Still Timothy spotted no evidence of the grown men. The ghosts. Did they truly leave the camp to the protection of boys? Then another thought—a far worse thought—struck him. What if the children were the ghosts? Cold dread filled his chest at the possibility.
The idea seemed ludicrous. Yet he could not discount it entirely. According to the law, a child of seven might be hanged for thievery. He longed to win the earl’s favor, but he could never hurt a child. His stomach churned even as he considered it.
Timothy scanned right and left again, but no guard approached.
He could make no decision now. He must take time to weigh the matter further before pursuing any action. As he was about to turn around and sneak back down the hill, a camouflaged door swung open in the largest structure. Out stepped another young man clad in a russet tunic. But something appeared wrong. Out of sorts.
His shape was too slight, even for a lad. And oddly curved. Then Timothy realized. This was a woman. But like no woman he had ever seen. He should be scandalized, but instead curiosity overtook him, and he remained bolted to his spot in the hopes her odd appearance might offer further clues to the identities of the ghosts.
She bent over to greet some of the children with her back to him.
“Ma-wee! Ma-wee!” called the happy tot who had led him to the camp.
No! Could it be!
He felt as if a spike plunged into his heart. But the size and shape of the figure were correct. As well as the short tumble of chestnut hair he had last seen as a waving curtain falling near to her waist.
And then she turned her face to him.
He swiveled, ducked, and pressed his back into the rock. The forest blurred around him. He squeezed his eyes closed, but her face remained emblazoned upon his mind.
Lady Merry Ellison. The woman he would have wed. The only woman he would ever love. In the forest with the ghosts.
And to his utter shock . . . very much alive!
Merry could not rid herself of the odd chill that had overtaken her as she greeted the children moments earlier. Now that they had resumed their play, she decided to investigate. She climbed up the hill and checked behind the rock that had given her pause. She would ask Big Charles to toss it in the stream when he awoke from his nap.
Surveying the valley below her, she spied nothing amiss. The last of the summertime wild flowers were dropping their blooms. Squirrels scampered about collecting nuts, as if undisturbed.
Perhaps she had been mistaken. Her mind had been filled with a riot of thoughts and emotions ever since the day she spotted Timothy Grey in town. Even more so since Allen’s kiss, which had conjured in sharp detail the memory of Timothy’s heart-stopping kiss over the distance of three years’ time. Calling it to mind again and again, as if it happened yesterday. Leaving an echo of tingles to play across her lips.
She swiped at them even now.
It seemed Merry had been wrong about the single kiss to last a lifetime, but Allen’s kiss had felt so different. So foreign. Whereas the kiss of three years ago had felt like coming home, had melded her heart to another. Perhaps for all eternity.
She may have been mistaken about the single kiss, but she had been correct about love and marriage. They could never have a place in her life—not with Allen, and most certainly not with Timothy. Although a secret part of her might long for them all of her days.
No, she had missed her chance with Timothy, but she had likely saved the lives of him and his entire family by hesitating at the thought of marriage, so she could not regret her choice.
It had been planned for years—Merry and Timothy would wed to join the families, and her father would grant him, her childhood friend, her ample dower lands and help him secure some minor appointment once political matters settled. And since her brother longed to visit the Holy Land before marrying, she could provide an heir, for the time being. The families could not fathom either of them marrying anyone else.
Yet no one had thought to inform her. They assumed she would be thrilled at the notion of marrying her childhood playmate, her best friend in the world. But she had never thought of him as more than that.
That part of her had never awakened until the kiss. . . . And after the kiss, after the certainty of her love settled upon her, she had waited impatiently throughout the fall for the ensuing summer when they would wed. But then came winter, when her father organized the failed assassination. And that summer, instead of celebrating her marriage, her family cowered, awaiting the king’s return from Normandy along with his wrath. Then came autumn. The most horrible, ill-fated season of all.
Raking her hands down her face, she strove to bury deep all thoughts of handsome, charming Timothy Grey. She turned her attention back to the camp, where the children dashed about the clearing once again. The children she had put at risk when she stole the gold. She fancied herself their protector, but in fact, she needed them more than they needed her. Without Merry’s well-known Ellison profile, might they not have slid into a new place in society by now, unknown and unnoticed?
Jane would have cared for the little ones. The men would have gathered food. Perhaps in the beginning they needed Merry to plan and to strategize, to lead with the confidence that the nobility were instilled with from birth, but they didn’t need her anymore—not really.
Lately her thoughts had taken a new and disturbing turn. These English-born-and-bred children did not share her Norman blood, did not speak her French language. Perhaps she should use the gold to buy them apprenticeships and guild memberships in London, and she alone should slip off to France.
If only she were brave enough to let them go. These children had been her family for two years, and she loved them so. Did she love them enough to sacrifice her heart in order to offer them freedom?
She strode back down the hill to rejoin them, even as the question resounded in her mind.
Timothy stumbled toward his horse. Still in a trance. The forest falling in and out of focus about him. He pressed his face into Spartacus’s warm neck, breathing in his scent of hay and oats. Drawing strength and comfort from the mammoth beast.
Merry lived!
Why had she not come to him?
But Timothy knew the answer to that question. Merry was an outlaw now, and any assistance he might offer her would put his life in jeopardy. Besides which, she had never loved him the way he had loved her. He had loved her with his whole heart and soul. When he thought she had been murdered, he vowed never to love again. Never to marry another. Would he have kept that pledge? Now he would never know.
After many dark months spent wallowing in the miry pit of his sorrows, he had dragged himself to Wyndbury and inquired after employment. His plans to wed Merry, to live upon her dower lands, had been dashed as a ship against the rocks. Splintered, devastated, until they floated away upon the tide of his despair.
He had since applied himself to his new station in life. He had contrived new hopes and goals. Shallow hopes and goals to be certain, but they had given him purpose and direction.
And now . . . Merry was still alive. He had no idea what this might mean to him. The stunning revelation might take him days to process. He could not yet grasp the ramifications.
Chapter 8
“Come,” tempted Hadley, shaking the dice in his hand. “Come and play with us, Grey. You look as though you’ve lost your best friend in the world. Let us lift your spirits.”
“We might allow you to win.” Bradbury wiggled his brows.
“Or we might fleece his hide,” said White.
Timothy managed a half grin. “I suppose.”
He took his place at the long trestle table, which had been turned into a gaming table after supper. When his lordship entertained guests, they might enjoy minstrels, troubadours, even dancing in the evenings. But he would be away for at least another week. The message he sent mentioned a delay. King John had fallen ill, and his treasure—including the crown jewels—had somehow been lost while he traveled. Wyndemere must st
ay longer than expected.
As he shook the dice, Lady Merry Ellison’s face floated through his mind once again.
Unfair! He had only once played dice in her presence. She had shaken them for good luck, and indeed he had won.
How those summers spent at their aunts’ adjoining properties had haunted him the two days since he spotted her. And the autumn when her family had visited his home, her father wishing to convince him to join his plot.
He had not been able to escape her lovely face, nor the faces of the children. The ghosts? Surely such ridiculousness could not be true. He could never imprison them. Never order their remains be hanged from the city walls.
Logic said they could not be the ghosts. A group so young could not accomplish such notorious feats. Perhaps they were only the rumored escapees of Ellsworth, living hand-to-mouth in the woods. He had never before allowed himself to believe the gossip true—not before seeing Merry with his own eyes. Until then, he could not have afforded such hope.
“Throw the dice for goodness’ sake, man,” called Hadley.
Timothy let the dice fly, losing soundly, and moved for the next man to take his spot. He leaned heavily upon the side of the table, gripping its edge.
His circular thinking resumed as the other men cheered and bickered.
But if he had found the lair of the ghosts, what could it mean? Merry might be their prisoner—although she had not appeared to be bound or in distress.
If they were the ghosts, perhaps he could administer justice to the leaders alone. Help the women and children settle elsewhere. But if they were the escapees of Ellsworth, nowhere within the reign of King John would they be safe.
He could never imprison Merry for the crime of being her father’s daughter. His own father had been a breath away from joining the rebellion, but after much prayer and soul-searching, he decided to remain loyal to God’s appointed king and seek legal recourse instead. But for that one decision, it might have been Timothy and his siblings killed rather than Merry’s brother, Percivale. Where was the justice in that?
His father, Lord Greyham, now avoided all political intrigue and enjoyed his country home and grandchildren instead. He left the war to the barons in the north and east, only sending funds to King John for his mercenary soldiers. And Timothy sought favor and advancement with the king and his nobles. But what if Timothy were the one hiding in the woods, outside of the law?
Bradbury nudged him for his turn again. He took his place, shook the dice, and sent them skittering across the table, not even giving heed to the result.
“Ho!” shouted White to his left.
Timothy could not bring himself to care. The same thoughts had run a circuit in his mind over and again ever since he discovered the hideaway. The same questions plagued him day and night with no answer upon the horizon.
Only one person possessed the answers he sought. Though it might well prove the final death blow to his wounded heart, he must find a way to speak with Lady Merry Ellison.
And soon.
Merry grinned and clapped along with the children as Red emerged from the men’s quarters fully bedecked in knight regalia and sword. A handsome lout indeed. Beneath his arm he held a flat-topped helmet with only a slit for the eyes and several holes for air. “Put it on and let us see.”
Red tugged the helmet onto his head. Beneath it, his features were indistinguishable.
“Perfect,” said Merry.
She crossed to him and straightened the collar of his blue-and-white surcoat—a design she had created to appear foreign and sewn herself. Smoothing it down over his chain mail and padded vest, she said, “I so wish I could see you astride your handsome destrier, my fine knight.”
“I’m not certain I shall be seeing much of anything. ’Tis all I can do to breathe in this stifling contrivance.” He removed the helmet.
“He shall strike a dashing figure,” said Jane. “The women shall be swooning over you, Red. But remember who swooned for you first.” Jane feigned a swoon, fanning herself, eyes rolling back as her knees buckled.
“Perhaps you should give me a kiss for good luck,” teased Red.
Jane’s cheeks flushed pink as her toe turned inward. The girl was bashful of a sudden?
Merry stood on tiptoes and planted a noisy kiss on Red’s cheek. “Methinks that must do for today.” The children broke into another round of cheering.
“That will be quite enough of that.” Allen shot her a glare, no doubt recalling their own disastrous kiss.
This was precisely what she had been afraid of. The discomfort between them. That one thoughtless moment would forever affect the relaxed atmosphere of their little community. She should change the subject and shift attention away from her jesting kiss. “Be sure to listen for any rumors of the ghosts.”
“I will, Mother Merry,” said Red, using a title they employed only when she grew bossy and patronizing.
Merry laughed. “All right, then. I see you have matters in hand.”
Robert and Cedric joined Red, although they were dressed in long brown cloaks rather than armor—with weapons, which were not permitted past the town gates, sewn and hidden throughout the coarse fabric. They would “sequester”—as Allen liked to say—a cart for transport once inside.
They headed over the hill, and Merry waved to them. “I bid you all Godspeed.”
She bit her lip as the children returned to their chores and play. How she hated to send the men on a dangerous mission without her.
“No use borrowing trouble from the future, Lady Merry.” Allen joined her at her side, nearly brushing against her. How kind of him to comfort her when she had upset him but moments earlier with her dramatic kiss on Red’s cheek.
“I agree, yet I do not.” She experienced a slight tingle at his nearness, but nothing like she had in the tree. Perhaps her response had only been the result of wishful thinking on behalf of that traitorous portion of herself that longed for love. “Worrying shall accomplish nothing. But we must be prepared for any contingency. I shall go into the forest to hunt and think today. Perhaps find a spot deeper in the woods to which we might move.”
“I shall watch over the camp. Big Charles is here, and several of the younger men. You go ahead. And if you think of it, say a prayer while you’re out in God’s green forest. I find it the most effective place to offer petitions.”
Merry shifted and mumbled, “A prayer, of course.”
Dear, sweet Allen. In some ways he was too good for her. They would never be a match.
Allen gazed into Merry’s haunting brown eyes, which contained a world of sorrow. Thoughts clearly spun through her mind at the mention of prayer, yet he could not discern what they might be. He would pray for her as well, fervently. Merry was wounded, and he suspected she might have turned her back on God, although she had never said as much. But surely her state of mind was only temporary. A reaction to the trauma she had suffered. It could not last forever.
She turned to him, and their gazes caught, much as they had in the tree.
He tugged at his tunic. She took a step back.
More than anything, he regretted this new unease between them. He must do something to alleviate the tension. Lifting his gaze to the clouds, he spoke without first considering. “I suppose I should apologize again. It was out of line. I didn’t think. I just . . . well . . . in that moment . . . But you are a lady, and I had no right to kiss you.” Did he mean that? Perhaps not quite anymore, but the words came so easily.
“Please do not apologize on account of my being a lady. I told you—we are the same now.”
Her statement, along with her rich voice, warmed his heart. But a single beat later, the fickle organ turned cold again. If they were the same, why must she push him away?
“Then why?” Clearly she was not drawn to him, did not long for him in the same way he longed for her. But he had no desire to hear her say as much. He kicked at the dirt. “No, don’t answer. It would be odd for us to forge a romance. We’v
e been friends for too long. And it will affect the others. I understand. I didn’t think. It simply happened.” And since that moment he had dreamed of little other than kissing her again.
“Oh, Allen, it is right and natural that we both long for that sort of love. But it is not profitable. Until we establish a better life than that of outlaws, romance had best wait. Once we are back in society, you shall find someone to love. Someone wonderful, who deserves and suits you. Not just the best possibility in your little group of twenty-three members.”
Not profitable? His eyes probed hers, but found no satisfactory answer. He could hardly believe that she thought of their relationship in such a cold and detached way. He would never find another like her. He was tempted to pull her into his arms then and there, and prove her wrong. But he respected her too much, and she had made her position clear.
He dropped his gaze in defeat. “But when will that happen? Will we ever have a normal life again? Sometimes I fear we might be outlaws forever.”
“Matters are always changing. No one knows that more than we do.” She bit her lip and gazed off at the sky for a moment. “And I have been thinking. Perhaps all of you could make a go of it in London. No one knows you there. Change your identities. Use the gold to buy apprenticeships and guild memberships.”
Sick dread filled his stomach. “All of you? What about you, Merry?”
“I . . . I shall never be safe in England.” She pressed her hands together, as if to prevent their trembling.
The forest blurred as frustration flooded him. He rubbed at his head. Was the woman crazy? She would just leave him, all of them, like that? “You want to leave us?” Allen shouted.
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