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“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.

R ANULF SLOWLY OPENED his 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.”

No, she wouldn’t, and Ranulf had to smile—at least a little—at the notion of Bea striding into Penterwell and commanding the villagers to turn over the smugglers who’d attacked his patrol.

On the other hand, maybe they would. “Am I seriously hurt?”

“She had to stitch the wound. I swear, Ranulf, I very nearly fainted when I saw all the bloody linen. I told her that was work for a physician. I think she took a terrible risk doing it herself. What does she know about medicine?”

“A great deal,” he answered as he struggled to sit up, gasping when he felt the stitches tugging at his flesh.

“I’m not sure you should do that,” Celeste cautioned.

“I’ve been stitched before.” And all things considered, he didn’t feel too bad. His side hurt, and he was rather weak—from lack of blood, no doubt—but it could be worse.

He might have been dead. “And the smugglers? Were they captured?”

“You were outnumbered. Kiernan said more came to join the men already on the beach. Since you’d been wounded, he ordered a retreat.”

“Kiernan did?”

“Who else? And you were hurt.”

“Gareth, the garrison commander, is more than competent to assume the leadership of a patrol. Or was he wounded, too?”

“No,” Celeste answered a bit peevishly. “A few of the other foot soldiers were hurt, but none seriously. It was Kiernan who fought off the man who attacked you—a big brute he was, too. I should think you would be grateful.”

“I didn’t know that, and I am grateful,” Ranulf replied. “He’s clearly a better fighter than I supposed.”

Celeste became a little less stiff. “Would you like some wine?”

“Later, please. What of the sheriff? Did anyone go to the village and tell Myghal about the attack?”

“I assume so. I was more concerned about you. Maloren left some bread and butter for you, and some roast chicken. Would you like some?”

He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he knew he needed to regain his strength. “Please.”

As she went to fetch the tray waiting on the chest, he gingerly felt his bandaged side, noting the scent of his sicklewort ointment.

He was quite sure Bea had done a more-than-competent job tending to his wound.

God’s blood, what he wouldn’t give to see and hear her haranguing the people of Penterwell!

The door flew open with a bang and Maloren, her eyes wild, her hair disheveled, came into the room as if propelled by a great gust of wind. “She’s gone! My lamb’s gone!”

“Sir Ranulf is not to be disturbed,” Celeste declared.

Celeste might have been invisible for all the attention Maloren or Ranulf paid to her as he struggled to sit up, ignoring the pain in his side while his heart thudded wildly. A fear more terrible than any he had ever felt—not even when Edmond held him under the water—tore through him.

“There’s no need for such excitement,” Celeste said with obvious disdain. “She’s in the village.”

Maloren turned on Celeste as if she’d stabbed her. “She was there but now she’s gone! ”

Ranulf climbed out of the bed despite the pain it caused him. He was nearly naked, but he didn’t care. “Get me my clothes and my sword.”

“You can’t get dressed! You’re supposed to rest!” Celeste cried as she dragged her attention away from Ranulf’s bandaged body to glare at Maloren. “Where would she go?”

“We don’t know, you silly slut!” Maloren retorted. “If we knew, she wouldn’t be missing!”

Ranulf clutched at the bedpost. There was no time to be lost, no time to get into his mail. “Where are Myghal and Kiernan?”

“Kiernan’s already gone to the village to help search for her,” Maloren said, wringing her hands. “I don’t know where that Myghal is.”

“Likely in the village with Kiernan. I’ll meet them there.”

“You can’t!” Celeste protested. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m going to find Bea,” Ranulf replied, speaking not with the red-hot anger of a downtrodden boy, or the fiery passion of a rejected youth, but with the cold-blooded fury of a mature man.

He was a warrior in his prime, and he would stop at nothing to rescue the one person in the world who loved him, and whom he loved with all the passion, devotion and determination of his formerly barren heart.

“Bless you, sir!” Maloren cried, sobbing as she rushed to his clothes chest and threw open the lid. “I know you’ll find her and my lamb’s right to love you, even if you’ve got red hair!”

“W HY ARE YOU LIMPING ?” Myghal demanded as Bea, panting, struggled beside him on the path leading down to the sea.

She glared at him. With her mouth gagged, she could hardly answer his question, and she wouldn’t tell him anyway.

Still holding his sword, Myghal impatiently pushed her onto the ground and grabbed her leg, raising her bruised and bloody foot that was only partly covered by her torn stocking. “You’ve lost your shoe.”

As if she hadn’t noticed.

Once again he hauled her to her feet. “You’re only making this harder, my lady. I’m taking you to Pierre. There’s no help for it if I’m to get Wenna and little Gawan back.”

Bea tried to say Ranulf would kill him for what he’d done—if he found out what had happened, if he discovered that Myghal was involved, if he found her—but all that came out was garbled noises.

If Wenna were saved and went back to Penterwell, she would tell Ranulf what had happened. Wenna would help her.

Wouldn’t she? Would she betray Myghal, who had risked Sir Ranulf’s wrath to save her? Oh, please, God, she must!

Myghal started down a narrow path to a small indentation in the coast where a flat-bottomed boat with a single mast, its sail furled, lay beached on the rocks.

They were going to set sail in that? Above, thick clouds were gathering on the horizon, and she immediately envisioned death by drowning in the cold, cruel sea.

Perhaps that would be better than being sold as a slave in Tangier, into some sultan’s harem.

She looked around frantically for any sign of Ranulf’s men, although, in her heart, she doubted he would have set a watch here. No ship or boat capable of carrying a group of men could put in anywhere close to these rocks.

She wasn’t going to give up yet, so as Myghal pulled her closer to the boat, she abruptly pushed back and sat on the rocky ground. He was going to have to drag her.

“Get up, my lady!” Myghal ordered, trying to tug her to her feet.

She shook her head, determined to make it as hard for him to move her as she could. She kicked her feet, too, hoping to hurt him or delay their progress.

“Get up!” Myghal cried, gripping her hard, but still she fought back, twisting and struggling and refusing to stand.

“I don’t want to hurt you!”

He was going to have to if he wanted her to move.

At last he sheathed his sword and grabbed both her arms, tugging her upright.

He was so angry and upset, he didn’t notice that her other shoe lay discarded on the ground, especially when she shoved him with her shoulder to distract him.

He grabbed her again, turned her around to face the sea and frog-marched her to the boat.

Her nearly bare feet were in agony from the rough rocks, but she would have risked more than sore feet before she got in that boat.

Another struggle ensued before Myghal lifted her bodily over the gunwale into the bow and pushed her down upon a thwart.

She slipped and fell hard against the side, striking her elbow and ribs, the sudden, blinding pain making tears come to her eyes.

Despite that, her mind still sought a way to prevent him from taking her any farther.

She considered kicking a hole in the boards with her heel, but feared that might make Myghal notice that both her feet were shoeless now.

Myghal took hold of the bow and shoved the boat into the water, the bottom scraping against rock. Perhaps he’d put a hole in it and they would have to come back, lest he drown, too.

Myghal continued pushing the boat out into the water, then climbed over the left side, making it heel. Bea instinctively leaned her weight on the opposite side to balance it.

No, she didn’t want to drown. She would fight and survive, and Ranulf would find her.

Myghal unfurled the sail, then sat in the rear and put an oar over the stern of the boat to make a rudder. The wind caught the sail, and soon they were headed out to sea, skimming over the open water that so frightened Ranulf, to where the whitecaps danced and the dark clouds moved closer.