Song of the Heart - Alexa Aston Page 0,1
long. He felt guilty because he knew she always tried to please him. This latest effort at attempting to master riding was most likely due to her wanting to achieve a sense of ease upon a horse to make him proud of her.
He reached the stables and found Barth, his head groom. The man looked nervous when he spied his liege lord and Garrett guessed why. He could smell the alcohol on Barth’s breath from several feet away.
“Were you here when Lady Lynnette went out to ride?” he demanded, overlooking Barth’s drunkenness for now because of his growing concern regarding Lynnette.
“I saddled her horse myself, my lord. And Stephen’s. He was to accompany her. But he didn’t.”
“Why not?”
Though the grounds surrounding Stanbury were thought to be safe, Garrett always cautioned Lynnette to take someone with her on her rides. She’d become too nervous to ride with him, feeling he judged her with every mistake she made, and so she’d taken to asking their reeve to ride with her on the few occasions she went out.
The groom shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him, my lord.”
“What time did she return?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” Barth swallowed, his eyes cast to the ground. “I’ve been busy.”
Garrett strode down the row of stalls and came to a stop where Lynnette’s horse was.
The stall was empty.
A sick feeling washed over him. She’d ridden out by herself and hadn’t returned. She could be hurt, thrown from the saddle, unable to walk. Or worse. He pushed that thought aside and hurried back to the keep. Entering the great hall, he spied his reeve and motioned to him. Stephen excused himself from the men he conversed with and came toward him.
“Yes, my lord? You have need of me?”
“I do. Why did you not accompany Lady Lynnette on her ride today? She is missing. Her horse isn’t in its stall. I need to organize a search party to find her.” He glared at the reeve. “None of this would have been necessary if you would have gone with her.”
The reeve’s solemn look as he gazed at Garrett made him go cold inside.
“Could you come with me, my lord?” Stephen asked and hurried from the boisterous noise of the great hall.
He followed but as soon as they reached the entryway, he called for the reeve to stop.
“I have no time for nonsense. I need to organize the search.”
Stephen shook his head. “I fear . . . you will not find the countess, my lord.”
Garrett seized the reeve’s shoulders. “Why do you say that? What has become of her?”
“She is mostly like gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
Sadness filled Stephen’s face. “Gone from Stanbury. With another.”
He tightened his hold. “What do you mean? You’re talking in circles.”
“She’s left with another man,” the reeve ground out.
Garrett’s hands fell away. “Another man?” he asked, not comprehending what he was being told.
“My lord, I should have told you,” Stephen began. “I . . . I did not know how to do so.” He swallowed. “Twice, Lady Lynnette went riding recently. She wouldn’t allow me to accompany her either time. I worried about her. She is still a novice in the saddle after all this time. I decided to follow her at a distance. And that’s when I saw them. In the woods.”
“Saw who?” His belly tightened.
“A knight, my lord. One I did not recognize. Tall with dark hair. They . . . spoke at some length.”
“And?” he demanded, nausea filling him.
Stephen looked miserable as he said, “They appeared to be quite close, my lord. They were familiar with one another.”
Garrett didn’t have to ask what the reeve meant. He understood that Stephen had witnessed Lynnette kissing this stranger. Or something even more intimate between them.
“I left my lady in the forest with this knight,” Stephen said, shaking his head. “I thought she would return. Now, I’m not so sure. I fear there were more of these clandestine meetings that I knew nothing of. And that this knight convinced the countess to run away with him.”
The words were like a physical blow. Garrett reeled from what he’d learned.
“No. It couldn’t be,” he said, dumbfounded. “She wouldn’t leave me. Leave Lyssa.”
Yet how much did he really know about his shy wife? Had she been in love with another man before she arrived for her arranged marriage at Stanbury? Had this man from her past come for her? Convinced her to flee with him? Were Garrett and Lyssa merely reminders of the babe they’d lost and she’d needed