Everything I Do: a Robin Hood romance (Rosa Fitzwalter Book 1) (19 page)

Rosa stepped back gratefully and leaned on the trunk of the tree she had previously climbed, trying to catch her breath.

But the stranger seemed to have been transformed. His face shone with happiness and he was smiling broadly. John stared at him in disbelief, but didn’t loosen his grip.

“Robin, you said?” the stranger shouted. “The way you said it, so familiarly, as if he were your friend…” he turned and looked at Rosa, then back at Little John again. “You’re his men, aren’t you? I found you!”

With that, he threw his arms around Little John and hugged him fiercely, managing at last to take him completely by surprise.

…

When they arrived back at the camp everyone else was there already, settling down to eat. Robin was pacing all over the clearing, and as soon as they appeared he ran towards them.

“Where have you been?” he asked Little John angrily, but his eyes were on Rosa. “I was worried sick… Hey, steady there.”

She had stumbled and as he caught her arm to keep her from falling, he peered into her face anxiously. The two men walked on towards the camp, Little John freeing the visitor’s bound eyes as he led him forward.

As soon as the young man’s eyes were free of the cloth that blinded them, he fell to studying the faces of the men around him with interest. He lifted his face towards the last rays of the sun that filtered through the leaves, and he closed his eyes with delighted abandon. The men surveyed him curiously and with reserve, as they did all strangers, but even they could see that something was different about this one. That he was here to stay. 

“You name, stranger?” one of the men called, and the man turned towards him, an expression of confused delight on his face, for he had not been aware of the puzzled glances thrown his way.

“Julian,” he said, in a loud clear voice that impressed the men. “I am called Julian.”

Falling a few paces behind the men, Robin turned his attention to Rosa .

He reached behind her neck and pulled down the cap that hid her coppery curls. It was his custom to do this as soon as they arrived back at the camp every time, and Rosa let him, enjoying the look of pure delight that came over his face when her luscious curls tumbled down her back. It seemed like he never expected them to be quite so rich, as if he was always surprised by their beauty.

This time, however, Rosa did not even notice that her head was free from the confines of the ugly ‘Stuart’ cap. She was struggling not to let her weakness show, and she set her teeth, but the black spots started dancing before her once again, more prominent and threatening than before.

For a moment, all went black, and she tried to focus again, but in vain.

“Rosa!” Robin’s warm, concerned voice penetrated the darkness and she fought to remain conscious.

She swayed and he caught her against him in alarm.

“What’s wrong?” he asked urgently. “Were you hurt? Let me see.” He bent towards her and cupped her face, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Your face is so white… you are all done in.”

He made as if to take her in his arms and carry her, but she pushed him resolutely away. That was the last thing she needed, to be seen by the men being carried like some feeble little woman. Robin seemed to understand and he circled her waist with his arm instead, almost lifting her from the ground as she tried to walk, his own strength supporting her.

“Come on,” he knew she needed the encouragement of his voice to keep walking the short distance, “courage, my brave girl, we’re almost there.”

He helped her sit down at the bark of the second large oak, which was quite concealed from the camp by thick bushes. As soon as she was settled, her head leaning heavily back on the soft, brown trunk that smelled of earth and sunshine, he darted away. She wasn’t even aware of his brief absence, and only realized that he had gone to bring her food when he shook her gently awake, taking her hand in his.

She opened her eyes, a little disoriented, and saw his kind face leaning towards her, his black eyes shining with intelligence and humor as always. But something seemed to shadow them today, and with surprise she saw that it was concern for her. She wanted to tell him not to worry about her all the time, that she would be fine, but she was too exhausted to. She let her heavy eyelids drift closed again.

“I know you are tired,” he said, and his voice was so soft it was hard to imagine that it was the same voice that led the whole camp into battle, “I know and it is my fault for having pushed you too far, but please try to swallow a little of this. Come on, it will do you good.”

She wanted to tell him that his voice was the only thing keeping her from going under, but she had no energy to speak, and every breath she took was beginning to ache alarmingly.
I won’t have an attack now, I can’t
, she told herself, but then Robin’s voice seemed to fade in the distance and she lost consciousness.

Robin saw her head fall limply to one side, and moved quickly. He put his one arm beneath her shoulders, supporting her, and with his other hand he shook her softly at first, then more fiercely as he saw that she was not responding.

“Wake up, come on, open your eyes,” he told her, as if somewhere in her subconscious she could hear him. “I know you can hear me, my girl, come on, don’t do this to me.”

She opened her eyes slowly, gasping at the pain in her old wound, and he lifted the flask of wine to her lips, still supporting her. He was relieved to see some color returning to her cheeks as she drank, and he hardly spoke as he carefully fed her some of the jelly Tuck had brewed earlier, except for soft murmurs to show her he meant to encourage her for making the effort.

She sat up when the wooden bowl was half empty and tried to look away, suddenly embarrassed.

“What is it?” he asked and reached for her, thinking she was feeling unwell again.

“Nothing,” she replied still looking away, “except you’ll be thinking now that I am weak and useless. And you will be right too.”

He set the bowl down gently, and lifted a finger to her lower lip, brushing an imaginary speck away.

“No,” he said slowly, “that’s not at all what I was thinking.”

He tried to make her face him, lifting her chin with his thumb, but she resisted and he did not want to press her. He let his hand drop.

“Look at me,” he said and waited. “Look at me.”

She lifted her eyes and it was all he could do not to kiss her right then.

“What I am thinking is that I should be taking better care of you,” he said, and she knew he meant it, for his boyish eyes were serious, boring into hers, and a little sad.

“I knew that a woman in camp would be an impossible encumbrance to all of you,” she said, seeing how his jaw ticked once at the word ‘impossible’, “and I was foolish to think…”

“No,” he interrupted. “That’s not how it is with you, Rosa. You are one of us; you have put your life on the line for me and my men, and now that I’m looking at you, you are so fragile and exquisite, and I can’t help but admire how much strength your slight frame holds. I wonder… Were these the only times you have helped us? Were these we know all the sacrifices you made, was that all? Or is there more I will never know, I will never be able to thank you for?”

She felt the color rising to her cheeks and turned away from him.
You won’t find out, ever
, she vowed silently, as she had many times in the past year.

“I spent hours looking at you when you were sick, trying to guess your secrets, the terrible pain your heart must hold, and how much of it is due to me,” Robin continued and she lifted her face to see he wasn’t looking at her, but somewhere in the distance. His eyes were hooded again, his lower lip as if about to tremble. “How will I ever discover, how will I ever know you completely…? Sometimes I think that is what I desire most in the world, more than anything else. More than justice, more than peace.”

He turned to look at her as he said this and his eyes were wild. She could see a fire burning in them and a pain so deep it scared her. Involuntarily she leaned back, away from him and even though the movement was slight, he saw it, and schooled his expression. He reached out tentatively and took her hand in his, enveloping it between his fingers.

“Are you cold?” he said, distracted. “Your hands are like ice.” He rubbed them gently with his, trying to communicate to her his warmth. “Come, I must get you inside to rest.”

But she was reluctant to get up, to leave him. The little glimpse she had seen of his soul was too small, it had left her hungry for more.

“But let’s make one thing clear,” Robin said suddenly, without letting go of her hand, and she wondered if he shared her reluctance to part. “I thought I would keep you here until you were entirely well, until you were healed completely, I mean. I thought I’d be safe from losing you until you had gotten back your strength and then I’d harden my heart and find you a safe home in one of the villages where I am well-known and, I hope, loved.”

He stopped and took a deep breath that sounded more like a painful sigh, not noticing her panic at the mention of her leaving the forest.

“But, you see… I was a fool,” he went on, “and I didn’t know my own heart.”

He turned to look her straight in the eyes.

“I can’t let you go, Rosa, that’s the truth,” he said and his voice trembled slightly when he said her name. “I thought I could, but I can’t. Your presence here is as essential to me as sunshine, as air. It is extremely selfish of me, but I know that I will never send you away, I know in my heart I won’t be able to do it. If ever it becomes unbearable for you and you ask me, I will release you at once. I will send you anywhere you want to go, I myself will take you there. I’ll build a palace with my own two hands and take you to live in it like a princess.”

He chuckled at his own folly, but his laugh lacked its usual humor and brilliance. As he knelt there before her, his muscles flexing beneath the fabric of his tunic, he looked like a proud, wild stag, one with the forest, its king and beauty, and her heart almost ached to behold him.

“Or at any rate, I will find you a safe home where you will be loved and taken care of,” he went on. “I don’t know if you will be taken proper care of here in the forest, and you see that already I am making a terrible job of it, but the thing is, you have become one of us now. Losing you would mean losing the most treasured of my men, the most valuable and” he paused a minute and when he continued his voice was a whisper “the most beloved.”

They remained like this for a while, no one speaking or moving and then Robin lifted his hand to brush away a strand of hair that fell on Rosa’s forehead, gleaming like rich gold in the slant of the sun’s last rays.

“And the bravest of my men,” he added softly, a smile beginning to form itself on his lips. “Definitely the bravest. By far.”

“Master, please…” Rosa began, but right then a bellow reached them from the other side of the tree, where the men were attacking their meal with vigor.

“Chief, where are you? The stranger is eating us out of hearth and home! Come put a stop to his appetite!”

“Robin! Come here!” jolly voices joined in, laughing.

Rosa and Robin exchanged a smile and he lifted one finger to signify that she should wait for him as he sprung to his feet.

When he came back however, mere minutes later, she was peacefully asleep, leaning against the crook of one of the tree’s thickest roots that rose from the ground. A surge of jealousy flooded him irrationally, for the brown embrace that held her was not human, and still he envied it with a fierceness that surprised him.

Robin smiled ruefully, mocking his own violent reaction. He had finally lost his mind, that was for certain.

He stooped and lifted her carefully in his arms so as not to wake her. He took her to the cabin, which the men had started calling ‘Rosa’s cabin’ and covered her with a thick fur. He stayed for a moment, watching the rhythmical rise and fall of her chest beneath the covers, and then, reluctantly, he left.