Everything I Do: a Robin Hood romance (Rosa Fitzwalter Book 1)

by M. C. Frank

  So tables were put out and dresses were sewn and the castle walls were patched-up hastily. In the kitchens, maids were busy from dawn till dark, working their fingers to the bone.

  Soon enough the guests began arriving: a trickling of fine courtiers at first, and then, as the day of the banquet approached, their number increased until every bedchamber in the castle was filled to capacity.

  Opulent lords with rotund bellies and fair-faced youths offered their arms to beautiful maidens who strolled the grounds. Grand ladies, gossiping and rustling with silks turned their fans in flirtation, and a band of troubadours filled the grand hall with music every single day.

  Sir Gavin sent to the forest for a few more men to add to his own guard, for in those days danger was certainly lurking about when so many lords and ladies gathered. And so the day of the feast approached.

  In the meantime Robin was facing unforeseen difficulties.

  Soon after he was gone from the castle it became apparent to him that it would be extremely dangerous if not foolhardy to return. For all he knew, the Sheriff might have the place watched.

  So for the sake of his men Robin had to stay where he was, and that’s what he did, praying day and night that his love was safe and still believing in him though they were apart.

  He heard with trepidation of Sir Gavin’s grand plans, but he knew that this was the right thing to do, or they were all of them lost. He watched over his men as they recuperated from battle, and put his camp in order, hunting and fashioning new weapons like he did of old.

  But he’d left his heart behind, in Sir Gavin’s castle, gazing longingly inside the tiny window where Rosa’s candle was burning for him nightly.

  Rosa, however, was entirely occupied with thinking about Julian for the moment.

  She had no intention of losing her brother again once she had found him -if, indeed it was he. But it was proving harder and harder each day that passed to get him to talk to her, let alone to like her. Let alone to believe her fantastic story of how his little sister was alive.

  She had turned over the matter in her mind most profoundly, and judged the coincidence of the miniature portrait along with the hazy memories of her very early childhood, weighing them with care, and had come to a conclusion. The most possible, if improbable explanation, was that he and the lonely boy from her dreams were one and the same. How it had come about she hardly knew, but she hoped that once she had him to herself she would tell him the part of the story she remembered, and then he’d provide the rest of the details.

  But Julian had scarcely spoken two words together to her.

  He kept watch over her and he tried to find some way to occupy his time, but he was clearly unhappy and perhaps even resentful towards her.

  “You are not content, my lady,” Sir Gavin said to her one day. “Are your injuries giving you pain still?”

  She was taking a stroll through his gardens, dressed in a simple silk dress with a cream bodice and a red overskirt lined with fur, an ethereal headpiece stirring in the morning breeze with her hair. The grounds were gleaming with the last of the snow in the late afternoon sun, and Sir Gavin was seated in a stone bench in a corner, watching her in his quiet way.

  “No my lord,” Rosa replied absent-mindedly. “Thanks to your capable and caring maids as well as the multitude of healers you have provided for me, I hardly feel any pain.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” Sir Gavin said calmly. His eyes never left her face, however. “But there is something that troubles you, and I would like to know what that is.”

  It was strange, his way of almost never asking for anything, but always demanding, simply stating. Yet no one ever seemed to be able to refuse him.

  “It is…” Rosa inclined her head slightly towards the stables, where Julian was seen grooming his horse. “It is my guard,” she finished her phrase, helplessly.

  Sir Gavin was on his feet.

  “I will send immediately to the forest for a replacement,” he said, “Has he insulted you? Harmed you in any way?”

  “No, no, of course not,” Rosa said fiercely, hurrying towards Sir Gavin. She stopped him, stepping right in front of him and looked into his fiery grey eyes. “It is quite the opposite. I… and he, we are…”

  Sir Gavin took an involuntary step backwards, as though he had been slapped.

  “Oh,” he said, “I see. I was wrong indeed. The wind seems to be blowing in the opposite direction, as they say…”

  “I am not sure what you mean,” Rosa interrupted him, “but I don’t think you understand me quite. You see, Julian is… my brother.”

  She whispered the last word shyly, almost reverently, afraid to believe it herself. That night in the rain shelter, she had persuaded herself that she was merely imagining things. But now, away from the forest, she had had ample time to observe Julian, his mannerisms and his features, and little doubt was left in her heart as to his identity.

  Sir Gavin lifted surprised eyes to her face.

  Then he nodded gravely.

  “Please forgive my presumption,” he murmured, but Rosa didn’t even hear him. She seemed lost in her own thoughts. “Pray, tell me more,” he said.

  That evening, as she was climbing the several flights of stairs to her room, Julian intercepted her. He ran after her and jumped three steps ahead of her, so that he was towering above her in a second.

  “Forgive me, my lady,” he said formally. “Sir Gavin said you wanted to see me immediately after supper. So here I am.”

  Rosa leaned back and sighed with exasperation.

  “Stop calling me ‘your lady’ and speaking in that foolish manner, as though I was the queen,” she said, all the disappointment and frustration erupting from her.

  Julian bent his head low and then he lifted his green gaze to hers and looked her in the eye, his pain and hostility naked.

  “What do you want, then?” he asked disdainfully.

  “I want you to listen,” she answered, sudden tears pricking her eyes. “Only that. And then you are free to go, if you like. Go, and continue to hate me.”

  She took him to her room, where they would have privacy; she didn’t care for the impropriety of it. She didn’t care what he thought of her, how her sudden need to speak her mind struck him. She only wanted to have her say. And she did.

  …

  She told him a story.

  Their story.

  She told it from the very beginning. She started with a mother who was a princess starved for love and a father who was a Sheriff greedy for power and riches. She told of the mother’s faithlessness that resulted in a boy child, Julian.

  And of a little girl, born rightfully within their broken marriage, herself, Rosa, although then she was called by another name.

  She told him about the discovery, a few months after the little girl’s birth, of the previous act of adultery, and of the older boy’s true parentage, and the anger, the hurt of the father, who was also the Sheriff.

  She told of how, in a fit of rage, he sent his wife with her bastard son away, to the ends of the land, to live as beggars and how she, seeking to revenge him, stole his little girl also, leaving him alone and desperate, and searching the land to get her back.

  She said how, as she herself remembered it, one day in her fifth year, their mother gone almost mad with hunger and grief and lust for lovers who had abandoned her long ago, she -her own mother- had put the little girl out in the snow and ordered her to run until she could be seen no more from the small, derelict house.

  The girl, walking on naked, tiny feet, hadn’t taken two steps before she fell face-down in the snow. The boy, by then grown up to almost a young lad, saw everything through the small window and ran to catch his sister as she fell. The woman from inside, their mother, screamed at him, that if he were to offer her a helping hand, he should forget about coming back into the house ever again.

  The boy, Rosa’s story went, did not even have to think about it.

  He took his little sis
ter in his arms and together they traveled south, he hoping to reach her father -although he himself was ignorant of his identity, having been a mere child when he’d been sent away from Nottingham- and she absolutely content in his guidance and company. He did not hit her, like her mother did. He did not tell her how ugly and wicked she was every day, because of her father, like her mother did. He protected her. He made her laugh. He bound her knee when she scraped it raw and he didn’t let her go hungry, like her mother did, but found food for her before he would for himself.

  For the first time in her brief life, she learned what love was.

  She was loved.

  And she loved him.

  One day she saw him swimming in a lake. He had told her to wait for him on the bank, to wait for her bath, but what he was doing seemed easy and fun, his golden hair streaked by the sun, his skin freckled and gleaming wet. So she walked in.

  Julian screamed as soon as he saw the water covering her head, but she couldn’t hear. He swam to her and dove a million times, vowing he would die first rather than leave her there. Finally he found her tiny body. He pulled her out, he pushed against her lungs, he willed her mouth to breathe.

  She became alive again for him.

  The next day they were set upon by the Sheriff’s men. They took her and beat him to a bloody pulp.

  She went on living how she could, believing he had died that day; seeing him every night in her dreams until his memory had faded to a brilliant fantasy, that served as nothing more than a warm thought on a windy night.

  She was given yet a new name.

  But she had left the golden-haired boy behind her for ever.

  Until she saw him again dangling from a tree one day in Sherwood Forest, although at the time she didn’t know it was him.

  The discovery of his identity came to her much later, when she heard him tell the exact same story to Robin Hood’s merry men around the fire, although his ended differently, with her death. And then she had seen the locket with her childhood portrait inside, on the day of the storm, and the broken pieces of her memory had fit together perfectly.

  That was it.

  She turned hopeful eyes to him, silently begging him to confirm her story, to make her happiness come true. Then she leaned back, sighing, and waited. She had said the story and was spent with the effort. There was nothing more to do for now.

  Julian drank every word from her mouth, his expression inscrutable.

  “You mock me,” he said after some moments of silence had passed.

  “No!” she shouted, her voice full of tears. “No, please. Please, listen to me, no.”

  “I know not where you gathered all these facts about my life, but you know nothing of me. Nothing,” he added with venom.

  “But I do know, you have to-”

  “I cannot believe you,” he said, cutting her off, and then his voice broke. He got up to leave. “If you have any mercy, please stop torturing me.”

  And with that, he turned on his heel and left the room.

  …

  The first night of the celebrations Sir Gavin presided over the feast, tall and proud, and insisted that Rosa join in. She was dressed in a rich velvet gown that her maids had chosen for her, a deep emerald, the exact color of her eyes, and Sir Gavin seated himself next to her, music and laughter buzzing merrily all around them.

  “You have hardly eaten anything in days,” he observed in his quietly angry, abrupt manner.

  His hair was tidily tied back by a ribbon and he wore an elegant, midnight blue doublet that complimented his figure. He looked almost regal. The only darkness that was left to him was in the deep corners of his grey eyes.

  Rosa looked up at him, startled.

  She had no energy for conversation. She had only been forced from her room by her maids and by the knowledge that she would be expected by her host to join the company.

  Around them, the jouster had started his tricks and a troubadour was preparing his instrument to spin his fantastical tales. A cluster of ladies young enough they could be his daughters sent fluttering glances towards Sir Gavin’s direction, but he didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he ignored them. “So, why are you not eating?” he persisted.

  He could be exasperatingly persistent when he so wished, she had discovered.

  Instead of an answer, she shrugged.

  “I will not leave, you know,” he said, “until I have an answer.”

  He sat and waited.

  “I forgot to thank you, my lord,” she began, “for inviting me to your table…”

  “You are welcome,” he interrupted her. “Now tell me.” He leaned closer to her and looked into her eyes. “What is it?”

  “It’s to do with my brother,” she answered.

  “He has hurt you,” he said fiercely.

  “It is hard for him to believe in my tale, I understand that,” Rosa replied. “Besides, since he already dislikes me, I shouldn’t be surprised that he didn’t jump at the chance to believe we are related.”

  “It would be his honor, I assure you,” Sir Gavin said quietly. “Did he…?”

  “Please don’t ask me further,” Rosa stopped him. “And please, for God’s sake, don’t speak to him about it, like last time.”

  “Forgive me, I thought I was helping you, my lady,” he said.

  “No, you did help me,” she amended quickly. “And I thank you. But it is over now. Let us speak no more of it.”

  Sir Gavin, much to his astonishment, was beginning to care deeply for this girl he had taken into his household out of pity and calculation. He had learned to respect and admire her immensely on the day of her rescue, for he had seen the grace and courage with which she had borne the lewd insults as well as the whip of the Sheriff’s men -and he her father! Still she had not yielded, nor had she cried out in fear or pleaded for her life.

  He was feeling increasingly protective of her, and had started to care about her well-being for her own sake, as well as for the outlaws’.

  …

  The next morning Rosa was taking a walk, as she did every day. Julian was a bit far behind, but still keeping her in his sight. It was becoming increasingly hard for him to do this, ever since the grounds had been overridden by guests, but he knew his place and managed to keep out of sight while still fulfilling his obligation to his chief.

  Then Rosa turned left into the shrubbery, where she was momentarily concealed by the thick, tall bushes. In a moment, she heard hurried footsteps behind her and before she had had time to turn around, a large, dirty hand was clamped onto her mouth, making it hard to breathe.

  Then her wrists and feet were bound with lightning speed and she was carried away noiselessly.

  Julian had lost her. He became more and more sure of it with every step he took.

  He began calling her name, quietly at first, like asking a question. And when no answer was coming, he shouted more frantically, oblivious to the strange glances he was giving cause to all around. He ran.

  He called to the guards to help him; he became wild, he panicked.

  Finally, when he’d exhausted every inch of the castle’s grounds, he began to wander further and further: that’s how he came upon the lake.

  Just to the northern border of the property, there was a short drop into a circular, decorative lake, which was surrounded by trees. As he reached the place, Julian looked briefly down, pausing for a second in his frantic run, and he saw her.

  At least he thought it was her -he saw someone, a head, rippling through the water briefly, and then submerging again.

  And in that instant, he knew.

  He knew who she was, because the memory came rushing back to him abruptly, like an incredibly real dream. Within seconds the whole thing had played through his head: how he had watched her drown, in almost exactly the same way, years ago, as a little girl; how he had known right there and then than his life would be over if she could not be saved.

  Just like now. He saw it with perfect clarity. And he k
new, by the sudden flash of her red hair a second before she was lost beneath the surface that it was she.

  Rosa. Joanna. Rosa.

  What did it matter?

  She was his sister, his long-lost sister. And she was drowning.

  He didn’t have time to kick off his boots, even though he knew he could swim faster without them.

  He dove from the short cliff, a straight arrow, headfirst into the water. There was no searching this time. He knew exactly where he had seen her sink, and his endurance was better than when he had been a boy. He held his breath and didn’t release it until he surfaced with her.

  He removed a small knife that he always carried concealed in his right boot and he cut her ropes and released her mouth. He held her chin so that she was floating against his chest above the surface of the water, and supported her head with his hands, the salty water mingling with his tears.

  “I believe you,” he whispered, choking on water. “Please forgive me, please.”

  He pushed a few long strands of red hair away from her bruised lips, his own trembling with remorse and terror.

  He turned her on her side, shaking her roughly. After several attempts she opened her eyes and looked at him briefly, coughing out water, before her eyelids drifted shut again, but this small glimpse of life was enough for Julian.

  Gasping in relief, he hugged her to him.

  “I love you, my little girl, my sweet sister,” he choked against her wet hair. “I searched for you for so long it made me bitter and cruel… But I see you for what you are now. I will be your family if you’ll have me.”

  He trod water faster than he had ever thought possible, tugging her close, and, once he’d climbed ashore with her in his arms, he ran like the wind.