Romancing Robin Hood (38 page)

Rob's face creased in confusion as he produced a handkerchief to dry her off, ‘I'm so sorry. Why aren't you shouting at me?'

‘You making me jump reminded me of Robert and Mathilda, that's all.'

‘It did?'

‘Yes; and that's the second time today my own life has echoed that of my literary protagonists.'

‘Does that mean you've finished your novel then?' Rob looked so proud and genuinely pleased that Grace mentally kicked herself. She had been just as much of a fool as he had.

‘Yes,' Grace smiled, ‘just a few hours ago in fact.'

‘So what did you decided to call it in the end?'

Grace frowned. ‘That's the bit I'm not one hundred per cent sure about.
Folville's Girl
is still in the running, but I thought I might go with
The Butterfly Girdle
.'

Rob's eyes twinkled mischievously as he sat down next to Grace, ‘I can't deny that
The Butterfly Girdle
sounds very sophisticated, but as it happens, I have come up with the perfect title for you.'

‘You have?'

‘Yep! You should call your book
Romancing Robin Hood
.'

‘
Romancing Robin Hood
?' Grace narrowed her eyes, not quite sure if her fellow historian was serious or teasing her.

Winking, Rob slid an arm around Grace's waist and squeezed her playfully, ‘After all, that's what you and Mathilda have been doing all your lives, isn't it!'

Laughing, Grace shook her head, ‘For one awful moment I thought you were serious.' Without waiting for Rob to expand on his thoughts for her title, Grace grabbed her chance to apologise before her bridesmaid duties called her away.

‘I'm sorry, Rob. I should have told you properly about Aggie and her matchmaking. Thing is, I never took it seriously, so it didn't occur to me that you would. As Daisy told you, I didn't really have the heart to let her down, or get the opportunity to get out of seeing him.'

‘You mean let Malcolm down surely?' Rob sat on the bench next to her and stared out across the landscape.

‘Malcolm probably wouldn't have noticed if I was there or not. He seemed happy as long as someone was making “I'm impressed” noises about his sporting and business achievements.'

‘Oh, one of
those
men.'

‘Sadly for Aggie, yes. But bless her; she loves Malcolm in spite of the whole self-centred arrogance thing. It was her feelings I didn't want to hurt.'

They sat for a while, admiring the gently rolling hills.

‘You can see them can't you?' Rob placed a hand over Grace's palm, holding it as he examined the roll of the landscape with a historian's eye, ‘the medieval population working the land; doing what they can to survive in a world that was, even by today's standards, cruel and relentless in its demand for hard work.'

As Rob but her own imaginings into words, Grace nodded but said nothing, not wanting to ruin the moment. After a while he said, ‘I've finished something as well.'

‘You have?'

‘Our paper. I went ahead and wrote it using your evidence. I emailed it to you this morning, but if you hate it I won't submit it.'

Grace was gobsmacked. ‘But I assumed …'

‘You thought because we had a teenage-style falling out that I wouldn't want to write a paper with you any more?'

‘Well, yes. I mean, you did say so!'

‘Well, I wasn't going to at first. But then I realised I was being unprofessional mixing up my personal feelings with my professional ones. You're an excellent medievalist. A moment of idiocy isn't the sort of thing that would want to stop me wanting to work with you. And doing much more than work, for that matter!'

The sound of the gong ushering all the guests to dinner interrupted just as the conversation was beginning to get interesting, making Rob sigh with resignation, ‘You're back on duty now, and this isn't the place to talk properly. Even afterwards you'll have the round of relatives to dance with and stuff, but I wondered …'

Grace looked up at him. Rob seemed anxious. ‘Yes?'

Reaching into his inside pocket he pulled out another piece of folded paper and passed it to Grace. ‘What do you think? I've never actually had the time to explore Nottinghamshire properly since I got back from the States, and somehow it seemed the ideal place to get to know you better.'

As Grace read the printout of a booking form, for a room in a hotel hidden away in what was left of Sherwood Forest – for that evening and the following two days – her mouth fell open.

‘Daisy said you deserved a break. Will you come with me, Grace?'

Posting the piece of paper back into his pocket, Grace stood on her tiptoes and kissed Rob gently on the lips, before taking his hand and walking with him toward the dining room. ‘I will, on two conditions.'

‘And your conditions are?'

‘That we share a room.'

Rob beamed; his expression telling Grace exactly how he approved of this clause in the agreement. ‘And the other condition?'

‘Oh that's obvious isn't it?' Grace squeezed his hand playfully. ‘That we can visit the Robin Hood gift shop, of course!'

Footnotes

¹
Roger Belers was murdered in 1326 in the field of Brokesby, Leicestershire. The incident was recorded in the Assize Rolls –
Just1/470

²
Each county in England was split into hundreds, which served as individual administrative areas. By 1326 each hundred had its own court. Ashby Folville, Twyford, and Reresby were all in the Leicester Hundred of East Goscote.

³
The Outlaw's Song of Trailbaston
, Dobson & Taylor,
Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw
(Gloucester, 1989,) p.253

⁴
Piers the Plowman
, Langland, W.,
The Vision of Piers the Plowman; A Complete Edition of the B-Text
(London,1987), Passus XIX, line 245, pp. 242-3

⁵
Scattergood, J., ‘The Tale of Gamelyn: The Noble Robber as Provincial Hero,' ed. C Meale,
Readings in Medieval English Romance
(Cambridge, 1994)

⁶
The real-life steward of the Folville Manor at Ashby Folville was John de Sproxton. I have only made Robert de Folville the steward for the purposes of this story.

⁷
Leyser, H.,
Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450-1500
, (London, 1995)

⁸
Robin Hood and the Monk
, Dobson & Taylor,
Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw
(Gloucester, 1989), p.113

⁹
Bellamy, J., ‘
The Coterel Gang: An Anatomy of a Band of Fourteenth Century Crime
',
English Historical Review
Vol. 79, (1964)

¹⁰
Edmund de Ashby, sheriff of Leicestershire, was ordered to pursue and arrest Thomas and Eustace de Folville (with others) after they were indicted in the murder of Belers.
Calendar of Patent Rolls
, 1324-1327, p.250

¹¹
Nichols, ed.,
History and Antiquity of Leicester, Vol. 3, Part 1,
p.389, p.96

¹²
Hanawalt, B.A.,
Crime and Conflict in the English Communities 1330-1348
(London, 1979)

¹³
A Song on the Times
is recorded in the ‘
Harley Manuscript'
No.913, folio 44. Wright, T., The
Political Songs of England, From the Reign of King John to that of Edward II
(Camden Society, First Series, Vol. 6, London, 1839)

¹⁴
A Geste of Robyn Hode
, Dobson & Taylor,
Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw
(Gloucester, 1989), p.112, stanza 456

¹⁵
Robin Hood and the Potter
, Dobson & Taylor,
Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw
(Gloucester, 1989), p.127, stanza 17

¹⁶
Robin Hood and the Monk
, Dobson & Taylor,
Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw
(Gloucester, 1989), p.117, stanza 22

¹⁷
A Geste of Robyn Hode
, Dobson & Taylor,
Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw
(Gloucester, 1989), p.79, stanza 10

¹⁸
Sir Robert Ingram was sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire on four occasions between 1322 and 1334.
Lists of Sheriffs for England and Wales from the earliest times to AD 1831 Preserved in the Public Record Office
(List and Index Society 9, New York, 1963) p.102

¹⁹
The most scandalous crime committed by the Folville and Coterel families in unison was the kidnap and ransom of the justice Sir Richard de Willoughby. This is this felony that I alluded to as the ‘future crime' Mathilda becomes aware of the brothers plotting.

Further Reading

If you are interested in learning more about Robin Hood and the historical felons of the English Middle Ages, there are many excellent reference books available. Here a few of my personal favourites.

Dobson & Taylor,
Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw
(Gloucester, 1989)

Holt, J.,
Robin Hood
(London, 1982)

Keen, M.,
The Outlaws of Medieval Legend
(London, 1987)

Knight, S.,
Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw
(Oxford, 1994)

Pollard, A.J.,
Imaging Robin Hood
(London, 2004)

Prestwich, M.,
The Three Edwards: War and State in England 1272-1377
(London, 1980)

Another Cup of Coffee

Thirteen years ago Amy Crane ran away from everyone and everything she knew, ending up in an unfamiliar city with no obvious past and no idea of her future. Now, though, that past has just arrived on her doorstep, in the shape of an old music cassette that Amy hasn't seen since she was at university.

Digging out her long-neglected Walkman, Amy listens to the lyrics that soundtracked her student days. As long-buried memories are wrenched from the places in her mind where she's kept them safely locked away for over a decade, Amy is suddenly tired of hiding.

It's time to confront everything about her life. Time to find all the friends she left behind in England, when her heart got broken and the life she was building for herself got completely shattered. Time to make sense of all the feelings she's been bottling up for all this time. And most of all, it's time to discover
why
Jack has sent her tape back to her now, after all these years…

With her mantra,
New life, New job, New home
, playing on a continuous loop in her head, Amy gears herself up with yet another a bucket-sized cup of coffee, as she goes forth to lay the ghost of first love to rest …

Another Cup of Christmas

Five years ago the staff of Pickwicks Cafe in Richmond were thrown into turmoil when their cook and part-owner, Scott, had a terrible accident. With help from his friends, his wife Peggy, and the staff at the local hospital, he made an amazing recovery. Now Pickwicks is preparing to host a special Christmas fundraiser for the hospital department that looked after Scott.

Pickwicks' waitress Megan has been liaising with the ward's administrator, Nick, as all the staff who helped Scott's recovery are invited are invited. As the problems of organising the fundraiser take up more and more of their busy lives, Megan and Nick contact each other more frequently, and their emails and phone calls start to develop from the practical into the flirty.

But can you actually fall for someone you've never met?

As the fundraiser draws closer, Megan is beginning to think that she had imagined all the virtual flirting between herself and Nick – he promised to arrange to meet her for real, but he hasn't done so. Now he's bringing someone with him to the fundraiser, and they're just bound to be everything Megan feels she isn't.