Chapter Twenty-Two
The forest was quiet. Any wind that had rustled the leaves was now still. Dawn was quickly approaching and foolishly, Robert had allowed himself to fall asleep tangled up in Mariel’s limbs, the sated husband. They rode silently on Goliath’s back, his spare horse in tow again, aiming for the quickest route back to Huntington Castle. Mariel rode aside and leaned her cheek on his heart. He sensed she was comforted by it, for all morning she had been fretting about her father searching these very forests. She would be safe if he could get her back within Huntington’s walls.
Their hair was unkempt, their clothing wrinkled, bundled in their cloaks. He watched their breath escape in puffs of steam into the chilly air, knowing she did the same. Her scent was all over him, as he knew his was on her, and the taste of her mouth still lingered in his. She belonged to him. He would protect her. He would protect her… If only he hadn’t fallen asleep. If only they had made the trip home, they would have woken in his bed, concealed by his bed curtains—
A snapping of twigs caught Robert’s attention. He reined in Goliath, pausing and listening for the sound to come again so he could place its location. It didn’t come again. Mariel sat upright.
“Let’s get you remounted, get bow and arrows in hand,” he whispered sharply. She nodded and was about to slip down from Goliath when horses emerged onto the well-traveled road.
“Well, well, it seems the young earl found my betrothed.” William de Wendenal sneered. “But the question now is, what did he do to her?” He gave her disheveled appearance a perusal.
Shite! Robert’s pulse jumped as Mariel stiffened. Her father was not more than fifteen paces ahead of them. He hadn’t his bow and quiver accessible yet. His men had not accompanied him on such a private mission. He felt anger at himself begin to burgeon. Rage. Be dammed, man, but you vowed to protect her!
Confidence would need to win the day, but he had a sinking feeling. Mariel’s warnings that her father always got what he wanted rang true. The man looked like the devil ready to carve out his heart.
“Sadly, sire, you’re a day late and a shilling short on this account. Mariel is my wife. Binding and legal, and what did I do with her? It ought to be obvious considering our bedraggled state.”
Nottingham charged forth, as did her father. Robert dropped Mariel to the ground and rode Goliath in front of her, withdrawing the sword at his hip. He deflected the blow that Nottingham leveled against him, and then deflected Crawford’s follow-up, but then Mariel screamed, and he whipped around to see one of Nottingham’s soldiers dragging her away, her dagger in hand, attempting to lodge a stab.
That moment of distraction proved fatal. A blow struck his head with such force, his eyes went black and he felt his hands slacken their grips on the reins and sword. Another blow sent him from his mount, floating, floating, crashing upon the forest floor. The jolt reclaimed his consciousness and he staggered to his feet, Goliath grunting and stomping as he shielded his master’s body.
Turning, he saw Mariel rip herself free of her assailant and run to her horse, yanking free her bow and a fistful of arrows by their fletching. Whirling around, she sent a well-placed arrow into her assailant not five feet from her and whipped around to Nottingham, now charging at Robert and her father now charging at her. She sent an arrow into Nottingham’s stomach, watching him double over as Robert regained his coordination and whipped loose a dagger, slinging it point over hilt in a whirl to lodge between the ribs of another soldier who’d attempted to come at him from the side.
Mariel nocked another arrow and aimed at her father, but he was upon her. He snagged her bow, ripped it from her clutches, snapped it in half, and tossed the pieces aside. Then his fist crashed downward from his saddle in such force, her arrows scattered and her face whipped sideways. Robert stared in horror as she tipped off her feet, her body smacking the ground.
“Stop!” he bellowed, but Crawford wrapped his fist in her hair and dragged her across the path, depositing her beside Robert on the ground, four men having tackled him, stripping him of his money, his weapons, and the keys to Huntington.
“No! No! Robert!” She thrashed.
“Silence!” bellowed Crawford, subduing her by collapsing upon her and wrestling her onto her stomach. He wrenched her arms behind her back, and she wailed in anguish. He pulled her head up by a fistful of hair, aimed at Robert.
“You made yourself a wife, but I’ll make you a widow, you daft eejit.” He growled. “No daughter of mine defies me and gets away with it.”
Robert twisted beneath the soldiers, watching Nottingham stride forth, much too confidently for a man who had just been gut-shot. William de Wendenal looked down at her. “You think you shot me, woman, but in truth,” he held open the flap of his cloak, “you shot my purse. Barely nicked me.”
“I knew something was off about you,” Crawford said to Robert, whose muscles were taut as he strained. “I left my man behind to spy on you, and because I knew you might discover him, I found another within your walls to help me. Someone bitter at you for wanting my wild spawn of a daughter. Teàrlach knew nay your treachery, but the other one did. And let me tell you. You trust those closest to you way too much, you pathetic, overconfident fool. Your faither was more of a man than you could ever be. And he never would have let Mariel get away with what you welcome from her.” Crawford looked at Nottingham. “Finish him.”
“No!” Mariel shrieked.
Suddenly realizing that Mariel’s nose poured with blood from her father’s blow, Robert thrashed so violently he dragged a couple soldiers holding him onto the ground.
“I said finish him!” bellowed Crawford. “I’ll see my daughter a widow and you’ll have your marriage, even if she is spoiled goods. I’ll double the dowry to compensate for her impurity. And then I’ll be off to the Duke of Brittany and on to Scotland again. To the Royal Court. Where I hope to eventually see to William the Rough’s replacement!”
“No! No!” Mariel screamed. “You can’t kill him! Please you can’t! I love him! I love him!”
A heavy hand silenced her, and her head thudded back to the earth. Crawford stood, leaving her flattened on her stomach, lifeless.
“Whoreson!” Robert raged, kicking free another soldier and swiping Crawford’s feet from beneath him. “Get your hands off her!”
“End him!” Crawford thundered as Nottingham’s men worked to subdue Robert once more.
Nottingham tapped the flat of his dagger point against his palm, when he stepped back and shook his head.
“No. This is the Earl of Huntington and holds King Richard’s interests. There has already been enough strife since the king left for the Holy Land, and he is due to be back at any point. If Sir Jonathan Naylor and a number of other nobles have been bankrupted and then his beloved Earl of Huntington killed, I fear he will blame me.”
“Mari,” Robert croaked, the air gone from his lungs as a soldier sank a knee into his chest, his head forced unnaturally sideways to see her lying unmoving in the dirt and pine needles.
“No… He shall go to prison until King Richard returns, and then I can discuss his transgressions with the king. His Highness will consider it a wise move. But Robert…” Nottingham looked down at him, clicking his tongue as he tore away Robert’s sleeve to reveal a scab from the arrow puncture he had sustained three days earlier. “Ah, yes… As I suspected. Thieving from me at the point of an arrow? How will King Richard feel about that?”
Robert didn’t care what the king or anyone else thought. He cared about Mariel. He cared that the last words she had screamed had been that she loved him. Mariel loved him, and he realized he loved her and had never told her. He had promised marriage would protect her, but she had been right. If her father wanted something done, he wouldn’t let anything stand in his way.
“Will King Richard care to know how you came by all your ill-gotten money?” Robert asked.
Nottingham’s men wrenched him to his feet and shackled his hands with iron cuffs. He winced, feeling that his ankle was strained from twisting on the ground. He ought to be proud that he held off so many men at once, that it took four burly soldiers to take him down, but all he could do was look at Mariel and feel his heart rip from his chest. He might never see her again, might never know what befell her.
And what if his seed took hold? What if last night they had created a babe, potentially his heir? If Crawford didn’t kill her first, what would he do to the child when it was born? Keep it as his heir if it turned out to be a boy? Drown it, if it turned into a girl? Bile lurched in his throat. God, he was going to be sick.
He had to stay alive, if anything, for the chance that he might get away to track her down. The sheriff’s men dragged him forward.
“That money, I’ll have you know, hasn’t fattened my coffers as it has yours,” Robert said. “It goes to the very people you stole it from. It goes to widows, orphans, men thrown off their land and their property seized because you upped the rents, though might I assume you never wrote to the king to gain his consent? And might I guess that the king’s accounts haven’t seen a proper imbursement, that some of that coin purchased you those fine new gloves and velvet coats? For certainly your father could never afford to dress you as such—”
“That’s enough from you,” Nottingham snarled, yanking off his glove and lashing it across Robert’s cheek.
No, that is enough from you. Robert lunged forward as the guards slackened their grip. Fools, thinking that a pair of shackles meant he was incapacitated. Throwing the chain around Nottingham’s neck, he yanked hard with both hands, kicking a foot back at Crawford who came to his friend’s aid and sending him staggering backward. But soldiers were landing blows upon him and Crawford lifted a knife.
Nottingham gained freedom from his choking grip and took a step back, filling his lungs with air once more.
“Ye certain I can nay kill ’im?” Crawford rumbled.
“Yes,” Nottingham wheezed, rubbing his throat and staring with hateful eyes at the young earl. “I’ll take him alive and let King Richard see the dishonest, violent man he has become.”
“This discussion is far from over,” Crawford said, and brought the butt of the knife down on Robert’s crown.
Robert buckled, his eyes rolling back, and he fell limply into the soldiers’ grips.
…
Crawford collected his good-for-nothing daughter, hoisting her up.
“What am I supposed to do with her? Ye were supposed to marry her.”
Nottingham grinned wickedly. “My lord, I’m a selfish man. Your daughter seems a hellion. I fear she would murder me in my sleep. I have the culprit of these raids in custody now, and I can’t tell you how pleased I’ll be to inventory the Huntington vaults. Until Robert’s fate is decided, ’twould seem she is trapped in marriage.”
Crawford looked ready to rage. “We had a deal. You help me and I help you.”
Nottingham’s men dragged Robert’s body away. “And I am good on it. We’ll figure out another arrangement. After all, I helped you find Mariel in the first place, and you helped me bag my bandit. But I believe I dodged the arrow of matrimony with that spawn of yours. And oddly, I have Robert of Huntington to thank for that.”
He offered a shake of his wrist, and Crawford, resisting the urge to spit on him, shifted Mariel in his arms and forced his hand out to shake, as well. Indeed, Nottingham had helped him end a months-long search for Mariel that had proven fruitless before. He carried her to her horse from Huntington’s stables and tossed her belly-down over the saddle. After lashing her into place with extra ropes, he mounted his own horse, looked to where his men stood ready to depart, and parted ways with Nottingham’s contingent, heading north.