Everything is a Choice

Chapter 27

Previously...

I could kiss him, I think. I could kiss him right now and slip away into the shadows before he is fully awake, watch as he touches his lips, eyes widening in the knowledge that Robin of Locksley, the Earl of Huntingdon desires the man he has hated for as long as he can remember.

My stomach growls in protest of too much liquid and not enough food. I shuffle backwards and away, heart banging in my chest.

Will's bed is not as comfortable as mine is and the blanket is thinner and rougher; but it will have to do, at least until Guy is well and we sort out our future sleeping arrangements.

In the distance, an owl hoots and another answers. The trees rustle and creak in the soft breeze. The telltale tread of a woodland creature nears and then fades away.

The forest is sleeping its gentle nighttime sleep, while I am lying in bed wide-awake and restless.

Tomorrow, I think. I will tell him tomorrow.

~

Chapter 27

I crouch beside the bed and gently touch his bare wrist. Guy opens his eyes, blinks to clear them of sleep.

If I'd taken Matilda up on her offer to poison him, right now I could be hiding behind some tree, arrow nocked, ready to rob some passing nobleman of his coin, instead of squatting here with a bundle of damp leathers resting on my knees, heart pounding, my throat tighter than a taxman's purse strings.

Guy pushes up onto his elbows. He glances at the closed curtain. "No mad girl with a hunting knife coming to slit my throat? No foul-mouthed medicine woman about to castrate me?"

"No, they're-"

"I was jesting," he says, lips curling upward into a genuine smile. "I heard you sending them on their way earlier, along with the rest of your gang." He wriggles farther up the bed, until he is sitting. He eyes the folded leathers resting on my thighs. "I can't believe you managed to persuade your pudding-headed servant to wash those, even though he'd probably lick your boots if you asked him to."

"Much is not my servant, and he didn't wash them. I did."

"You?"

I nod.

"Why would you do that?" Guy eyes both the leathers and then me suspiciously.

"I haven't filled them with creepy crawlies, if that's what you're worried about." I lay them on the ground, beside the bed. "I figured you'd prefer not to go around wearing Matilda's late husband's cast-offs."

"True enough," he says, plucking at the course woollen tunic. "These clothes itch like buggery." He looks at the neatly folded leathers. "The witch told me she was going to cut my breeches up into very small pieces and make me eat them."

"Matilda is not a witch," I tell him. "And she says a great many things that she does not mean."

"Trust me," Guy says, pulling the woollen tunic over his head and scratching his bare chest. "She meant it."

I notice his chest is hairless and wonder what it would be like to run my hands over it and if I did whether he'd chide me for daring to stroke him with calloused bow fingers and many a broken fingernail.

"You can't blame her for disliking you, not after what you and the sheriff put her through. If it hadn't been for us, she would have drowned."

Guy scowls. "I always knew you were behind her escape somehow."