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T HREE DAYS LATER , it was still raining and Ranulf was still frustrated and exasperated as he made his way to the sheriff’s house on the outskirts of the village, on the side away from the sea.

Water streamed from his cloak and his boots were soaking, but Ranulf didn’t care.

Although he and Bea had achieved a sort of truce, it was better to be drenched than around her, with her cleaning and her smiling and her busy chatter about what she was doing and what still needed to be done, or trying not to watch her and imagine what it would be like if she could stay. If she could be his wife.

He’d contemplated riding out with the patrol today, but he wasn’t willing to expose the expensively purchased Titan to the risk of a broken leg from slippery mud, or a lung ailment from the damp.

Besides, the patrol had already gone without him.

He’d overslept again. Bea refused to allow any of the servants to wake him, and he’d had another wretched night, not dropping off to sleep until nearly dawn.

Then he’d dreamed of making love with Bea on the black bear pelt, her honey-blond hair spread out about her like a halo, her naked body undulating beneath him.

With that memory to torment him, he reached the sheriff’s two-storied stone house and rapped sharply on the wooden door with his bare knuckles. Since Hedyn wasn’t married, they could have a conversation about important matters without the distraction of wives, or women who acted like them.

A male servant, dark haired and middle-aged, opened the door. His mouth fell open when he saw Ranulf standing on the threshold, but he quickly recovered, bowed and opened the door wider to allow the castellan to enter.

“S’truth, my lord, I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning. The weather’s fit to drown a man!” Hedyn cried as he hurried from his comfortable seat near his hearth to welcome Ranulf.

He then ordered his servant to take Ranulf’s cloak and invited the castellan to sit by the fire.

“Put your feet up on that stool,” Hedyn suggested. “That should help them dry. I thought the rain might let up this morning, but it looks like it’ll last awhile yet. One good thing, though—ships are more likely to stay close to shore or take refuge in a cove, so they’ll be easier to spot.”

When Ranulf was settled, with his feet raised near the crackling flames and a goblet of mulled wine in his hand, Hedyn regarded him questioningly. “Well, my lord, what brings you here? Have your men found something?”

Ranulf was not about to admit that he had come seeking refuge from overzealous young ladies with cleaning on their minds. “I was hoping you’d learned something more about those two missing men.”

“Ah.” Hedyn leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Not a word. Which means, I think, that they’re likely dead, or we’d be able to get news of them along the coast. Their vessel wasn’t big enough to risk a longer voyage.”

“So that would be three men dead, and probably murdered, in the past month, not to mention Sir Frioc’s unexpected demise.”

“Aye, my lord,” Hedyn grimly confirmed.

Ranulf pushed away the memory of Gawan’s body lying on the beach, gray and soaked and terrible. “And none of the villagers have given you any hint as to who might be responsible for any of these deaths or disappearances?”

Hedyn shook his head. “I think they’re coming ’round, now that they’ve had time to get used to you, but they’re not willing to say much. They’re Cornish, when all’s said and done, and they don’t trust outsiders.”

“They should trust you . You’re Cornish.”

That brought a wry grin to Hedyn’s weathered face. “Aye, sir, I am, but from a village some miles away. That makes me from outside, too—just not so much.”

Ranulf sighed and sank deeper into his chair. “I hope they don’t wait too much longer before coming forward with information, if they have it. I don’t want any more murders.”

“No, my lord, and believe me, they want to know who’s responsible and the louts punished. A few more days, and we might hear something.”

A few more days, Ranulf thought dismally. He prayed to God nobody else ended up in a watery grave in a few more days. “What of Gwenbritha?”

“Still at her mother’s, my lord. I’m sure she had naught to do with Sir Frioc’s death. She was very upset when I told her about it. She wasn’t sorry she’d left him, but she was sorry he was dead.”

“Women can be deceiving.”

“Aye, so they can. But I don’t think she’s guilty of anything with regards to his death. To be blunt, my lord, I don’t think anybody is. We saw no signs of anyone else near his body—no footprints, no grass or ground disturbed. I’d be willing to wager Sir Frioc’s death was an accident.”

Ranulf hoped Hedyn was right.

“I hear you’ve got a visitor at the castle,” Hedyn noted.

The arrival of a noble lady and her escort would hardly have passed unremarked in a small village. “Lady Beatrice is the cousin of the lord of Tregellas’s wife.”

“Pretty girl, so they tell me.”

“Yes, she is.”

Hedyn’s eyes sparkled in the firelight. “Set down the cook right handily, so I’ve heard.”

This was news to Ranulf, but he tried not to betray any surprise, although he found it hard to imagine Bea intimidating anyone, until he recalled her irate majesty.

Still, it could be that Hedyn had it wrong, his grasp of events based on gossip and supposition.

“She came to help me bring some order to my household.” He gave Hedyn a man-to-man, I-don’t-really-care smile.

“That sort of thing is beyond my experience.”

Hedyn chuckled and moved his feet closer to the fire. “Well, it’ll do that fellow some good to have his nose out of joint. Neither Sir Frioc nor Gwenbritha could manage him.”

Ranulf felt it necessary that Hedyn understand exactly how things were with Bea. “She’ll be going back to Tregellas as soon as the weather clears.”

“Oh, aye?” Hedyn replied. “I thought maybe she’d be staying.”

“No, she will not.”

“Seems a pity to me, my lord,” Hedyn said evenly, “her being so pretty and a dab hand with the servants, too. I’ve heard nothing but good things about her, and that’s saying something.”

“Even from the servants she’s making work so hard?” Ranulf asked, not hiding his skepticism. He was aware of the way soldiers grumbled when they were forced to do much more than polish their armor, and there were always those who’d complain about that.

Hedyn gave him a smile that seemed to indicate he found Ranulf’s question rather naive.

“There’s a few—the lazy ones—would grumble if they had to get out of their beds, but most of ’em like having something to do and knowing when and where to do it.

Idleness makes ’em cranky, and it seems her ladyship is a pleasant sort of mistress.

Gave Tecca a new scarf for doing a good job getting her bedchamber ready.

The lass was so excited, you’d think she’d been made Queen of the May. ”

“Didn’t that upset the other serving women?” Ranulf asked, curious as to how female servants behaved. He’d spent his years among knights and soldiers; he could guess how they’d react. Female servants were more of a mystery.

“Well, if they envied her, it’s made ’em that much more keen to impress Lady Beatrice with their efforts.

I hear she promised them all a new gown if they got the whole castle clean and ordered to her satisfaction.

And the children—Lord love you, they think she’s the next thing to a fairy queen!

She gives any that want them little jobs to do and sweetmeats when they finish. ”

Ranulf remembered the children sprinkling herbs on the rushes. They certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Nor would kindhearted Bea ever chastise them for getting nearly as many herbs on their clothes.

“I tell you, my lord, she’s going to make some lucky man a fine wife.”

Ranulf decided he needed to clarify still further. “I have no intention of marrying Lady Beatrice.”

“No? You seem a goodly age to be married, my lord.”

“Perhaps, but not to that lady.” Since there was no reason to linger, Ranulf got to his feet. “As you’ve nothing new to report, I’ll head back to the castle and wait for the morning patrols to return.”

Hedyn rose and detained the castellan with a hand on his shoulder.

“I loved a girl once, my lord, and she loved me,” he said quietly.

“But her father took a dislike to me and I was too stubborn and proud to go to him and ask for her hand. So I lost her. She took up with another, and there wasn’t a day went by I didn’t think of her and wish I’d crawled on my belly to her father, if that’s what he wanted, and begged for her hand. ”

Ranulf’s hazel eyes gazed steadily and impassively back at the Cornishman. “I’m sorry for your misfortune, Hedyn, but my situation is not the same. And in future, should I require your advice on matters of the heart, I shall ask.”

S OME HOURS LATER , a dryer but no less disgruntled Ranulf stood on the dais of his hall that was now free of dust and cobwebs.

Instead of smoke and cheap tallow, it smelled of fresh herbs, straw and beeswax.

The tapestries had been beaten free of dust and the tears mended.

The lord’s chair sported a bright cushion from Tregellas, and so did the chair where Bea usually sat; it was, at present, conspicuously empty.

Tapping his foot, Ranulf gestured for Maloren to come closer. “Where’s your lady? The meal’s ready.”

“She’s gone to the village, my lord.”

“Why?”

“To see Wenna, my lord.”

Gawan’s widow? “Why would she do that?”

Another serving maid, the young one, stepped forward.

“Wenna’s time’s come, my lord,” she explained with deference, and after glancing a little nervously at Maloren.

“She sent a lad to fetch Eseld. The village has no midwife now and Eseld’s attended more births than most of the women in the village, so Wenna wanted her to come. ”

“Lady Beatrice went with Eseld?”