Lady Thief: A Scarlet Novel Part 25

When I got to the hall, if many n.o.bles were still there, I couldn't tell them from the common folk, laughing and singing and dancing about. John found me first, catching me up and dancing with me with a broad, drunken grin. I yelped when he hurt my hand and he slowed, dancing more careful. "She said you were the most kind!" he crowed. "Our mean, grumpy Scarleta"kind!"

"Bess did?" I asked.

He nodded. "I'm going to marry her, Scarlet! Rob's the sheriff; I'll marry her and live out the rest of my days as a father and a husband and a happy, foolish, fat, lazy man. A blacksmith! I'm going to open shop." His grin went wider and looked ready to crack his face.

I laughed at him. "As long as you fix my knives without my having to pay, I'll be happy for you."

He threw his head back for laughing. "You'd steal them anyway!"

"Where's Bess?" I asked.

"Winchester sent her home in his carriage. Good man, that. Much and I figured we'd sack out in the barna"by Christ, I don't think I'd make it halfway home!"

I laughed, but Rob caught my eye and I danced out of John's arms. John took up with Much, who frowned and pushed him off.

Rob pulled me to him, smiling with a fair amount of ale and cheer. "We need a I must talk to you before tomorrow morning," I told him soft.

His grin faded. "What's wrong?"

My nose touched his. "There's something to say. Many things."

The arms about me went loose but didn't let go. "Did Gisbourne do something to you? Did he touch you?"

I pet his cheek, flushing as a shiver ran through me. "No, no, nothing like that."

He nodded, kissing my forehead. "Go. I'll wait a moment and meet you in my chambers, all right?"

Blood pushed harder into my cheeks. My heart beat strange, like a drum played wrong and fast. Meeting him there, when he were whole and hale, under the cover of nighta"it felt different now. It were supposed to be the start of many nights alone in his chambers, and instead it were the last.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

There were no guards now. As soon as the prince left, Rob would move into the large chamber in the center of the residences. And he'd wait for me to be there with him, as his wife.

I shut my eyes. There were no way I could stay here, married to Gisbourne with Rob so close by.

Months ago there were so many places I could think of to run to; now there weren't any I could fathom.

I slipped quiet into his room and sat on his bed, thinking of the first I saw him. I'd been a girl, playing in the garden with Joanna, and he came out, his back straight, awful formal and awful old to my young eyes. I'd seen a man even then. Joanna blushed but I didn't have enough shame to, and I wound the chain of flowers I were making into a crown and put it on his head. He bowed to accept it, and when he stood, there were a smile on his mouth.

He stayed for dinner, but he didn't ever speak to me. And then he left with his father, and not long after, for the Crusades.

The next time had been in a market in London, and his shadow-dark eyes looked like salvation for me. I knew him, I knew his station, I knew what would happen to the girl he couldn't recognize who stole his purse. I did it badly and he caught my wrist and stopped me. When he addressed me like a lad I went with it. I hadn't been trying to look so much like a boy before that, just not a girl, not a pretty thing like Joanna, that a man could hurt and think nothing of.

And then I'd looked on him every day since, each day my eyes a bit more open to his face, his heart, his soul. And then there were something else there, something quite like salvation but different still.

He opened the door, and I looked up. The moon were bright and the skies clear of snow, so I hadn't lit a candle. I liked the blue of midnight light. I liked it more when he stood in it, making him glow bright, the shadows that had haunted him leaving off for once.

I stood and walked over to him, holding up my palm and shivering as his slid into it, pushing my fingers apart and sliding his own between them, binding our hands together. He leaned his head down and kissed me, the first one cool and light like silver, then again, growing warmer, his mouth opening and his tongue speaking a strange new language into my mouth. His hands fell to my hips, and my body shook. All I wanted were to stop shivering, and I pressed tighter against him.

He made a sound that vibrated into my mouth, pulling my waist tighter and up so I bent backward, leaning into him like a willow branch. I gripped his neck, not sure if I were on my feet or not, touching the ground or not. My name, my parents, my placea"I weren't sure of a d.a.m.n thing except his mouth, his kiss, his tongue touching mine and making me feel separate from my whole being. His hand came up and stroked my neck, so warm and hot on my bare skin that I gasped, and he pulled back, breathing hard.

"Good G.o.d, Scarlet," he moaned in my ear, pressing my cheek to his, his fingers on my neck, in my haira"I could feel their touches like he were plucking strings on an instrument, resonating on my skin like music. "We have to stop."

The shivery feeling changed fast. "I did something wrong." I pulled away. "Oh, Rob, I'm not very good at all this!" I told him.

He laughed and pulled me back against him. "Not the reason we have to stop, my love."

"Why?" I asked, my voice gone quiet.

His laugh went softer, and he kissed the corner of my mouth, my cheek, right below my ear. "I forget how innocent you are," he said, and I flushed, frowning. He kissed the hanging bit of my ear and my good hand curled into a fist on his neck, the frown forgotten. "If I kiss you once more, Scar, we certainly won't be talking for the rest of the night. And you can forget whatever you wanted to tell me before making you my wife, because whether or not the church agreed, you'd be my wife."

My blood ran thick and hot, rushing to my skin, everywhere. "Oh," I breathed. "But we were just kissing."

His lips were on my cheek. "Kissing you a," he said, but he didn't finish the words. He kissed me again, and his lips and tongue and the wet slide of it all spun me. All I wanted were to touch him more. To touch his skin.

I pulled away with a sharp breath. "Oh," I realized. A dizzy thought slipped through my minda"if I were meant to submit to Gisbourne, what were the harm in Robin's hands on me, blotting out the ink of Gisbourne's touch?

"Tomorrow," he promised, his voice low and rough, slipping into my blood. His eyes glittered. "Many, many kisses tomorrow."

Noa"if I were to keep touching Rob, I'd have to tell him, and if I told him, he would kill Gisbourne. He would lose everything for his love of me.

He leaned his head on mine, and my heart felt like a stone.

"What do you need to tell me?" he asked. "You worried me."

"You don't seem worried," I murmured.

"Your kisses are very rea.s.suring," he told me.

"I trieda"yesterday, I wanted to tell youa"but you needed sleep. I didn't want you not to sleep, not because of me," I started, and the shivering turned darker as I went. What if this changed everything? How could I say these things out loud when they had just bare started feeling true in my chest?

"What is it, Scar?" he asked, rubbing my back.

I shook my good hand out. "I saw my parents. Youa"you won't need their permission for anything."

"No? It didn't go well?"

The swamping wave of their hate hit me again, and the shaking stopped, covered with dark and shame. "They think I killed Joanna. Their real daughter. Their only daughter," I said, looking up at him.

"Only?" he repeated.

I nodded, feeling water draw up in my eyes. "They just kept saying it were my fault. My fault, and I weren't theirs."

"Love," he murmured, hugging me tight. "From all you've told me, Joanna lived for you. She didn't die because of you."

It seemed easiera"less painfula"to remember her when I were inside Rob's arms. Her smile. The way her long, elegant hands felt touching my face, tending to the scar Gisbourne put there. Rob stroked my hair, my neck, his hands on me melting everything away like b.u.t.ter in the sun.

"So they took you in?" he asked. "Did they tell you who from?"

"They didn't," I told him. "But Eleanor did."

He pulled me off his chest to look at my face. "Eleanor of Aquitaine?"

I nodded.

"Who?" he asked.

"Richard," I said, trying to find strength in my voice. "I am the daughter of Richard the Lionheart."

Robin's hands fell from me, and he staggered back a step. Then he stepped forward and kissed me.

I pushed him off. "What are you doing?" I snapped. "I just told youa""

"And I decided we're just going to have to do this the dishonorable way, because there's no way in h.e.l.l I'm asking for his permission to marry you," he told me, stepping forward again with a grin. "I love the man, but he terrifies me."

I ducked his kiss. "Rob!"

He stopped, but caught me up anyway. "What?"

"This isn't a joke. Eleanor told me herself."

"Well, if you want me to, I'll ask for your hand from him. Maybe I can just ask Eleanor. She seems to like me."

"She does like you. But Rob! Please be serious."

"Why?" he asked, losing the grin. "What problem do you see that I'm missing?"

"It's why Prince John hates me. He'll keep coming after me. There's nothing to stop him."

His arms tightened. "I already knew that he hates both of us. Why answers a bit of a mystery but doesn't change anything. I'm sheriff now. I'll have guards and the means to protect us and our children. And beyond that, I'll protect you and you'll protect me. I was thinking I should give you new knives for a wedding gift."

My stomach twisted and my chest felt like stone. "Eleanor wants me to go to France. Or everywhere, with her, it seems."

"Well, she can borrow you from time to timea"this seems to make her your grandmother, yes?a"but she can't have you." He stopped. "Do you want to go everywhere with her?"

"No," I said. "I want to get to know her, but I told her I don't ever want to leave Nottinghamshire." I looked at hima"how were it possible to feel so much love for a thing and feel so lost and hopeless at the same time?

"Then we'll figure out something that satisfies you both. I can share."

I blinked up at him. "This doesn't change anything for you, does it?" I realized.

"Of course not." He frowned. "Did you truly think it would?"

I nodded slow.

"Scarlet," he murmured. His hands squeezed my waist. "I've told you all along, I knew who you were from the first. I know your heart. Names, t.i.tles, hair, odd clothing choices, none of that changes who you are. And I am madly in love with who you are."

Staring at him seemed like the wisest thing to do.

"Do you know why I won today? How I won?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"I knew after the first shot they'd changed the arrows. I figured one more shot would never give me the feel of it enough to control the third. And then I imagined you, a tiny little ball of rage, berating me for ever doubting myself. Telling me that I'm the best d.a.m.n archer you've ever seen and that there's only one thing the prince didn't count ona"that I'm a better archer than he knows."

A smile crept over me. "I dressed you right down, it seems."

"You did. And you saw the effect it had on me." He sighed. "Besides, it isn't as if the nightmares are gone. It isn't as if I won't be dealing with this for a very, very long time, and if you can find it in you to love me despite all that, I don't think you can really find it unfair for me to love you back."

"How have they been?" I asked. I took his hand from my back and tugged him to the bed, sitting up against the wall, my feet tucked up. He sat beside me, jigsawing his body into mine and rubbing my knees.

"The first night I was here I didn't sleepa"every time my eyes shut I was there again, and I couldn't breathe. After we spoke a it was better. I think I've been so scared of thema"which makes them worse, I thinka"because every time I thought of it, I thought of the way you'd look at me. The way I was afraid you'd look at me. And when I told you, you didn't. They're not gone, but when I wake up, it's just awake, it's not blinded like I was before."

"What else happened in the Crusades?" I asked.

He sighed. "Is it strange to say that there was a lot of it I liked? The trip therea"we were sailing for a year, and seeing so many strange, beautiful lands. The food we atea"my G.o.d, you should have these oranges that we just pulled down from trees. The juice was like nectar. And the colorsa"colors you never see in England. In the desert everything is tan, and white, with dangerous smudges of black. The buildings are all made from sand and stone the color of sand. And the Mediterranean is this changing teal blue, like a deep, faceted jewel, lined with olive trees on every bank, it seemed. I saw more things in those years than in all the rest combined. And the men I went witha"there was something so strong there. We were fighting for more than England. We were fighting for G.o.d, for each other. I could ignore my own pain to protect the man beside me. It's a mentality of war, and yet when I came home, I found the same loyalty, and selflessness, in you."

My shoulder were near him and he kissed it, like he were worshiping a G.o.ddess. Blood crept through my face.

"Do you want to know about your father?" he asked soft. "Richard?"

A deep breath drew my chest up, but I nodded.

"He's a giant," Rob said with a grin. "Not truly, of coursea"maybe a head taller than me. But he always seems huge, and formidable. I was a young man when I first answered his call, a boy, really, and he was a hero. A t.i.tan. Seven feet tall, three across. The loudest voice I ever heard and the first to teach me that if you want to prove you're a leader, whisper, because everyone will listen to you no matter how loud you are. I think faith must run in the blood, because you're the only one I've ever met whose faith rivals his. He knew. Every battle, he knew we'd win, and he taught us to believe too. We believed in him." His face twitched with a frown. "Even the things I questioned, I trusted him that it was necessary. And it was. For the war, at least, if not for my soul."

I squeezed his hand.

"He had fire and temper too. I saw him lose at cards once and he beat the mana"the bigger mana"to a b.l.o.o.d.y mess because he cheated. It took a lot to get him angry, but Heaven help you if you did." He shook his head. "He taught me so much about strength and power. That the man who is truly powerful has the option to forgive, to pardon, to forgo vengeance and violence. It's the weak man that must prove himself through such." He looked at me. "I always thought my father was weak. He was a very tolerant man, very forgiving and kind. I thought it meant people took advantage of him. Richard made me think very differently of my father. Then he died, and I never got the chance to tell him just how much I loved him and respected him. And honored what he taught me."

I smiled at him, half for the softness of what he were saying, and half because I'd never heard him talk like this about war, and I loved it. Sliding my palm against his, he clasped mine gentle. "What are you smiling at?"

"My sheriff," I said. "So did you want to marry at sunset to beat John to matrimony?" I asked.

He brightened. "I didn't even think of that. Good! That's justice."

I laughed, and he pulled me against him. "He were so happy tonight."

A kiss landed in my hair. "We all were. In the castle, no less. Hard to imagine."

"It's the beginning of everything," I said, closing my eyes into the daydream, thinking of how it were meant to be. "I don't have to be a n.o.ble anymore, and the shire can all be free and happy under a fair sheriff."