Everything I Do: a Robin Hood romance (Rosa Fitzwalter Book 1) (24 page)

Robin looked up in surprise, taking in her meaning. Then he started laughing, his slow, luscious laugh that rang through the trees and seemed to reach the sky. Rosa felt too much self-conscious to join him, but suddenly it occurred to her that she had been rather silly not telling him all this time.

He stopped laughing and his eyes became serious.

“That was rather careless of you,” he said.

“Taking the bow in my hands?”

“No, neglecting to tell me you couldn’t use it.”

She hung her head.

“Look at me,” he commanded but his voice was gentle and quiet. He lifted a finger to her chin. “Look at me, Rosa,” he said again.

She did.

“For your safety,” he told her, drinking in the emerald of her eyes. “That’s all I meant. Personally, I wouldn’t give a damn if you couldn’t tell a bow from an arrow. But in this forest, knowing how to use one may well mean the difference between life and death.” He shuddered and his hand moved upwards to cup her cheek. “Please,” he said, “will you let me teach you?”

She simply nodded, for she couldn’t trust her voice.

“Good,” he said, releasing her and the sparkle was there in his eyes again.

He put the bow in her hands and circled her waist to position her fingers lightly over the cord.

“Caress it,” he whispered in her ear, “run your hand gently as though over the fur of a living thing. Introduce yourself and let your fingers become acquainted with the air breathing through the string.”

He never knew how he resisted taking her in his arms and kissing her till she had no breath left, but after almost an hour of practice, he was still in control of himself. Barely, but he was.

Rosa had made great progress with the bow and although she still was far from even hitting the centre of the mark Robin had made for their lesson, she was so pleased with her progress, that she didn’t notice the wounds on her fingers until they made even the simple task of holding the bow impossible.

Her hands were rougher now than when she had first come to the forest, but still unused to holding the bow, and the long hour of practice was beginning to show on her tender skin. It was ripped clean and bleeding at some places, while at others it had formed thick blisters, which hurt just as badly, if not worse. The sun overhead was indicating the late hour, but none of them noticed it, enraptured by the fascination of the sport and each other’s proximity.

Robin had lifted his bow to show her a particular movement, and let go of the arrow slowly. It hit the very centre of the mark with incredible precision. He turned to her.

“Can you try it?”

She lifted her bow, but as soon as she tried to position the arrow, she dropped it suddenly with a cry of pain, sinking to the ground.

Robin was next to her at once, and lifted her white face to examine it with a curse.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Rosa?”

She couldn’t speak at first, just clutched her hand, and Robin pried her fingers open as gently as he could.

His felt the wetness of the blood as he touched her, and immediately he withdrew his fingers. Then he saw. He saw the wounds on her hands, her second and third finger saturated with blood and the raw skin of her palm, which was torn in the middle and now also bleeding.

Without a word, he tore the lower part of his tunic, turning it inside out, and then soaked it in water. He wiped the blood away, glancing at her tense face, but she didn’t make a sound, gritting her teeth and setting her lips. As soon as the wounds were satisfactorily clean, he tore another piece of cloth and formed an impromptu bandage which he skillfully wrapped around her palm, then around each of her injured fingers. 

He did the same with her left hand, which although less injured was also slightly bleeding. Then he simply sat there and watched her, until the silence filled the whole space around them and spread into the trees.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I didn’t think… maybe Matt was right.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Rosa said quickly, fearing she knew where this conversation was leading and dreading that her practicing hours would become a thing of the past.

“No, he wasn’t of course,” Robin agreed, surprising her, “not about everything. But about you being a lady and all…”

She smiled at him and stretched her hose-clad legs in front of her.

“That bears discussing,” she said and he smiled too. “I was wondering,” she said quickly, wanting to steer the subject away from dangerous waters, “why you shouted so at poor Matt. I mean, really were we doing everything
that
wrong?”

“Well, no, you were doing fine as far as I could tell,” he replied nonchalantly.

“Then why?” Rosa asked, incredulous.

He didn’t answer at first, just sat there playing with a blade of grass between his long fingers. “I was jealous,” he said simply.

There was nothing to be said by way of answer to that, so Rosa didn’t speak again for a while.

“Look,” Robin said finally and then stopped. He got up as if he had changed his mind and walked away, then came back. He took a deep breath. “Look,” he said again, “I’m sorry about your hands, I should have known this would happen.”

“And I am sorry about your tunic,” Rosa replied in the same tone, though not quite as tormented as his had been, “although I guess I will have to sew you another one, so-” she shrugged. “My hand will mend; your tunic will be mended; all is well.”

“You will not give up then?” he said, coming to her again, “you will continue with your training?”

“If I have not disappointed you terribly today, and you still want to be my teacher.”

He looked at her, a small smile forming on his lips, his eyes shining with intensity.

“Oh, you have not disappointed me. Quite the contrary, really,” he said. Then he seemed to remember himself and he turned from her. “It’s time to go,” he said abruptly. “Come.”

To Rosa it seemed like he was suddenly transformed before her very eyes from the merry Robin Hood she had first met, to the stern and aloof chief of the past months. Puzzled and hurt, she got up to follow his receding form among the trees.

She had taken only two steps when he turned around abruptly and ran back to her. He stopped a mere third of an inch in front of her, his chest heaving, his mouth trembling.

“Forgive me for this,” he said and then he placed his hands on her neck, cupping her chin, and closed the remaining distance between their lips.

They were both shaking when the kiss ended, gasping and holding on to each other as if they were drowning and had gotten hold of the only thing that was steady and reliable in the whole crumbling world around them. His hands were still in her hair, tracing the contours of her head, then her face, then her swollen lips.

“God,” he said, shutting his eyes for a moment, “I don’t even regret it.”

…

“Oh, come on Ju,” Alan was saying that night as they were all gathered around the fire, holding their chilled hands over the flames for warmth. “Give us something, just a tiny bit of glimpse of your past. We know absolutely nothing about you, my good fellow!”

“What would you want to know?” Julian asked in a rather menacing tone, which however had no effect on Alan.

“Women for one thing,” Alan answered without hesitation.

“What about them?”

“Why do you hate them?”

Little John snickered audibly. “Careful there, Dale,” he said.

“I don’t hate them,” Julian said without lifting his eyes.

There was a roar of laughter. Of course this conversation wouldn’t have taken place if Rosa were there, but for some reason or other she was absent at that particular moment, as Julian had asserted with a glance around as soon as Alan-a-Dale began his prying questions.

“I despise them,” he went on when the noise abated. “And, what is more,” he continued looking straight at Robin, “I find it very hard to respect any person belonging to the fair sex.”

Everyone was quiet after this vehement declaration.

“Obviously you have been betrayed or hurt by some woman,” Robin said dryly after a bit, “but that’s no reason to generalize…”

“I have been hurt, betrayed and disgusted by every woman I have ever met,” Julian answered matter-of-factly.

“Except your mother,” Scarlet said, his eyes gleaming with unshed tears at the memory of his own mother’s tragic death.

Julian turned to face him with slow, deliberate movements. He would be an exceptionally handsome lad, Robin thought fleetingly, if he wasn’t so bitter.

“My own mother first and foremost,” Julian was saying now.

Little John scoffed.

“I don’t believe this lad,” he said. “There can’t have been only bad ones in your entire life. I don’t know what your mother did to you, and it’s none of my business, but at some point, maybe right before that first wench that shattered your whole world, somewhere in your existence, there must have been a good woman.”

No sound followed his words for a moment, nothing but the loud cracking of the flames, and Robin was nodding to Alan to start a new song on his lyre, when Julian spoke again, slowly and deliberately, as if extricating the words from some place deep inside him where they had long been hidden.

“You are right, there was,” he began. “There was someone who is the reason why I hate all womankind so passionately. She was at the beginning of everything and at the end. She was everything that was good in my life. And everything that was bad.”

And then he stopped.

“That’s a bit cryptic,” Will said after it became obvious Julian wasn’t about to continue.

“And yet, that’s it,” Julian retorted.

“At least tell us who she was,” someone shouted impatiently.

“That’s the funniest part of all,” Julian said after a brief pause. “She wasn’t my lover as you all seem to think. Or my mistress or wife. She wasn’t even a woman, she was only a girl. She didn’t even have a
chance
to become a woman, although if she had, I mayhap wouldn’t be resentful towards all of them. If she was alive in the world, I somehow know it would be a better place than it is today. But she died when she was a little girl. I was holding her hand one moment and the next she was gone.” He stopped and turned bloodshot eyes to Robin. “She was my little sister,” he said.

No one knew what to say.

“I’m sorry, son,” father Tuck said at last, laying a hand on Julian’s shoulder.

“You’re sorry?” Julian said, sarcastically. “
I
am sorry. I didn’t have anything to live for as soon as I lost her. I had already lost everything before, home, family, prospects, but I didn’t mind so much. Me and her, we were going to change the world. Only we didn’t. We couldn’t even save ourselves when the time came. Or I couldn’t save her, I guess, since I was the one supposed to protect her.”

He got up abruptly.

“Play something, will you Dale?” he said to Alan, who was seated to his left. “I can’t bear these morose thoughts a minute longer, and I’m sure none of you want to see me try.”

Obediently Alan started one of his tunes, and the men tried their best to make merry, but the melody was one of his more melancholy ones, and no one could shake Julian’s words from their minds. He himself, meanwhile, went and sat next to Robin.

“I don’t want you to think ill of me, chief,” he said in a low voice, only for Robin’s ears.

“I don’t think ill of you, Ju,” Robin said. “Showing respect and feeling it may be two different things for you, but I
will
demand the first, you know that now don’t you? You may do as you like with the second, for all I care.”

“It’s just…”

“Yes?”

“She had red hair, my sister, Joanna,” he said with a quiver in his voice.

“Joanna was your sister’s name?” Robin said softly.

He nodded.

“Red hair. Like rich copper. Somewhat like hers.” He indicated with his head Rosa’s cabin. “That’s why I can’t bear even the sight of her.”

“I see,” Robin said simply.

“I can’t help but hate her, you know. Thinking how Joanna would be, and comparing and…”

“I don’t know that you can’t help it, Julian,” Robin answered after Julian’s sentence trailed into silence.

“Oh, but I can’t,” Julian said and got up abruptly. In a minute, he had disappeared into the darkness ahead.

Robin sighed and got up too. It had hit him hard, Julian’s story, and he needed to walk for a couple of minutes to cool his head. He had only reached the fringe of the thick bush behind him and Alan’s melody was fading in his ears, sweet and sad, when he heard a sob. He squinted into the darkness and saw a slight figure on the ground.

“Rosa?” he whispered as he approached her quickly.

As soon as they had arrived back at the camp, he had done his best to avoid her and to go back to his previous mode, but he found that the kiss they had exchanged had widened the hole in his chest instead of satisfying him temporarily as he had thought it would. He went to Paul and told him to dress her blisters properly and had not spoken to her since.