Juliana Garnett (34 page)

Driven now, he freed himself of hose and braies, bent over her with his weight between her legs. Desperate need, long denied, still denied—he entered her slowly, immersing himself in more than just her body, rocking back and forth until she began to respond. Sweet savagery and gentle brutality rent him from taut control to wild abandon. He used her with growing ferocity, and she answered his potent thrusts urgently.

Shudders enveloped him, sparked his release, a blinding crash that left him spent. He cradled her in his arms, his breath a painful rasp in his throat. Muscles slowly relaxed; he kissed her face and tasted salt.

“Tears?”

A nod of her head, stifled sigh. “I thought you were lost to me. Since I left Nottingham a sennight past, I have not dared to hope. Now you are here.” She turned, gazed at him through the shadows. In her eyes shone emotion; love, hope, constancy—all the things he was afraid to feel. All the things he already felt.…

She touched his face, a light caress, her words a whisper he felt to his bones: “I love you.”

He went still, strangled by reluctant emotion. Never had he said the words to any woman; now they sat heavily on his tongue—a tongue the king had named facile. Fluent in all but these words. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath.

I love you, my lady Jane.

Jane drew back the shaft, felt thrumming tension in the taut bowstring before her fingers snapped free; the bolt sped home to pin a slender willow wand to the broad trunk behind with a vibrating
fftwannggg.
Satisfaction rose, spread into modest pride when Tré gave a nod of approval.

“You are more formidable than I remembered, my lady Jane. But then, a bodkin arrow at the throat requires little skill.”

Teasing laughter lit his eyes when she turned and lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “It is not so difficult to best a man busy with more pressing matters.”

Sprawled on a cushion of thick grass beneath an oak, he regarded her through half-lidded eyes, the faint smile at the corners of his mouth making her heart beat erratically. Sunlight spattered him in a soft golden glow; no black surcoat with a raven on it now, but a jerkin of Lincoln green stretched over his broad chest, barely discernible from the lush green of the forest.

He was one of them now—reluctant outlaw garbed in doeskin and cross-gartered boots to his knees, a sword more comfortable in his hand than a bow. Kept at bay by the others, still not trusted despite her acceptance of him, Devaux was a man out of his element, surviving because his body demanded it.

She knew it, feared it. He would leave the safety of the forest when the time came, and there was nothing she could do to keep him there. The pain eroded her contentment. Yet she would grasp what she could from their time there, wring every tiny shred of joy from her days.

“Where did you learn the art of the bow, chérie?”

An idle question, a distraction she welcomed. She moved to him, folded her legs beneath her, felt his eyes linger on them appreciatively.

“There was an archer who came oft to Ashfield when I was a child, a friend of my mother’s. He taught me, though my mother protested.” She paused, traced a hand over the soft golden curve of bow that felt like silk beneath her palm, smiled
in memory. “When it was seen that I had some skill, my uncle presented me with this. It is of good yew, made from the heart.”

“Your uncle.” Tré shifted, stretched out a long muscular leg clad in green hosen. “Robin Hood.”

Ignoring the hint of derision in his voice, she nodded. “Yea, so he was once called. Robert of Locksley was his true name, then the Earl of Huntington when King Richard bestowed upon him the title and lands in reward for valor and loyalty.”

“King John now holds Huntington.” Bitter reflection, a taint of loathing and malice to his words. “John, who holds all of England in abeyance.” His hand fisted in the grass, tore it from the ground, a frustrated motion.

Silence fell, so impenetrable that she could hear the beat of her heart. Then a lark sent its melody skyward, joyous and ignorant, a balm to ease the tension.

She leaned into him, laid her hand on his jaw until he looked at her, a shadowed, tormented gaze.

“He cannot reach us here, my lord.”

His hand closed around hers, held it. “No. Sherwood holds even the king at bay. As it did me. We could remain here until the stars fall from the sky, and none would e’er come near.”

He brought her hand to his mouth, lips grazing tiny calluses on her skin. He looked up at her through his lashes, a smoldering gaze.

“Would that be so dreadful to you, my lord?” Her whisper was light, yet fraught with an intensity that did not elude his notice.

He smiled against her palm, nipped gently at fingertips with his teeth, then clasped her hand between his own, large, strong ones, a comfort and a promise.

“Nay, my sweet, not if you were close-by.”

He says all but the words I yearn to hear
.…

A
plash
sounded in the lethargic current of the River Maun, warning of a visitor to the leafy bower where they sat. Tré released her hand, eyes guarded again, wary when Little John hove into sight.

Reserve still lay thickly between them, neither man ready
to trust the other. Jane turned, smiled at the giant blotting out light and tree with his wide frame.

“Has Will driven you from the cave again with his complaints?”

John grunted. “Nay, ’tis the harping songs Alan uses as torment. Rather a day in Nottingham dungeons than more of that.” Light eyes shifted to Tré, lingered but a moment before flickering away. “There is word of Ravenshed.”

The smile faded from her face. “Not—?”

He nodded. “Aye. Seized by the king, servants driven to the wood. Sir Guy and Will make ready to bring them here.”

Tré rose to his feet, a lithe uncurling of supple muscle, and flexed his hands. “It will give me great pleasure to do something other than watch trees grow.”

A cool regard measured Tré; John’s mouth flattened. “As it will earn us satisfaction to best the Normans.”

Hostility quivered in the air; Jane stood up, said in a light tone, “There is room in Sherwood for all. Norman, Saxon, or servant—all who are persecuted unfairly are well come to the greenwood.”

Reluctant agreement simmered in Little John’s eyes, and he gave a grudging nod. “Aye, ’tis true enough, my lady. The king has bound us together, whether he meant it or not.”

Though Tré did not acknowledge the sentiment, it was obvious in the brief tuck of his mouth that he recognized the truth of it. Those outside the king’s law were linked by both circumstance and purpose.

John’s massive shoulders relaxed slightly; a faint smile turned up his lips. “We have a measure of good wine rescued from Nottingham’s cellars, just delivered by Brother Tuck. ’Twas lost on the King’s Road, I am told.”

Tré’s mouth twitched, then eased into an answering smile that was only a bit strained. “It must be the same road that snares venison dressed and roasted for the table. A devious track, with unexpected bounty for the fortunate few who find it there, it seems.”

“Yea, so it seems.” Bland amusement creased Little John’s face, spread into a grin. “A different view from the opposite side of the road, I am told.”

“So it is, John Lyttle. So it is. An opportune chance that men of Sherwood are so observant.”

Tension dissipated, eased into wary acceptance. Jane dared hope that time would allay Tré’s restless desire to leave the safety of Sherwood.

Yet she veered from the inevitable—the knowledge that beyond the greenwood lay both danger and disaster.

27
 

Rain fell softly on broad leaves; scrubbed the forest of dust, save in the vaulted depths that closed leafy arms against it. Tré knelt at the front of Jane’s bower and gazed out; she refused to linger in the cave.

“It closes around me like a fist and I cannot breathe,” she explained, and he remembered her flight from Nottingham. A dark night, a brave lady … desperation and despair that he never wanted to feel again.

He pivoted slightly on the balls of his feet, looked at her where she sat cross-legged on straw and linen. Misery lined her features, darkened her eyes, was evident in the errant quiver of her lower lip—but unvoiced.

“You know I have to go, Jane.”

A nod of her head, tragic eyes looking down. “Yea, I understand.”

He smiled tightly. “You are a most dreadful liar. It is as plain as Tuck’s big belly that you do not understand at all.”

“Yea, you are right.” A swift glance up, intensity in her eyes and tone: “You are
safe
here! The king is gone from Nottingham, and Gaudet too busy with his new duties as high sheriff.… Soldiers are afraid to come this far into the forest,
and even if they did, they could not find us. No, I do
not
understand why you must risk all!”

“I am not a man to live forever in a cave, Jane. There must be an end to this.” He blew a heavy sigh, spread his hands on knees covered by rough woolen hose. “Near two months now, and I still am more used to wearing mail than a jerkin. This is not a life for me. Or for you.”

At her silence, he looked away, stared beyond dripping trees toward Nottingham. “Tuck brings word from the barons of their willingness to speak at a council in my defense. It is a chance to lift the verdict of outlawry from my head.”

“Or a chance to see your head on a pike!”

Vehemence laced her words, spat at him like a cat. He looked back at her, smiled faintly. “Do not honeycoat your feelings for me, sweet lady.”

She muttered something inelegant, and put her hands over her face. Soft hair looped over her shoulder, careless plait gleaming on leather jerkin. They all wore green in the forest, shades of Lincoln green and brown that blended with trees and brush to render them nearly invisible. A cautious man could live forever in these trees. Tré understood now how impossible a task it had been to find them there.

He glanced out again at a world of somber verdigris, jade, drab olive; colors washed by dew and mist, an anonymous blur of dense trees and thick vines like walls, a hush that swallowed up light and man with impunity.

It closed in around him with stifling serenity.

“We leave within the hour. Tuck has arranged a meeting with Gilbert of Oxton and Lord Creighton.” He paused, heard her muffled sigh, and continued, “The king is at Winchester and poses no immediate threat. We must move swiftly, ere he returns to Nottingham.”

A long silence drifted between them. He heard her move at last, a soft shuffle of straw and linen as she came to the front of the bower to put her hand on his arm. Muscles tensed beneath her touch; his hands knotted on a slender twig he picked from the ground to keep from reaching for her instead.

“Forgive my fears, Tré. I would hold you back and have you
be someone you are not, so great is my fear for you.” She paused and he glanced at her, recognized the dread in her eyes for what it was.

“I would never leave you willingly, lady mine.” The words came out more harshly than he had intended; he cleared his throat, looked away, and tried again. “I do this not just for me but for us. I could never endanger your life by wedding you when the king has a price on my head. John is not averse to using the wives of his barons against them.”

Fingers tightened on his arm. “Yea, I know. Go then, with my love and my hope and prayers. I will wait for you here, where I am safe with Little John and Will.”

She offered him peace of mind and he took it, turned to bring her into the angle of his arm, tilted her face up for a kiss that was desperate and fierce. Then he set her aside, a hand firmly on her shoulder.

“Do not come to bid us farewell, for I want to keep my memory of you like this, beneath a bower of green vine and sweet flowers.”

He meant it, and saw by the wretched light in her eyes that she held back tears. Brave lady, facing him with a wet smile, offering to him what she did not have herself.

It was an image that he held to tightly when they met with Oxton and Creighton.

Shadowed stone and incense enclosed them in the nave of Saint Mary’s, a church and sanctuary in Edwinstowe. Tuck’s breath was labored, loud huffs that echoed from high ceilings. He tugged at his cassock, eyed the barons and Sir Guy, and said with urgency: