“Was therenosign of her?” he demanded of the younger man.
Kiernan nodded at something on one of trestle tables left standing after the evening meal. Maloren let out a wail, while Ranulf simply stared at the shoe sitting there. A woman’s shoe. One of Bea’s shoes, for he’d seen that very shoe peeping out from beneath her gown many times. “Where was it?”
“In the cottage of a woman named Wenna. Some of the villagers saw Lady Beatrice going that way with the sheriff after she spoke to them.”
Ranulf gazed steadily at Kiernan. “What does Wenna say?”
“She wasn’t there, either. The cottage was empty and no one had seen her, or her child.”
Ranulf’s brow furrowed as he forced back his fear and his dismay to consider what he was hearing and what he would do next. “All three are missing?”
“I regret to tell you there’s more, my lord,” Kiernan said. “The sheriff is missing, too.”
“Myghal has been taken?”
The garrison commander came forward, looking sick. “Lady Beatrice was last seen in his company, my lord. One of the fishermen tells me Myghal’s boat is gone—a small one rigged with a sail. He could travel some ways to make landfall elsewhere, or to meet another vessel.”
Ranulf hissed a soldier’s earthy curse. He remembered that Bea had felt uneasy when she was with Myghal, at least at first, and he cursed himself for blindly trusting him. Perhaps Myghal had something planned earlier, and Kiernan’s arrival had intervened.
But why had he taken Bea, Wenna and the baby? If he had just abducted Bea, he would think it was because Bea was a beautiful woman, and he’d seen the way Myghal had looked at her that first day.
The contemplation or revelation of why Myghal had done this terrible thing could come later, if it was proved he was responsible. First, Ranulf had to find them.
“It’s unlikely anybody would risk going far from shore in Myghal’s boat with this wind,” Gareth said with a hint of optimism. “The waves’d be too high and it’d fill up and sink, or break apart.”
“He could have gone to rendezvous with that ship we saw,” Kiernan suggested, stepping forward. “I sent other patrols to ride the length of the coast for ten miles in both directions. So far, no one’s seen that ship, or the sheriff, Lady Beatrice or Wenna and her child.”
“And they would have said so if they had,” Gareth added with conviction. “This is different from keeping a bit of money out of the king’s coffers. They like Wenna and Lady Beatrice and they want them back as much as you, my lord.”
No, they didn’t. They couldn’t. As concerned as he was for Wenna and her baby, nobody could want Bea back as much as he did. Nobody needed her as much as he did.
Emotions were a weakness.
Except when they gave you strength, as Ranulf’s love for Bea strengthened and galvanized him now. His pain, his wound, his despair, were as nothing. “We’ll search the roads and moor and all along the coast again,” he declared. “There’s more than one place to land a boat near here and it could be that something—some sign, some clue—was overlooked.”
Kiernan and Gareth exchanged glances and it was Kiernan who reluctantly said, “As much as I want to find them, the sun has set. We’ll have to wait until dawn.”
Ranulf didn’t give a damn if it was dark. “We’ll take torches. I want all the men who aren’t on watch to join me in the search, half on horses, the other on foot.”
“And what if we do find them?” Kiernan asked incredulously. “Would you do battle in the dark?”
“If I had to do battle in hell itself to rescue Bea, I would.”
THE LANTERNSon the barque’s stern glowed in the darkness like disembodied beings hovering over the rough sea. For the longest time, it seemed that they weren’t getting any closer and a shivering Bea dared to hope that the tide or the wind wasn’t favorable, and Myghal would have to give up and turn back.
Yet slowly they did get closer, and between the wind, the water sloshing over the gunwales and her nearly bare feet, Bea had never been colder, wetter or more frightened. Yet she wasalso determined not to lose her head. As long as they were close to the coast of Cornwall, she would have hope.
The boat rose and fell in the waves, while she held on for dear life. She tried to think of some way out of this terrible situation, and about Ranulf. Was he awake? Had he learned that she was gone? Had someone already gone to Wenna’s looking for her and found her shoe? How long before they found the other? They probably wouldn’t until morning, whenever morning was. When they did, Ranulf might try to ride out to join his men in the search, and that wouldn’t be wise. He shouldn’t ride or do anything too strenuous. Unfortunately, she doubted he’d be able to sit and wait. Henry had told her how Ranulf had insisted on joining the battle against Henry’s enemy, and she could easily envision him insisting on riding out to find her. She prayed he wouldn’t injure himself more if he did. It would not be worth her life if he lost his in the attempt to rescue her.
There must besomethingshe could do to save herself. If she could get over the side of the boat…she would surely drown. Her hands were bound, her mouth gagged and the weight of her soaking garments would drag her under the water.
As long as she was alive, there was hope she could find a better way to escape, or that Ranulf could rescue her. He would surely search the whole world for her, if he must.
When their smaller craft bumped against the hull of the larger vessel with a thud like a fist striking a coffin, Myghal reached out to push his boat along the side until they were beside it. Standing in their rocking vessel, Myghal grabbed the rope some men on the deck threw down, tying it to his boat. The men on deck—terrible, brutal, evil-looking men—tossed him another rope and laughed harshly when it nearly hit her.
“Over here, my lady,” Myghal ordered. He had to shout to be heard above the rising wind. “I’ll tie this around you and they’ll pull you up.”
She shook her head.
