“How was I to know that there was another group of bandits besides your own merry men?” she replied tartly, pulling away to stand on her own. He stood very close and was looking down at her with a particular light in his eyes.
“My merry men, as you call them, are not so desperate as those men who accosted you this day,” he said, again being serious. “These were men who have nothing to lose, and may even go so far as to harm a noblewoman in the stead of ransoming her. They have lost their homes and the lands they’ve farmed for Ludlow for generations. They hate the prince and his agent, the sheriff . . . and all the gentry equally.”
Now he closed his fingers around her hand and tugged her away from the small clearing created by the altercation. The horse followed docilely behind Robin, who still held on to the reins.
“They’ve lost their homes? Because of the king’s taxes, and the sheriff?” Marian knew that Robin spoke the truth and he was not exaggerating the role he’d played in saving her. There had been an empty, feral light in the eyes of the man who had first grabbed her, as if he, indeed, did not have anything to lose.
“The sheriff has collected the taxes, aye, of course, and that has left many of the people of this shire homeless and without position. Some of them are more desperate than others, for they also have resorted to stealing or murder for gain.”
“You and your men,” she asked, looking up at him, “do you murder?”
“Nay, Marian, what do you take me for?” Robin asked. “I may be an outlaw, a landless lord, but I still have my honor. That I shall never lose. And when Richard returns, all will be set to right.” He paused, but did not release her hand as he looped the horse’s reins tightly around a sapling. “And that which I st-borrow from the wealthy. What I take is no more than what John takes off the top of the king’s coffers for his own trunks-none of which is accounted for to Richard. I keep only that which I need to live upon-and in the wood, ’tis very little-and the rest is shared among the villagers, Marian. I am an outlaw, but I steal to live.”
She believed him, believed that while he enjoyed the adventure and the daring, he also meant his gains to help others.
“Where are we going?” she asked as he began pushing through the brush and she realized just how far they’d gone into the wood.
He looked back down at her, his good humor showing once more. “The sheriff will soon be on your trail-for your scream echoed through the wood and likely woke the bats and owls from their sound sleep. ’Twas only good fortune that my men and I were near enough to arrive first.”
“Good fortune, or sly planning?” Marian asked, ducking under a low-hanging branch. She did not care that sticks and leaves clung to her sagging braids, or that the train of her riding gown-which was extra long in order to create a fashionable image while spread over the rump of her horse-dragged through the dirt. She was with Robin. Her heart pounded in anticipation and her lips curved in a teasing smile as she glanced up at him.
“Most definitely sly planning,” he confessed with a grin. “Did you not know I wished to see you again?”
“I could not have guessed it, knowing that you have spread your favors among the other ladies. Joanna could not have been prouder if the green ribbon you gave her had come from the king himself.” She realized she was still carrying her arrow, which was tipped with blood from the hands of her attacker, and she paused to wipe it clean on a mossy tree.
Robin snorted in a derisive fashion. “The king would no sooner gift a lady with his favor than I would grant mine to the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire.”
Marian had heard tales of King Richard’s disinterest in women-an anomaly, considering the lusty blood from both father and mother that flowed in his veins. Whether he suffered from a different affliction, and preferred men-as some believed-or whether he was merely too busy making war to care about the fair sex, no one was certain. At any rate, he had recently espoused Princess Berengaria of Navarre in a hasty wedding, and by all accounts had consummated the marriage.
Slipping the clean arrow back into her quiver, Marian chided, “But you were sneaking through the halls of Ludlow Keep! Robin, how foolish of you.”
At that moment, he stopped and spun her sharply about. The quiver slipped to the edge of her shoulder. Marian felt the solid trunk of a tree behind her, and the rough bark under her hands, pressing into the back of her head as he crowded close to her.
“I wanted to see you, Marian,” he said. “I was well aware of my risk.” He gripped her arm as his other hand moved toward her head, and she felt her sagging hair loosen even further. “I hoped to see you last eve, to ensure that you returned to the keep safely.”
“You know I was safe with the sheriff. With Will.” There . . . she’d said it-reminded him that they both knew the sheriff from their childhoods.
