Romancing Robin Hood (32 page)

When he'd eventually made it to Hardwick Hall, Marcus was rather more bedraggled than he'd intended to be after a lengthy fight with a stubborn calf and a frighten heifer. As he'd scooped his future wife up in his arms, the love between them had been so blatant that Grace had felt she could reach out and touch it.

Now, tucked up in her own comfortable hotel room at six o'clock on the morning of the wedding, with her bridesmaid dress hanging in its protective cover on the wardrobe door, Grace gave up hope of settling back into sleep.

Her dreams had been full of pseudo-medieval images of her and Rob sat either side of a vast oak tree in the middle of Sherwood Forest, with him chivalrously apologising for overreacting to a crime she didn't commit in the first place.

Despite knowing it was hopeless, Grace found herself wishing all over again that she really could talk to Rob, albeit without the Sylvain setting. To explain that she hadn't meant to hurt him. But how could she after having left it for so long? If she'd called Rob straight away … but she hadn't, and now she couldn't because any contact from her so late in the day wouldn't seem genuine; it would sound like a bunch of feeble excuses.

Daisy had always told Grace she was too stubborn for her own good. Grace knew her friend was right, but she also knew it was self protection. Loving a hero who was unable to escape from a poster on a wall was so much safer than a caring for a living, breathing human being. Robin Hood could never hurt her, and would never let her down. ‘But then,' Grace whispered into her pillow, ‘he can't hug me, laugh with me, or give me a nerve tingling kiss, can he?'

Grace sat up. She needed to finish her story. Now. This minute. Before the wedding. It had to end. For years she'd put off writing her novel. There had always been work to get on with, and the textbook to research for, plus the fear of being frowned upon for writing it in the first place. Maybe that was what had been holding her back.

Perhaps it was her desire to write Mathilda's tale that had been subconsciously consuming her attention since she'd been offered the chance to write her sorely neglected medieval textbook, and not her Robin Hood obsession at all. After all, she had proved to herself that she was capable of loving a real human being now, one that actually existed, not only in real life, but in her own timestream too. It may not have brought her happiness, but at least she'd done it.

‘It's time.' Grace spoke into the mirror, ignoring her erratic bed-hair, ‘Time to tie up loose ends and then start afresh.'

Feeling oddly comforted, if not totally convinced by this idea, Grace swung her legs out of bed, and grabbed her notebook, the scribbled on paper bags, and other random scraps of notepaper from her bag, that joined together to form the last part of her novel. It was time to sort this story out once and for all.

‘Mathilda! How dare you? I told you to …'

‘My Lord,
please
!' Mathilda beseeched Robert, as she talked at top speed, ‘Forgive my interruption. I was listening, and I know I wasn't supposed to be, but you must have known I would. And I
must
speak. It is very important. I think I know what this is all about.'

Eustace pulled out a chair and thumped down onto it. ‘For St George's sake, Robert! If she is to be your woman you're going to have to learn to control her. Because I've damn well worked it out myself.' The second Folville brother crashed his palm down upon the table in frustration. ‘Damn the man's hide! He'll be the death of all of us!'

Swinging around to Walter, who was already standing, his hand on the hilt of his sword, Eustace barked the instruction that Mathilda had already anticipated he'd make. ‘Ride to Leicester. John, Thomas, and Laurence are there today. Tell them we need a family meeting.
Now
.'

Mathilda's raised her voice in warning, ‘You can't just … it isn't what you think …' But her words were lost to the rapid flurry of activity.

Eustace had already left the hall. Mathilda could hear him shouting at Allward to find Sarah and bring her to the kitchen. Walter had vanished, presumably to grab whichever horse was the quickest to saddle, leaving Oswin standing looking from his sister to Robert de Folville and back again, his expression a picture of confusion.

The rushing past of Sarah as she hurried to the heart of her domestic domain, proved that Eustace's shouting had yielded results.

In the middle of this breakout of chaos Robert took Mathilda's hands. ‘Are you sure it was him?'

‘No, my Lord. I haven't named anyone anyway! I was trying to say that …'

‘No?' Robert roared the word, but gathered himself quickly, ‘Mathilda, Eustace is gathering the family to sort this out. If you're wrong there will be hell to pay.'

Mathilda battled to keep her own fright-enhanced irritation in check as she responded. ‘I was trying to speak, but no one was listening. Do
any
of you in this family ever listen to a whole sentence before you jump to conclusions and bound off to act?'

To stop Robert charging off himself, Mathilda wrapped her smaller fingers around his, making him look at her, puzzled endearment putting an abrupt cap on his anger.

‘I have been unjust towards you, and you have heard the rumours about me, and yet you take my hands anyway?'

‘As I said, my Lord, you and your brothers are used to acting hastily and without thought. Perhaps you won't in the future?' She smiled at him, knowing that there was little chance of that as she added, ‘As to the gossip, well the world is built on rumours. Most of them are wrong. Convenient lies to some; living hell for others. Why else would Our Lady denounce it as an abomination?' Mathilda stared into Robert's eyes, noticing how they were slightly mottled, more like the green of an oak leaf nearing autumn than just plain green, and spoke with more confidence than she felt. ‘I think I know who the killer of Master Hugo is. It is the only theory that makes sense in the circumstances, but who is going to listen to the likes of me? We need proof.'

‘We won't if Eustace get hold of him first. He'll wring his neck before any questions are asked!'

‘But I think my Lord Eustace is wrong … well partly wrong, my Lord!' A knot of panic tied in the pit of Mathilda's stomach, ‘And anyway; the man isn't worth hanging for. Will you help me? Will you help me show them the truth about Hugo?'

Robert traced a hand over the girdle at her waist, the gleam to his eyes showing some of the potential affection he'd hinted at on their first meeting. A kindness and caring that had been missing since Hugo had lied about her work at the market. ‘It really isn't true, what they say about me and Master Hugo.'

‘I know. I think perhaps it may have been for Master Hugo though.'

Robert bristled, but Mathilda reached up and put a palm on his cheek. ‘He was always going to be jealous of any friendship you had, and I doubt he ever understood why, and that made him bitter and angry.'

‘You speak about things you are forbidden to even think.'

‘Says the man whose family operates its own brand of law, and has been personally connected to many felonies. Does that make you a forbidden thought as well, or simply a member of a family with the guts to fight back against a country so corrupt that even the Queen has risen up against her King?'

Looking at Mathilda as if he'd just seen her properly for the first time, Robert struggled to pull his mind back to the urgent matter at hand. He rubbed his forehead. ‘So do you think my brother killed Hugo or not?'

‘He didn't.'

‘But Eustace said he'd reached the same conclusion as you, and that was …'

Mathilda reached up on her tiptoes and placed a finger over Robert's lips, ‘Your brother, the rector of Teigh, is in this up to his neck, but I don't think he was the one who struck out with a dagger, or indeed organised the death. We need Oswin and Allward to help us, and we have to move quickly. There isn't much time and they'll have to travel some miles.'

They moved fast. With a hasty explanation to Sarah, Robert buckled his sword to his side, and made sure his dagger was still where the housekeeper had hidden it. Meanwhile Mathilda gathered up some bread and some flasks of ale for Oswin and Allward, and stuffed them into their saddle bags as the boys clambered up onto the nearest horses as fast as the stable boy could saddle them.

‘You know what to do?' Oswin nodded at Mathilda as he and Allward whirled their mounts towards the gates, ‘I'll see you soon, sister. Be brave.'

A lump formed in Mathilda's throat as she watched them leave, but she had no time to indulge in tears.

Robert was talking to Sarah. As Mathilda hurried over to them she could hear Robert chastising the housekeeper for telling Mathilda about the rumours concerning him and Hugo, ‘Of all people, I didn't want her to think I was like that!'

‘And she of all people needed to know so she could be prepared for the back-handed comments.'

‘And what if she believes it? What then?'

Mathilda rolled her eyes, ‘We don't have time for this!' She pushed Robert towards the door as if he was a child refusing to go and fetch the firewood before a storm, ‘I've already told you I don't believe it. Now go! If Eustace kills the rector, then we'll never know the whole truth for certain!'

As Robert vaulted onto his horse, Mathilda caught hold of his bridle, ‘Stay safe, my Lord.'

Feeling unexpectedly warmed by the gratitude in his eyes as he held her gaze for a second, Mathilda watched Robert canter from the yard, trying to catch up with Eustace and Walter before they reached Leicester, and John Folville took the law even further into his own hands than usual.

Mathilda paced the hall, the kitchen, and the bedrooms, fussing and tidying as she went. Having given up any hope of resting after her sleepless night, she was supposed to be helping Sarah clean and prepare the food that was bound to be desperately needed by the time the family returned, some shattered after their own lack of sleep, others fuelled by anger. But after proving herself too distracted to be of any use in the kitchen, Sarah had sent Mathilda to attend to the fireplaces.

Her hands and knees were black from where she'd become careless in her agitation for news. As the hours passed, Mathilda went over and over her theory in her head, and with each rehash of her idea she became less and less certain. If only Allward would return and confirm her suspicions, but as she'd sent him on a long round trip she judged he'd be some time yet.

Mathilda began to consider what might happen if she was wrong. And even if she wasn't wrong, what would she do if Father Richard managed to convince his brothers that she was a troublemaker bent on destroying his good name? As she returned to the hall to polish the well-worn wooden surface of the hall table for the second time that hour, Mathilda began to plan an emergency escape.

Grace was beginning to wish she hadn't left her laptop at home in her hurry to get away from the spectre of her evening with Rob. Pausing in her work, massaging some feeling into her tired wrist, and flicking back through her scattered notes, Grace decided she'd better number them, or she'd never get everything typed up in the correct order when she got home.

Flexing her neck, Grace realised that was the first time she'd thought about going home since her arrival in Hathersage without feeling vaguely nauseous. Seeing that as a good sign, Grace raised her gaze so she could see out of the window and across the hotel's well-kept gardens, speaking her thoughts aloud, ‘I wonder how he's getting on in Houston.'

Without contemplating an answer to her question, Grace picked up her pen back up and turned to the next page in her notebook. ‘Allward must be back by now.'

Having run though the house, peering around every door searching for Mathilda, Sarah eventually found her smoothing the covers on Robert's bed, ‘Allward's back.'

The colour drained from Mathilda's face as she hurried back through the manor to find the servant boy sitting at the kitchen table drinking from a flagon. ‘And?'

Wiping a sleeve across his mouth to dry his lips Allward, breathless from his gallop, said, ‘You were right.' He pointed at the evidence he'd bought with him, now lying on the kitchen table.

‘And Oswin, did he get to Twyford?'

The boy nodded. ‘I met him as I left Bakewell. Your father was tricked into a corner he couldn't get out of.'

‘Are he and Matthew all right?'

‘Oswin had them with him. They'll be safest at the Coterel manor until the guilty have been dealt with.'

Mathilda felt sick with shame. She hadn't considered the danger her accusations might have put her family in if Father Richard decided to ensure the silence of the only person who could point the finger at him with unshakeable confidence.

Placing a hand on Mathilda's arm, Sarah said, ‘They'll be safe with the Coterels.'

‘But they are felons.' Even as she spoke, Mathilda remembered how kind Nicholas Coterel had been to her by not taking her belt; and by sending Oswin to trail her, he may have already saved her life once before.

Smiling, Sarah said, ‘They are felonious as the Folvilles; but only when they have to be. Only when there is no other action left to take.' The housekeeper paused before saying, ‘I fear for one of them though – things have gone too far. The taste for the suffering of others has become a habit rather than an unpleasant, but necessary, tool to survival.'

A thunder of hooves from outside sent an exhausted Allward scurrying into the yard to help with the horses, followed by Sarah, her best haughty expression on her face, and an increasingly pallid and apprehensive Mathilda.

All the Folvilles were gathered in the yard.

Eustace, John, Thomas, Walter, Laurence, and Robert were moving as one. Right in the middle of them, like prey caught by a hunting pack, his face on fire with rage, stood Richard Folville, the rector of Teigh.