“Of his and Wilfred’s, for we shall have help inside—Wilf, plus others within the castle who are sympathetic to our cause. Many there love Lil and are unhappy about her imprisonment. In the evening at the close of market day, when folk are still coming and going, we will gain entry to the castle proper. Martin says that has already been done successfully, many times.”
“So it has.”
“Wilfred will meet us there, he and another guard named Cedric, who is in with us and who means to wrangle for himself duty at the dungeons.”
“How?”
“Eh?”
“Lambert does not seem a man whose plans are easily manipulated.”
“Martin says Wilfred is confident.”
“Does he? What then?”
“Wilf leads us in, and we take Lil away with us.”
“As easy as that, eh?”
“Do not patronize me, Sparrow. I do not hear you offering anything better. In fact, I do not hear you offering at all. At least Martin has the courage to try.”
“Oh, aye, Martin has courage in buckets, some of it the foolhardy variety. Why must you go, and endanger yourself?”
“Shall I ask anyone else to take a risk greater than I am willing to take myself?”
Sparrow blinked; it might be Robin Hood himself speaking. Not that Sparrow remembered him well, but his parents had told him scores of stories about Robin taking the lead in perilous situations, because he would ask no one else to undertake what he refused.
“No,” he said softly. “Yet I do believe it wiser to wait until Lil is brought forth for trial.”
Wren challenged him with her eyes. “And if she does not survive that long? If the Sheriff dies and she is left where she is, to rot?”
Sparrow, unable to help himself, reached out and smoothed her wild hair. He knew his touch would allow her to feel his concern and anxiety. “And should Lambert catch sight of you? What then?”
“Surely he has forgotten all about one lowly peasant who spurned him, among the many he has forced?”
“One who broke his cheekbone.”
“I shall go in disguise. Look, Sparrow, I appreciate your desire to protect me, a mere woman.”
“It is not that.”
“But if you truly wish to do something useful, teach me to shoot well enough to pick a guard off the wall above the foregate.”
Sparrow sighed deeply. Had he any choice? “Very well. Come along with you, then.”
Chapter Fifteen
“She watches you still. I vow, Martin, Sally scarcely takes her eyes from you.”
Martin glanced across the clearing to where Sally sat with Madlyn, supposedly sorting herbs yet keeping him and Rennie under a careful eye instead. He said carelessly, “Let her stare, if she will.”
Rennie shot him a cool look. This last seven-night she and Martin had been virtually inseparable, doing everything but sleeping together—and to be honest, Rennie had considered even that. Martin possessed potent, if wild and dangerous, charm. Perhaps the wildness made part of the attraction, Rennie admitted. And the more time they spent together, the closer the bond she could feel between them. The fact was, he had stolen more than one kiss while they were alone, and she had felt the fire in him. And she found the idea of losing herself in that heat beguiling.
And, if she did, might she not then belong somewhere, to someone?
“It makes me uneasy,” she confessed, “being constantly under her eye.”
Martin paused and a wicked smile came to his face. “Let us give her something to see, then.” He drew Rennie up hard against him. Instantly his warmth and strength enfolded her, both thrilling and disturbing. She could feel not only his body but his emotions, hard and confident, a heady combination. Not for the first time, she wondered how it would feel to lie with a man she could sense so intensely.
He placed his lips close to her ear. “Kiss me, Lady Wren.”
Rennie’s pulse began to drum, yet she drew away slightly. “Here? Now?”
“Here. Now.”
“You possess an evil streak, Martin Scarlet.”
“Look into my eyes, and you will see it is more than a paltry streak.”
Rennie almost feared gazing into his eyes. She had heard there were creatures that could mesmerize their prey with a stare. She suspected she might fall into that sea of blue-gray and never resurface.
“Nay,” she told him. “We have important work to do.” Tomorrow, it being market day, they would journey to Nottingham and attempt a bold rescue. Word from the castle had proved scant and unsatisfying, but the Sheriff still lay far too ill to conduct Lil’s trial. And so Lil languished yet in her cell, Lambert conducted castle business, and rumor had it he planned to execute a number of prisoners on May Day, now but a few days off.
“All our allies are in place, and will keep their word?” she asked Martin, not for the first time. “You are certain?”
“Aye, it is as I told you. A few days hence we will be celebrating, and you will be so grateful to me you will deny me nothing.” Rennie knew him well enough, now, to recognize this as teasing, which Martin enjoyed full well. Of course, his badgering conveyed much intent. Now he lowered his voice to a purr. “Then again, you might reward me beforehand, so to stoke my courage.”
Rennie could not deny she enjoyed the banter, and his kisses. “What had you in mind?”
“Come, and I will show you.” Suddenly her hand was in his and they were moving off through the trees. Madness, Rennie thought, her practical side rearing its head even as something inside her responded to this spontaneity. The encounter had been days in coming, so she felt little surprise when, once out of sight, he paused and backed her against a tree.
“Now then, Wren—you know full well what I want. Being so close to you all this while has driven me half desperate with need. Say you will not make me wait. Let us plight ourselves to one another before we go to Nottingham.”
Rennie struggled to catch her breath. The heat of his body—so hard and intense—trapped her and ignited her own desire. But was that what giving herself to him would mean: a plight, a vow, a choice made?
She found it so hard to think with his emotions beating at her, along with her own. “Martin, I do not know that I am ready.”
“I am ready enough for both of us.”
Aye, and she could feel that right through his leather breeches. The man must be a right bull.
She managed to meet his eyes. “I have never yet lain with any man.”
“Aye, well, Wren, I want to be the first. The only.” Suddenly his hand plunged into her hair. Hot as his touch felt, still it made Rennie shiver. “Give yourself to me now.” The words were demand, and temptation.
“Here? Out among the trees?”
“What better than to couple in Sherwood?” His gaze held her as surely as his hands. And suddenly Rennie found herself more than half convinced. What could be more right?
A sound she did not recognize came from the back of her throat. Taking it for assent, Martin kissed her.
So far, every kiss he had given her blazed with heat and masterful possession; this one surpassed them all. His lips drove hers apart and his tongue touched hers. Fire poured through her from that point of contact, stealing all resistance. The force of his will bore her over, and her good sense flew away.
Oh, but he tasted of nut-brown ale and danger and irresistible desire. His beard scraped her chin and his hands seemed to be everywhere, roaming her body as freely as if he owned it. The laces of her tunic proved no barrier to him. She felt the cool air caress her skin but an instant before his hand covered her breast.
This felt nothing like when Lambert had touched her, nothing like. Martin’s rough, callused palm abraded skin made suddenly alive with sensation and brought a hard rush of pleasure.
By the holy Lady, she had never imagined anything like this.
And still his hands moved; one cupped the weight of her breast and the other wandered downward even as his body bore hers
back against the tree. How had his clever fingers got past the barrier of her leggings? She wore nothing beneath, and his knee nudged her legs apart; his fingers went where she barely dared touch herself.
Rennie gasped, but his mouth was there and swallowed the sound. His fingers mimicked the movement of his tongue, spearing, stroking, and an entirely wicked thought invaded Rennie’s mind: what if that tongue replaced those fingers?
Now he groaned and broke the kiss to gaze into her eyes and whisper, just as if he had heard the thought in her mind, “Wren, let me show you.”
He slid down her body, to his knees. Rennie seized his golden mane, digging her fingers deep, and he laughed softly. The sound further ignited Rennie’s blood.
But oh, she could not let him. Surely such a thing might steal her very soul.
“Martin, nay!”
“Oh, aye.” Gently, he parted her thighs. She felt his lips—or was it his tongue?—brush her private heat and stiffened in alarm.
“You cannot. Martin, by God!”
“God, or the devil?” He gazed up at her, his eyes dancing with naughty light.
Unable to face that look, she dropped to the ground and hid her face against him.
His voice wrapped around her like the purr of a cat. “Wren, do you know how lovely you are, how much I want you? Give yourself to me now, before we face the danger ahead, so I go knowing you are mine.”
He did not await her answer but laid her down beneath him, there on the moss below the trees, just as if he had done so a hundred times. His desire—and Rennie’s—made a powerful spell, and she lay gazing up at him wonderingly. The sun made a nimbus of his hair, and she could no longer see what lay in his eyes.
“Give yourself to me,” he urged again, “and let it be settled between us. I swear, you shall never be disappointed in me.”
His hand went to the laces on his leggings, now straining against the weight of him. Rennie’s own pulse pounded in her ears; she knew if she let him he would play her body the way a minstrel played a lute. And there would be no going back from it. She did not just choose her own pleasure, but the very cast of the future and, perhaps, the fate of Sherwood.
But he did not wait for an answer. Her tunic had fallen open, and he bent his head and took the tip of one breast into his mouth.
Ah, sweet holy heaven, she had never felt such a sensation. Warm, daring, it made her desire dance—clever tongue and clever fingers also, that once more entered her and made her entire body begin to thrum. Rennie closed her eyes against the unbearable pleasure, the tickle of his beard on her skin, the soft tug of his lips, that soon became so demanding she arched herself into him.
She could feel his strength, his muscles bulging, his desire raging like a fire in dry tinder, and knew, despite the overweening pleasure, she must stop him now, if at all.
And she must stop him, for she was not ready, she was not sure.
“No.” Somehow she forced the word through a throat gone suddenly dry, and against a desire that cried out just the opposite. For an instant she thought he did not hear. Then he took his lips from her breast and gazed into her eyes, all demand.
“Choose me, Wren—choose me now. Let me fill you, and forge our bond.”
Rennie fought for breath. It would be so easy to open her legs to him, open her soul to him, and let this happen. Yet among all the impulses screaming inside her, one thought held her back. “Do you want me, or the place?”
“Eh?” The bright eyes narrowed quizzically. “I want you, Wren. You are like drink in my blood. If you doubt it, let me show you.” He had freed himself from his leggings and now pressed his hot, scorching heft against her. Rennie’s eyes widened; he possessed a mighty weapon.
Yet she had begun to know him, what dwelled inside him. These many days, she had felt his emotions. Martin Scarlet was a man driven, and not merely by desire.
What of love? Neither the word, nor any hint of it, had crossed those clever lips of his. Was she to be denied love in the cause of duty, in the service of this triad, set to rule her life?
She planted both palms on his chest, where she felt his heart thumping. “No.”
“Wren, you know not what you are saying.” He snuggled himself more firmly between her thighs. “Together we can achieve anything. Have you not felt that?”
“I do not know what I feel.”
“Then place yourself in my hands and I will tell you—”
“I just wager you will.” She shoved him harder and in response her emotions fell into place. “You wish to beguile me, Martin Scarlet. But you will not. Get off!”
The expression in his eyes changed, and anger licked through him. Rennie warranted he did not often hear refusals. He did not budge. “This is how it must be, Wren.”
Her anger rose, a reflection of his, even as had her desire. “What makes you think I would choose you?”
He sharpened like a blade. “So, that is it. Sparrow.” He spat the name. “Do you mean to let him have you instead? To claim you?”
“Is that what it means to you—claiming?”
“Has he touched you here? And here?” The light in his eyes turned cruel and his fingers, at her breast and between her legs, pinched. “Will you be his kitchen slut, after all?”
She slapped him, not even taking time to think about it. “Fine one to talk, you—still warm from Sally’s bed.”
“Just tell me you do not mean to lie with Sparrow, or I swear I will beat the snot out of him.”
“Get your hands from me!” On a rush of rage, Rennie heaved him off and scrambled to her feet. “What I do, and with whom, is my affair.”
“That is where you are wrong.” He leaped up also, quick as lightning. “Stupid lass—what you do affects us all.”
Chapter Sixteen
“This is a doomed enterprise. I am surprised you are willing to condone it,” Sparrow told Alric in a grim undertone.
“I cannot count the doomed enterprises in which I have participated during the course of my life. Some of them, I dare say, even kept me alive. Besides, my son, it is only doomed if you declare it so.”
“That is a fine sentiment for a sunny day, which this is not.”
True enough. Rain pissed down, soaking their small party as they tramped toward Nottingham. The weather, or so claimed Martin and Wilfred, who had hatched the plan, would prove a benefit rather than an obstacle. Heavy rain tended to render the guard careless, and provided cover. Folk wished to be in out of the wet.
“Why do you accompany us,” Alric asked, “if you think so little of the venture?”
Sparrow raised his eyes to Wren’s back, some distance ahead of him. She looked less like a woman than a lad near-grown, tall and long of limb, walking with her bow on her shoulder and her hood raised against the wet. She strode beside Martin and yet, somehow, not with him. Between the two of them something ineffable had changed.
Sparrow could not place his finger on it.
“You know why,” he said, gloomily.
“I think I do.” Alric shot him another look. “You do not want my place.”
“Your—? Oh, no, it is not that.”
“Ah, then,” Alric laughed softly, “it must be love.”
“’Tis certainly no laughing matter.”
“Forgive me. To be sure, it is not. I know that right well, having myself suffered its pangs in the past.”
“You?”
Alric grinned ruefully. “Aye, lad. You look at me now, white-haired and with age in my limbs, and cannot imagine it, eh? But I have stood where you stand.”
“Lil?”
“Ah, likely you do not remember her when she was young, either, but she was a woman to beguile a man’s heart, full of wisdom, strength, and kindness—magic, too.”
“And you loved her then.”
“I love her yet. And now I must think on her languishing in some vile cell, shut away from the light she requires, awaiting pain and death. So, my lad, do not tell me what mad plan you would undertake
until you need face that.”
“I only wish Wren were not involved. Why must she go back into Nottingham? It is too risky. We cannot stand to lose her.”
“Or yourself, or Martin. It is the three of you together that hold the magic, you see. That is something I learned long ago, when Lil chose Geofrey over me. I was equally important to her, only in a different way.”
“You have powers of prophecy, do you not, Father?”
“Sometimes, when the gods let me see.”
“Then tell me how this will turn out.”
“If I did not think we had a chance of success, I would not be here. Yet”—for the first time the old man frowned—“there is something...”
“Danger to Wren?” Sparrow nodded at her back.
“Danger—aye, to someone we love.”
****
“The weather could scarcely be more vile,” Wilfred said earnestly. “And I know what happens on such nights when the dark comes down. Despite Sir Lambert’s orders, the guards stay under cover and neglect their posts. I will part from you here, and go to admit you at the west gate.”
Everyone in the little group nodded. Grim and silent, already wet to the bone, they made a miserable cluster of four after Wilfred slipped away: Sparrow, Wren, Martin and Alric—who would not enter Nottingham but meant to await them outside. Cedric, a man Wilfred swore was friendly to their cause, would meet them near the dungeons and lead them on to the cells and Lil herself. With luck and the right timing, they might not need to do so much as strike a blow.
The dungeon master rarely stayed on after his shift, and the guards who remained on duty suffered the woes of boredom. It would be Wren’s job to distract them long enough for her companions to gain access to Lil’s cell. And that was the part of the plan Sparrow did not like.
Now, standing in a close group and waiting for Wilf to open the west gate from within, he could feel her tension, and Martin’s. Once again, he wondered what had happened between them. Just a day ago, they had been thick as thieves; now they scarcely looked at one another. Despite the perilous conditions, Sparrow’s heart rose. Was there hope for him? Perhaps, if they got out of this alive.
Daughter of Sherwood Page 9