Scarlet

Guess it were the wrong thing to say. He pushed me back, pulling his heat away from me, and my shoulders hunched against the cold. He nodded.

“Christ’s bones, you saved the inn, Scar!”

I turned to see Lena fair flying at me, wrapping me up tight in her arms.

I looked over her shoulder. It were still standing, not even scorched. “Sorry about the stables.”

“Don’t, my girl,” she said soft. “You saved me and the horses.”

“Here,” Rob said, pressing a purse to her hand. “Money for the sheriff. When those guards come to, just pay them.”

Lena didn’t like charity, and her face showed all its wrinkles and age that weren’t there when she smiled. “Take a horse, Robin. I’ll tell them one ran off.”

We looked to the travelers huddled in the grass, watching the barn burn. She turned to call them all back into the inn, and Robin held me tight by the waist as he steered me to a horse that had wandered behind the inn.

“I can walk.”

“I’m well aware. But right now, I don’t want you to walk away,” he said.

That were fair enough. Right then, I didn’t have no clue what I wanted, so it worked fine. He mounted the horse and held an arm out, and I jumped on behind him, ringing my arms round his waist. I shivered, feeling like all the awful things in my head just left in one quick rush. He were like that. Rob could change anything in an instant.

He didn’t take me to Major Oak but to Thoresby Lake. “You’re covered in soot and smoke,” he told me. “And a fair helping of dirt. Were you sleeping in the tunnel, then?”

I nodded, jumping down off the horse. Rob came off as well and sat down on a rock facing away from the water.

“You ain’t gonna turn round, right?”

“Scar.”

I took that as a yes and skinned out of my clothes real quick. The difficult bit were the muslin I wrapped around my bits in front. Once I got it off, I dove into the water. It were ice cold and I scrubbed hard before my hands went thick with the cold. I liked the cold. It made Joanna and Gisbourne seem farther away, and that were good.

I scrubbed through my hair, and I remembered Joanna sitting up late with me, brushing out my hair. What a cabinet we could make together, she said. I thought she were gone madder than a marmot. You have rich mahogany and I have burnished gold; it would be a precious chest indeed. She braided our hair together to see the difference. Good English hair, she told me. None of my Saxon color.

I took her tie and banded our hair at the bottom, and I snuggled against her as we went to sleep. Those were the days when she started going out at night without me, making me feel littler for not knowing what were going on. Seemed to me then that Joanna and I were as distant and separate as our hair, and if I could only braid us together, we’d never part. I had fallen asleep thinking it were as easy as that.

’Course, I’d woken up alone in the bed, night fallen in full and the hair tie loose around my single tail, her gold hair gone.

I pulled out of the water and twisted my hair up, tucking it under my cap with the good memories of Joanna. That’s where I liked to keep her, secret and safe.

My clothes were sooty, but it were cold so I wriggled back into them and then came beside Rob. He had already taken his cloak off, and he put it on my shoulders. His arm dropped to the rock behind me so he were caging me.

“I missed you.”

I got that funny, twisted feeling in my stomach. ’Course he missed me. I were a member of the band and they didn’t work well without me. It weren’t nothing more he meant, and I were a ready fool to have my heart lurch with other hopes. “But you knew what I were ’bout.”

“I knew that you were atoning to yourself, however you meant to do it.”

“I stole things from the castle to sell,” I said.

He smiled. “Never idle. John thought you’d been collared.”

“You have more faith in me.”

He shook his head. “I don’t, really. You scare the hell out of me.

“Tonight were good timing,” I admitted.

He nodded. “You would have gotten out anyway.”

“How’d you know I hadn’t been collared?”

He shrugged. “I’d have felt it. I’d have known.”

Whether it were that strange idea or the cold, something lodged in my chest and my breath were gasping round it.

“Let’s get you home.” He stood and looked out over the lake. “If you’re ready to come back.”

The thought of who else waited back at the camp pushed into my head, and I rubbed my knuckles. “Why would John kiss me, Rob?” It just jumped out of my mouth. I looked at him.

He crossed his arms. “Aren’t you two—” He closed his mouth sharp. “The other night, you were sleeping together.”

I blushed hot. “It weren’t like that. I were shaking, and he were trying to warm me up.” I felt his eyes on me, but I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t think he believed me. He saw how black my soul were—why wouldn’t he think my virtue were easy as they come?

“He likes you, Scar. You shouldn’t toy with him.” The words were awful sharp, and I looked up.

“I’m not toying!” I snapped back. “And just ’cause he wants me don’t mean I want him.”

Rob’s eyebrows went skyward. “You don’t?”

I wrapped my arms around my stomach. “Not sure.” There were so much more to the thought that I wanted to tell him, but I just swallowed. “I’m not the sort of girl that goes with a lad.”

Rob smiled. “So what, you’ll swear off men forever?”

“It’s worked so far.”

Rob looked surprised, but before I could ask why, he said, “Well, what about babies? You looked awfully thrilled with Mary’s son.”

“You think I have any right to bring a baby into my life? I’m a thief and an outlaw and a poor example of a girl. You think I could be any sort of mother?”

He looked away at that, and I felt it again, that ax of hurt in my belly. I didn’t much like saying it out loud, but it were worse that he agreed.

“If you want a man, Scar, for marrying or not, John’s the best you can come by.”

I know it sounded nice, but to me it were a pretty insult. Like it or not, I would never deserve a man like Rob, and John were the best I could do. I knew it were true, but hearing him say it like that, so careful, made me feel hollowed out like a dying tree. I didn’t want him to see, so I smiled big and gave a little laugh. “That’s not fair true. John’s a charmer.”