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“Greetings to my lord Merrick and his most gracious lady,” she read, hearing his deep, smooth voice as clearly as if he were speaking in her ear. “I have nothing new to report since my first letter. I continue to attempt to make some progress with the villagers with the help of Hedyn, who justifies his position daily. Unfortunately, despite my obvious charm and friendly…
“What is this word?” she asked, pointing it out to Constance.
“Overtures.”
“Ah,” Beatrice sighed as she returned to reading.
“Despite my obvious charm and friendly overtures, the villagers appear reluctant to discuss much beyond the measure of the daily catch with their new castellan. Nevertheless, I shall continue to investigate the matter of Gawan’s death until I am either satisfied it was an accident, or convinced it was not, and if it was not, bring the guilty to justice.”
Puzzled, Beatrice looked up at Constance. “Who’s Gawan? How did he die? Why does Ranulf suspect he was murdered?”
“Gawan was a fisherman,” Constance explained. “He was found dead on the shore the day Ranulf arrived, apparently drowned. The sheriff has some doubts about whether it was an accident, since nothing of the poor man’s boat has been recovered.”
“It may have been an accident, though, as the man had set sail alone two days before,” Merrick interposed. “Ranulf will find out the truth.”
“Yes, yes, he will,” Beatrice said, returning to the letter, now held in hands no longer quite steady. Things were not nearly as peaceful at Penterwell as she’d believed although, she told herself, the castellan had the protection of his garrison, so he would surely not be in any danger.
“In the meantime, I must petition you for some funds and, if you can spare them, a mason or two. Due to some personal concerns, Frioc has let several portions of the castle defenses fall into disrepair. They should be fixed as soon as possible, or I fear the place may collapse about me. I suggest, my lord, that you journey here for a day or so to confer on what should be done, and what first.
“And perhaps, my most gracious and generous lord, as well as oldest friend—and thus I trust I have duly appealed to both your loyalty and such vanity as you possess—you could bring some provisions with you when you come, such as a few loaves of bread, some smoked meat, a wheel of cheese, and a cask or two of ale. I regret to say the food here is rather lacking, unless one likes fish, and until I can devote more time to hunting game, likely to remain so. Also, you might consider bringing your own bedding. What is here is adequate, but not as comfortable as Tregellas affords.”
Beatrice had a sudden vision of Ranulf huddled in a crumbling castle, wrapped in a moth-eaten blanket and lying on a pallet of fetid straw after a meal of watery stew made of rotten fish heads.
She jumped to her feet, the parchment falling to her feet unheeded. “You can’t let him live in squalor!”
Merrick raised a brow as little Peder, surprised and confused by her abrupt motion, burst into tears. “Squalor?” he repeated loudly enough to be heard above the baby’s cries. “I hardly think—”
“The household must have gone to rack and ruin after Sir Frioc’s leman left him,” Beatrice said, wringing her hands in dismay. “Especially if Ranulf’s busy trying to find out what happened to that Gawan.”
“How do you know about Sir Frioc’s leman?” Constance asked incredulously as she rose and went to take the baby from her husband.
“Demelza told me,” Beatrice replied, following her. “Her sister’s brother-in-law lives in Penterwell and she knows all about it. Apparently they quarreled because Sir Frioc wouldn’t offer her marriage. That must be why Ranulf comes home to terrible meals and filthy bedding—there’s no chatelaine to organize things.
“Oh, Constance, you must let me go to Penterwell,” she pleaded, equal parts appalled and determined to see that Ranulf didn’t suffer a moment longer than necessary. “I can take Ranulf some decent food and linen and you know I can ensure the servants mend their ways and the cook does better. Oh, please say you’ll let me go!”
Sitting beside Merrick, Constance lifted her baby from her husband’s arms and loosened her bodice in preparation to nurse him. “Beatrice, as much as I’d like—”
“You’ve been telling me what a fine job I’ve been doing helping you,” Beatrice persisted, going down on her knees beside Constance’s chair and gripping the arm.
Her vivid imagination had already gone from picturing Ranulf cold and hungry to Ranulf lying on his deathbed if she didn’t get to him, and soon. “I can make the servants listen to me—you know I can. And I can organize his household so that it can run smoothly for a time before anyone need return.”
She clasped her hands together, quite prepared to beg, for Ranulf’s sake, as her gaze flew from Constance to Merrick and back again. “Please, let me do this!”
A grim-faced Merrick shook his head. “No.”
Constance had once said her husband found it difficult to refuse a woman’s pleas, but he seemed to be finding it very easy at the moment. “That’s a fine way to repay your friend, letting him suffer when there’s someone at hand who can help him,” Beatrice declared as she scrambled to her feet.
Despite both her petitions and defiance, the expression on the face of the lord of Tregellas remained unchanged. “You cannot go to Penterwell. You’re neither married nor betrothed. It wouldn’t be proper, and as your guardian—”
“No one would dare to say anything if you sent me.”
“Not to us,” Merrick replied. “But it might turn away some men who would consider marrying you.”
“If any man thinks so little of me, I wouldn’t want him anyway,” she retorted. “Besides, everyone knows Ranulf is an honorable knight, or he wouldn’t be your friend or castellan. Surely you don’t think I need fear for my honor if I go to his aid? That he’ll suddenly go mad and forget your friendship and the oath of loyalty he swore to you and attack me?”
“Beatrice,” Constance said soothingly as her son suckled at her breast. “Merrick’s only thinking of your reputation.”
“My father has already destroyed my family’s name,” Beatrice returned. “As for Ranulf’s reputation, anyone who knows him knows he would never abuse your trust, or me.”
“This isn’t a matter of trust, Beatrice,” Constance said softly. “Of course we trust him, and you.”
Calmer in the face of Constance’s placating tone and gentle eyes, Beatrice spread her hands wide. “Then why not let me go?”
Constance looked at her husband. “I agree the situation must be dire, or Ranulf wouldn’t say anything about it. And I certainly cannot go. Neither can you.”
“Who else could you send to set the household to rights?” Beatrice pressed, beginning to hope Constance was coming around to her point of view. “Demelza? Another of the servants? How much authority would they wield over the servants of Penterwell?”
“We could always send Maloren with Beatrice, along with the masons, as he asks,” Constance mused aloud. “Ranulf can tell the masons what needs to be done as well as you, my love, and God knows he’s not extravagant.
“Beatrice is also right about the servants. It will likely take a lady to get them back in order.
“As for any possible scandal, Ranulf is an honorable knight and the trusted friend of the lord of Tregellas. Any person of intelligence would realize that Ranulf would risk your enmity by taking advantage of your ward, and Ranulf is certainly no fool.” She regarded her husband gravely. “Besides, I don’t see any alternative, do you?”
Merrick shifted again and didn’t answer. Beatrice was about to state her case once more when he abruptly held up his hand to silence her. “Oh, very well. You may go with the masons—for three days, and no more. And Maloren must go with you.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Beatrice cried, flinging her arms around the lord of Tregellas’s neck for a brief but fervent hug before she ran to the door. “I’ll go and tell Maloren. She hates traveling and she’s likely going to complain the whole time, but I don’t care. We simply must save Ranulf!”
CHAPTER FOUR
“NO UNFAMILIAR SHIPS have been spotted along here, either?” Ranulf asked Myghal as they rode along the crest of a hill a short distance from the coast two days after Beatrice had begged to be sent to Penterwell. They were near enough to see the water, but a safe distance from the edge of the cliffs. Venturing any closer would have made it impossible for him to hide his fear.
“No, sir, not a one, not for days,” Myghal replied, his shoulders hunched against the wind blowing in from the sea. Above, scudding gray clouds foretold rain, and the gulls wheeling and screeching overhead seemed to be ordering them to take shelter.
“And still no one has said anything to you about Gawan’s death?” Ranulf asked, repeating a question he posed to the undersheriff at least once a day, while Hedyn led other patrols on the opposite side of the coast from the castle.
Myghal shook his head.
Ranulf stifled a sigh. How was he to discover who had killed Gawan, and perhaps those other two, if nobody would speak to those in authority about what they knew? Surely somebody in Penterwell had to know something.
Gawan’s widow, Wenna, had been willing to talk to him, but she’d been nearly incoherent with grief, the tears rolling down her cheeks as she told him that she was sure her husband had been murdered. “Been a fisherman since nearly the time he could walk, my lord,” she’d sobbed through her tears. “It would take a storm to sink him, and there wasn’t one.”
Ranulf had gently suggested that perhaps her husband had set out to meet some evil men, assuring her that if that were so, and even if her husband was engaged in activities that broke the law, he was still determined to find the culprits who had killed her husband and bring them to justice.
“He went to meet a Frenchman, my lord,” she’d admitted as she wiped her nose with the edge of her apron, her rounded belly pressing against her skirts. “He’s traded with the man before. My Gawan didn’t trust him, but the Frenchman paid more than most, and Gawan wanted as much as he could get because of the baby. My poor fatherless baby…”
She’d broken down completely then. He’d sent Myghal, who’d been with him, to fetch a neighbor’s wife. He’d also taken several coins from his purse and left them on the table before he slipped away.
For years and years he had believed love to be a lie, a comforting tale told to keep women in their place, for no one had ever loved him. Then he’d fallen in love—passionately so—and found out that feeling could be real, and so was the pain it brought.
Wenna’s grief was an uncomfortable but necessary reminder of that anguish. Otherwise, he might forget and allow himself to—
He heard something. Behind them. On the moor.
Pulling sharply on his reins, Ranulf held up his hand to halt the rest of the patrol, then wheeled Titan around.
“What is it?” Myghal asked nervously, twisting in his saddle to see what had drawn Ranulf’s attention.
“There,” Ranulf answered, pointing at a galloping horse heading toward them at breakneck speed, its rider bent low over its neck, the bright blue cloak of the rider streaming out behind him like a banner.
Ranulf rose in his stirrups, the better to see, and realized almost at once that it wasn’t only a cloak flapping. There were skirts, too.
That horse looked familiar. Very familiar.
God’s blood, it was Bea’s mare, Holly, so that must be Bea, riding as if fiends from hell were chasing her.
Drawing his sword, Ranulf bellowed his war cry and kicked Titan into a gallop. God help any man who sought to hurt his little Lady Bea!
THE FIERCE CRY SOUNDED like a demon or some other supernatural creature, wounded and in pain. Startled, Beatrice pulled sharply on the reins to halt Holly. As her mare sat back on her haunches, Beatrice felt her grip slipping and the next thing she knew, she’d gone head over heels onto a patch of damp, grassy ground.
For one pulse-pounding moment, she lay too stunned to move as the thundering hooves came closer. Then she saw shoulder-length red-brown hair, a familiar forest-green surcoat, and the great dappled gray warhorse that belonged to Ranulf.
As she struggled to sit up, the castellan of Penterwell brought his horse to a snorting halt, threw his leg over the saddle and slipped off. He rushed toward her, his sword still clutched in his right hand as he fell on his knees beside her.
Still somewhat dizzy from her tumble, surprised by Ranulf’s sudden arrival and taken aback by the obvious and sincere concern on his features, Beatrice blurted, “I hope you don’t think I didn’t care about Merrick making you castellan. I was delighted for you, although it’s no more than you deserve. But nobody told me before the evening meal. I suppose all the servants thought I already knew, and Constance and Merrick probably expected you to tell me. You didn’t, so I didn’t know you were going until you were already gone.”
Ranulf sat back on his ankles, looking as dazed as if he’d tumbled from his horse, too.
Her heart thudding with a combination of excitement and dread, Beatrice decided that, since she had started, she might as well try to find out where she stood with Ranulf. She wondered if she should begin with their kiss, but couldn’t bring herself to mention it. “I was afraid you were upset with me when you didn’t say goodbye.”
“I expected to see you in the morning,” he replied with no hint of embarrassment or shame as he rose. “Unfortunately, you were still asleep and I thought you needed your rest. I would have said a better farewell when you retired from the hall if I had known it was the last time I would see you before leaving Tregellas.”
The last time…? It suddenly dawned on her that he might have been too drunk to remember their embrace or the words they’d said. If that was so, she should be both glad and relieved. But she wasn’t. She was dismayed and disappointed.
His expression inscrutable, Ranulf surveyed her from head to toe. “Are you hurt?”
She was, although not in the way he meant. It pained her to realize that what had been such a momentous occasion for her was not even a memory to him. “I fear I’m going to have a terrible bruise, and this cloak may never be free of stains, but I’m otherwise unharmed,” she replied, managing not to sound as upset as she felt.
He reached down to help her to her feet, his strong, gloved hand grasping hers. Even that touch was enough to warm her blood and make her remember the heated passion of his kiss.
She must deal with the present and ignore the painful past.
Looking toward the group of soldiers drawing near, she said, “I trust those are men from your castle.”
He followed her gaze and nodded. “Yes, and the undersheriff.”
“Surely it isn’t safe for you to get so far away from them if men of Penterwell are being murdered.”
Ranulf’s ruddy brows contracted. “Your own safety is something you should have considered, my lady, when you decided to ride about this unfamiliar countryside all by yourself.”
“I’m not all by myself,” she protested. “Two soldiers rode ahead with me.”
“Unless they’ve become invisible, my lady,” he said, still frowning, “you are most certainly alone.”
Taken aback, she looked over her shoulder, expecting to see her escorts from Tregellas riding toward them.
“I wasn’t alone,” she amended apologetically. “Holly must be faster than their horses. I didn’t realize she was so swift.”
As she spoke, Ranulf’s men and the undersheriff arrived and drew their horses to a halt.
Suddenly aware of how disheveled she must look, and worried that they might think she often rode about like some heedless hoyden, Beatrice blushed and stared at the grassy ground. She had so much wanted to arrive the way Constance would, as a lady of dignity and worthy of respect, the better to impress Ranulf. Instead, she’d shocked and angered him. It was obvious he was annoyed by the way he pressed his full lips together, and by the appearance of that deep, vertical furrow between his brows.
“I was mistaken. The lady wasn’t being chased,” he announced to his men, and if she’d had any doubts that he was angry, the tone of his voice would have dispelled them.
He turned back to her. “Lady Beatrice, these are some of the men in the garrison of Penterwell. I believe you’ve met Myghal, the undersheriff of Penterwell.”
Her pride demanded that she act as composed as Constance, or Ranulf himself, so she forced herself to smile at the slightly plump man she guessed was in his early twenties. “Yes, I have. Good day, Myghal.”
The undersheriff nodded and mumbled a greeting.
“Myghal, Lady Beatrice is apparently going to be visiting Penterwell, along with Lord Merrick.”
Beatrice shifted uneasily, wondering if she should tell Ranulf here and now that Merrick had not come with her party—except that would surely only upset him more.
She was spared mentioning Merrick when Ranulf went on before she could speak. “Continue the patrol. You should check that cove again.”
Myghal nodded, but his eyes were not on his overlord. They were on Beatrice. All the other men in the patrol were watching her, too.
This was not the first time men had looked at her, and while she told herself it must be because of her unkempt appearance, in her heart Beatrice knew their attention had another cause, even though she wasn’t as beautiful and graceful as Constance. That sort of masculine scrutiny always made her uncomfortable, and so she did what she always did in such circumstances. She started to talk.
“I was so sorry to hear about Sir Frioc. I never met him, but he sounds a most genial sort of fellow, and the fact that Lord Merrick approved of him says much about his character. And I’m very sorry if I caused Sir Ranulf, or you, Myghal, or you other men any alarm. I assure you, I didn’t mean to. I rode away from my party because I simply couldn’t bear my maidservant’s complaints another moment. You’d think I was dragging her on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She ought to be quite comfortable in the cart on the veritable mound of cushions I prepared for her, and warm with all the blankets and shawls, as cozy as Cleopatra on her barge. But no, Maloren must moan and groan until I thought I’d go mad. So I said to Aeden, the sergeant-at-arms, that I was going to let Holly have a good gallop over the open moor. You haven’t met Maloren or I dare say you’d understand. I love her dearly, but she can be most exasperating.”
In spite of her heartfelt explanation, Ranulf looked more than a little exasperated himself. “My lady, I regret I must interrupt this charming justification for your astonishing behavior. However, these men have work to do.”
Beatrice blushed and smiled again. “Of course they do. Please, don’t let me detain you.”
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, my lady,” Myghal murmured as he tugged his forelock before he turned his horse and led the patrol toward the shore.
Ranulf watched his men leave, and as he did, he tried not to grind his teeth or otherwise betray his annoyance. But what the devil was Merrick thinking, bringing Beatrice along with him and then letting her get so far from their cortege?
Likely that was as she said: she’d ridden ahead of the guards Merrick had assigned to her—although why wasn’t Merrick himself watching her? Surely as her guardian, he should be taking more care…unless he was as tired of her cheerful chatter as she’d been of Maloren’s complaints.
Even so, that wouldn’t explain why Merrick had brought her to Penterwell in the first place, especially when there was the mystery of Gawan’s murder to solve. She could be of no help there, and they certainly didn’t need the distraction of Bea’s bubbly, inquisitive presence when they were trying to find answers from the recalcitrant villagers.
Perhaps she was bothering Constance too much. The lady of Tregellas must still be weak from the effort of childbirth, and he could understand that she might find Bea wearying.
As for the reaction of Myghal and his men, he shouldn’t be the least surprised by the attention Bea attracted. She was a beautiful young woman, even more beautiful and graceful and charming than her cousin, and certainly more vivacious. Myghal was a young, unmarried man—a young, unmarried commoner who should harbor no hopes of anything from Bea save a polite smile, no matter how friendly she was. She was friendly to everyone, rich and poor alike. A smile from her didn’t necessarily mean anything significant—
“I really am sorry for causing any distress to you or your men,” Bea said. “You know Maloren, though. I thought I’d go mad if I had to listen to her for the rest of the journey.”
