Watching Robert gallivant through the trees to pester the Sheriff of Nottingham, while humorous, now made perfect sense. After today, she knew he was right. There was no other recourse for the poor souls wronged by Nottingham. They needed someone who would defend them and provide for them when they had been wronged. Nottingham was an unfair man, exactly like her father. And with King Richard fighting in the Crusade, Nottingham had no one overseeing him. What were the people to do in the face of Nottingham’s unchecked injustice?
But she also thought of Robert’s kiss, of his inclusion of her with his men, of his compliment that, in spite of her being of the fairer sex, she had done well and deserved a place on his council. It warmed her heart to know he recognized her ability and wasn’t threatened by it. And though he teased mercilessly and she sometimes wished to slap the smile off his face, she felt affection for him soften her. He was confusing, but trustworthy. He hadn’t lied to her. He had protected her. He respected her. She felt herself capitulating. Mayhap, just mayhap, she really could trust him.
The revelation was uplifting. She smiled, reaching the door to her chamber. Yes, she could trust him, she resolved, feeling a weight lift in her chest for taking the chance, when the door down the corridor opened. Robert stepped through, turning around to take up Charlotte’s hand and kiss it.
“You’ve always been good to me, Charlotte,” he stated, setting her hand back at her side. “I don’t deserve it. I thank thee for the favor.”
“Of course, my lord,” she said demurely, giving an elegant curtsy. “’Tis a pleasure to be of service.”
Charlotte closed the door and Robert turned to leave, looked up, and saw Mariel, poised in mid thrust as she pushed the door open. She gaped at him, trying to make sense of what she had just seen and heard.
She shook her head and faced forward, her blood draining from her face, then pushed the door the rest of the way open.
He strode toward her.
“It isn’t what you’re thinking—”
She slammed the door as he lunged to grab the latch. She braced the door closed and slid the bar across it. Her chest heaved. He knocked. She closed her eyes. He knocked again. She tried to blot out the pounding. To no avail. She burst into tears. She leaned against the door, feeling it thud with each pound. Water poured from her eyes. Her blasted tears made her almost as upset as the sight of him coming out of Charlotte’s chamber.
I thank thee for the favor… You’ve always been good to me… ’Tis a pleasure to be of service… The words swirled in her mind. Just as she had resolved to put her faith in him, Robert had clearly pulled wool woven of sweet nothings over her eyes whilst lying about his very intentions with other women.
“He’s a liar,” she whispered, and hearing the words come from her lips seemed to solidify her thoughts. She swiped at her eyes. “He’s a rakehell bastard. And I’ve been sweetened to his kisses time and again. I’ve been blinded by his antics.”
She gasped at the strangled sob that pushed passed her lips and threw her hand over her mouth. Why did it matter anyway? She knew why. She liked him. Liked knowing she had a place with his men, and God, but if only he liked her enough in return. She had never been liked, let alone loved, but that tiny morsel of hope in her heart had prayed, after today, that he might be the man to change that.
“Woman, let me in! You misunderstand grossly!” he called through the door.
“Dammit!” she cursed.
He heard her and knocked harder. Now he would never leave her be. She had to leave. What on earth was she still doing here? Why in heavens had she let him sweet talk her into coming back to Huntington and becoming part of his group of forest thieves? She must be mad. Just thinking about it made her realize how ridiculous it sounded.
“Please, I beg you, let me in! I cannot leave whilst you have false notions convincing you of the worst!”
She bit her lip to keep from saying what she felt. She felt like screaming, cursing, and hurling her fists across his face for toying with her heart. Robert would be in her face the moment she opened the door. And she wanted him to leave her alone. She looked to the window. Perhaps she could lower herself out of it. She was only one story up. She could drop to the ground if she tied her linens together. The chamber’s window opened onto a side yard that was little used, aside from the storage of carts and empty casks awaiting a trip back to the alehouse. There would be minimal chance that someone would see her.
True, she would be abandoning the last of her possessions. There was no way she could lower herself and her packs out the window together. But she had to leave. Robert’s incessant knocking was surely rousing interest. Once she got away, she could figure out a new plan, perhaps act as a lad and request work at a neighboring farm, earn a little coin, and purchase new effects elsewhere. As long as she had her horse.
Her decision made, she moved to the window and threw the shutters wide. The nearby guard tower seemed dark and the walls empty. She looked down. It was a drop, but she could tie her linens end to end and dangle low enough to land on her feet. She marched back to her bed as Robert continued to knock and beg entrance. Whipping back the covers, she tugged loose the cloth, then stripped the bottom sheet. Bunching the ends together, she tied them in a firm knot, then strode to the wardrobe and pulled out another set of linens, doing the same, until she had a long rope of bed clothes.
She bunched up the pile of sheets in her arms and carried them to the window, looked down to the ground, then looked around for something stable to anchor the rope. The wardrobe, made of heavy oak, stood not far from the window. She attempted to push the monstrous piece, but it refused to budge beneath her meager weight. Good.
Dropping the pile, she tied the rope to the wardrobe’s leg, yanked on it to feel its security, and collected her bow and quiver of arrows, buckling the belt to her hips. She then threw the bundle over the sill, peering over to watch the rope cascade downward. Giving it one final tug for good measure, she climbed onto the seat beneath the window and sat on the sill, swinging her legs over the edge, and took hold of the rope. She turned to face the wall and braced her feet against the side of the castle, lowering herself, and walking her feet downward as she fed more rope through her hands.
Another tear leaked over her cheeks as she slowly rappelled. Why could she never be allowed a little happiness? Why couldn’t Robert’s affection for her be real? He obviously still cared about his mistress, no matter what placating words he had spoken to her three nights ago in the forest. But oh, to have a man want me. Her father wanted to control her, marry her off to the best bidder. But he had never wanted her. He had cursed her and her younger sister Madeline, cursed their mother for giving him daughters, cursed his mistresses for doing the same… But he had seemed to hate Mariel the most. Maybe because, unlike the others, she had never given him the satisfaction of her tears or her submission. She might have cried when he locked her in the tower room, but when he let her out, she had always walked free with her chin up, her pride unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing her broken, even as a child.
She couldn’t trust her father or anyone else. And she certainly couldn’t trust Robert, despite him telling her she could. He vied for her affection, then went to his mistress, the beautiful Charlotte, for favors, and allowed Will’s cousin Anna to flirt with him with her moony eyes. He didn’t want her. He just wanted to control her, if his refusal to let her leave was any indication, and he wanted to seduce her, too, most likely because he was a philanderer who wanted to feel powerful over women.
You only just met this man, her voice of reason shouted in her mind. Why expect fidelity? Why expect anything?
She reached the bottom of her rope, realizing she had farther to drop than she had at first anticipated. But there was no going back up. She was willing to break her legs to get away. She tightened her grip on the end of the rope and dropped her feet from where they were braced on the wall.
Swinging and wobbling, her shoulder banged against the stone. She looked down at the several feet she had to fall, closed her eyes in a quick prayer, to whom she could not say, and let go. The divine miracles in her book were certainly a beautiful thing, but they were the stuff of stories.
She dropped. She landed. She felt her knees buckle and let out a grunt at the force, rolling to the ground in a heap as her legs screamed at her. But after a moment, the stars cleared from her vision and she extended each leg, realizing nothing seemed broken or even sprained.
She stood, looked up at the distance she had fallen, and realized it was well over her body length, probably closer to two. No matter. She turned around and jogged across the yard, wove through the carts and barrels, and exited through the arched port that led into the main bailey. More people milled about here, and some turned to look at her. She was still a novelty to these people, a woman dressed as a man, and she could no longer stand it. She had to get away. Go somewhere where no one knew her, where they all thought she was a lad, and she made her way to the stables for her horse.
She bypassed the groom without a word and found her horse in its stall. As efficiently as she could, she assembled the beast’s tack, securing her saddle with a well-practiced cinch, and patted its neck as it grunted. Working the bit into its mouth, she pulled the bridle over its head and ears, buckled it, gathered the reins, and led the animal out.
Twilight approached, though the sun was still hovering over the horizon. Good. She remembered the way to the little campsite she and Robert had slept at and could make it there before the hour turned late. It would be a cold night with no blanket or fire, for she would do nothing to draw the attention of his patrols by lighting a flame, and come to think of it, she had no flint, either, for it was trapped above stairs in her abandoned packs. Then the next day she would be on her way, away from Robert, away from Huntington, away from his illegal schemes no matter how noble, and away from the wounds he inflicted upon her heart.
Chapter Fifteen
Robert dropped his hand from knocking. The ball of his fist was growing sore, and it was obvious she wouldn’t answer him to hear his explanation. But the hurt that had captured her brow and the subsequent sobs he had heard had nearly ruined him. Of course, she would think the worst. And why should she not? Exiting from behind Charlotte’s closed door at night with gratitude for a favor on his lips was damnatory evidence. He had thought her already abed. He was a fool.
“M’lord.” A guard approached, giving a respectful dip of the head. It was one of the men who had dragged Mariel to Huntington and shoved her into the prison tower.
“I wanted to inform you that your…eh, the Scottish woman, has just been spotted climbing out her window. It appears she tries to escape. We hesitate to stop her, considering the last time we apprehended…” He didn’t finish his sentence.
“What do you mean, ‘climbing out her window’?” Robert demanded.
“She made a rope out of bed linens and is climbing out her window as we speak.”
“Bloody hell!” Robert exclaimed. “That woman and her death wishes!”
“What should we do?”
Robert abandoned Mariel’s door and ran down the corridor, out across a parapet where he looked down and saw Mariel marching toward his stables. He exhaled relief, seeing she hadn’t broken her legs, and jogged onward, back inside the castle, coming to the spiral stairs that descended down into the main keep where he strode out the doors and into the bailey.
There she was, leading her horse to the front gates.
“Stop!” he called, jogging to her.
She whirled around. The tears in her eyes devastated him. She was thinking the worst, and it was as he and Charlotte had suspected. Her heart was so fragile that she would protect it at any cost.
Dammit, he had to marry her. He knew it now. He needed to win her heart. He could sort this out with King Richard when the prodigal Plantagenet returned from his quest for Jerusalem. And to hell with what Harold Crawford thought. If the arse knew what was best for him, he would see the merit in such a marriage.
“Stay away from me.” She seethed as he came to a halt before her. Except she didn’t yell the words. She hardly spoke them. The ice in her voice, he realized, was her last line of defense.
“You misunderstand me—”
“I do misunderstand!” she erupted. “You claim to want me, then go to her for favors. I’m nay blind, and I’m nay deaf, and I don’t need you like some lovesick courtier vying for a tiny scrap of your attention. I rely on no one and I’m leaving!”
He took her arms. A mistake. She shoved him with such force he stumbled off balance for a couple steps before regaining his footing.
“Stay away from me!” she yelled, more angry tears upon her cheeks, more venom in her words than in any poisonous creature. “Don’t you see I don’t want you?”
The words sliced. One of his guards took her arm. She whirled on him. “What are you going to do to me? Lock me in your prison tower and starve me?” She rounded on Robert again, ripping her arm free. “I want to leave!”
“What should we do with the hellion?” the guardsman asked as he wrestled her arm back into his grip. She fought against him for naught.
Robert’s arms hung limply at his sides. Mayhap she really was sincere when she said she didn’t want him. Maybe he was imagining her desire because he wanted it so badly. He tried not to let her words burn his heart, but he finally lost the battle.
“Let her go,” he muttered after several moments of thought, doing his best to hide the hurt in his voice.
There would be no explaining to her, her misunderstanding. Attempting to do so would be pointless. She was prepared to never hear him. She thought him a liar, a bastard, all the worst things that a woman could think of a man.
“Let her go?” the soldier repeated.
He nodded, his voice quiet. “Let her leave. It’s what she wants. She is free to hunt if needs be. I was foolish to think I could help her otherwise.”
The guards stepped aside at his command, and Robert walked away.
…
That’s it? No one was going to try to detain her? Robert wasn’t going to try to sweet talk his way back into her affections or obstruct her retreat until she finally caved to his begging?
The guards left her where she stood and opened the gate. Robert continued across the yard, up the steps, and back into the keep, not looking back. She felt like crying harder but bit her teeth together to grind onward. He had given her what she wanted. She should be happy.
She mounted up with only her horse, bow, arrows, and daggers, and kicked the animal into motion. No one stopped her, and soon she was heading down to the village and passing through the center where they held their morning markets. She ignored the stares of the peasants and soon found herself nearing the crofters’ cottage she had hidden within.
The sky had darkened now and the woods beckoned, though for the first time, she didn’t want to run. She wanted Robert to love her. She had never cared before if a man had loved her. She had lain with some, found a sweet moment with them here and there, but men were not to be trusted, and therefore she had never once imagined a life with them. She had dressed and left, always moving on, always running away.
Dammit, she should have paid better heed to the signs. His philandering was too glaring to ignore. If she stayed at Huntington, he would only succeed at stamping on her heart until it was nothing but a bloody, wasted pulp. She swallowed and kicked her horse onward. To hell with him.
…
Teàrlach MacGregor adjusted the peasant’s hood covering his dark hair and watched as Mariel cantered out of the bailey, watched as Robert closed the door to the keep, watched as no one even noticed him. He gathered up a bundle of hay and carried it out through the open gates without issue, no one sparing him a glance. After declaring himself a vagrant down on his
luck, a shepherd and his wife had offered him hospitality, and he soon learned that they had harbored a girl matching Mariel’s description the very night he and his laird had stayed the night here.
One thing was right. Dead fish did stink.
Robert Huntington had hidden Mariel right under the sheriff’s nose and feigned ignorance, and from the description the shepherd gave of him kissing her openly in the field, the earl cared for Mariel. He had lied to her very father’s face. And now Mariel was on the run.
Teàrlach had witnessed both Mariel and her younger sister, Madeline, feel their father’s wrath, but Mariel seemed to incite it on purpose. She would neither beg for her father to stop nor would she promise to never commit such an infraction again. And she would most certainly never beg his forgiveness. Madeline had, and she had been able to sink into her father’s shadows. And with Laird Crawford intent on finding Mariel after her disappearance, Madeline now lived in relative peace, rarely under the laird’s scrutiny.
He rolled out his shoulders to shake away the image of young Madeline bearing her father’s wrath and carried his bundle of hay onward, down to the village, to tuck it inside the crofter’s byre for the night…and to slip away into the forest after Mariel Crawford. He was still Laird Crawford’s man, and he would still have to do his duty. And right now, he had just ended an eight-month manhunt. Like hell he would blow it.
Chapter Sixteen
Bracing a ladder against the wall, Robert climbed up to Mariel’s chamber and pulled himself through the window. He dragged up the rope of linens and dropped it in a heap on the floor. He looked around. Despite his heartache, it was interesting to learn that Mariel could scale a wall or utilize a rope so well. She would have made a good fit with his men, if only she could have stayed long enough to become more involved. The phantom, Elmer, all thorns and prickles…
An Earl for an Archeress Page 18
