Lady of the Forest

Book 1: Novel of Sherwood

by Jennifer Roberson

Genres: Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Historical Romance; Historical Fantasy; Fantasy; General Fiction; Mystery; Romance; Science Fiction; Young Adult

Synopsis

A beautiful synthesis of Robin Hood legends. --Marion Zimmer Bradley With her king a captive and her coffers drained, England is left in turmoil during the Crusades. After the death of her father in the Holy Land, Lady Marian of Ravenskeep finds herself alone--and at the mercy of men vying for her lands and her beauty. Thrust into games of political intrigue, the sheltered knight's daughter soon learns to trust no one. . . Afforded a hero's homecoming, Sir Robert of Locksley returns from the Crusades a shattered man. In a country he barely recognizes, one torn apart by treachery and betrayal, he finds in Marian a kindred soul. Their quest for justice will take them into the depths of Sherwood Forest, where the dream of a new England will be born. . . "An imaginative and riveting novel, impossible to put down." -- Booklist "Robinson expertly evokes the sensations and frustrations of medieval life." -- Kirkus "A diverting, delightful book." -- Publishers Weekly

Release date: June 1, 2013

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 593

Sample

Marian smiled crookedly. This place transforms Ravenskeep into a hovel.

It did not, quite; her beloved manor was a worthy enough residence, and far better than a serf’s hovel. But Huntington Castle, in its towered and portcullised grandeur, was hugely imposing as well as exquisitely new, boasting the latest improvements in architecture and defenses. The keep was surrounded by a newfangled curtain-wall replete with ornate defense machicolations and murder-holes, but Marian was less overwhelmed by the size and sheer massiveness than by its master’s ambition and wealth.

The great hall itself was no less impressive, if a trifle intimidating, with its fashionably massive masonry walls intermittently shielded behind painted cloth hangings. The hall was awash in candle- and lamplight, painting ochre and umber shadows in corners, cracks, and crannies. Lute-song was an underscore to the warmth of so many bodies, the odors of sweetmeats, spice, strong wine; to the animated discussions swirling throughout the hall. Marian was aware of them all, if distantly, thinking instead of the reason she and the others—even those uninvited—had attended.

He will not remember me. He could not, of course; why should he? He was an earl’s son, and she a knight’s daughter. That they had met once, as children, would mean nothing to him. I wish—But she cut it off. There was no purpose in it.

Lute-song drifted to her through a break in the crowd. Marian glanced idly at its source. The handsome minstrel—some might call him pretty—she had seen upon arrival, marking him as true to type in bright-eyed, eloquent discourses designed to snare a female audience before he played a note. The rapidity of his success made her smile, but not fall victim; an answering glint in long-lashed blue eyes told her he marked her as something more than a simple, immediate conquest. But she had not entered the game for more than one reason: she was not disposed to play, and she had come for Robert of Locksley, Huntington’s heir.

Something pinched her stomach. This is wrong. I know it is. I shouldn’t tax him with this; simply because he’s from the same shire, I can’t expect him to know anything more than I do. She drew a deep breath. But I’m here now; it’s done. I’ll approach him anyway. What harm in the asking?

No harm at all in the asking ... if he deigned to answer. If he even knew who she was, or what her father had been.

She knew of no one else, no one at all. Men came home from Crusade nearly every day now, but she knew none of them. No more than I know Locksley ... but at least I can ask—Marian bit her lip. No harm in asking, is there?

She stared hard at the empty dais. Irritation flickered minutely. Marian sought and rekindled it, aware of guilty relief; it was far simpler to be annoyed than to dwell on flagging self-confidence. No doubt he holds back merely to make an impressive entrance.

Robert of Locksley, heir to vast wealth, an ancient title, and his father’s brand-new castle, sat very quietly on the edge of the chair, holding himself perfectly still. If he didn’t move, if he did not so much as twitch, the chair wouldn’t break.

And neither will I.

Through the studded oak door, carefully closed and latched for privacy, noise crept into awareness: echoes muted by wood, by stone, by distance; warped by perceptions, by interpretations shaped of circumstances now lodged in the past, yet oddly still part of his present. He wondered in a detached, negligent way if the selfsame echoes would also shape his future. He heard so many, now. Even those that were not real.

Shoulders and neck were set stiffly, unyielding to quiet protests of aching muscle and tendon. He sat with meticulous precision on the edge of the heavy chair, banishing the tremors of too-taut sinews, allowing himself no slackening of knotted muscles, no tranquility of his spirit. Listening to the noise.

A lute, clear and sweet, notes interspersed with women’s laughter, and girlish giggles. Lute and women, he thought distantly, were requirements of one another, if only to fulfill the fashion of Romance as dictated by a queen: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard’s indomitable mother.

Richard. He closed his eyes. Hands, splayed slackly across bunched thighs, flexed spasmodically, then doubled into fists, scraping nails against hosen fabric. A tremor shook his rigidity, then died. He sealed his traitorous eyes with all the strength he could muster. If I refuse to hear—

But the lute-song and the laughter beyond the door transmuted themselves without effort. The noise now was screaming—

—the boom of stone on stone, hurled against Christendom’s walls ... the shrieks of a man dying, disembowled by the splinter from a trebuchet stone ... the swearing and the praying, so often one and the same, making no difference at all to the Crusaders who knew only they served God as well as king, and perhaps their own ambitions—

And the Lionheart’s lusty laughter, no more inhibited by decorum than his appetites by rank.

For the thousandth time, Marian let her fingers examine the seating of narrow silver fillet over the linen coif and sheer veil covering her head and hair, and the double-tied embroidered girdle binding her waist and hips. Huntington’s great hall was filled with a significant portion of England’s nobility, men and women of great Saxon houses, and those of the newer Norman regime who had replaced the English tongue with French, so that the earl’s hall was replete with bilinguality. Marian, too, spoke both languages, as one was required; the other, older language, shaped by Norse invaders, was considered impolitic where business was conducted. Peasants spoke it primarily, while those desiring to rise resorted to English only among themselves, or when ordering villeins about.

Even the lute-player sang in French, though Marian supposed it was required. French was the language of legend and love, according to the Dowager Queen Eleanor’s dictates, and troubadours who reveled in the traditions of the storied Courts of Love inevitably sang of both, relegating the more ordinary day-to-day concerns to the reality they attempted to obscure.

She was distantly aware of the music, but was no more interested in it than she was in the conversation between four old beldams clustered before her. They spoke of nothing but the earl’s wealth, his influence, his unflagging support of King Richard, who would doubtless reward such loyalty, once his release from Henry was procured, and thereby render the earl yet more powerful and wealthy. Marian found such talk tedious; she was interested in the earl’s son, not in the earl himself. She disliked even more her own consciousness that the heir to one of England’s most preeminent barons would most likely find her question disrespectful and impudent.

He will brush it off like a passing impertinence, then have me dismissed before the nobility of England. Marian shut her eyes, hearing lute-song and conversation. Give me the courage to ask. It isn’t so very much.

Locksley twitched as someone called out his name. Blind eyes snapped open. He fought his way to the surface, groping for comprehension. Surely the voice was one he knew ... But the latch, quickly lifted, became the sound of a trebuchet crank as they readied to loft the stone—

—hurtling through the dry, dust-swathed air, crashing into the wall, pulping the flesh caught beneath—

Wood boomed on stone: a door against a wall. Wood, not stone on stone, or flesh, or bone, nor men to die from its force.

The voice: inflections of impatience, awkwardness, austere authority wary of preemption by concerns that could not be known, and dared not be questioned. “Robert—” More quietly now, but with no less pointed query, “will you keep my guests waiting all night?”

With effort Locksley roused and recalled himself from Holy Crusade to the war of wills now fought more subtly within the halls of his father’s castle. He rose, aware of deep-seated fatigue, and back-palmed the dampness on his brow beneath a shock of pale hair. Physically he was sound. The journey home had allowed him time to recover most of his former vigor, as well as the weight he’d lost. But what his father desired was nothing he wanted to do. Better to stop it now, to refuse quietly and politely, before the travesty went forward.

He turned, summoning courtesy, intending to say it plainly, so as to offer no room for misinterpretation. His father stood poised before the door. Beyond it milled the multitudes of English nobility, of whom Richard I, called Lionheart, was sovereign.

Self-control slipped into place, schooled to expected courtesy. “Forgive me.” He kept his tone very civil. “Had you asked, I would have told you not to bother. With—that.” A hand gestured briefly, eloquently, indicating the world beyond the door. “I would sooner go to bed.”

The earl nearly gaped at his unexpectedly recalcitrant heir. Then astonishment altered into autocracy, reshaping eyes, nostrils, jaw. Clearly the refusal, however politely couched, was not to be borne, nor could its understated plea be acknowledged. “By God—you will come out. At once. Everyone was invited. Everyone has come. Everyone is expecting—”

The residue of memories overlaying the present thinned, tore, then faded. Locksley had learned to adopt a quiet intransigence others viewed as self-confidence, though he himself knew better. Stubbornness, perhaps. Defiance, more like.

He kept his tone soft, but firm. The fleeting plea was banished. “It is none of my concern what everyone expects. You gave them leave to expect it without consulting me.”

The earl closed the door with the force of damaged authority and a desire to mend it at once. “By God, Robert, I am your father. It is for me to plan what I will plan, with or without consultation.” And then the thunderous expression faded. The earl crossed the shadowy chamber to clap both hands on his son’s arms. “Ah Robert, let this go. Why must we argue now, and about such a trivial matter? I thought you dead—and yet here you stand before me, full-fleshed and larger than life....” Blue eyes shone; the smile was a mixture of wonder and intense pleasure. “By God, all those prayers answered at last ...”

Locksley gritted teeth. When his jaw protested he relaxed the tension with effort. Let him have it, he told himself. Let him have this moment. For all I know it was the strength of his prayers.

“Come now, Robert—you must admit your return is worthy of celebration! The Earl of Huntington’s only son back from Crusade with King Richard himself? I want them to know, Robert! By God, I want them to know!”

“They know,” his son replied quietly. “You have seen to that.”

“And do you blame me? Do you?” Bluffness dismissed, the earl now was intent, albeit underscored by parental impatience. “I believed my son dead. I was told my son was dead, killed at the Lionheart’s side ... and yet a year and a half later that son comes to my castle, close-mouthed and dry-eyed, saying little of such things save the stories lied. ‘Not dead,’ he says. ‘Captured by the Saracens’ ...” The earl’s blue eyes filled. “By God, Robert!—no father alive could resist a celebration.”

Very quietly, with infinite respect no less distinct for its resoluteness, Locksley suggested, “Had you consulted me—”

“Back to that, are we?” The earl scrubbed his clean-shaven, furrowed face with both hands, mussing clipped white hair, then gripped the top of the nearest chair and shut his hands upon it, leaning toward his son to emphasize his declaration. In muted light, crease-couched blue eyes were now nearly black. “Two years on Crusade may have grown the boy to manhood, but I am still the father. You will do as I say.”

Age had dog-eared the edges, but the tone was well-known. It was one to be obeyed, one to be feared, presaging punishment.

But that had been in boyhood. Save for the scratchiness the tone was unchanged, and so was the expectation of instant obedience, but the son who heard it was not the same individual.

Something odd and indefinable moved in the son’s eyes. Had the earl been as adept at judging his own flesh and blood as he was at judging most people, he would have seen the brief interplay between duty and desire, the pale glint of desperation quickly banished and replaced by grim comprehension.

To the earl, his son was a hero returned from battle and captivity, companion to the king. Above all, his son was his son. That superseded all other knowledge, all other judgments. But Robert of Locksley now was far more than an earl’s son, and, by his own lights, far less than a free man.

The earl’s belligerence faded as he gazed at his silent son, and the tight-clenched line of his jaw weakened until the flesh sagged minutely. The arch of the proud nose, stripped of youthful padding, pierced the air more keenly. He was, unexpectedly, an old man. The Earl of Huntington had always been strong and vigorous. Yet now the muted tone was rough-textured and unsteady, thickened by emotion. “By God, Robert, let me be proud of you,” he begged. “Let me show you off to those who will deal with you when I am in the tomb.”

Locksley’s belly clenched. He had recalled, while on Crusade, all of the earl’s strength of will, his inflexibility, his autocratic authority. Never had there been softness; better yet, a softening, in memories or daydreams. Yet his father, now, was old.

I am all he has left ... unless one counts this castle. The thought was answered by a flicker of self-reproach, that he could be cynical in the face of his father’s pride. I perhaps do him an injustice—what immortality does a father have, save for begetting sons? And I am his only son ... I am more costly than most.

Inwardly he surrendered, releasing the intransigence which was as newborn to himself, who had always been dutiful, as it was frustrating to his father. It was not worth the battle. He had fought too many already. Let his father win this one: In captivity Locksley had become adept at not caring. Caring too much hurt.

The son acquiesced. The earl, seeing that, smiled in relief, then triumph, then complacent satisfaction.

Sighing, Locksley pulled wide the door. Beyond milled the multitude, telling stories of his captivity, his heroism, his valor. Making up what they could not know, to be certain of their reception in the eyes of those who knew no more, but would not admit to less.

The son, seeing that, cursed himself for a fool.

Marian pressed damp palms against her kirtle. Locksley was here at last and she was after all no different from the others despite her high-flown ideas. She was as curious and fascinated as everyone else.

It galled her, because she had desired him to be—counted on him to be—no more than merely a boy come home from playing at war. That sort of person she could approach without feeling so obviously self-serving.

She swallowed the lump of increasing nervousness. Other women lost fathers. I have no more right than they have to ask this man a question.

But no less right, either.

He stood before them all, poised upon the dais. Her instinctive, unexpected response was unspoken, but loud inside her mind: He is much changed. The boy, having gone to war, had returned from it a man. She wondered if anyone else saw him as she did, sensing what she felt, or if they were utterly blind. How could they miss it? They have only to look at him!

And they looked, even as she did, but saw what they wanted to see: the Earl of Huntington’s heir returned from the dead; a live man in place of a corpse, wearing rich Norman garments instead of dull linen shroud and flesh in place of the steel of a dead Englishman’s sword taken back from a Saracen thief.

He had gone on Crusade with the Lionheart as so many of them had, forsaking in the hot pride of youth his noble father’s attempt to buy back his service by paying honorable scutage. It was a thing done often enough among high houses and unremarked upon, and he was his father’s only son, heir to an important title and vast fortune. Fortunately, though King Richard needed men, he needed money more, and in place of flesh he would accept shield-tax.

The earl had tried to pay. His son had other ideas.

Marian nodded. He is much changed.

Robert of Locksley stood on the low stone dais next to his father, beneath the heavy dark beams bedecked with green-and-gold Huntington colors. Torches from wall cressets and tripod dais stands behind both men did little to illuminate their faces, painting only heads and shoulders. From a distance, all Marian saw clearly as she looked at the earl’s son was the blazing spill of white-blond hair worn much too long for fashion. He had always been fair, she recalled, pale as an Easter lily except for his hazel eyes.

I remember him from that Christmas ... It gave her an unexpected spurt of renewed conviction. I will ask him ... surely he can’t begrudge me a single, simple question.

Sir Guy of Gisbourne stared. With effort he shut his mouth, wiped the smear of perspiration from his upper lip, and bathed the dryness of his mouth with wine, too much wine, gulping all of it down until the cup was empty. He thrust the cup toward a passing servant-girl and saw how it trembled; he stilled it as best he could, daring the girl to indicate she saw his state. She did not. She merely poured him more wine, then took herself off.

He stared again at the woman who had stolen his wits away. He could not stop looking at her. Who—? He did not finish the question even within his thoughts. It would serve no purpose.

He had seen her arrive, attended by an aged maidservant now asleep on a bench by a wall. He had watched her make her way into the throng, exchanging greetings with few, keeping her own counsel. He had noted the fit and color of kirtle (a lustrous rich blue silk embroidered in silver at neckline and cuffs, bound slim at her waist by a beaded Norman girdle); the elegance of her posture; the glory of coif-shrouded hair; the richness of blue eyes—and, unexpectedly, the stubborn set of her delicate jaw as she gazed at the dais.

Shaking, Gisbourne scrubbed a hand across his brow. He swallowed painfully, sucked a breath through constricted lungs, and tried to master himself. His thighs and belly bunched, aching with erection; he more than wanted the woman, he needed the woman.

It had been months. There was an occasional serving-girl to ease him, but he found such women lacking and therefore the act as well. He wanted more, but knew not how to find it. Emptiness and frustration had become intimates of his spirit, leaving him with nothing but his obsessive attention to detail. His was the kind of temperament men like the sheriff treasured, because someone had to organize the administration of castle and shire. The sheriff of Nottingham dispensed justice. Sir Guy of Gisbourne, his seneschal, carried it out.

He had never been overly ambitious, nor was he an acquisitive man. His mistress was duty; his master William deLacey. But now, he would forsake all other vows if it put her in his bed. Not the knightly code ... no chivalry, in this.

Self-contempt flagellated him. He was, after all, not a knight as a knight used to be reckoned—that is, before the reign of Richard the Lionheart, whose compulsive need to go on Crusade had moved him to begin the practice of selling knighthoods to anyone who could afford them, along with lands and titles.

A knight is sworn to many things, among them courtesy. Gisbourne was not innately a discourteous or unkind man. He knew himself humorless, old for his age, consumed with conducting his life—and the life of Nottingham Castle—with an obsessive dedication that rendered him invaluable to deLacey, but annoying to others. They couldn’t see that what he did was needful in the ordering of their lives. They saw only that he was hard and uncompromising and incapable of reducing his personal standards to suit their whims.

But when he looked at the woman he forgot all of that. He thought only of her body, of her beauty, and what it promised him.

For Marian, the dais ceremony did not grow tedious. She watched fixedly as Robert of Locksley without hesitation accepted the welcome of each man and woman who came to the dais for presentation. His manner was quietly gracious but oddly restrained, as if he performed the ritual solely for the sake of his father. He was taller than the earl by half a head or more, which had not been the case when Marian had last seen him, two years before. Then he had been a youth with narrow shoulders and bony wrists. The shoulders now were broader; she could not predict the wrists.

Memory warred with reality. More than a decade had passed. People changed. Children grew up. Women married and bore children, while men went to war. But she recalled the past so well she couldn’t reconcile it with the present. One night only, one kiss, one Christmas Eve. But he would never recall it, not as she did.

From where she stood, buried in the throng, Marian could hear nothing of what was said. She saw the earl’s broad smile, the movement of his mouth, the clasping of hands and arms as each man came forward to pay his respects, presenting wives and blushing daughters. But the son didn’t smile. The son merely waited in watchful silence as each guest approached. He clasped arms if they insisted, murmured something back, but his mouth never curved. The eyes never lighted.

It was as if, Marian decided, the fire inside had died. Or perhaps it was merely banked.

William deLacey, the Lord High Sheriff of Nottingham, caught his youngest daughter’s arm and steered her away from the knot of women clustered near the minstrel. It wasn’t that he disliked music or was deaf to the minstrel’s skill, but there were far more important things with which to concern himself.

“Eleanor,” he said as she opened her mouth to protest.

She subsided quickly enough, but he was not blind to her resentment. She was plain, not pretty, with no promise of improvement as the years went by. It was no wonder she threw herself at the head of every girlish musician. They were invariably more beautiful than she, and certainly more talented.

But possibly less intelligent. What Eleanor lacked in looks, she made up for in cunning.

He drew her behind a screen and released her arm. A quick glance ascertained that she had not yet spilled wine on her dull saffron kirtle—could she not have dressed more brightly?—and her lank brown hair—could she not have crimped it more?—had not yet begun to come down from an elaborate coiffure. “You are here for a purpose,” he reminded her.

She dipped briefly in a mocking curtsey, lids lowered over angry brown eyes.

“Your future depends on it.”

Lids flickered. Lifted. She looked directly at him. “Your future depends on it.”

His mouth thinned. “Yes. Certainly. You know what I want, just as I know what you want—”

“You don’t know the first thing about what I want.” The tone was quiet but virulent. “You never have, and you never will, because you never listen—”

“Enough!” It shut her mouth instantly, as he intended. “You will behave yourself, Eleanor. I will not have you demeaning me by playing the mooncalf over that minstrel, when you are here for another purpose.”

Eleanor smiled calmly. “The minstrel is exquisite.”

A flicker of irritation flared briefly into anger. “I don’t care if he played for Henry himself at his deathbed, Eleanor! You are to conduct yourself as befits a woman of your station.”

“But you are, as always, more concerned about your station.” She showed teeth briefly, and an overbite. “If you understood music, you would know how good he is.”

He caught her elbow and squeezed. “Eleanor ...” But he bit back the impatience, channeling it into a quieter passion that would touch even his stubborn daughter. “I want what’s best for you. I want a man for you who can give you what you deserve.”

Eleanor nodded sagely. “So that I can share it with you.”

He shook his head slowly. “Don’t waste yourself, Eleanor. Look in the mirror I gave you.”

She blinked. “In the—mirror?”

“In lieu of lands and dowry, a man will marry for beauty. I have no lands of my own, your dowry went to the king, and your beauty is nonexistent.”

Eleanor’s color vanished.

DeLacey patted her arm kindly. “I’m sure you understand that what I do is as good for you as it is for me.”

It was expected that everyone would greet the earl’s son. It was why Huntington insisted they stand on the dais, he and his heir, greeting everyone. His son was back from the dead. His son was on display. See how the son lived in defiance of the tale of his death at Richard the Lionheart’s side?

Marian, too, had heard the tale, grieving for his death. For one night she had cried because her father also had died, and because she recalled a Christmas no one else would. But Robert of Locksley was home, against all odds. Her father never could be. Only his sword had been sent.

She closed her eyes as fingers curled into fists against her skirts. It wasn’t fair, she knew. Locksley’s survival merited prayers and gratitude, not resentment. Not jealousy.

Grimly she chided herself: Be pleased the boy survived. Too many others did not. She opened her eyes again. No, not ‘the boy.’ There is nothing boyish about him.

A man stopped at her side. The voice was quiet and cultured. “I have brought you wine, to cool your pretty throat.”

She glanced up sharply. William deLacey pressed a goblet into her hand, smiling warmly. Condensation on the goblet very nearly caused her to drop it; she closed both hands around it and thanked him with a nod.

The sheriffs brown eyes were compassionate. “I miss him as well, Marian. And I would, given the chance, trade that boy for your father. Hugh of Ravenskeep is worth three of him.”

She was surprised by his bluntness as well as his presumption. They were in the earl’s hall. Anyone wanting favor might carry the words to the earl; or worse, to his son, who no doubt would find them churlish as well as humiliating. “We should give thanks God was merciful in sending one of them home.”

DeLacey smiled. “Your kindness does you credit, but you know I speak the truth. Locksley is nothing to you. Your father was everything.”

Was. Not is; was. Her father was of the past, while she was of the present.

What now was her future? She was Hugh FitzWalter’s only heir, and on his death she had become a ward of the Crown. By English law she held the manor in trust for her future husband, and although she had had no plans to marry, certainly it would be suggested very soon, now that her mourning was done. Ravenskeep, as other manors, was a valuable source of revenue. Marian FitzWalter, ward of the Crown, was one as well. At the moment she was unencumbered because the Crown, in Richard’s person, was imprisoned in Germany.

Treason, she mocked herself, to be grateful for the time while the king is being held. She drank, swallowing rapidly, trying to ward off the bitter taste of the future she despised. If I were a man ... But she broke it off at once, knowing it served no purpose.

The hand brushed her shoulder. “You didn’t have to come.”

Marian summoned a smile over the rim of the goblet. “I came, like everyone else, to pay the earl honor.”

“Not to impress his son?”

“To impress—?” Seeing his eyes, she laughed. “You brought Eleanor.”

A rueful smile replaced the guardedness of his manner. “I am found out.”

Marian matched his smile. “You must not be so anxious, my lord Sheriff. Eleanor will marry, just as her sisters did.”

One corner of his mouth flattened. “Eleanor is plainer than her sisters, as well as headstrong. And older; time is running out.”

It was not what she expected a father to say of his daughter, even his least favorite one. Eleanor was, she thought, too much like her father. They detested one another, while needing each other’s regard.

Marian arched black brows. “So, you have brought her here in hopes of interesting Robert of Locksley.”

“In hopes of interesting the earl; I care little enough what Locksley thinks of the girl. He has no say in the matter.” Impatiently, William deLacey frowned down the line. “If Huntington is the man they say he is, he will see to it soon. There is talk of the boy already.”

Marian was astonished. “He has only just come home!”

DeLacey flicked his fingers. “You know as well as I how servants carry tales. They all of them are peasants; they have no sense of decorum.”

“And perhaps they are only tales.” Marian looked toward the dais. “I cannot imagine there is anything anyone could say of Robert that impugns his honor. The king knighted him—”

“In war,” the sheriff said grimly, “honor is often lacking. Survival is what matters.”

“And if there is truth in these stories,” she retorted, “why are you so eager to wed Eleanor to him?”

The sheriff laughed aloud. Brown eyes glinted. “You know better than that: he is still the son of an earl.” Amusement faded, replaced by a quiet intensity. “Did you come for Locksley?”

Marian drew a constricted breath, conscious of her reddened face. How could she explain? She herself did not know all the reasons she had come. “I came ...” She hesitated. “I came because my father would have wished it. You knew him, my lord ... would he not have wished it?” Neatly done, she thought. Let deLacey deal with