“She’s not in there,” Kem told me unnecessarily. “She hasn’t been to her suite since this afternoon when she went out for a walk. I thought… I thought she was with you. One of the groundskeepers said you took a swim together, and…”
She stopped there, electing not to speak aloud about delicate subject matter. If a groundskeeper had seen us, he’d known very well that Raewyn and I weren’tswimming.
“I haven’t seen her since I left her at the pool,” I said, breaking into a run as I headed for the stairs.
“Wake everyone,” I ordered, taking them two at a time. “Tell them to search the house.”
Flinging open the library doors, I found it dark and empty. I did a quick check of the kitchen—also dark— before running to the back doors and leaping from the terrace stairs to run across the lawn.
Had Raewyn gone back into the bathing pool after I’d left? Had she slipped and fallen, perhaps striking her head on the hard travertine ledge?
Terror filled my body with adrenaline as I ran to the pools, praying to the gods that I wouldn’t find her body floating there.
I reached it and ran the perimeter, searching the water and the banks, finding nothing but my discarded shirt and jacket. Raewyn’s clothes were not there, though, which I took as a good sign.
Shemusthave been in the house somewhere. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep on one of the library’s upper floors, and her candle had gone out.
When I got back to the house, it was alight with lanterns and flurried activity.
Going to the library, I found a footman coming out.
“Did you search every floor?” I asked.
He nodded rapidly. “She’s not in there, My Prince.”
The others I checked with said they’d also found no sign of her. No one had seen Raewyn since earlier in the day.
She hadn’t returned to the house since our fight.
Breath fogging the cold air in front of me, I ran to the stables and saddled Dargan, putting him into a gallop as I began searching the estate grounds.
Had she decided to keep walking, even after dark?
She could have twisted her ankle or fallen into a ravine… or fallen over the scenic overlook onto the unforgiving marble terrace below.
My heart pounded as I directed Dargan that way and urged him into a hard run, praying I wouldn’t look down and see her twisted body when we got there.
Sliding from the saddle before he’d even stopped, I leaned forward and looked over the railing, seeing nothing. Then I ran down the stairs to the lower terrace just to make sure.
There was no sign of her.
Where could she have gone?
Recalling her challenge today—to either love her or let her leave—the answer came to me with terrifying clarity.
Raewyn had left me.
Warmed by instant rage, I hardly felt the cold night air as I raced on horseback down the path between my home and the public road.
How many hours had it been since we’d argued? How far could she have gotten since then?
The town of Bermingham wasn’t that far away to the north, and Grayport was only a bit farther to the south. If she’d made it to either of them, she could be behind any one of a hundred doors by now.
I’d knock them all off their hinges to find her if that’s what it took.
Dargan was breathing heavily by now, but sensing my urgency, he didn’t let up his pace, running headlong down the castle road and out onto the public thoroughfare.
“Which way, boy?” I asked, turning him left then right.
