Hers to Desire. Margaret Moore
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seemed to think Ranulf would know who this was, but no one came immediately to mind.
“Sir Frioc’s leman, sir,” Myghal clarified. “They quarreled and she left him.”
Ranulf didn’t want gossip. On the other hand, a lover scorned could mean trouble. He knew full well that honor and wisdom could be subverted by the need to regain one’s wounded pride. “What did they argue about?”
“I heard she wanted him to marry her, and he wouldn’t, so she left him. She said she wasn’t never coming back, neither.”
“Has she been seen around the village since?”
“No, sir, she’s been true to that. Sir Frioc, well, he, um, didn’t take it too well. He tried to pretend he wasn’t upset, but he spent a lot of time hunting, or sitting in the hall…thinking.”
“Thinking, or drinking?” Ranulf asked. A man in sorrow often imbibed more than he should, as he also knew from personal experience.
“Well, sir, drinking,” Myghal admitted.
“The day he died—had he been drinking then?”
Myghal shook his head. “No, sir, not so’s you’d notice. He’d had some ale when he broke the fast and a few tugs at the wineskin while we tried to find some game, but he wasn’t drunk, if that’s what you mean. He could hold his drink, too. Why, many’s the night I saw him…well, sir, he could hold his drink.”
Which didn’t mean Frioc wasn’t the worse for wine or ale when he died, Ranulf thought. But he would say no more about Frioc now. He would ask the sheriff later.
They rode over a small rise, and there in the distance, close to the turbulent sea, was the castle of Penterwell. Its gray stone walls rose up from the cliff upon which it sat as if they’d grown there, and gulls wheeled in the sky above like pale vultures. Ranulf knew that there was a village on the other side of the castle, where its great walls afforded some protection from the winds that blew off the sea and churned the white-capped waves. Even from here he could hear those waves crashing on the rocks at the foot of the cliff.
Of all the places he could have been given as castellan! This must be God’s idea of a jest—or perhaps a punishment—to have Penterwell so close to the sea.
Realizing Myghal was eyeing him curiously, Ranulf gave the fellow a genial smile. “I’m in need of a warm fire and a good meal.”
A flicker of dread flashed across Myghal’s face.
“You think I’ll not be welcome in Penterwell?” Ranulf asked, his tone deceptively mild, “or do you fear someone might try to prevent my arrival?”
“Oh, no, sir, no, it’s nothing like that,” Myghal hastened to reply. “It’s just that, like I said, after Gwenbritha left, things aren’t what they were. Penterwell might not be as comfortable as you’re used to.”
Myghal could have no idea of some of the places Ranulf had laid his head in days gone by.
“I daresay I’ll manage,” the new castellan of Penterwell replied, and as he did, something on the shore at the bottom of the cliff caught his eye.
“What are those men doing?” he asked, nodding at the group.
His expression puzzled, Myghal half rose in his stirrups. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Can you tell who they are?”
“No, sir.”
“Then I suppose we had better find out,” Ranulf said.
He kicked Titan into a gallop and headed toward the shore.
And the cruel, unforgiving sea.
THE SHERIFF spotted Ranulf, Myghal and the rest of the castellan’s escort as they drew near, recognizing Lord Merrick’s friend at once. Like their overlord, Sir Ranulf was very well trained and a fierce fighter, and his ruddy hair made him easy to distinguish. Hedyn also knew that Sir Ranulf had been made garrison commander of Tregellas and, in the few months he’d been in that position, had wrought an amazing change in the men under his command. They were now said to be the equal of any army in England, and if the lord of Tregellas had any enemies, they would surely think twice before attacking his fortress.
Even so, the sheriff had expected Lord Merrick himself to come in answer to his laboriously written letter, not his garrison commander, so it was with a mixture of respect, disappointment and curiosity that Hedyn approached Sir Ranulf and his party.
“Greetings, Sir Ranulf,” he said, his black cloak fluttering about him in the wind as he bowed. “As pleased as I am to see you again, I wish we were meeting under happier circumstances.”
“As do I,” Ranulf returned as he swung down from his horse.
“Begging your pardon and meaning no offense, I expected Lord Merrick to come.”
“If I were in your place, I would expect him, too,” Ranulf replied. “Unfortunately, Lord Merrick was a little overzealous celebrating the birth of his son and injured his leg. Since I’m to be the new castellan, I’ve come in his place.”
Hedyn’s eyes widened. “Well, it’s a pity he hurt his leg, but it’s good news about a son.” He bowed again. “Welcome to Penterwell, my lord. It’s too bad you’ve got to take command when we’re having some trouble. How’s Lady Constance?”
“I’m happy to report that Lady Constance came through the experience very well indeed.” As Bea had made vivaciously clear before, during and after the evening meal when she made no mention of his imminent departure. Either she hadn’t known— which he didn’t think likely—or she hadn’t cared as much as he thought she might. God help him, it would be vanity of the most deluded kind to hope such a woman would ever consider him for a husband!
Turning his attention to more important matters than his own foolish dreams, Ranulf nodded at the group of men now facing him, their bodies shielding something on the ground. “What have you been looking at?”
All trace of good humor left the sheriff’s face. “It’s Gawan, my lord, a fisherman from Penterwell. One of the lads found him this morning. He’s drowned.”
Drowned.
Ranulf closed his eyes as he fought the pure terror that word invoked. He pushed away the memory of strong hands holding him down while salt water filled his nostrils, his mouth, his throat. The panic, the struggle, the sudden surge of strength as he fought to get away…
Hedyn continued matter-of-factly, not realizing he was addressing a man with the sweat of fear chilling upon his back. “Two days ago he put out like always and when he didn’t come back, nobody ’cept his wife was too worried. And then a boy found his body washed up here this morning.”
“Why didn’t anybody else wonder about his wellbeing?”
The sheriff hesitated, glancing first at Myghal, who was still sitting on his horse, then toward the silent group of men in simple fisherman’s smocks and breeches.
Ranulf could guess why Hedyn didn’t have a ready answer. The man had probably been a smuggler as well as a fisherman. Smuggling tin out of Cornwall had a long history here on the coast.
Ranulf clapped a hand on Hedyn’s shoulder and led him away from the group of men, the corpse and the sea. “I’m well aware that most of the fishermen are also smugglers,” he said quietly. “Lord Merrick is aware of it, too, as was Frioc. So if you’re reluctant to tell me you think this Gawan was meeting someone to exchange tin for money or other goods, you need not be.”
The sheriff nodded. “Aye, sir, that’s what we thought—that he’d gone to make an exchange and been delayed. Like I said, one night didn’t trouble anyone except his wife, who’s heavy with their first child and prone to worry like all women in such a state. In truth, I was more concerned about Sir Frioc’s death and my letter to Lord Merrick.