Lady Thief: A Scarlet Novel (22 page)

He sighed. “Maybe. Will you be there?” he asked. His nose nudged my cheek. “You should probably stay warm and rest.”

I took a breath like could draw his strength into me. “My parents are here. They want to see me.”

“Your parents?” he asked, looking at me.

Lying on his chest felt like home. “I don’t know what to say to them.”

“I visited them,” he said soft.

I pushed up off him. “What?”

“After you married Gisbourne. He became the landholder, and I wanted to make sure he wasn’t hurting them. You would have never forgiven yourself if he had, and my father always liked your parents. I spoke to them. I never told them I knew you.”

Blinking, I stared at him. “And?”

“They were lovely people. They’ve kept their lands well and protected their tenants from the worst of the taxes. They were
very kind to me.” He swallowed and touched my cheek. “I had this fantasy that I could return to ask them for your hand in marriage and explain I’d been protecting you from harm when they hadn’t been able to. They would hug me and tell me that if they weren’t there to love you, they were glad I had been.”

My chest felt tight to bursting, and before I could stop it, tears ran down to kiss his hand. “I love you, Rob,” I told him, swooping in to kiss him.

“I love you too,” he told me. “Go, before anyone discovers you here.”

I kissed him once more, the kind of kiss that burned through me and made my whole heart fill with him.

Leaving Rob, I went to the room the servants told me were my parents’, and I stood outside. Then I paced. Then I stopped, for pacing made me dizzy, and stood there still.

I left. I had no idea what to say to them.

I had missed the first several sword fights, but Isabel informed me that Gisbourne destroyed his first opponent. Eleanor quietly let me know that Rob won his first contest as well. My heart were still pounding at the idea of talking to my parents, and it took long for it to quiet.

Gisbourne came up again and turned to the prince to bow. He caught my eye and frowned.

His partner were de Lacy, and I found that I were hoping
my husband crushed the man who called me a wild animal the first night at court.

Gisbourne came at him hard. He were all power, my husband; fierce and overwhelming, but no speed and little finesse. He had footwork when he needed it, but it weren’t his skill. He knocked the sword out of de Lacy’s hand and gave him a moment to reach for it when he brought the heel of his boot down hard on de Lacy’s other hand, stretched flat on the ground.

Despite the pain, it gave de Lacy the space to grab his sword and bring it up to Gisbourne’s neck. The match was over; de Lacy had won.

“Quite cunning,” the queen mother murmured to me.

“My husband?” I asked. “He lost.” I looked back to the field where de Lacy nursed his hand and sucked in a breath. Gisbourne had sacrificed the fight to take out de Lacy’s hand—because de Lacy were favored in the archery, from what I heard. While he could still use a sword with his right hand, he could never hold a bow without them both. “Cunning indeed,” I muttered.

De Clare were next, fighting a man named Doncaster who I didn’t recognize. Doncaster were a heavy brute, and he were beating de Clare quite roundly when someone stepped in front of me. “My lady wife,” Gisbourne grunted. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Where is that, my lord Gisbourne?” Eleanor asked.

“Her parents have arrived, and she has yet to greet them.”

I looked to Eleanor for some excuse, but she gave none, save for losing a precious little bit of her color. Her mouth fell into a thin line. “Yes. You must speak to them, my dear. They must have … missed you, after so long.” Her voice had fallen quiet and low.

“My lady?” I asked soft. “Are you all right?”

Her chin raised. “Just cold. I think I shall retire.” She waved her hands for her ladies, and they set about readying a sled that would take her back up to her rooms.

Gisbourne took my hand and pulled me up. He put my hand in his arm and escorted me back to the castle, not saying a word the whole way there. I didn’t say nothing on his loss, neither.

He brought me to their door, knocked, and let go of me only when the servant answered the door and ushered me into their chamber.

They were sitting by the fire in two chairs, and they stood up the moment the servant announced me. My eyes went to my mother first. Tall and long with hair like wheat on willows, she looked so painful like Joanna my eyes sprang with tears. I blinked it back. My father were there, his handsome face older, his strong body softer by a hair.

He came to me first, cupping my face in his hands and looking at the bruises, my hair, judging me. His eyes closed with a sigh. “Marian,” he said.

I wanted to tear away from him and run, run from his judgment and whatever he thought of my strange looks.
My mother came over, covering her mouth as she started to cry. “Oh, my darling girl. I had hoped—I thought maybe, when you ran, you would learn to obey. I didn’t want—I didn’t want—” She shook her head. “My sweet!”

My father grunted. “I will speak to him, Marian. He must have patience with you, if you are to learn to be a good wife.” He rubbed my mother’s back. “Dear, it’s all right. Come, there is much more to talk about.”

My father reached forward, taking my good hand like he’d done when I was a little girl. He patted it and brought me over to the fireplace, letting me sit in the chair while he sat on the hearth before me. “There is much to hear, Marian.”

I nodded slow, my mouth dry like week-old bread. “I-I know,” I said.

“Where have you
been
?” my mother wailed. “Why didn’t you write? Didn’t you ever think—” She started crying again.

My father ignored her. “Start at the beginning,” he said. “Why did you leave us? Was it Joanna’s idea?”

“It was my idea,” I admitted, shame making my words slow but proper. “Neither one of us wanted to marry, but she would have done as you asked. When I said I wanted to run away, she wouldn’t let me go alone.”

My mother bent. “She has always loved you so very much,” she moaned.

“Where did you go?” my father asked. “How on earth did you manage, two girls on your own?”

“We went to London. Joanna took some coin she had saved, and we used that at first.”

“Who took you in London?” my father demanded, his face folding into a scowl. “What blackguard sheltered you and didn’t tell me of it?”

“We rented a room,” I told him, my voice tiny.

“A room?” my mother repeated.

“Like a—” My father didn’t dare finish the sentence.

“We managed,” I said quick, trying to keep my mind from wheeling into those days. “We managed.”

“
How
did you manage?” he snapped. “Did you sell yourselves? Is that what my daughters have become? Scarlet women?”

I flushed at the name. “We stole,” I said. I would never tell them what Joanna did at night to manage. I would never tell no one that.

He jumped to his feet. “Stole! Like criminals!”

My mother’s wail distracted him, and he stood by her, rubbing her back.

“I was an exceptional thief,” I told him, squaring my shoulders. “So good that Robin Hood asked me to join his band. And I’ve been doing that ever since. Helping people. Saving people.”

“There is nothing exceptional about a woman of noble birth embracing a criminal life,” he told me. “Nothing! And just how long have you been here? How long have you lived half a day’s ride from us and we never knew?”

“Years,” I breathed.

“Years!” he roared, stepping forward. My mother looked up, though, and caught his arm.

“Wait. When can we see Joanna?” she asked. “She’s here, isn’t she? We thought she’d come with you.”

I stood from the chair, needing to feel my knife, needing to be able to move if my father lunged for me. “No,” I said soft.

“So she married after all,” my father said. “Where? In London?”

“No,” I said, and my face twisted, my eyes filling.

“Where is she?” my father demanded.

“She died,” I whispered. I felt like crying but the tears didn’t come. I had cried so much for Joanna; it didn’t seem right to cry now when it were their turn to mourn her. I turned and looked at my parents, shamed. “In London. Three years ago.”

My father roared and came toward me, but I ducked away from him as my mother wailed in pain. “Where is she!” my father bellowed.

“My girl—” my mother cried, sobs stabbing in the middle of her words. “My only—girl is—dead—”

“What?” I asked, but I weren’t sure if I even really said it over their hollering. My father continued to rant at me, yelling and coming after me, making me shift round the room. “Mother! What did you just say?” I demanded.

“You killed our daughter!” my father screamed. “You killed our daughter! You took everything we ever had and never gave a damn about us! We never would have taken you in if we knew you would kill Joanna!”

This stopped me dead in my tracks. “Taken me …”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me hard enough that I thought my head would wrench straight off. I couldn’t stop him, couldn’t much think.
Taken you in
.

My hand jerked and hit my chest, and searing pain made me gasp, jerking to life. I drew the knife and angled it at his throat. He let me go, madness in his eyes.

“One of the other things I’m good at,” I told him. “Knives.”

His face twisted and he spat at me. “You are not my daughter. You never were.”

“Marian.”

My head twisted to look at Gisbourne, standing in the doorway. “I believe you are needed elsewhere at the moment.”

He folded his arms, looking at my father, and even if the kindness came from Gisbourne, I took my chance and left.

But I didn’t run.

I were done running.

I went to the tourney grounds, but not the the dais where I were meant to sit. I went into the crowd and found Much. “Rob told me what happened,” he told me.

My face dropped. How did Rob know?
Did everyone know?

He were looking at my hand, though, and suddenly the world spun into sense.

“I’m sorry,” he told me.

“It won’t change a damn thing,” I spat, waving him off. “You taught me that.”

His shoulder touched mine. “Still.”

“No John?”

He shook his head.

“Will you do something for me, Much?” I asked.

He nodded. “Of course, Scar.”

“You can’t yap about it,” I told him, looking toward him but not at him.

“Even to Rob?” he asked.

“Sort of. It has to be me what tells him, not you, Much.”

“All right. What is it?”

I scratched at the velvet on my gown, trying to push blood into my cold fingers. “Find out if anyone knows of someone who gave their baby to the Leafords.”

He stared at me. “You mean …?”

I nodded. “I think. I don’t know.”

“You, or your sister?”

“Me,” I said soft. “And fast as you can.”

He nodded. “The monks might know. They would have cared for your mother in childbirth—or noticed the lack thereof.”

“Or Lady Thoresby. Her mother were a midwife too.”

He nodded. “I’ll find out, Scar.”

A grunt rang out and we turned back to the field. It weren’t Rob fighting. “How has he been doing?” I asked.

“Fought twice. He’s winning, but my guess is they’ve been ordered to hurt him more than beat him. He’s taking punishment.”

I pushed my shoulders back. “One more day, Much, and it all changes. Forever.”

He squeezed my good hand. “I’ll go and find out, Scar.”

“Thank you.”

Much left, and I went to find my next quarry. He were there, in an overloud red felt hat, selling a crowd on some story. I moved into his sight and motioned to him, and it took him a moment to end the story with a flourish and collect some coin before coming over to me.

He flipped me a coin. “For the lovely lady,” he said with a bow.

I caught it, then tossed it back to him. “I don’t want your coin, Allan.”

He raised a charming eyebrow. “Then there’s something the lady does want?”

I met his eyes dark and true. “Confidence.”

He straightened, and the playman fell away. He looked at me. “I am a confidence man, Lady Scar. And at your faithful service, if you wish it.”