by Sue Wilson
Nottingham lay down beside her, beneath the cover of a worn blanket. For a moment, he stared, unblinking, at the ceiling, at the drying branches of herbs, at the rafters that her dead husband had built.
He had been wrong to take her from this place, to use his power with such nonchalance that he ordered people's lives to start and stop at the snap of his finger.
She belonged here. In Sherwood.
He would see that she stayed.
He rolled to his side and curved his body around hers, one arm flung over her to draw her close, his leg between hers, hidden in the fullness of her shift.
In her sleep, Thea moaned, a small, soft sound at the back of her throat that turned his blood to fire. She shifted, turning instinctively toward him, and stretched cat-like against the length of his body.
Would she ever cease to be a danger for him-this woman who had given him her secrets and her sorrow and in sleep held herself innocently against him? This woman who drove all thought from his head with the tantalizing feel of her breasts crushed against his chest, whose every breath at his ear aroused him beyond bearing?
It would kill him to leave her; he would die of loneliness, of emptiness, of not having her. Maybe that was her plan all along.
He buried himself in her sweet fragrance, and twined his limbs with hers, and with lips that seldom called on God except to curse, prayed the night would never end.
~*~
The dull darkness of sleep parted, dragging Thea to a state of half-alertness. Even before she opened her eyes, she sensed a strange, tingling freshness to the morn, as if night had washed away everything old and familiar.
And then she remembered.
She had told him everything, had spent hours crying in his arms, finding consolation at last in something as simple as his soothing touches and the hushed reassurances he murmured.
The sadness, while not gone, had faded, and in its place, the faint sough of the Sheriff's breathing sent a shiver of awareness through her limbs. Suddenly she felt awake-far too awake-and sensitized to every aspect of his presence.
Without moving, she numbered the ways their bodies touched: his hand splayed on her midriff, fingertips trailing in the hollow between her breasts; the hard, defined planes of his chest where she rested her cheek; the black silk of his tousled hair that her hand had found in the night; the weight of his leather-clad leg between her thighs pressed against her, causing a longing of which he was completely unaware.
She wanted to lie like this forever, soaking in the warmth of his body-and that was the strangest, most unfamiliar feeling of all.
She tested the yearning Nottingham incited in her, thinking Brand's name hard in her mind, imagining his earth-brown eyes and his callused hands smoothing over a plank of wood with an artisan's knowing grace. No rending sorrow took root in her heart when she thought of him, only bittersweet warmth, watered weak by time-and the presence of another man.
The heated pulse of the Sheriff's heart thrummed beneath her cheek, stronger than any memory of her husband. She turned her head and put her lips to the lightly tanned center of his chest, feeling his steady heartbeat, as if it would help absorb the reality of his company in her bed.
Easing away from him, she pushed herself up, one hand flattened on the straw on either side of him. Sunlight filtered through the cracks in the walls, striping the dim room with brightness. Her shadow cast the Sheriff's face in dusk, and she gazed down at him, wondering at the metamorphosis her confession had accomplished.
He was still the High Sheriff of Nottingham, who wielded the power of life and death over the shire, but he was far from the man she first thought him to be. She did not fear him. She felt no awe at his title, no threat from his gaol or gallows.
Unreasonable. Foolish, perhaps.
He had not changed so much that he would not throw her over his shoulder the moment she crossed him and carry her back to Nottingham like the captured fugitive she was. But she was different, and what she felt for him now was far from hatred for an enemy. Desire welled up inside her-blatant, profound, undeniable.
Now, because of him, she was no longer a village herb woman who had been a simple carpenter's wife. He had pulled her from her small, narrow world into a life more complex, at times more frightening, than anything she'd known in Edwinstowe.
Nothing was predictable with Nottingham, and yet somehow she had risen to his challenge, equaled him, "bested" him, he had said by the brook's edge. She wondered if he realized what he had wrought in her, if he knew that in giving up her secrets the night before, she had won freedom from him, from John, from Brand's memory, from every expectation she had of herself.
Taking care not to disturb him, Thea rose to her feet. Among her old clothes, she found a worn tunic and pulled it over her linen shift, draping and knotting an apron-pouch from the skirts.
"You're staying then."
Thea stopped, fingers caught unthreading the disheveled remains of her braid.
Nottingham lay on his side, propped up on one elbow amid the crushed straw of their bed.
Her breath caught in her throat, not with surprise, but at the sight of him, bare of anything but the hunter's leggings slung low on his hips, crisscrossed strips of kidskin fitting the leather close to his calves. Would there ever be a time when she could look at him and be unaffected by the lazy grace of the man or the indolent, careless power that radiated from him?
"No," she said. "I am returning with you."
His brows arched up, tangled high in the tendrils of hair on his forehead.
Although she had answered him impulsively, she had no sooner spoken the words than she realized. She had known all along she would not leave him. True, being at Nottingham Castle would mean having the Sheriff forever interrupting any peace in her life. He would continue to badger her with ever-annoying verbal warfare, incite her to murderous rage with his demands for this or that, incite her to something else altogether with his nearness and the sensual vitality that he could not forestall even when he had vowed to do so. And for all of that, Thea could imagine no disadvantage greater than staying cloistered in her cottage. Here, there would be only loneliness. Here, without his challenges, his prodding, and his outright dares, she would slip back into the over-cautious woman she had once been, too careful, too afraid to rise to any boldness of action or heart. And now that he lay in her bed and she had the memory of him there, too tall for the length of the pallet, too possessive of the blanket, and too male to be dismissed, to live here without him would be a sentence to purgatory. Somehow, he had breathed life into her. Emboldened by him, she could not imagine giving that up.
"I...don't want you to come."
His statement shook her, but she wiped away the traces of shock she knew had settled on her face. "This from a man who spent the whole of the night impressing upon me the need for honesty?"
"Thea-"
"I've made my decision. Unless you forbid me-"
"You belong here. I made a grave mistake ever thinking otherwise." He stood, shrugging off the last dregs of sleep, and walked toward her.
In his face, she saw traces of wavering conviction, lips forming an argument he did not believe. "Two days ago," she said, "I belonged to you."
He scowled at her sly play on words, one hand raking through his dark hair. "I relinquish ownership, woman," he grumbled. "I am done with keeping she-wolves in my castle." Sobering, he added, "Sherwood is a fitting place. I've seen you in the wood. It's as if you were born to the forest. This meadow. These people."
"The Sheriff's surgeon belongs at the castle, at his side. You said so yourself, with vehemence, as I remember."
"Damn it, Thea, do not pretend to match wits with me on this. I am trying to be noble."
He did not want to return to Nottingham without her; she knew that as surely as she knew the meaning of his gestures and expressions. Frustration knit his brows low on his forehead, and his hands opened and closed in impotent fists. When he looked at her, his dark eyes stormed with a plea he
could not allow himself to voice.
Thea's heart softened, and no amount of self-assured control could prevent a smile from reaching her lips. "So you are," she conceded, "and have such little practice with the virtue that you stage this act like an ill-played mummery."
She paused, waiting for him to give her the same honesty she had handed to him the night before. His frown deepened, evidence enough of the struggle within him.
"The things you love are here," he said.
"The things I love are gone."
"Your home-"
"Emptied by Gisborne long ago. What I have-what is important to me-is at Nottingham Castle. My herbs, the simples I've concocted, the roots I've dried, a garden I've broken my back to repair-"
"Your people-"
"What of the people in the castle I have grown to feel affection for? Mildthryth, whom I love like a mother, or Simeon?"
"And what of John Little?"
Thea stopped, and her gaze dropped to the floor.
"He is an accused felon, Thea-safe enough in Sherwood, I suppose, if he hides himself well. But should he leave, he would forfeit whatever protection the wood affords him, and if he enters the city gates, I would have no choice but to arrest and prosecute him."
She stared at him, horribly reminded of John's unsolved predicament. "He is no murderer."
"He is charged in the death of Hugh Monteforte and in countless crimes of thievery against the Crown."
"And guiltless in all but the most trivial!"
"That may be, Thea, but as Sheriff, I would have no choice."
"As Sheriff, you have every choice! Just last night you were willing to overlook my trespasses."
"That is quite different."
"How?"
He did not immediately answer, and she could see him searching through and discarding replies with increasing futility. She knew his reason, even if he did not. He would not turn her in because he wanted her-not behind bars, but in his bed. Yet his chances of admitting that were none.
"Your crimes-if that is even the word for such small scandal-are minimal. You know the outlaws. Unavoidable, as many are from villages close by, villages and homes you frequent. You have treated their injuries. How could you not? You are gifted with knowledge and skills they have needed, and have not the heart to turn away from their pain. Even if you, in sentiment, side with their cause, I cannot arrest you for having misguided loyalties."
"But-"
"I cannot change the law, Thea, I can only enforce it. John Little cannot enter the city save under peril of death, nor can any of his companions. If you return to Nottingham, you must know that you will not see him. Nor can I permit you to endanger yourself by returning to Sherwood without the accompaniment of my guard. Could you possibly be willing to relinquish that, in return for the affection of an old maidservant and a stable boy?"
He tested her. Even as she shook with rage at the way he had manipulated the argument to his own advantage, she knew what he truly wanted from her were answers and promises. Some pledge that she cared for him, that despite her work in the castle garden and her friendship with Mildthryth and Simeon, the real reason she wanted to return to Nottingham was that he would be there.
A tiny spark of doubt insinuated itself into her determination to return with him, and suddenly she found she had no answer for him.
"Thea," he continued when she did not respond, "it is a devil of a choice, one you should not have to make. I am Sheriff-"
She twisted away from him-how many times had she heard those very words prefacing a poor excuse or alibi?-but he took her chin in his hand and brought her to face him until she had no alternative but to meet his eyes.
"I am Sheriff here," he repeated firmly. "I cannot dismiss my obligations out of hand on nothing more than a woman's whim."
She tried to jerk her chin free, but he held tight to her.
"Even a woman for whom I have nearly forsaken the last shred of sanity I possess." He delicately stroked the angle of her jaw as if he could brush away the memory of his harsher touch. His thumb outlined the curve of her lower lip, then he closed his errant fingers tight in the palm of his hand.
"Those are my conditions, if you choose to return."
Impossible conditions, and he knew it! What could she do from Nottingham but worry for John day and night, wonder how he fared, and pray the burly giant stayed hidden and out of crossbow range? What could she do for any of Robin's men except offer up an endless stream of prayers and petitions for their safety-something she had spent a lifetime doing already, and to little effect?
"I suggest you take advantage of my rare generosity," he continued. "Stay here, Thea. It is so much simpler. Safer. For both of us."
Simpler. Most certainly. Safer. Perhaps. But a part of her had died seeking simplicity and safety. She would have a hollow life, stripped of joy and sorrow, of light and dark-a gray life, empty of feeling. Exactly the kind of life she had before he came.
Every reason that provoked her to leave him two nights before clamored within her now, but now she was unafraid of what she felt. Her yearning for him lent her an intoxicating strength that she had never experienced with Brand or John, or in all her nineteen years. She was both vulnerable and invincible with Nottingham, a heady mixture of emotion that drew her to him like the pull of a strong charm.
She no longer wanted a "simple" life, and what was "safer" than the way she had felt when she woke this morn, wrapped in his arms?
She wanted to know the deliriously wild abandon she felt when his lips touched the hollow of her throat, when his fingertips skimmed away the laces at the back of her kirtle. Just once, she wanted to touch him and make him feel a fraction of the fiery agony he roused in her, hold him captive until he cast off his mask of cool, practiced indifference and cried out for her, until he knew the same thick-as-honey fulfillment she had known by the banks of the creek.
She remembered enough of her previous life to be astounded at the wanton changes that had taken hold of her body and senses.
She remembered enough of her life to know she could never return to the drab, passionless existence that had once contented her.
And she remembered enough of him to know that if she came back to Nottingham Castle, the Sheriff would have to make concessions of his own.
"I have conditions as well, my lord," she announced, her mind made up. "If I am to be your surgeon, you must truly allow me to act as one. I cannot be kept in my rooms, pretending at work, waiting for your next mishap or sour stomach. You said the people of Nottingham needed a physician. Then let them come to me. Encourage those who are reluctant and permit me to go freely in the castle to attend those who need me."
Nottingham shook his head in astonishment. "Stubborn woman! You cannot wish to go back, not after all I've said!"
Thea smiled. "If you are having a hearing problem, Sheriff, you may be first in line at my workroom door."
"Your conditions-"
"I must come and go as I am needed. You can assign guards to follow me, or lurk in the shadows yourself, watching my moves to ensure I'm up to no mischief. I care not, but that I have meaningful work and the freedom to accomplish it."
"You wish free rein of my entire household?"
"I will not be pent up in my room as a falcon to her mews, waiting to be taken out, displayed and strutted about, then lured back to captivity when you have tired of your game."
"You are a most unrealistic woman-"
"And there is more."
"I am not surprised."
"You must know that I will not remain silent on the matter of the outlaws. I will continue to intercede on John's behalf at every opportunity, speaking the truth of his character, and the plight of the other outlaws, until I have made some impression in that stiff-necked will of yours, or until you have tired of me completely and thrown me to the dungeon."
The Sheriff raked his hand through his tousled hair with obvious exasperation, but a glimmer of amusement shone in his eyes. "With co
nditions like those, why on God's earth would I want you back?"
"Why indeed?" she asked smoothly, knowing he would not answer her with truth. She waited, trying to remember when she had seen him more helpless, less able to find a witty rejoinder to fling at her. "Then we are agreed?"
"Thea-" He caught her hand in his and twisted his fingers through hers. Groping for words, he turned her hand over and stared at the palm as if he were some teller of fortunes and the portents were written there clearly for him to read. "There is something in Sherwood that calls to you, that you can never leave, some abiding constancy the greenwood offers...that I cannot."
For once when he looked at her, candor shone like a brief candle in his eyes. She lifted their joined hands so she could touch his cheek and rubbed the back of her fingers over the roughened stubble of overgrown beard.
"It is not constancy I want," she whispered, "for that I've had, and for so long that the months turned to years without my knowing."
"You say that now, thinking God knows what has crept into your head in the middle of the night. But the forest is there, and as long as it is, it will be between us."
"If you let it." She released his hand, but her gaze stayed firmly fixed on him. "Allow, Sheriff, that in this I might know my own mind."
"Thea-"
"Sheriff," she replied, determined as he to have her way.
She squared her shoulders, tilted her chin up as if to dare that he question even the least of her doubts. Time, and feelings for him she could not name, had divided her life in twain-all that came before she knew him; the mystery of what lay ahead. The mystery called to her, wrested her away from the surety and safety she had once thought to need.
He shook her head and looked away, surrender written in the gesture. "You are a stubborn, foolish creature. Whatever can you hope to gain by this?"
CHAPTER TWENTY
They rode through Nottingham's gate at nightfall and found the bailey humming with activity. Apparently the lookouts had heralded the Sheriff's arrival to everyone in Nottingham Castle from his priest to the lowliest serving wench.