Gratefully, he finished off the wine and allowed the servant to dress him for bed.
“Two against one,” the servant said. “No wonder they got the better of you.”
“My brother had already fallen down. Drunk,” Basil said as he stretched out on the bed. “Unfortunately, we’d fought earlier and André kicked my knee. I couldn’t react fast enough.”
“I’ll wrap your knee in vinegar compresses. It’ll take the swelling down.”
“The felon left his knife behind. Maybe I can use it to trace him.”
“God’s mercy you’re safe.”
I can’t breathe.
A large, rough, smelly hand clamped securely over Lynnet’s mouth and nose as she was awakened from a deep sleep. Other hands kept her arms and legs from flailing, defeating any thought of struggle against the force holding her down onto her bed.
“Knock her out,” a gruff voice whispered. “If she screams and wakes up that other one, there’ll be hell to pay.”
The pain of the blow shocked her. Sparks flew around inside her head. When they settled down, darkness was everywhere.
Chapter Sixteen
Rowing. Out of a jumble of disorganized thought, Lynnet gleaned the awareness of a rocking motion. She was wrapped tightly, her arms down at her sides, the rough cloth pushing against her mouth, making it difficult to breathe.
I’m in a small boat. I’m wrapped in a rug again.
Her head hurt abominably. She felt nauseous and prayed she would not vomit. There was no place for the vomit to go. She would choke on it.
Fear rose. Trapped and helpless, her heart beat erratically. Its wild panic echoed in reverberations in her pounding head. Despair overwhelmed her as she sank gratefully back into unconsciousness.
Basil awoke grudgingly to the pounding on his door. His body ached like he was a loser in a jousting match.
“What now? Can’t I be left alone?”
The fire had burned down to embers. It was even too early for his manservant to build a new one.
“It’s the crack of dawn.”
He threw back the bedding and checked his knee. The swelling had gone down. He could bend it.
Basil hung his legs over the side of the bed and waited. He wanted to be certain there was no dizziness left from last night’s loss of blood.
Forgetting about the injured arm, he briskly drew back the heavy velvet bed drape. Pain shot into his shoulder and down through his fingers when the wounded site struck the bedpost.
The pounding on the door continued.
“Hold your horses. I’m coming.”
He swept a hand under the bed, searching for his boots. His manservant had strict orders to stow them there, in readiness for urgent situations.
Basil drew the boots on, threw a heavy cloak around his shoulders to ward off the chilled air and made his way unsteadily across the room.
“What is it?” he grumbled.
Only when the door was half open did he remember he’d left his weapons on the table.
Isolda stood in the shadowed doorway, her plump face distorted by anxiety.
“My lady is gone. She disappeared during the night.”
Basil froze. His stomach clenched.
I thought they would come after me, not her.
“When?”
“We don’t know. She was missing when I came to stoke the fire.”
“Come in. Tell me what you know while I get dressed.”
She stepped inside and closed the door as Basil grabbed his pants and tunic from the chest. He sat on the bed and removed his boots to pull on his pants. He flung off the cloak to slip on his linen tunic, then replaced the heavy wool cloak and boots. He hung his Seal of Office around his neck.
Isolda was wringing her hands.
“I should’ve slept in the chamber until Evelyn was well.”
And I should have posted a guard at her door the whole night.
“There’s no sign the door was forced.”
“Could she have sleepwalked?”
The servant slumped onto a chair without asking permission.
“Her parents say no. No one in their family sleepwalks.”
“What about her companion?”
“Evelyn’s unharmed. She’d taken a sleeping potion. She didn’t hear a thing.”
Basil walked to the table where his belt and weapons were laid out. He lifted the cloak high enough to clamp the belt around his waist and methodically attach weapons to thongs and sheaths.
He headed for the door.
“Come on. Let’s get over there.”
The Tower was barely stirring. A feeble red streak at the horizon was all to be seen of dawn. A few retainers passed. Intent on their own duties, they paid scant attention to the sheriff and Isolda as they dashed towards Lady Lynnet’s bedchamber.
A rooster crowed. Others joined him.
Don’t greet this cursed dawn with cheer.
Loss defined in sharp detail Lynnet’s value. Vigorous, proudly Norman, he had fallen in love with a Saxon, a woman the world saw as flawed and weak. He knew her strength, the calm serenity of her soul.
She deserves better than me, but I love her beyond understanding.
The circuitous path leading him from suspicion of Saxons to desiring a Saxon woman as the core of his life could not be traced by logic. Somehow, in the past weeks, his eyes opened. Truths he held dear since childhood crumbled. Black-and-white justifications acquired nuances. Beliefs had shifted.
Because of the altercation with his brother, he ended up weakened and lax in duty. Her disappearance was his fault. If he had been uninjured, he would have remembered to station a guard all night for Lynnet.
His heart felt gouged out.
When Basil and Isolda arrived at Lynnet’s bedchamber, the door was standing open.
“Our daughter is kidnapped. Again,” her father said as he paced the floor in agitation still wearing his bed clothes.
Isolda and he entered and Basil secured the door behind himself. He didn’t want anyone walking the corridor to overhear.
“They took her in her night clothes,” Evelyn said, looking distraught.
“What are you going to do about it?” Her mother’s lace nightcap sat askew on disheveled hair.
Basil concentrated all his willpower so as not to throw furnishings against the wall in frustration. He wanted to tear something or somebody apart with his bare hands, but patience and methodical thought were needed now.
He looked around the room. The door showed no sign of force. Bedding was neatly folded back as if Lynnet had merely gotten up and walked off. There was no sign of disturbance. He turned to Isolda.
“You said you were the first to see she was missing?”
“I was.”
“Is this bedding as you found it?”
“Yes.
“And the drapery was tied back out of the way?”
“She always slept with that side open,” Evelyn said from where she lay on the trundle bed. “If she needed to get up during the night, she didn’t want to get entangled in the draperies.”
“There’s no sign of a struggle,” her father said.
“Nothing was stolen either,” Isolda said. “Evelyn and I looked.”
“Could she have needed something in the night and gone out to get it? Gotten lost?”
“Unlikely,” Evelyn said. “She wakes me if she needs anything.”
“And you heard nothing?”
“Nothing. I’d taken a sleeping potion.”
Basil’s irritation increased. He wanted to race through the castle shouting for Lynnet, but asking tame questions was the best way to find her.
“What about the bar? Don’t you bar the door at night?”
“No. Lynnet was afraid of getting trapped inside should fire break out,” Evelyn said.
“At home we don’t need to lock our doors,” her father reminded him.
“The key was out of the lock and hung by the door as you see it,” Evelyn said,
“so Isolda could get in with her own key in the morning.”
The kidnappers had a key from their first attempt. I should have insisted the door be barred instead of assuming it!
His stupidity flooded acid into his stomach until he winced.
“Why are you wasting time?” her mother said testily. “Why don’t you go out and start looking?”
Basil’s temper snapped. He strode over to Lady Durwyn, dwarfing her by his size.
“Sit down and stay out of my way! No one will look harder for your daughter than I will!”
“You dare speak to me like that?” her mother sputtered.
Nonetheless, she sat herself rigidly in a straight chair by the fire, looking incensed. Her unobtrusive husband took a stool nearby.
Candle in hand, Basil searched the chamber, head bowed down to look for anything dropped or footprints.
Not even one muddy footprint.
Her abductors must have come from inside the Tower because outside the ground was still slush. Either that or they wore cloth sacks over their shoes.
Cloth would’ve cut down on noise too.
He’d send guards to interrogate those staying along the corridor in the hope someone had heard or seen something.
Basil searched the bedding. The abductors left nothing behind.
“It’s made to look like she sleepwalked or decided to go someplace on her own.”
“She never would,” Evelyn said.
“I believe you.”
“If only I had woken up,” she wailed.
“They would have abducted you as well.”
“At least my lady would not be alone.”
The despair in her voice plunged Basil’s spirit down.
Someone clever planned this abduction. Count Maximilian was devious, but he was in Wessex. André seemed unlikely, being heavy-handed by nature and falling-down drunk last night. It was probably the third conspirator.
Basil slammed the candle holder on the table with a crash and strode towards the door. He’d confront his brother.
“I’ll alert the Captain of the Guards,” he said over his shoulder as he flung open the door, “and arrange for search parties.”
My brother will give me that third name or else.
Lynnet woke up with a sputter. Water was pouring into her nose and mouth. She broke the surface and gulped in large breaths of air before being dragged under again.
A strong current moved her along.
I’ve been thrown into the Thames.
Cold was eating into her. If she didn’t act quickly, she’d soon add to its foul smell.
At least, on the boat I was wrapped in a warm rug.
Panicking, she paddled arms and legs furiously to push up and out of the water. Debris struck her from all sides. Breaking the surface, she gulped in air, feeling rivulets stream down her chilled face.
They threw me in the river. They want me dead.
“Help! Help!”
Chapter Seventeen
Basil pounded on André’s chamber door. A sleepy manservant answered. The sheriff pushed past him towards the bed where his half-brother was just waking up. He grabbed André by his nightshirt and dragged him upright. The pulse behind Basil’s temples pounded erratically. Fury rose from his gut, forming a heated knot behind his Adam’s apple.
“Where is she? What have you done with her?”
“Unhand me.”
“Lady Lynnet has disappeared. I know you and your vicious friends are behind it.”
His brother threw a punch, which landed on Basil’s chin, snapping his head back, and loosening his grip. Taking the advantage, André pushed him away and sprang out of bed.
Basil regained his balance, grabbed his half-brother and spun him around, demanding, “Who is working with you? Who took her?”
André twisted from his grasp.
“Let’s settle this outside, like gentlemen, instead of brawling like those tavern louts where you grew up.”
André started pulling on his trousers, his back brazenly to the sheriff.
Basil grabbed his half-brother around the throat, pulling him against his body, his forearm wrapped tightly against André’s windpipe.
“You’ll tell me now where she is.”
Defiant, a rasp in his voice and struggling for air, André said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His fingers tore at Basil’s forearm.
Soldiers stationed in the hallway rushed into the chamber and Basil pushed his half-brother towards them. The manservant cowered in a corner.
“A cell will loosen your tongue.”
André snarled and cursed as the two burly men twisted his arms behind his back and force-marched him out the opened door.
“Son of a whore, you can’t do this.”
“I act under the authority of the king. Tell me the name of the third man and seek the king’s mercy.”
André spit at his brother.
“My father will kill you.”
“If Lady Lynnet dies, I’ll see you pay with your life, whether under the law or not.”
Matilda was almost overpowered by the gloom emanating from Lynnet’s chamber when Isolda opened the door. She and Geoff had come to invite her friend to break fast with them.
“What’s wrong?”
“Lady Lynnet is missing.”
Matilda’s throat constricted and pressure built behind her eyes. She hurriedly dragged Geoff inside the chamber and closed the door.
“When?”
“We don’t know exactly,” Evelyn said from a chair near the fireplace. Her face was ashen, her eyes drawn. “Sometime during the night. I had taken a sleeping draught. I didn’t hear a thing.”
“God’s wounds.”
Matilda sank onto a nearby stool. Geoff knelt, wrapping his arms around her.
“We notified the sheriff,” Isolda said. “He’s organizing search parties.”
Matilda shuddered. Only months before, a search party was looking for her. Too injured to walk and deep in a forest, it was sheer luck that she’d been found.
Geoff got up.
“I’d better find Basil. He’ll need all the help he can get.”
Matilda saw her husband to the door. She kissed him on the lips.
“Bring her back safely.”
After Geoff left, Matilda turned to the two women. She ran her fingers through the mass of curls on the top of her head.
“How could this have happened?”
“We don’t know,” Evelyn said, wringing her hands. “The door was locked last night.”
“The sheriff checked. It wasn’t forced,” Isolda said. “If we didn’t know better, it would look like she just got up and walked away.”
“She’d never intentionally cause us worry,” Evelyn said.
Matilda sat on the high-backed chair on the opposite side of the fireplace from Evelyn. Isolda stood near the bed, her hand grabbing tightly onto the bedpost.
“What about her parents?” Matilda asked.
“They went back to their chamber after the sheriff left,” Evelyn said. “For once, they looked upset for their daughter.”
“What can we do?” Isolda asked. “I’m going crazy with worry. I need something to do with my hands.”
“For one thing, we can get water hot for a bath and warm some cider,” Matilda said. “A couple months ago, I was lost in the woods. When found, what I wanted most, besides Geoff, was a warm blanket and hot food.”
“That’s right,” Evelyn said. “We should prepare for Lynnet’s return.”
Isolda headed for the door.
“I’ll go to the kitchen for food. I’ll have a tub and water sent up.”
Evelyn picked up the poker, turning over embers before adding firewood.
“I’ll get this fire going better.”
“And I’ll choose clean clothes,” Matilda said, “and bring more blankets.”
Despite the cold eating into her body, Lynnet was thankful for her lighter-weight nightc
lothes and bare feet. If she’d been wearing multi-layers of clothing and her shoes, she’d be dragged to the bottom by now.
She paddled, sluggishly, managing to keep her head above water except for stray splashes churned up by the wind. Her father was to be thanked for lessons in swimming when, after losing her vision, he feared she would fall into the estate pond and drown.
“You can’t get away with this,” she muttered through chattering teeth towards the far off sounds of a rowboat. “Somehow I’ll survive.” She touched her crystal where it was caught in the folds of her bodice.
Her abductors hadn’t bothered to bind her wrists.
They want this to look like an accident!
They hadn’t stayed around to watch her die either.
They don’t know I can swim.
Something slammed roughly into the crown of her head. Her face dipped briefly underwater. Sputtering, she felt around and grabbed a slimy, somewhat rotted surface. With her hands, she determined its size and shape.
“Blessed Providence. A timber beam.”
Using the wood’s buoyancy, she pulled her head and shoulders as high as possible out of the water, ignoring the biting morning air.
Night was quickly giving way to dawn as grayed shapes differentiated themselves along the shoreline. She must have been in that rowboat for a long time if a new day was already dawning. Her captors probably rowed her far enough from the Tower to make a nearby search useless.
“Surely, with morning light, someone will find me.”
She prayed it would be Basil. The first voice she wanted to hear upon being dragged from these unholy waters was his. She clung to the memory of his kiss to ward off black despair.
If she survived, she’d declare her love.
Not if. When.
Chapter Eighteen
Basil hadn’t decided yet if he’d done his half-brother a disservice. It was only now that, while he ran from the bedchamber to the Great Hall, his temper cooled and reason reasserted itself.
It was entirely possible André had nothing to do with Lynnet’s disappearance. Still, his half-brother had something to do with the thefts and the plotting against Saxons. A day in a cell might soften him up. Problems with his father over this jailing couldn’t be contemplated. Basil had no energy to spare.
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