A shadow. She found the barest difference between a wall and the gloom along the floor. As her eyes adjusted to the nearly impenetrable black, she sucked in hasty, thankful gulps.
Stiff, weak, she crawled along the cold dirt to the opposing wall, outlining the contours of her confines. No wider or longer than two lengths of Ada’s body, the cell barely allowed room enough to stand. Cracks between the bricks wept a dank wetness.
In the two weeks since being arrested by the sheriff’s men—Will Scarlet and that ogre, Carlisle—she should have been fined or hanged or released. But unknown captors still held her, moving her from location to location.
Would Meg find a way to locate her? Perhaps she would enlist the aid of Lord Whitstowe. And if the earl refused, she could seek Asher ha-Rophe or his son, Jacob. Maybe even Hugo.
No, she would never ask Hugo.
Whether she would bother searching at all teased and niggled Ada’s conscience. Meg had yet to forgive her, a knowledge they shared as intimately as the isolated cabin they called home.
Footsteps sounded along a corridor, muffled by thick walls. The cell door swung open with a fantastic creak, torchlight flooding into the dim space. Ada blinked furiously and squinted against the sudden brightness.
Anger and fatigue gnawed away at caution. “I need food,” she said sharply.
“And I need answers.”
She could not tell which of the four silhouetted men had spoken. His curt sentence reverberated in the tiny space, quiet but unchallenged.
“Who are you to hold me?”
“I’m Peter Finch, High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire.” The man stepped through the squat doorway. “What are you called?”
“Ada, my lord sheriff.”
“Now, Ada, you will answer my inquiries.”
Scrutinizing her foe, she searched for any obvious physical marker, but an inexplicable plainness defined Finch. His mundane features formed a common appearance. He was of medium height and build. His hair, neither long nor short, was an ordinary shade of brown.
Had he been dressed in silks and layers of embroidered finery, he would have passed as a nobleman. Dressed in an apron and covered with grimy sweat, he would have looked the part of an able blacksmith. But clad in nondescript black garments, he blended with neither profession—only with the shadows.
Finch squatted within arm’s reach and Ada edged away, pressing her back to the wall. Weakness and hunger sapped her strength, melting her brain into a fuzzy mass of impulses. She wanted water, clean air, food. Freedom.
“You tried to sell counterfeit emeralds to a merchant in my city,” Finch said. “And I wager you’ve succeeded in other markets.”
Modulating his words with slow precision, he sounded lazy, almost tired, but Ada recognized the truth. He used his bland appearance and calm demeanor to dull his opponents’ wits—in this case, hers.
“I want you to tell me the origins of those imitations.” He pitched his voice lower, a man whose patience was thinning. “The nature of your captivity will depend on your cooperation.”
Her mind swirled through and around a host of inappropriate replies. She could not refuse him, but neither could she reveal Meg’s role in the plot.
Or could she?
Ada blinked, trying to find a way free of the hypnotic cadence of his words. The monotonous parade of syllables lulled her senses. Weakly, she said, “I’m hungry.”
Finch snapped his fingers. Two men stepped through the small door and took hold of Ada’s arms and ankles, pinning her. Terror lodged in her throat. A third guard jammed his torch into a sconce, the flames casting a wobbly pattern across damp walls.
Rational thought rejected the scene as too strange, too impossible to be real. Just as she had blinked past the temporary blindness, she willed her nightmare to end. But nothing altered. No manner of wail or wish expelled those brutal men or flung away their hands. Panic filled her mouth, like trying to breathe while submerged in sap.
Finch removed a dagger from his belt. Jewels glinted on its handle, the hectic torchlight scattering colors around the cell. He drew the weapon nearer. The threat of that blade pressed on Ada’s mind until her entire world reflected in its gleam.
“These are real emeralds, Ada, my dear.” He lifted the dagger’s handle to the light. The green gems lit with a clear fire, glowing like sunshine through summer leaves. He brought the blade low, softly sliding the cool metal along her bare sole. “And you try my patience.”
“Please, I’ll tell you.”
“Yes.” He smiled as if sharing a jest, the most emotion he had yet displayed. “If you want bandages, you’ll tell me everything.”
Before the words registered, a sharp, unearthly pain sliced through Ada’s foot. He cut her. From heel to toe, hot blood rushed past disoriented nerves. She screamed, the whirling echoes of her agony creating clouds of sound. Pinned by the unflinching guards, she thrashed and kicked to no avail. Tears flowed, drenching her cheeks.
Finch wiped the knife along the hem of her dress. His blandness transformed into resolve as hard as his dagger’s steel. “Talk.”
Her panting sobs bubbled into the air. “My father was an alchemist. He made the imitations. When he died, he left them to sell if I needed to.”
“Are there more? Can you make more?”
Even through the pain, she recognized much. There would be no trial, no fine. And Meg was in terrible danger.
“I can,” she said. “But the process takes time. You must secure a supply of Cyprian copper. It has to be Cyprian.”
“You’ll have it.”
Ada suppressed the hysterical hiccup of laughter. He had not blinked. He had not asked for an explanation. He had merely consented.
The sheriff stood and tossed a ball of linen strips into her lap. “You’ll cooperate, unless you want a matching wound on your other foot.”
Ada bowed her head and nodded, a shudder engulfing her body. Her pride balked, and again she thought of Meg—always relenting, always dipping her eyes when a lie demanded it.
How do you do it?
Finch nodded for the guards to release her. “Until you buy your freedom by providing that recipe, consider this your home.”
The men withdrew. A third guard deposited food, ale, a blanket, and a fresh chamber pot before locking the door.
Cold from the floor seeped into her legs, stealing grace and power from her muscles. The sound of scattering feet revived her. Ada shrieked and lunged at eager rodents, slapping them across the floor. Like an animal, she hunched over the food and ate greedily.
Hunger sated, she crept nearer the dwindling torch and examined her foot. Fresh blood and dirt mottled the wound, and its smooth edges would be long to mend. She worked quickly to clean the twitching limb with ale and dress it, an agonizing fire nestling along her sole.
She sank into fresh straw and tugged the blanket over her trembling legs. Fear dyed her thoughts with ugly colors. She was a scholar and, despite how poorly she had handled Finch, she had faith in her ability to maneuver people.
Meg, however, made the emeralds.
Hurry, Meg.
But memories of Hugo forced her to alter the plea.
Please hurry—if you’re coming.
And she could not very well taste him.
Her senses exhausted, she discovered nothing to compensate for the simple task of seeing. Awaiting the results of her experiments vexed her none, and her schemes only bore fruit after patient planning, but that afternoon had moved faster than any in her life. She wanted explanations with equal haste.
Such human fickleness! He risked his life to save her from ravishment, only to abandon her to the whim of the woodlands. He seemed distraught about the ambush, but he admitted to working for the sheriff and arresting Ada.
An unpleasant guilt trudged with her through the forest. She should have known such a fate awaited them. No swindle, no matter how clever, could go unpunished forever. But two years of successes lulled them into complacence.
Worse still, even if she managed to secure her sister’s release, she would have to rely on selling fertilizers, not forged emeralds. The gemstones traded for more gold than did the potash, and without that gold, she would have to abandon her experiments. And Ada would likely get married, eager for a better life—or at least a life of her own.
Her jaw turned to stone. Hers had been a fool’s errand from the start, and now she was lost in Charnwood, miles from home. Pursuing her deceitful sister made as little sense as forgiving her, a chore Meg left stubbornly unfinished. But she loathed the idea of losing Ada.
Her distracted thoughts proved hazardous when she kicked a rock. Agony sparked from toe to kneecap, like a carnivorous animal clamping sharp teeth through her boot.
Tears burned and she cursed her useless eyes. She swallowed grief and frustration like unripe fruit, bitter but vital. She played at eliciting sympathy from gullible people, but she would not succumb to genuine self-pity. Not again. That way led to madness.
She knelt and massaged her aching toe. With perceptive fingers, she found the palm-sized rock and flung it into the woods. A rustle of leaves and squawking birds split the forest calm. Another rustle followed. And another.
She straightened. “Who—?”
Large hands clamped onto her face and around her arms, smothering her in a wash of foul-smelling terror. When a scream tried to escape, fingers clad in leather filled her mouth.
Scarlet?
But no. Pressing close, the man was shorter and smelled foul. His nasal voice confirmed her assessment. “Hold fast, miss. You need to come with us.”
Surprise ceded to anger. For heaven’s love, she wanted to be a man—a brawny man with perfect vision and a pikestaff like a small tree. She would beat every brigand witless.
Instead, she clipped the back of her captor’s calf with her heel. Biting hard on a mouthful of leather, she heaved and struck. The skin of his lips gave way beneath her knuckles. The man yelped but held fast no matter how she wrestled.
A second man with lean, bare fingers lashed her hands. Rough rope chewed the thin skin at her wrists. “There’s a girl.”
They released her body but held tight to the rope, tugging her like a leashed animal. “You have no right to detain me. I have done nothing!”
“We’ll let Hendon decide that, miss,” said the nasal one.
Hendon? As a man-at-arms for Lord Whitstowe, he should be protecting her, but if Scarlet was right and the earl had been murdered, Hendon must have played a role. Still, she could no more trust Scarlet’s tales than she trusted the twin boars pulling her through Charnwood Forest.
She tried to catch the looping laces of her alms-bag, to no avail. She tripped. Two clumsy hands yanked her from the sodden ground.
“Let me go, please,” she said. The sulfur sting of fear gathered at the back of her tongue. “I can tell you which way Will Scarlet went.”
The second man laughed like a donkey’s bray. “You’re a helpful miss. But no need—we have him already.”
He eyed Earl Whitstowe’s traitorous guard, Hendon, as he stalked the clearing and ordered his men to prepare for nightfall. Two other soldiers continued upriver in search of Meg. Will had surrendered in hopes she might delve deeper into the forest. Her assault on his bullocks was no reason to wish her harm at the hands of these villains.
Hendon stalked to the oak and knelt beside him. “Comfortable?”
“I assume you’re under orders to take me back to Nottingham?”
“Of course.” Hendon pulled a dagger from his waist and twirled it over his fingers, spun it, then caught it. Heavenly justice would ensure that he slipped and sliced off a thumb, but he continued the tricks without flaw. “Otherwise I would’ve killed you already.”
“You would’ve tried.”
Hendon exhaled, almost a chuckle. “Where’d the girl go, Scarlet?”
“You sniff her out.” He yawned and closed his eyes, leaning against tree bark as jagged as shattered glass. “She’s not my concern.”
“But I can make her your concern.”
Something about Hendon’s stony voice and the sharp menace behind his words set his nerves alight. He peered at his captor. “How so?”
“I would hate to see anything happen to Lady Marian, not with her husband out of the country. And they have a son, am I right?”
A mist flowed over Will’s skin, enshrouding him in outward composure. But fury surged. “If you harm his family, Robin will hunt you to the ends of Christendom.”
“Perhaps.” Hendon grinned at last, a dog baring his yellowed teeth. “But she’s rather vulnerable at Loxley Manor, is she not? Without you there to protect her? I wonder which of us he would hate more: me for raping and murdering his wife, killing his little boy, or you, his dear nephew, for leaving them to die?”
Will yanked the ropes. The wound at his shoulder screeched in protest, agony casting his vision in a haze of red.
Hendon only widened his canine grin. “Does that hurt? Because I can make your imprisonment less enjoyable.” He grabbed a blunt stick from the forest floor and jabbed it into Will’s wound. Wood splintered in the mangled flesh. He yelled as pain exploded, like dipping his arm in fire. “Are you paying me mind, Scarlet?”
He hissed through clamped teeth. “Toss the stick away and we’ll talk.”
“Making demands of me? My, you have chops.” Hendon waved the piece of wood nearer to Will’s shoulder, teasing, before pitching it into fallen leaves. “Will Scarlet, man of legend—afraid of a twig. Next time I’ll use the dagger so you won’t lose face.”
“If I cooperate?”
“Marian sleeps safely.”
“And if I kill you first?”
“Unlikely, but what does it matter? Carlisle will have as much fun pricking her, I’m sure. Think on it, Scarlet,” he said, standing and dusting leaves from his quilted leather breeches. “A few hours of light remain. We can still catch up to her.”
Will closed his eyes as Hendon walked away. The biting bark, the pain like flames—none of it mattered. Marian would suffer because of him. Young Robert was in danger.
And Robin.
He shuddered to think how his actions would appear. He had abandoned Loxley Manor without explanation, a purposeful decision his uncle had yet to forgive. Robin would never know his motives for leaving, not if Will had breath left to honor his promise to Marian.
But how would he explain taking service with the new sheriff? No excuses would make it right if harm came to their family. The rift between them would become a killing feud, and he would go to his grave by his uncle’s hand. Robin would forever believe Will had abandoned Loxley Manor for the worst, most selfish ends.
Unacceptable.
He pushed one heel against his shin. The damp sole of his boot stretched and bulged until the leather gave way at a patched seam. Iron caught the waning daylight and glinted a dull gray. Bending over, lifting his leg, he caught the sliver of metal in his teeth. He twisted and dropped it near his hip. Stretching, arching, he loosened the ropes just enough to pick up the shard.
Distant shouts roused Hendon’s attention. He and a second soldier grabbed their weapons and rushed into the woods.
Will seized his opportunity. He quickly carved the iron shard into the hemp until the ropes twitched, eased. An incautious slice against his skin caused him to jerk. The hard, reflexive jolt of muscle broke through the last of his restraints.
He leapt free of the tree and snatched his sword. Confronting the only remaining guard, he swung the blade down. The man dropped with a strangled cry, gripping the horde of mangled muscles at his hip.
Male voices emerged from the woods. The two soldiers who had broken from Hendon’s group dragged Meg between them, ropes encircling her wrists.
Will attacked. He kicked the taller man’s weapon into the air and caught it, leveling two blades at his bleary opponents. “You, drop it. Good. Now lie on the ground.”
The shorter soldier sported a bloodied lip. His helmet was nowhere to be seen. At his right temple, a hunk of hair was missing.
Will flicked his gaze to Meg, unable to suppress his approval. Long hair framed her face like a dark veil, and she flaunted that strange little smile. Slumped shoulders and a lowered chin suggested deference, but readiness coiled in her muscles. She balanced on the balls of her feet.
Unpredictable, dangerous—that much he knew. But Finch’s men believed her valuable. He wanted to know why.
“Meg, are you injured at all?”
“No.”
“Staying here or coming with me?”
He would drag her to Nottingham if he must, but he preferred her cooperation. Defending them both would be more difficult if he also had to watch his back.
“I’ll stay with you.”
As if accepting a dare, she offered her wrists. Will sliced through the ropes.