My stomach twisted and my chest felt like stone. “Eleanor wants me to go to France. Or everywhere, with her, it seems.”
“Well, she can borrow you from time to time—this seems to make her your grandmother, yes?—but she can’t have you.” He stopped. “Do you want to go everywhere with her?”
“No,” I said. “I want to get to know her, but I told her I don’t ever want to leave Nottinghamshire.” I looked at him—how were it possible to feel so much love for a thing and feel so lost and hopeless at the same time?
“Then we’ll figure out something that satisfies you both. I can share.”
I blinked up at him. “This doesn’t change anything for you, does it?” I realized.
“Of course not.” He frowned. “Did you truly think it would?”
I nodded slow.
“Scarlet,” he murmured. His hands squeezed my waist. “I’ve told you all along, I knew who you were from the first. I know your heart. Names, titles, hair, odd clothing choices, none of that changes who you are. And I am madly in love with who you are.”
Staring at him seemed like the wisest thing to do.
“Do you know why I won today? How I won?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“I knew after the first shot they’d changed the arrows. I figured one more shot would never give me the feel of it enough to control the third. And then I imagined you, a tiny little ball of rage, berating me for ever doubting myself. Telling me that I’m the best damn archer you’ve ever seen and that there’s only one thing the prince didn’t count on—that I’m a better archer than he knows.”
A smile crept over me. “I dressed you right down, it seems.”
“You did. And you saw the effect it had on me.” He sighed. “Besides, it isn’t as if the nightmares are gone. It isn’t as if I won’t be dealing with this for a very, very long time, and if you can find it in you to love me despite all that, I don’t think you can really find it unfair for me to love you back.”
“How have they been?” I asked. I took his hand from my back and tugged him to the bed, sitting up against the wall, my feet tucked up. He sat beside me, jigsawing his body into mine and rubbing my knees.
“The first night I was here I didn’t sleep—every time my eyes shut I was there again, and I couldn’t breathe. After we spoke … it was better. I think I’ve been so scared of them—which makes them worse, I think—because every time I thought of it, I thought of the way you’d look at me. The way I was afraid you’d look at me. And when I told you, you didn’t. They’re not gone, but when I wake up, it’s just awake, it’s not blinded like I was before.”
“What else happened in the Crusades?” I asked.
He sighed. “Is it strange to say that there was a lot of it I liked? The trip there—we were sailing for a year, and seeing so many strange, beautiful lands. The food we ate—my God, you should have these oranges that we just pulled down from trees. The juice was like nectar. And the colors—colors you never see in England. In the desert everything is tan, and white, with dangerous smudges of black. The buildings are all made from sand and stone the color of sand. And the Mediterranean is this changing teal blue, like a deep, faceted jewel, lined with olive trees on every bank, it seemed. I saw more things in those years than in all the rest combined. And the men I went with—there was something so strong there. We were fighting for more than England. We were fighting for God, for each other. I could ignore my own pain to protect the man beside me. It’s a mentality of war, and yet when I came home, I found the same loyalty, and selflessness, in you.”
My shoulder were near him and he kissed it, like he were worshiping a goddess. Blood crept through my face.
“Do you want to know about your father?” he asked soft. “Richard?”
A deep breath drew my chest up, but I nodded.
“He’s a giant,” Rob said with a grin. “Not truly, of course—maybe a head taller than me. But he always seems huge, and formidable. I was a young man when I first answered his call, a boy, really, and he was a hero. A titan. Seven feet tall, three across. The loudest voice I ever heard and the first to teach me that if you want to prove you’re a leader, whisper, because everyone will listen to you no matter how loud you are. I think faith must run in the blood, because you’re the only one I’ve ever met whose faith rivals his. He knew. Every battle, he knew we’d win, and he taught us to believe too. We believed in him.” His face twitched with a frown. “Even the things I questioned, I trusted him that it was necessary. And it was. For the war, at least, if not for my soul.”
I squeezed his hand.
“He had fire and temper too. I saw him lose at cards once and he beat the man—the bigger man—to a bloody mess because he cheated. It took a lot to get him angry, but Heaven help you if you did.” He shook his head. “He taught me so much about strength and power. That the man who is truly powerful has the option to forgive, to pardon, to forgo vengeance and violence. It’s the weak man that must prove himself through such.” He looked at me. “I always thought my father was weak. He was a very tolerant man, very forgiving and kind. I thought it meant people took advantage of him. Richard made me think very differently of my father. Then he died, and I never got the chance to tell him just how much I loved him and respected him. And honored what he taught me.”
I smiled at him, half for the softness of what he were saying, and half because I’d never heard him talk like this about war, and I loved it. Sliding my palm against his, he clasped mine gentle. “What are you smiling at?”
“My sheriff,” I said. “So did you want to marry at sunset to beat John to matrimony?” I asked.
He brightened. “I didn’t even think of that. Good! That’s justice.”
I laughed, and he pulled me against him. “He were so happy tonight.”
A kiss landed in my hair. “We all were. In the castle, no less. Hard to imagine.”
“It’s the beginning of everything,” I said, closing my eyes into the daydream, thinking of how it were meant to be. “I don’t have to be a noble anymore, and the shire can all be free and happy under a fair sheriff.”
“Well, you’re still a noble,” he corrected. “But you don’t have to dress like one, if you don’t wish.”