A brook bubbled by, trickling down the hill and pooling beneath them. She dismounted and brought her beast alongside his.
“South. Toward London town.”
“Southwest then. Better plan on two days of my desirable company instead.” He smirked.
…
Wonderful. She unstrapped her packs and rolled her eyes.
She moved opposite the fire ring from him, plopping down against a log in the secluded campsite. Where had he gotten the logs from? It seemed as if he withdrew them from under a tarp, though it was too difficult to determine in the sheltered darkness of the trees. Robert squatted and struck his flints until the sparks ignited a piece of kindling, the ensuing fire making light and shadows lap at the surrounding tree trunks. She examined him in the dimness of the light, noticing how the earl, so pampered in his estates and riches, seemed not only at ease with the mundane activities of a commoner, but actually seemed expert, as if he always camped in the woods with nothing but a bedroll. In fact, he looked rugged on his splayed knees in the dirt, with his jerkin creaking, his hands dirty, and his disheveled hair falling around his face.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, reaching for a pack and dragging it to him. He pulled out a pouch of dried meat and jammed a chunk into his mouth.
She shook her head. She had made a point to eat her fill every day of her recovery and was stuffed. “My thanks, but no.”
“Ah, manners,” he teased, dropping to his rear and extending his legs, crossing them. “You have them.” She scowled at him. “So tell me, since we’re in each other’s company. What prompted the Beast of Ayr’s daughter to flee?”
“Why should I tell you? You’re practically his peer. Since I’m nay your prisoner, you surely have nay considered sending a missive to tell him of my capture. The less information I give anyone, the better. I intend to never let him get his hands on me again.”
The teasing in Robert’s expression vanished, replaced by gentleness. “I haven’t written your father, and I won’t, if that’s your wish. I’m not escorting you to keep my eye on you in some conspiracy to return you to your father, despite what you might think,” he replied. He was looking at her intently, and she shifted under his scrutiny. “I don’t know what life was like for you in your father’s charge, and I believe that property laws pertaining to women are antiquated. But I can imagine that if living with him was anything like living with my father, he ruled with a heavy hand.
“I know your father, though I was the son on the occasion he visited, not the earl. Your father and mine became friends after King Richard left for the Holy Land.” Silence lingered and he averted his eyes from her, toward the inky blackness of Huntington Forest. “The Sheriff of Nottingham introduced them at the request of Ranulf de Blondeville. They seemed very much alike.”
Mariel pondered his words before gentling herself. “Did your father raise you with a heavy hand?”
“Me? No,” Robert replied, still looking away and tearing off another bite before folding his arms. “No, I was the favored son. His heir. Any siblings I had died at childbirth. But my mother, yes. I once begged him to hit me instead, on an occasion when he was particularly angry at her, for as a lad of five and ten I was certain I was tough enough to take it. He just laughed and told me a husband needed to guide his wife with an ‘iron fist’ when necessary.” Mariel shivered at his description, thinking on the words her father had spoken to her about her betrothal. “She died a week later,” Robert added. “Supposedly she hit her head on the bedpost whilst stumbling in the night for the chamber pot, but in sooth, I never saw her after that moment with my father. I know he killed her.”
“I’m sorry,” Mariel whispered, covering her mouth at his bluntness.
He shrugged, looking into the fire, but didn’t look up. She thought on his confession, how freely he had given it with no concern for appearing soft. And yet, oh, to have been a son and not a daughter. She would have been the favored heir, too, instead of loathed for her gender. She cleared her throat. Robert’s confession threatened to soften her anger.
“’Tis clever, this camp, how you have hidden a supply of firewood.” She changed the subject.
He welcomed the diversion. “I keep track of who’s on my land. I started the scheme a few months ago when my father was finally too weak to give orders. It provides ready supplies for when I, or a handful of my men, are in need,” he said cryptically. “There are other necessities here, too, hidden to the naked eye.”
“Why do you tell me secrets such as this? Surely it’s a breach in your security.”
Robert shrugged again, eyeing her with a secret she could tell he wished to share. “I know I can trust you.”
“Why is that? I might be prepared to tell all about your strategy.”
His lips curled up knowingly. “But you won’t. Because I’m not a horrible urchin. You like me, and you have a particular disdain for authority…and it’s not as though you know exactly where my stashes of firewood are hidden, now do you?”
What arrogant assumptions to make, except they were true. All of them. “I suppose I don’t. I, eh, I did not mean any ill by stealing your hare. I’m sorry.”
He waved his hand dismissively and seemed to smile at her Scottish brogue. “I never would have apprehended you. I would have bid you enjoy it, at least, invited you to my hall, at most. My men are adapting to my change of philosophy toward the poor. Wesley, however, is as determined to prove I will drain my father’s coffers as Noah was of building the ark. Yet my wealth only continues to grow. Why is that?”
She shrugged. “Though he is a pompous arse, I would agree that his concern is real.”
“Most would.” Robert nodded. “But you see, my idea is novel and seems to be working. It breaks the normal convention that people are born into an impoverished station to serve as lowly serfs and that they deserve no respect. If I ensure that the poor beggar that ends up on my doorstep knows charity, he is more inclined to stay in my village.”
“Which again might be a drain on resources, food supplies and such, for your lands have not grown, but now your population has,” Mariel replied.
“And that is the typical concern. But you see”—Robert shook his finger at nothing in particular for emphasis—“every person can be industrious. And if that person can cultivate and farm one more field, well, that is several bushels more of corn, barley, and such. And since I have a surplus, once the castle stores are filled, the rest can go to market to bring in more coin. And if it doesn’t sell, it can be given to Barking Abbey in place of my annual tributes made in coin.
“But say that beggar is a skilled weaver, or smith, or woodworker, or perhaps though not skilled, is inclined to learn. For example, I give you a family that came to me as my father lay dying. The husband is a skilled leatherworker, and his craft brought in a fair price at the tourney. He keeps most and pays a contribution to me as fealty. Both of us have benefited. That, and his wife has a particularly green thumb. She is now in charge of the herb garden behind the kitchens.
“People want to be productive, all of us in some way. We wish to know that we matter, and hard work gives us a sense of worth. Some, through tragedy or accident of birth, end up lowly. But I am of the opinion that it’s not what station a man is born into that defines his worth. So far, my ways seem to be working. Their industriousness brings in more coin over the long run, which balances out what is given in charity now, and if they should stay on, the more men, the merrier.”
“And women,” Mariel added.
“Of course,” he conceded. “It takes time to change the allegiances of men, and women, who have only known one path. Sometimes it can take generations. But I do know that if King Richard doesn’t return soon from the Crusade, your father’s corrupt ambitions will be ruinous.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, sitting forward.
“Surely you know he vies to usu
rp the Scottish crown and will go to great lengths to do so,” Robert said. “Why do you think he tries to strengthen his English familial ties with the Duke of Brittany? De Blondeville took over the Dukedom by marrying Prince Geoffrey’s widow, and your father claims King Richard, Geoffrey, and their two other brothers are his second cousins. If he can make a case for his royal relation and show that he has influence here in England, and that those Englishmen are willing to support him with either men, finances, or both, he hopes it will be enough to force King William to abdicate.”
“’Tis preposterous,” Mariel said, scoffing. ’Twas ridiculous of her father, and yet, such an ignorant, power-hungry ambition didn’t surprise her. “Surely he doesn’t think it will work, does he? King William is unequivocally entitled and already has recognized two bastard sons that we know of. His line is secured and unquestioned.”
“True,” he said, lingering on her response. “Had you any idea your father’s wiles?”
“No.” She shook her head. “But I’ve never been privy to his plans, being the ill-favored heiress. And to be honest, I don’t give credence to his plotting. I imagine many nobles scheme away their lives, hoping to someday wear the jewels. I did know that he wished to marry me off to a powerful English earl. Rumors were that the earl was harsh with his women.”
A knowing expression fluttered across Robert’s face. “Do you know who he was?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. He told me it did not concern me. It’s the reason I stole one of his horses and fled. I could endure his lashings, knowing I might one day marry and escape him, but I could never submit myself to a lifetime of matrimony to someone just like him.”
“I’m glad you did.” Robert leveled a gaze at her. “I’m aware of your father’s marriage efforts on your behalf.”
“How so?” she demanded, straightening and then crossing her legs.
A mistake, she realized. His gaze dipped to the junction of her thighs. To his credit, he quickly looked away, but did she detect a hint of redness creeping onto his cheeks? Mayhap shame? It was too difficult to determine in the poor, flickering light.
“You’ve come by your calluses honestly, Mariel,” he conceded. “Your father sought to arrange a marriage betwixt my father and his oldest daughter—”
She gasped, speechless, then narrowed her eyes, and whispered, “What?”
“’Tis true. Your father was dissatisfied with what he called King William of Scotland’s ‘ineptitude.’ He hoped that marrying you into a powerful English earldom would strengthen his case to usurp King William’s authority, for then he would also have my father’s backing.”
“A foolish plan,” Mariel interjected. “For he’s only second cousin to the Plantagenet brothers, and unrecognized at that.”
“To be certain. I assume the daughter he sought to marry off was you. My father would have been your husband.” He shook his head, his gaze on her gentle but still steady through the flames. “Trust, Mariel, now that I know who you are, I’m glad to God that your flight and my father’s illness stalled your marriage. I wouldn’t want to know you now and see you in his clutches, unable to do a thing about it.”
Mariel looked away. She shivered, at first from the thought of Robert’s father, then because it was chilly in the nighttime air when they weren’t exerting themselves, and finally from the unmistakable affection in his words. She pulled loose her bedroll, a tattered blanket that had seen so many campsites and clandestine visits to haylofts, it had thinned to a threadbare rag. Still, it was all she had, and she wrapped it around her shoulders.
Robert eyed her again, then pulled loose his thick, woolen blanket and tossed it over the flame to her. “There. Use that.”
Startled, she looked at the blanket, then freed a hand and tossed it back. “What about you?”
He huffed with uninhibited irritation. “Why must you always complain at every charitable thing done for you?” He tossed it back, and because she was stubborn, she tossed it back once more.
“Because men are only charitable when they’re scheming something. I do not want any man’s pity or charity, for I do not want to be indebted to him. This way, I can continue to live freely, just like a man has the right.”
“If your brand of freedom—hiding and sneaking and playacting at entering archery contests is truly freedom, I’m sorely glad I’m not so trapped.”
His gaze was unwavering through the flames, his hazel eyes dancing with light as he folded his arms over the blanket. She could tell the battle of wills was not over. It was written all over his face as he considered her. He might not get her to use the blanket, or keep the coin purse, but he would finally win. It excited her, annoyed her, scared her, and yet, already she was building a fantasy about him being kind and benevolent, not another actor in the twisted game of power and domination the peerage played.
“I haven’t liaised with Charlotte in more than five months,” he finally started. Here it is. His next strategy to disarm her emotions. It was effective, too, because for some reason his mistress throwing herself at him had gouged her near the region in her chest where the heart typically lingered. “I broke it off when she became betrothed and my father took to the sick bed, for I had no interest in pursuing her. I truly am sorry she came tonight. It wasn’t my plan. She thought to rekindle an affair since her fiancé died.”
“You owe me no explanation,” Mariel said, looking away. “Sleep with whom you like, ’tis not my affair―”
“It bothered you, and you and I both know it. Just as it bothered me to think that John was swiving you. Why is that?” he asked, though the tone in his voice suggested he already knew.
“I suppose you have some grand notion in mind already,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“I do. I think you allowed him to proposition you in order to make me angry. Or jealous.”
“I did nothing of the sort.” She huffed, rolling her eyes again.
He smiled. “You did, too. And it worked. I was downright pissed and wanted only to smash John’s face in, snatch you away from him, and seat you beside me where I had intended to dine with you in the first place.”
The remark rendered her speechless. So he had intended to place her beside himself. So she had made him jealous. At her silence, Robert stood, then walked around the flame toward her, blanket in hand. Mariel bit her lip and dropped her gaze. She shrank back. She had not shied from a man since that final day before she had left home, when her father had threatened to punish her for her disobedience. Why she did so now, she couldn’t say, for there was nothing threatening about Robert’s approach. Seductive, mayhap…definitely. But not threatening.
He arrived at her side and squatted so he looked at eye level, his thighs spread wide as he settled on his knees. Dropping loose the blanket, he laid it carefully around her shoulders. Then he lifted her chin with his finger like he had the first day they met.
“You’re a hard one to win over,” he murmured, brushing the loose strands of her braid behind her ears. She shivered. “I wish you would at least give me a chance.”
“A chance for what?” she whispered.
“I think you know that answer,” he replied. “To get to know you. I’m not your adversary. I’m not a hard man. I like women, but I don’t respect them for throwing themselves at me. You haven’t done that.”
“But why me?” she whispered. “Of all the women you can pick from, you pick me—skinny, dressed as a common lad with nary a notion of femininity, no rouge to darken my lips, no gowns to make me fuller…”
She swallowed the cursed vulnerability that threatened to weaken her. She needed the barbs she wrapped herself within, needed to protect the desperation kept locked in her heart for fear of it weakening her. She couldn’t allow him to look at her as he was, with desire, with compassion, with pity. She needed her old trousers and quiver of arrows to keep a man from loving her, because m
en never lasted. They were like her father, or they loved and left. She was on her own, and her heart couldn’t take the pain of caring for someone who would let her down.
He caressed back the tendrils of hair hanging loose around her face, whimsical and free, smoothed her skin with his fingertips. She watched his hazel gaze dip from her eyes to her lips, her jaw, following the path his fingers blazed across her skin. His gaze was sincere, and his touch, oh-so-gentle. How was it possible to feel weak in the knees when she was not even standing, to feel her heart race like a horse galloping through the woods, even though she sat at rest? In that moment, her heart betrayed her. She wished he would kiss her again. There was no denying it anymore.
…
Her eyes, so very green, her lips, so lush and kissable, her delicate jawline and classical nose, her slender legs, curved hips, a bosom that boasted good health, all of it captured Robert’s attention. But not more than the urge he felt to envelop her in his hold, to make promises and assurances he knew he couldn’t keep. God, but she was a beauty, even bundled within her coat of arms protecting her heart. And there was no mistaking it: she might comport herself with bravado, but she was vulnerable. Only a rogue would take advantage of it for his own gratification, and he was most definitely not the rogue she thought him to be.
He thought of the ribbon that still sat against his chest within his coat. If it was hers, it held a special meaning and had once been beautiful. Whatever the reason for keeping it, despite its faded state, it must have reminded her of a time when beauty had mattered.
And her aim. She had a talent he wished he could convince her was worth employing. He also understood now why she had become so good at vanishing, now that he knew more about her. If she took up residence anywhere, if he employed her, her father would sooner or later learn of a lady archer residing at his home and know it was her. The sheriff would come for her and the law would be on his side. Robert would have to let her go because the only way he would be able to intervene on her behalf was if she were his wife. And didn’t Richard Plantagenet’s court already know he was reluctant to get to the altar?
An Earl for an Archeress Page 8