Lady Thief: A Scarlet Novel

by Gaughen, A. C.

  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 time—this seems to make her your grandmother, yes?—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 him—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, titles, 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 damn archer you’ve ever seen and that there’s only one thing the prince didn’t count on—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 sleep—every time my eyes shut I was there again, and I couldn’t breathe. After we spoke … it was better. I think I’ve been so scared of them—which makes them worse, I think—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 there—we were sailing for a year, and seeing so many strange, beautiful lands. The food we ate—my God, you should have these oranges that we just pulled down from trees. The juice was like nectar. And the colors—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 with—there was something so strong there. We were fighting for more than England. We were fighting for God, 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 goddess. 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 course—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 titan. 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 man—the bigger man—to a bloody 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 noble anymore, and the shire can all be free and happy under a fair sheriff.”

  “Well, you’re still a noble,” he corrected. “But you don’t have to dress like one, if you don’t wish.”

  “Eleanor called me a princess,” I told him quiet. “She said it’s my duty not just to protect Nottingham, but all of England.”

  “That’s because she wants you with her,” he said. “She’s very clever like that.”

  “It doesn’t mean it’s a lie.”

  “No. But it also doesn’t mean you have to do it. Or even that you can.”

  I sighed. “I don’t want to be noble at all. I just want to be Scarlet.”

  His breath was in my hair. “Even Scarlet was noble, she just didn’t tell anyone. And you protected people even then. You have a very fierce heart, I hope you realize. I can only imagine if we have a baby, you’ll be an absolute terror.”

  I curled up tighter, my heart broken clear and through. I knew I should tell him, say the words, but I couldn’t. “Do we have to have babies, Rob?” I asked quiet.

  He
twisted a little, trying to look at me, but I kept my face away. “No, of course not, not if you don’t want to. You don’t want to?”

  “I can’t even imagine it. I’m frightened every time I see babies in the town—that they’ll fall or cut themselves or fall sick or something. If it were mine I don’t think I’d let the thing move, much less grow up. I’d be scared every moment.”

  He laughed, harder than my pride liked, and I hit him with my good hand. He groaned, but kept laughing. I twisted and hit him again, and he caught my shoulders and twisted me in the bed, falling on top of me, careful of my arm. I went still, and he shifted, lifting some of his weight off. He brushed my hair back. “You can’t tell me you don’t want to have a baby because you’d love it too much.”

  I scowled. “I can. I don’t like being scared.”

  He kissed my cheek, settling in beside me so we faced each other. “Let’s leave it up to God, then. If he wants us to have a child, he’ll let us know.”

  I touched his face. “What will your first action as sheriff be?”

  “Besides marrying my only love?” he asked. “Reorganizing taxes.”

  “Not abolishing?”

  “Taxes are necessary; they just don’t need to cripple a county,” he said. “Protecting the people doesn’t mean giving them what they think they want. It means doing what’s right for everyone, and not just for a few.”

  I pushed him back a little to lay on his chest, keeping my injured hand high by his heart. I wondered if his heart could heal my hand the way I always imagined my hands could heal his skin. “Promise me,” I whispered to him. “Every night we’re married, we’ll talk just like this. About anything.”

  “About everything,” he whispered back, putting two fingers light around my wrist. He kissed my hair, and I pressed my lips to his chest. “My heart. My only love.”

  “I love you too, Robin.”

  I shut my eyes. No matter what happened in the morning, if my marriage weren’t annulled, if Gisbourne hurt me, Rob would come for me. Rob would forsake his position as sheriff, his newfound freedom, even his life for me. And I couldn’t let him do it.

  My head touched his and I thought, I love you, Robin. And I’ll fight for you.

  I had hours left to think, and I had this heart, this man, and that made me stronger.

  Gisbourne thought he knew what it were to not give up. He didn’t know the first thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I woke feeling warm and borderless, like my pulse had flooded the surface of the skin, dissolving it, meeting Rob’s and melting us together. Blankets were tucked round us, and his heart were beating beneath my ear, taking my heartbeat and echoing it back.

  Blinking, I looked up at him. I hadn’t slept long; only when I thought of the beginnings of a plan and Rob were snoring quiet did I drift off in his arms. It weren’t yet full light out, but the sky were starting to glow and he were sleeping. Still. He’d fallen asleep before me and hadn’t woken. I’d have known if he’d woken.

  He slept the night through.

  I looked at Rob, tempted to slide back into the bed with him, warm on warm, skin on skin. He stirred, and stretched, and looked at me where I stood with his sleepy eyes looking half drunk as he looked at me. It made heat rush over my skin, and I sat on the edge of the bed.

  He half rolled over, his arm catching my waist as he beckoned me down to kiss him. I did, shy and soft.

  After a moment that felt like a slow, dizzy whirl against his mouth, he broke the kiss, stroking my cheek. “Go get annulled,” he told me. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  I frowned, tempted. “No. I imagine he wouldn’t take to that well.”

  “Well, by all means, let’s keep him happy and kick him out after,” he said. He smiled then, like something just came to mind. “I love you,” he told me.

  I smiled, desperate to keep tears out of my eyes. “I love you too.”

  “Good. Get on with it; let’s make you an honest woman for once.” He rolled back in the bed, grinning at me.

  I stood, smiling at him over my shoulder. “I ain’t never going to be honest, Robin Hood.”

  He laughed out loud. “Have I ever told you you’re a terrible liar? Truly. You’re awful. Thief I’ll never argue with, but liar?”

  I were shocked. “I kept enough secrets from you, didn’t I?”

  He shrugged. “Not saying things and lying about them are very different.”

  Shaking my head, I couldn’t help but laugh. “That weren’t what you said when you first found out.”

  “Get on,” he told me, smiling.

  “Yes, Sheriff,” I told him with a curtsy. He laughed at me as he lay in the bed, and I stood in the door a moment, remembering him. Every bit of him. Committing it all to memory where it wouldn’t never be taken from me, wouldn’t never tarnish or fade.

  I went quick to the chapel. The castle priest were there, the very man what wed me, preparing for the morning mass, and he stopped. “My lady Leaford?” he questioned.

  Genuflecting before the altar, I crossed myself and looked up at him. “Father, will you counsel me?”

  “Of course, child.”

  He came from the altar down to the pews, seating me in one and sitting beside me. I sucked in a deep breath, and he covered my hands. I nodded once, but the words didn’t come.

  “What troubles you, child?”

  “My marriage,” I told him. “My husband.”

  His hand touched my cheek, looking on the bruises. “He treats you ill.”

  “No. Well, yes, but that isn’t why I came to you.”

  “No?”

  “My husband had much to gain by our marriage. He were elevated, and he gained my lands and my tenants. He has mistreated me, he has threatened to mistreat those dependent on our land, and he has not performed his duty as a husband.”

  “Duty?” he asked. “You mean, in all this time, he has not consummated the marriage?”

  I shook my head slow. “Do I have any recourse in the eyes of the Church?” I asked.

  He drew a breath. “The most solemn duty of a husband and wife is to bear fruit,” he said. “If he finds himself incapable, you can both petition the Church to have your marriage dissolved.”

  “He will never agree to it. The marriage is wholly to his advantage,” I said.

  He nodded slow. “It is possible, but unlikely. An archbishop would be able to do such, but they tend to be persuaded by none but the highest nobility.”

  If you embrace who you are, you might find a great many tools at your disposal.

  Eleanor’s words flooded back to me as relief broke like a wave in my chest, and I found myself leaking tears in the chapel for the second time in far too few days.

  “Oh, my dear,” the priest said, pulling me into his arms. “I’m so sorry. But God will never abandon you to your darkest hour,” he told me soft.

  I weren’t able to tell him that I were thrilled, not heartbroken, so I cried in his arms as the sun climbed higher, pouring in through the stained glass windows, casting the place in shimmering red light.

  A princess of England could sway an archbishop. I were the daughter of the Lionheart, the granddaughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and if all that stood between Rob and me were learning to speak a bit better and looking the part of a lady, I would learn whatever I had to.

  Marian had her future taken from her by the will of others—the Leafords, Gisbourne, even Prince John. And Scarlet were locked in Sherwood, unable to be with Rob, unable to have a future at all. But I could become more than a silly lady or a lowly thief—I would be a princess of England, and I would use it to steal back the right to my own heart.

  I went slow to my chambers, steeling my will. When I rounded the corner there I saw two guards in the earl’s colors.

  “Milady,” they greeted.

  “Gentlemen.”

  Standing before the door, I stared at it many long moments. It didn’t change what was on the other side of it, waiti
ng for me. I crossed myself, and I prayed. That my bravery would hold through the coming storm. I had my hope; I would be every inch the noble lady I needed to be if it meant thwarting him. And I would dispatch the sheriff—my sheriff—to protect the Leaford lands from Gisbourne if I needed to. He wouldn’t win. I would never let him.

  “He’s not in, my lady,” one guard said gentle.

  “What?”

  “He left last night and he hasn’t returned.”

  I opened the door.

  The chamber were empty.

  Relief and rage bubbled up in me. Were this a trick? A game? Had he left for Leaford already? If he suspected or knew where I’d been the night before, God only knew how he’d react.

  I called for Mary, and she changed my dress in silence.

  Perhaps he were drinking somewhere. Surely that didn’t count against me.

  Feeling along the shutter, I took the last knife I’d hidden there and slid it into my bodice.

  I stood in the chamber for a long time, adding a log to the fire to stoke it up, shivery fear climbing inside me with every breath that failed to bring him to our chamber.

  Something were desperately wrong, and I didn’t know if it were good for me or not.

  Time slid by and the sun rose higher. I knew I couldn’t miss Eleanor, but I didn’t dare risk Gisbourne’s wrath. Finally I told Mary to wait for my husband in the chamber and tell him I were attending the queen.

  With a shaking sigh, I left the chamber and made for Eleanor’s. It were hard to miss; servants were swarming in lines like ants, carrying out her coffers, her furs, the things she would need in the carriage. She were in the center of it all, her hands poised on a bejeweled cane like it were a weapon.

  Which, if needed, I were sure would be formidable in her hands.

  Her severe face folded when she saw me, breaking into a smile. “My dear,” she greeted. I saw one of her ladies cut me a glare for the endearment, but Eleanor didn’t care who knew of her like of me. She came to me and hugged me, and one of the women made a sound that sounded much like I had punched her in the belly.

  “My lady Eleanor,” I greeted. “Can I attend you in any way?”