What A Scoundrel Wants (37 page)

And her expression. Only once had Ada seen an expression to match the one on her sister’s face: when Meg had discovered her with Hugo in the woods. She had transformed into a statue, never fully returning to flesh in Ada’s company. In the great hall of Loxley Manor, she turned to stone again.

“Will led your rescue, but you sought to do him harm?”

The heightened terror of battle resurfaced, bringing a tremor to her hands and sweat to her brow. She pushed those horrors in a box and closed the lid. “Of course. He sent me to that place. Places I cannot bear to recall. I shan’t discuss this, Meg.”

“He risked his life to redress his misdeeds.” Her voice scratched like a shard of flint.

“I say—enough, Meg. I am dreadfully tired.”

“You’re not the only one who has suffered these weeks.”

“And I’m sorry for your hurt.” Ada glanced at her sister’s mangled hands. The sympathy she dredged for Meg’s injuries was like donning a mask. Underneath her words, she felt nothing of the sort.

“Will suffered too.”

“For mercy’s sake! He can roast in hell fires alongside Finch for all I care!”

Her echoed words flew like bats around the hall, but Meg’s stony face never altered. Ada wanted to shake her and pinch her blistered fingers just to elicit some vulnerable reaction.

“You don’t believe that,” Meg said.

“Don’t tell me what I believe,” she said. “But I am willing to proffer forgiveness, so long as we depart this place and put the whole lot behind us.”

Meg laughed, a statue coming to life. “And where would we go, sister dearest? Our cabin is a ruin. Our livelihood burnt.”

“Good! If I never have to hide in the woods or tend those stinking beds, I’ll come away from this in a better circumstance.” She led her sister to a bench. “Let’s away, Meg. We can go to Toledo like we always wanted.”

“Like
you
wanted.”

Frustration tightened her throat and made her words shrill. “You would rather stay here? Stay in the forest where all who knew you ridiculed you?”

Meg snatched her hands away. “Traveling to Castile would not prevent my being ridiculed, not if you are my companion.”

“Back to that?”

“No, in fact.” She shook her head, short brown locks forming an impromptu veil. “I know about your flowers, the ones in the cabin.”

Ada sat hard on the flagstones, vulnerable, as if her sister opened her soul to grope around inside. “What of them?”

“Why did you keep them from me? Why the secret?”

“Because you would have been the one to ridicule,” she said. “You would have thought them frivolous and childish.”

“I know. And these weeks have taught me to try, at least, to understand how life must have been for you. I was too involved in my own disappointments to notice or care. But I love you, Ada. I want to know you again, once all of this is past.” She paused, brought her head up. Unshed tears glittered over pallid eyes. “I withheld my forgiveness because without it, I knew you wouldn’t leave me. You would stay and try to make it right. For that I’m—I am sorry.”

She studied Meg, looking for any hint of mockery or falsehood. “You’ve never admitted to being in the wrong.”

“Not to you,” she said. “But I’ve had practice of late.”

Ada smiled. She petted loose hair back from Meg’s face. “Then we
can
start anew. We can put this behind us.”

“We can, yes. If you can forgive Will.”

She leapt up, skirts twisting around her legs. “You make that a condition of our reunion? Why do you defend him? Even in the dungeon, you vacillated when offered the choice between him and me. Why?”

“I love him, Ada. He’s my husband.”

The two blunt sentences hit her, a snowstorm gale. She stepped back. “No, no—this cannot be.”

“I tell you true, Ada.”

“This is madness! He arrested me and put me in that place!”

Meg stood, her expression direct despite her unsteady gaze. “He saved my life and yours.”

“Gratitude, maybe. An infatuation. But you cannot love him.”

“Don’t tell me who I love.”

Dizziness spun into anger and disbelief. “And you keep that mocking tongue to yourself! I’ll not have this, Meg. I won’t!”

“Which part? My being married?” She laughed a little, color suffusing her cheeks. “Because that is well and done. Or are you frightened that I am standing for myself?”

Outrage painted crimson blotches over her vision. “You’re not standing for yourself! You’ve merely found another person to prop you up.”

“You’re wrong, Ada,” she said, almost too softly to hear. “I assure you of that.”

“Enough!” She burrowed her fingers into tangles at her temples. The imaginary box she had used to contain her nightmares burst open. Wild visions of fire and blood and pierced flesh wrapped around her mind, ravaging her peace. Like her sister. Meg gave her no peace. “You’ve no need for two fools leading you through this life, if Scarlet yet lives.”

“Ada!”

“And I’m curious what choice you’ll make now.”

Meg paled, the useless creature. “What choice?”

“You cannot guess? I’m asking you to choose, sister dear: your husband or me.”

That he slumped in his saddle, feeling as vigorous as a sack of barley—well, some rewards proved worth the aggravation. He would bear any manner of hardships if it meant reuniting with Meg. But fewer such hardships in years to come would be his aim.

Shouts and happy cries echoed over the valley. Maybe Marian’s eagle eyes from the high tower had witnessed their return. Robin dismounted and helped Will down from his saddle. Pain shot from head to heel.

“Have you your feet?”

Will nodded but cut the motion short. Faint, he gripped the pommel and his uncle’s shoulder. “You simply couldn’t wait, could you? Taking a shot at Dryden?”

“Only offering the aid you requested, although that meant wasting a perfectly sound arrow. The sword imbedded in his gullet meant you’d already seen to the job.”

“Serves you for doubting me.”

“Never a doubt, Will. I was greedy for a piece of that louse.” Robin’s gaze held fast, blue like a summer sky. “And I wanted you safe.”

“Robin!”

He and his uncle turned to find Marian fast approaching.

Robin grinned, a mischievous sense of play fully mending their rift. “One day I would like to return to the manor without these elaborate homecomings.”

“You enjoy it.” He stretched and looked for Meg, but dizziness trounced him afresh. His knees trembled, threatening to give. “A favor, Rob?”

“Anything.”

“Ward off eager females?”

“They’ll be too much for your likes, true,” Robin said, his arms suddenly full of Marian.

Will trampled his tongue and averted his eyes. He waited without complaint, despite how he desired his own happy conclusion to the harrowing attack. But his reserves of patience dwindled, flickered, extinguished.

He cleared his throat. “Milady?”

“Hmm?” She looked up from her husband’s fierce hold, eyes bright and lips slightly swollen. Decorum demanded a blush at the very least, but she revealed no such modesty.

“Marian, where is Meg?”

Her bright smile dimmed, a flicker of hesitation. “She quarreled with her sister.”

He grimaced, fingering the row of teeth marks on the back of his hand. “As did I.”

“Their argument became rather heated, I fear.”

“Heated? Why?”

She frowned, a little flustered. A halo of dark curls swirled around her face despite the thick plait at her back. “I know nothing of the particulars. Meg has not confided in me.”

He closed his eyes and brought a fist to his lips. Blood raced through his ears. Foolish man, he had aspired to erase the errors of his past and deserve the love he discovered with Meg. But whatever the reason for their quarrel, she would bow to the sister she fought to save, as she had in the dungeon, shrinking to a shadow of her true bravery.

Concerned faces watched him. He wanted no such concern, but he pushed his temper deep. Robin and Marian deserved none of his frustrations. Buttressed not even by anger, the wind chaffed his skin. He felt colder now. His injuries throbbed without hope to salve the ache.

“She’s waiting for you at the manor,” Marian said gently. “And likely set to claw you to pieces for dallying.”

“That I can believe. If you’ll both excuse me?”

A last burst of energy, one promising to be the death of his worn, abused body, propelled him atop Robin’s horse. He galloped over frosted glades, the sun glimmering off every blanched blade of grass. Meg stood framed by the wooden double doors of the arched entryway. Her lips turned up at the corners, waiting.

Will exhaled, dismounted, and held her. Graceful feminine arms encircled his neck and dragged him closer. Words of welcome and relief whispered merry songs in his ears.

“You’re home,” she whispered. “You’re safe.”

“I am. I’m home.”

“And Dryden?”

“Dead. He won’t hurt anyone again.”

She kissed him, a hard plundering of his mouth, a turbulent contest. He absorbed her anxious energy and savored the sting of salt and sweetness. His bones, his muscles—every inch of him ached, but her embrace eased deeper hurts.

“Wait, wait.” Uneven breaths filled the tiny space between their lips. “What happened? With Ada?”

“I asked her not to be rash, but she insisted.”

“Meg, you’re not making sense. Can we talk to her?”

She shook her head, tucking her quivering lower lip into her mouth. “No, she’s gone—gone with Jacob. Bound for London.”

“What?”

“She was hurting, I know, and confused by all that happened. I begged her to stay till her temper slaked, but she refused.” She offered a rickety laugh. “And she always accused
me
of stubbornness.”

“With good reason.”

“Now—now I…everyone fought to free her. How can I explain to them?”

“We did battle for more than Ada. There would be no justice in Nottingham with Finch and Dryden in control. Do you hear me?”

She nodded, her expression drawn and tired.

“Besides, you said Jacob is with her. I wager he’ll keep her safe.” He gathered her body close and petted up and down her back. “But why did you argue? What brought this about?”

Tears slipped onto her cheeks. “She demanded that I choose between the two of you.”

His muscles seized. “Choose?”

“Like the sheriff did: you or her. I told her she was behaving in error, but she insisted.” She found his face with bare, scarred hands and cupped his jaw. “I chose you.”

“Which is why she left? Meg, I had no intention of coming between you again.”

“I chose you, but the decision to leave was hers. It was different today,” she said, her voice stronger. “There was no danger. I couldn’t deny you a second time or turn away from our new life. Here in your arms, Will. This is where I belong, where I’m safe.”

He smoothed away the last of her tears, not surprised to find his hands shaking. “You humble me.”

“No, I
love
you. And I love the woman you’ve helped me become. Ada…she needs time to find that for herself.”

A glimmer of sun found a path through the clouds, perhaps the last temperate rays until spring. She tipped her face to the sky, her smile bittersweet. He followed the direction of her thoughts, to the southwest, to London, and held tight when she shivered. “Will you regret your choice, Meg?”

“No more than you’ll regret saving a blind woman on the road to Nottingham.”

Crossing the glade to the welcoming walls of Loxley Manor, Robin and Marian arrived with Little John and their ragtag band that had brought Dryden low.

His family, with open arms and glad greetings. His family returned to him.

“Meg, my love,” he said, kissing her hair, breathing her in. “You saved me too.”

Will Scarlet first appeared in one of the oldest surviving Robin Hood ballads,
A Gest of Robyn Hode
, and no other character in Sherwood has undergone the same radical shifts. From foppish dandy to cruel thug, from trusted sidekick to lovesick paramour, Will has filled the narrative role that writers and moviemakers required of him. Only his stormy loyalty to Robin is a constant.

The scholar Adelard of Bath traveled extensively during his life. What he learned of Arab culture and language made him a celebrity at Henry II’s court. He wrote to his nephew—a man I imagined to be Meg’s grandfather—on diverse topics, such as his hypothesis that the Earth was round. His knowledge of chemistry included all of Meg’s creations: hydrochloric acid, healing balms, gunpowder, false gems and metals, and naphtha, an ancient Greek forerunner of napalm.

I based Meg’s illness on meningitis, which was first described in the eleventh century by the Persian physician Avicenna. People have survived the disease without treatment, suffering comas, memory loss, and visual impairment, but permanent blindness is rarely an outcome.

My website contains additional facts, links, and resources on these topics, as well as details about my upcoming projects. I invite you to stop by!