Lady Thief Read online

  “Yes,” Rob said, still hidden.

  “And I imagine my darling wife is here as well. Missed me, Marian?”

  John caught my eye and shook his head before I moved. I scowled evil at him.

  “You can talk to me, Gisbourne,” Rob said.

  He smiled. “You can call me Lord Leaford now, Hood,” Gisbourne said.

  Angry heat rushed over me, and I raised myself over the edge of the roof. “What have you done to my father, Gisbourne?” I yelled, even over John swearing at me.

  Gisbourne looked up and touched his fingers to his forehead, mocking a bow to me. “Apparently it’s easier than I thought to draw you out, my dear.”

  The sight of him made my scar itch. He looked well enough—a little thinner, but still tall, harsh, clothed entirely in black with spots of silver gleaming from his weapons, his fastenings, his sword belt. I had spent so long fighting this man, running from him, fearing him, and he were here, alone. He almost seemed unimpressive.

  I couldn’t help peering round him to look for some sort of ambush. I caught sight of Much, and he shrugged and shook his head.

  “I’m alone,” Gisbourne assured. “I called for Robin to speak to you, in fact.”

  “Speak.”

  “No pleasantries? Haven’t you missed me, wife? Everyone at court was quite devastated to have missed the wedding. I accepted their best wishes on your behalf, naturally.”

  “Tell me what you did to my father, Gisbourne!”

  “You needn’t worry about him,” Gisbourne said. “Lord Leaford is quite unharmed. I only meant that when I married you I assumed the land and title that were promised in our contract—something, you’ll be delighted to learn, that gave me the right to petition the prince for the position of sheriff.”

  My heart went to lead in my chest. I hadn’t thought of that.

  “Which he is coming to Nottinghamshire to give to me, within a few days. And when he arrives, you will be living under my roof like a proper, dutiful wife.”

  “Like hell I will!” I roared.

  He threw his head back and laughed. “I’ve missed this, sweeting. Witty banter. Well, I needn’t remind you of the cruelty I can inflict upon your people as sheriff. Clearly it’s even entered your mind what I could do to your parents, your home, and dependents as the rightful landholder. But I won’t force you with violence, my love. I will entice you.”

  “I doubt that,” I snapped back.

  Even through the dusk, his dark eyes glittered fierce. “We can play these games all I want, Marian, but we both know you don’t want to be married to me. You married me to save Robin’s life, and I will offer you a bargain—perhaps the Devil’s bargain, as it were.”

  He took a breath, still smiling at me.

  “I’ll annul our marriage as soon as the prince leaves if you live with me while he is here.”

  Hope rushed fast like a flood into my chest. An annulment? I could live with Robin without the cloud of sin over us. I could marry Robin.

  “You’d kill me,” I said. “There’s no trusting you. The second I was close enough you’d gut me like a deer.”

  He shrugged. “My temper can get the better of me, of course, but I don’t intend to kill you. Besides, I recall you telling me you were rather difficult to kill, yes?”

  “Why would you even want this, Gisbourne?” I asked. “It’s a fool offer.”

  “You have my word that I won’t kill you, and that once the prince leaves you will have your annulment. Should you accept, you will dress, speak, act, and be fully disarmed the way a lady befitting your station should. These are my terms, and if you would accept them, you need only come to the castle and join me in my chambers.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Why isn’t important,” he told me, smiling a little. “The only thing you need to consider is what you’re willing to do to marry your dear hero. Because trust me, love, you’ll never get an annulment from me otherwise. And if this doesn’t go the way I want and you are not under my roof, when I become sheriff I will have no guarantee for what blood my displeasure will purchase. I’m being—what’s the word—kind.” He smirked at me in the darkness. “You’re looking quite fetching these days. I can see your scar from here. Lovely.”

  I turned from him, hiding behind the ridge of the roof. He laughed, and it were ghoulish and echoed round me in the dark.

  “Feeling shy, love?” Gisbourne taunted.

  “She gave you her answer,” Rob said. “You can go. Unless you would like for us to entice you.”

  “Think about it, Marian,” he called. “All the red ribbons you could want. Though I imagine your hair is a little too short for them since our last encounter.”

  Frowning, I pushed my hair off my face. It were wild, never staying tied back since Gisbourne had thought he could use it to hold me and I’d cut it off to be free of him.

  I reckoned he left then. I didn’t hear nothing more, but I didn’t move from the roof none.

  John called up to me but it were Robin that climbed the roof, taking my hand. “You’re not going anywhere near him, Scar. We’ll find another way.”

  I nodded and sniffed, and he tugged my hand and we climbed down, side by side. He held fast to my hand the long way back to the monastery, and I loved it. I wanted him near me more than anything.

  He showed me the vial the monk had given him as we took out the bedrolls and set them near the fire. “He said I’ll sleep sound,” he told me. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Scar.”

  I tucked close along his side as he drank it down. “I weren’t never afraid of you, Rob,” I said. It were a lie, I think. But it were truth in the notion that the fear weren’t never what I chose to hold to. I loved him more than I feared his dreams.

  When we laid our bedrolls out, I nudged mine closer to Rob, and he nudged his closer to mine till they slid together and looked like one bed. When we laid down, his arm slid over my hips and snugged me close, his chin hooked over my shoulder and his breath rushed over my neck, like every bit of him were slipping around me and binding us together. This were what two souls merging into one were meant to feel like.

  I wanted to stay awake, to treasure this, to roll it over in my mind till I had picked up every little bit of it, like baling hay. But it were just moments before I fell asleep, safe in his heart.

  Chapter Five

  I woke in some strange form of hell. The fire weren’t all out; it were glowing and red and making red glow around me. But Robin weren’t behind me, he were on top of me and screaming. His fist crashed down over my face and I yelled too, finding my legs and bucking him off me. I reached for the knife I kept by my pillow when I saw it flash in his hand.

  “Scar!” yelled Much as Rob lunged for me.

  I swung my leg down and kicked his out so he fell. The knife skittered and Much ran for it. I jumped on Rob, pinning his arms down. “Robin!” I shrieked. “Rob!”

  He roared like a gutted animal. He twisted his leg up and kicked me hard in the belly. I fell off him and he followed, slamming his bear paw on my face again. I rolled him, punching him back and hitting him so hard in the face it made pain rush up my arm.

  “Scar, get him outside!” Much yelled.

  Rob rolled me again, but I were ready this time and tucked both my legs up to push him hard back. I leapt up, dizzy and swimming, and grabbed Much’s good hand and ran.

  We ran for the door and the night and the snow, and Rob followed us, grabbing my hair as we opened the door.

  I swallowed a scream but fought tooth and nail to get outside, letting him crush me into the snow.

  The moment the snow hit us he sucked in a hard gasp and rolled off of me. “Scar?” Much called. “Scar?”

  I pushed up off the snow, and it were stained with red where my face were. I were shaking hard and when I tried, my legs wouldn’t hold me none, and I fell to the stone in the cloisters.

  Much stripped off his overshirt and stuffed it with snow, bringing it back to me and
pressing it to my face. Rob were down the row, huffing and trying to breathe and I couldn’t help him. My bones were shaking so hard I thought they’d tear straight apart.

  “Don’t let him see,” I mumbled to Much. “Please.”

  Much were whiter than the snow, but he nodded.

  Rob turned toward us. “Scar,” he said, like his mouth were half full of rocks.

  Much stood over me, blocking me from him. “Just go inside, Rob,” he said quiet.

  “Where’s John?”

  “I don’t know,” Much answered. “Please, go inside.”

  I heard Rob’s breath still huffing out hard. Then I heard his feet scuff over the stone and the door creak open.

  Much turned back to me, but I were bent over my body, heartbroken and bleeding and letting rivers run from my eyes, cursing the day they tortured Rob and brought back whatever phantom he were fighting now. They had tortured him and now it were torturing me too.

  Much went back in after a while. The monks filed past me for their prayers at sunup. Then John came along and found me, and his face went flat and he went into the warming room.

  I heard raised voices and smacks and thuds. Heat and shame rushed up and I stood, wobbling on my legs, wavering toward the door that didn’t look so fearful in the daylight. My body hollered at me, my stomach turning and rolling. I went into the warming room to find John and Rob with their shirtfronts caught up in each other’s fists, bellowing in each other’s faces.

  “Stop,” I said, and they both fair shocked me by obeying. Rob saw me and he went slack and more than a bit green.

  John let him go, and Rob just hung there like God were a puppet master making a toy with his body. John could bare contain himself; he were huffing through his nose like a bull in pasture.

  “You have to go,” Rob said. I knew he said it to me; he were looking right at me, but I couldn’t imagine he meant it for me.

  We all looked at him. “What?” I squeaked.

  “You have to go,” he said again, swallowing whatever were stuck in his pipes. He looked at me and away. “All of you. I want you to go to Tuck’s and stay there.”

  “No,” I spat. “Don’t be daft.”

  “Daft?” he growled. “Daft? I beat you within an inch of your life and you’d stay here, but I’m crazy? You want me to do it again, is that it?” His voice raised. “Do you want me to kill you?”

  John pushed Rob hard, and he hit the wall.

  “Rob!” I yelled, and it made me hurt everywhere. “We don’t leave each other. You made me promise to stay when all I wanted to do was run, Rob, and that were the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Don’t make me break that oath.”

  Rob straightened up, staying farther from me. “No,” he said. “No. This isn’t the same. This is your safety and my sanity, so you leave or I will, Scar. Tuck will take you in, but I don’t trust myself there.” He swallowed again. “I don’t trust myself anywhere.”

  “I won’t go, Rob,” I told him. “Why can’t we fight this together?”

  “Because it’s not your fight, Scar!” he yelled. “You can’t fight this for me. And I can’t fight this with you.”

  His eyes stared at me, wide and lost, and I felt like every rope tied between us were snapping. I felt bloodless, like I hadn’t anything inside me but bones and air.

  Rob’s eyes dashed away from me. “John, you’ll take her to Tuck’s.”

  “I won’t come back here, Rob,” he told him. “Not for a few nights at the least. I can’t even look at you right now.”

  My eyes dropped to the floor like my gaze were weighted with stone. There were nothing between us all but quiet.

  “Much, go with them,” Rob said.

  Much swallowed, but he nodded.

  John’s big feet shuffled close to me, and he let me lean on him. “Come on,” he told me. “We’re going now. Much, can you gather everything up?”

  Much nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”

  I wanted to yell—to scream that I would stay, that I wouldn’t leave him, that I didn’t much care if it killed me.

  But I didn’t. I let John herd me out, and I didn’t say a thing more, my voice tiny and trapped inside me.

  John led me outside like I were a child, and he walked slow beside me, watching me.

  “I’m fine, you big lug,” I murmured.

  “You’re not. He beat you,” he said, and it turned into a snarl. “Christ, I want to kill him.”

  “He weren’t himself.”

  “I know that. I don’t care about that.” His fist went tight. “And I wasn’t there to help. And I’m furious that somehow this is my responsibility, to be there when everyone is damn well sleeping so that the man you love won’t beat you. This isn’t fair, Scarlet. It is awful to somehow be part of you and Rob. To protect you from him. And I can’t do that anymore. I can’t.” He threw a punch at nothing, batting away the cold. “I loved you, do you know that?”

  He looked at me, but I fixed on the ground. “You never loved me,” I told him soft. “You fancied me, but it weren’t the same.”

  “No, Scar. I loved you, but it wasn’t enough. Love isn’t enough. There has to be other things there, like choice, and duty. I keep thinking these things, Scar—I think about having a family. What it would be like, to be a father. I want that more than anything. That role—it’s more important than everything mashed up together.”

  I dared look up at him. “You’d be an uncommon good father, John,” I told him.

  His shoulders lifted a bit. “Do you think?” he asked, his voice awful quiet.

  “I just said so, didn’t I?”

  “Bess is with child,” he said soft. “My child—”

  “John!” I yelled, and winced at the pain that shot through my face. “Ow.”

  He smirked. “Easy. I asked her to marry me—to make a right family of it all—and she hasn’t said yes yet. And waiting for her answer, Scar, it burns. Every second burns. Because maybe she won’t. Maybe all my sins have piled up so high I’m beyond saving, and I’m not supposed to have a family.” I started to protest—of all the damn things!—but he shook his head. “And my point is that maybe if you have the chance to annul your marriage, you should take it. Rob’s crazier than a bag full of cats right now, but he loves you. And it has to be killing him that he can’t be to you what he wants to be, because love isn’t enough. You have to choose that person. You have to choose them every damn day. I made my choice—you have to make yours.”

  That were it, the thing that had been rolling round my mind like a loose marble. “You think I should take Gisbourne’s offer.” Shivers ran through me as I thought of that day in the castle, when he had me by the throat, squeezing, and his growled words: I want to see you die. I want to see the light tamp out of those devil’s eyes.

  “No,” he said, kicking a branch out of his path. “No. I don’t think you should go to Gisbourne. I don’t think you should go back to Rob. I don’t think you’re getting anything done by staying at Tuck’s. There isn’t a right way here, Scar, but if I were Rob … I’d want that annulment more than anything.” He looked at me. “The monks said you were asking about how to get out of a marriage. Seems you want this annulment too.”

  “I do,” I admitted. “And sometimes I think, there ain’t nothing what I can’t take, thinking on all we’ve already been through. What could Gisbourne possibly do that I couldn’t take?”

  “Kill you,” he said quiet.

  “He wants something. It’s such a strange offer, he wouldn’t make it just to kill me.”

  “He well might, Scarlet. But say he is telling the truth. There are other ways he could hurt you.”

  I remembered listening to the things my sister had to do in London, the way men touched her. It pushed blood into my cheeks and made me shiver. “Not if he wants an annulment.”

  “You want the annulment. What if he doesn’t really want an annulment?”

  My shoulders shrugged up, but I didn’t answer him.
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br />   “You’re already married, Scar. If he can’t—or won’t—swear before a priest that you’re still a virgin, there is no annulment. That’s all it takes. He outweighs you by more than a hundred pounds, at least. If he comes after you in close quarters, there isn’t much you and your knives can do about it.”

  I were starting to sway, my head dizzying round.

  “I know I’m scaring you, Scar, even if you can’t admit it. You should be scared. You have a lot of fight ahead of you no matter which way you go.”

  Rubbing my arms didn’t do nothing for the cold, for the hot swirl in my head. “I’m tired of fighting, John.”

  “We’ve all been fighting more than our fair share, Scar. Maybe both of us should start fighting for our happy ending.”

  My eyes shut and my eyeballs felt like ice behind them, like little bits of my eye had gone to frost. “What if there ain’t an end, and it ain’t happy besides?” I asked him. “How could it be, after all this?”

  “I don’t know, Scar.”

  “Can we stop?” I said. My stomach were overtight and rolling and twisting. “I think … ugh,” I whined, bending over, ready to cast up anything that remained in my belly. Nothing came up, but the pain didn’t ease and the world were sliding round me.

  “Come on, we need to get you out of the cold,” he said, tugging my arm.

  I straightened, standing on wobbly knees. My head beat a cruel tattoo, and it were choking me. “J-John—” I never got a chance to finish the thought, as the dark trees and bright day pushed together and changed to total dark.

  My eyes were bare open before my belly twisted and I retched. I were in a bed, and the best place seemed to be off the side of it. Lucky there were a pot there, and someone set my face toward it.

  When I were done, I looked, and it were Ellie, one of Tuck’s girls. She petted the duck feathers left of my hair where I’d cut it off months before. “You all right?” she asked.

  I shut my eyes and hugged the pillow, but the lumps Rob had put on me yelled in protest and I rolled onto my back. “Christ,” I moaned.