A Wanton's Thief

by Titania Ladley

  He could hear the sickening sounds of lashing before he even reached the slightly ajar double door to the stable. Drawing his longbow, he notched an arrow and kicked open one rotting door. It creaked and slammed against a stall. Nearly a score of gazes snapped to him, his target, Sheldon Tremayne, standing in the center of the barn with a leather rein strap poised to whip Salena.

  Falcon suppressed a wave of nausea along with the instinct to run to her. Her gown hung in shreds from her battered body. Fresh open lashes oozing blood crisscrossed the tender, alabaster flesh of her back. She sagged unconscious against thick ropes that chaffed her dainty wrists. Her long silky tresses streamed down her back sticking to the open wounds. He couldn’t see her face, but he prayed it had been left intact.

  I’ll kill the bastard!

  Rage such as he’d never felt in his entire existence simmered, threatening to spew forth. He closed one eye and aimed the tip of the arrow at Sheldon’s heart. “Let her go, Tremayne. Now. Leave without incident or you die.”

  Sheldon slowly lowered the whip. His blazing red hair had darkened around his hairline and collar where sweat poured from his pale skin. His coal-dark eyes glittered with the devil’s hatred.

  “Get him!”

  A clatter of activity sounded. His men sprang into action, raising and notching their own bows. Falcon reached for the door and swung it in toward him, the move giving the arrows’ tips a sure target as they arced up into the high ceiling and rained down. The whiz-click of arrows in flight and imbedding in wood echoed through the room.

  Falcon took advantage of the pause as the men reloaded. He peered around the half-open door and quickly assessed the situation. Since they’d stepped forward in a line protecting their master, he re-aimed his arrow and released it upon the nearest fool—he would get to Sheldon in due time. The iron tip penetrated the nearest man’s lung. His bow fell to the dirt floor with a thud and he clutched the lethal wound, gasping for air. His breathing turned ragged as he dropped to his knees, blood now gurgling from his mouth.

  He fell facedown upon the arrow pushing it further into his chest. Falcon wasted no time snatching a new arrow. Drawing back, he aimed again and picked off another man before the others could finish preparing for round two.

  “Get him, you fools! What are you waiting for?”

  Another series of arrows showered down. Falcon yanked the door in again until the sharp clatter calmed.

  “Let her go, Tremayne,” he yelled from the opposite side of the barn door as he re-notched. “Let her go and you will live.”

  The heinous laughter grated on Falcon’s nerves. “You, of one man, seem to think you can outwit all of my loyal men, here? You are quite the imbecile if you think I’m stupid enough to follow your orders, Robin Hood.”

  “And you are quite the imbecile if you think I’m going to stand by and watch you kill her.”

  “Kill? Who said anything about killing her?” The mocking tone indicated just that. That he’d intended to kill her, which Falcon had long ago suspected.

  “I heard you,” he said calmly from the other side of the door. “I heard you plotting her murder, which is why I took her. To keep her from your murderous hands.”

  A long bout of stunned silence ensued.

  “Heard me? Ah, you are not only an imbecile but you are obviously mad.”

  “Nay, Tremayne. I hid behind your study drapes the night she disappeared. I overheard you plotting with your man, the very man, in fact, we took back to our camp with us after your lame attack. The man who now resides in my ranks.” He deliberately said it to draw further truths from Sheldon.

  “You wouldn’t happen to be speaking of this man, would you, the one I just choked with my bare hands for disobedience?”

  Falcon peeped around the edge of the door, his bow poised for attack. He heard a swooshing noise and watched as one of Sheldon’s men dropped the thin man into the center of the barn. It did not surprise him to see Lathrop there lying upon the cold dirt floor dead as a door latch.

  “Aye, that would be the one. And I thank you for that confession. We’ll see that you’re hanged for your…minor indiscretion.”

  Sheldon snorted. “We? Who would this ‘we’ be? Your Merry Men? Well, I don’t think so. We’ll see to their demise once we’ve got you and this slut sister of mine here out of the way.”

  “I have the letter, Sheldon.”

  Again, silence hovered heavy in the early morning air.

  “Letter? I know of no letter of importance that you could possibly have in your thieving hands, Robin Hood.”

  “The one from your mother, the one that states the secret regarding you and your sister, Salena. The very letter that reveals some interesting details concerning who the true heir of Wyngate Hall and its fortune is. A very telling letter left behind by a dying woman, wouldn’t you say? One that tells of a certain tragedy your mother endured—long ago and ever since—in regard to her son. A secret, Sheldon, that I will not repeat before these men but one that you already know well…as do I now, and as will Salena.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Your father always knew it, didn’t he? Which makes one wonder just how Lord Tremayne really passed away…”

  “What are you accusing me of?” Sheldon’s voice rose in indignation, but it also rang with a note of fear. Fear at having been found out, perhaps?

  “Oh, nothing, nothing at all. But it does make one wonder why Edward Devonshire—the very duke you originally set out for Salena to marry then began delaying—has red hair and dark eyes the very shade of yours. In fact, Sheldon, you are the spitting image of him.”

  Falcon pushed the door open a bit more, delighted to be afforded a look at Sheldon’s face over the shoulders of his men. Already pale, his face now glowed pasty-white by the dim light in the barn.

  Falcon went on, now having secured a captive audience. “Isn’t that right, Sheldon? Even after reading your mother’s letter with the sordid truth in it, you’d still planned to keep those facts to yourself. The solution, even more so now after reading the note, was to marry Salena off to the duke, keep the money in the family, so to speak—until you learned of the duke’s gambling addiction and how deeply in debt he truly was. That’s when you decided to plan Salena’s death before the marriage so that you could inherit it all before she married and before her fat dowry went to waste on paying off someone else’s debts. Or before it possibly became squandered away by the duke furthering that nasty gambling habit of his.”

  “You’re mad, completely daft!”

  “Nay, you planned her death. I heard you with my own ears that night plotting with poor, dead Lathrop there. Which is why I took her from her home. I had no choice but to save her from you. And now here you are beating her for ‘disobedience’. What was the plan exactly, Sheldon, to hope you’d ‘accidentally’ hit her one too many times? What a great diversion, to inform the king she’d run away with a criminal voluntarily and needed punishment, but you’d accidentally punished her too harshly. She ends up dead and you end up with the entire inheritance. And the king is thinking all the while that you’d attempted to go after one of the most wanted men in infamy, and all in the name of His Royal Highness. Noble, downright noble of you, Tremayne.”

  “Look who speaks, I tell you all, but do not listen to his tales.” He gave an exaggerated sniff and pushed his men aside. It gave Falcon a clear shot of his chest. But it put Salena, still strung up, just behind and to the right of Sheldon’s shoulder. One little slipup and she would be the recipient of his deadly arrow. “Robin Hood. The infamous thief who steals from his king’s very coffers.”

  He clamped his teeth together, weary of that accusation after hearing it for so many centuries. “I take from your kind—who first steal from their poor servants and tenants such as those you have protecting you today—and give back to them what is theirs. ‘Tis the only fair thing to do when they have no one, not even a king or a master such as yourself, to depend on for a loaf of bread or a roo
f over their heads. You took their lands and yet work them to death, and then turn around and offer profits to the king to get on his favored side. But you didn’t give the king all those profits, did you? And you told all these poor chaps that the king took the land and the money. You told them you had no choice but to take from them, when in reality, you lied, didn’t you? All the while, you’re grazing sheep on their stolen lands, raking in a tidy bundle each month and starving all these people and their women and children in the process.”

  Slowly, the line of bows lowered.

  “What are you doing, fools? Aim! Kill him!”

  Falcon continued to target Sheldon’s chest. One by one, the men turned and lifted their bows, directing them at Sheldon.

  His eyes bulged. Perspiration beaded on his forehead. “W-what are you doing, you idiots? Get him! Turn around and shoot him now!”

  “Nay, we stand with Robin Hood.”

  Sheldon gasped, stumbling back. He brushed against Salena. She moaned, coming to full consciousness.

  “Salena!” Falcon raced into the stable and pushed aside the men. Sheldon’s panicked gaze darted around for an escape route.

  “Capture him before he flees,” Falcon roared, “and I will give you all an honorable place in my band of vigilantes, if you so wish.” A pounding of footsteps on the dirt floor sounded along with shouts and pleas from Sheldon. They secured him, tying his arms and legs together with the remainder of the rope that had been used to place Salena in bondage.

  “You thieving bastard! You—” His words were muffled by a rag stuffed in his mouth.

  Falcon unsheathed the knife strapped to his thigh and sliced through the ropes that held Salena in place. She sagged into his arms wincing when her tender flesh grazed his hands. Her body felt cold, almost icy. Almost dead.

  He carefully repositioned her, clutching her to his chest. Beyond the odor of blood, he caught her sweet scent. It made his heart still and his eyelids flutter shut. He kissed her bruised forehead, the tip of her pert, bloodied nose, her trembling, cracked lips.

  “Falcon?” she rasped, tears filling her lovely cat eyes.

  “Aye, my love, I’m here.”

  “H-he beat me. M-y own brother…he t-tried to kill me, j-just as you claimed.”

  “Shh, shh.” He kissed the top of her head and nestled it under his chin, rocking her body with his own. “Everything’s going to be all right now. You’re safe with me. I’ll never let this happen to you ever again.”

  God, I almost lost her! His gut churned while his pulse struggled to calm.

  “‘Tis my f-fault. I mistrusted you. I tried to leave when Lathrop told me…”

  Holding the back of her head so as not to further injure her raw back, he leaned forward so that he could look down into her face. “Lathrop. What did he tell you? He knew nothing.”

  “H-he said,” she whispered, the tears fattening in her eyes, “that you’d been with Grizella after leaving me. ‘Tis why I agreed to leave with him, to go back home to my brother and my betrothed. Oh, Falcon! It broke my heart. You…you…did you?”

  “Nay! Oh, Salena,” he rasped, kissing her bruised lips with tender care. “Nay. How could I bed her—or anyone else—after having you? How could I when I’d already determined that…that I love you?”

  Yes, he loved her, though he dreaded the day when she would die of old age and he would have to say goodbye yet again to someone he cared very deeply for. But how could he just walk away from her? He could not be so selfish and yet, he was already being selfish in staying with her. So why deny them both this time together?

  She blinked, the tears rolling down over her temples and into the blood-encrusted hairline. “Pardon me, but did you just say…?”

  He chuckled, kissing her again. To say the words had been like cleansing his soul. Only now he dreaded that she would not feel the same way. “Aye, I said I love you, Salena Tremayne, hellcat, spitfire, keeper of my heart, my very own wanton lady.”

  Salena hitched in a soft gasp. The breathtaking blue of her eyes glittered with a new round of tears. “Robin Hood loves me?”

  He nodded and groaned, tucking her head back under his chin. “For the magic of Lorcan, aye, I love you until my dying day—which as you now know will never come to be.”

  “Falcon…” Her voice came out muffled, soft, almost alluring. “I love you, too.”

  He sighed, feeling the sting of tears in his own eyes. “Ah, Salena, I thought I’d never hear you say those words.”

  Starved for a good look at her, he drew her back, this time, far enough away so that he could get a glimpse of the soft swells of her body. And the sight of Lorcan’s medallion around her neck made the universe halt almost as quickly as her words of love had.

  “Where did you get this amulet?” He plucked it from between her breasts.

  “Amulet?”

  Her gaze fell to the heavy silver medallion nestled in the palm of his hand. Its heat warmed his hand, its mysterious blue stone entranced him.

  “I…” She swallowed audibly. Her eyes rose slowly to meet with his. “I had a dream while sleeping in the cart. Lorcan. He came to me. He said that I am your intended. Falcon!” She gripped his arms and stiffened. “I saw myself.”

  “Saw yourself? Where?”

  “In the sky, in the stars. He asked me if I could see it. It was as clear as you are to me now, so I told him I did see myself.”

  Her words were baffling him, yet he had his suspicions. She saw Lorcan in a dream. She saw herself in the sky. And she had the Centaurus medallion in her hand, something that he’d never seen out of Lorcan’s possession—ever.

  “Then what, Salena? What happened next?”

  “Lorcan placed the chain over my head and left me alone on the warm stone bench. That was when I awoke to Sheldon’s anger.”

  His heart pounded, not wanting to hope beyond hope what this could all possibly mean.

  With an urgency to get her alone and tend to her wounds, he said to the group guarding Sheldon, “Go and take him to the king. Tell King Henry the entire tale—with the exception that Robin Hood has sent you. Tell him how Salena Tremayne’s own brother plotted her death, how you saw her whipped and beaten to within inches of her life by him. As a favorite at court, she will be avenged. I will send my man Lorcan along with you. He will see to it…that the king believes your every word and sends this man to prison. Once you have completed that task, meet me at Wyngate Hall and you shall all bear an honorable place in my army, and be rewarded handsomely for your loyalty. From there, you and your families can finally have decent food upon the table and repaired roofs over your heads. And I will see that you get your lands back that this man stole from you.”

  “Thank you, sir.” They each nodded in humble succession.

  “Much thanks to you, Robin Hood.” The first knelt on one knee, then another and another. One by one, the entire entourage of Sheldon’s former employees declared an oath of fealty to Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

  “Rise and go do your duty so that your lives can begin to get back to normal.”

  They obeyed and Falcon stood, lifting Salena into his arms. He sauntered outside and inhaled the cool morning air, its scent mixed with that of his woman. The sun was just peeping through the clouds in a brilliant shade of orange. Birds fluttered about in search of seed. A squirrel horded an acorn and a rabbit shot off into the copse of woods beyond.

  “Falcon!” Just before he reached the inn, he heard John’s voice. Whirling around, he watched as he suddenly appeared out of thin air. “Grizella has stolen away with a small portion of our stash.”

  He shrugged. “Ah, why does that not surprise me?”

  “Shall we go after her?”

  “Nay, she will get her just rewards in the end. For now, I have other matters more important than a jealous wench. I have here what I need most. Grizella is now irrelevant.”

  John neared, his gaze taking in Salena’s weak form. “What ails her?” His square jaw set at the s
ight of Salena’s bloody, bruised body.

  She moaned and rested her head on Falcon’s shoulder. His pulse leapt and he felt a rush of protectiveness burst in his chest when her eyelids fluttered up at him.

  “She’s been beaten and whipped nearly to death by her own brother. She will need your healing touch, my friend.”

  John’s gaze fell upon her with a deep affection. “I shall be honored to touch her.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Wyngate Hall

  One month later

  Salena pulled the black mask over her head and settled it over her eyes. She saw that her sword and longbow were secured at her hip and back. Her cloak swirled around her body as she walked. It felt quite liberating, she thought as she moved to the desk in the study, to wear men’s clothing. The freedom of movement, the warmth…the way the braies rubbed over her clit and kept her in a constant state of arousal. She simply dreaded returning home in the early morning hours and being forced to don those cumbersome layers of skirts and bodices once again.

  But for now, excitement coursed through her veins. She must hurry, though. Her husband would be here soon to escort her to her mount. She’d awakened from her nap in a sudden state of curiosity. Her deceased mother’s letter confiscated by Falcon in this very room had called to her. Until this moment, she’d refused to read it. But now, something told her it was time to address the puzzle of her brother and then lay it to rest forever.

  All Falcon had relayed to her was that Sheldon had wanted her dead in order to inherit Wyngate Hall and all its land. She’d purposely asked Falcon not to elaborate. Just having gone through that horrible ordeal with Sheldon, and seeing the devil that had rode him, had been traumatic enough. Thanks to the serfs who’d turned against him—and to Lorcan’s persuasive talents with the king—Sheldon had been sentenced to a score of years in King Henry’s prison for his atrocities against her. At first, it had been difficult without him around. As children, they’d been the best of friends. But now in looking back, she recalled how he’d suddenly started acting like an ogre struggling to keep his temper in check. All of the sudden, he’d had her betrothed to the duke, then almost as quickly, he’d begun delaying the wedding day, making excuse after excuse.