea who came to lean over his bed and regard him with anxious eyes. It was Celeste. “Are you in pain?” she asked solicitously.
“A little,” he lied, for it felt as if his side was on fire. “Where’s Bea?”
Celeste’s alabaster brow furrowed and she turned away to wring out a wet cloth over the basin on the table. “She’s gone to the village.”
“Why?”
“To demand that the villagers find the men who attacked you, or some such thing. I think she would have been better off looking after you, but no, she marched out of here like a general in a most brazen and unladylike fashion. I said to Kiernan that I’d never act that way in a hundred years.”
