Scarlet

Oh, she could be a lady and still grant her favors round? Fine bit that were.

“Then save your people, Hood.”

Rob smiled like he swallowed a mouthful of diamonds. “You knew me?”

“Women talk, my lord, and everyone loves a legend. I am happy to sacrifice my jewels to your cause.”

He kissed her hand again. “Then be on your way, my lady. And give my regards to your intended.”

She curtsied. “Guards, let these gentlemen go freely.”

“What?” her lead guard called.

Rob helped her back into her carriage, and she waved her fingers at her guards. “You heard me, sirs.”

Rob were still strutting ’bout it when we brought all her jewels back to the cave. We had loot now that we had to fence, and the jewelry didn’t even need to be snapped apart to sell because the lady wouldn’t be looking for it. Rob were holding and twisting her ring with a big dumb grin on his face.

I glared at him through the lot of it, hating the lady, hating the ring, hating him.

“You treat them different, you know,” I told him.

He looked over. “Who different?”

“Ladies. You treat them different than common folk.”

I were sitting against a tree, holding my long coat wrapped tight round me. He were at the mouth of the cave and he smiled, crossing his arms. “Do I?”

“You know you do.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“Why do you treat ’em different? What’s wrong with common women?”

“I treat everyone with respect, Scarlet,” he told me, and the way he said it sounded fair insulted.

“Yeah, but there’s no bowing and kissing hands, and you even talk different. You think rich folk don’t understand plain speaking?”

He chuckled. “Of course they do. But they also understand speaking in a gentler fashion.”

“And you think common folk can’t speak gentle?”

He laughed outright. “You’re sort of proving my point, Scar.”

I glared. “Would you then assume, because I can speak in a light and lofty manner, that I was born of noble blood?” I asked, aping his “lady.” More than that, aping the life I didn’t have no more—and it tasted like a mouthful of salt. “Talking this way or that don’t make you no better. And you act like it do.”

His eyes squinted like he could see straight through me. “You act like I’m doing an unkindness.”

“Ain’t you? To common folk? You think you’re some outlaw, Robin Hood, but you were born noble and you won’t change that none.”

“I am who I am, Scarlet. It’s no secret I was born noble, and that’s part of the reason people look to me as a leader. It’s my birthright to protect them.”

I tugged my shoulders, pulling my knees under to stand up. “True enough. Still don’t mean noble folk are any better.”

“Never said they were. I’m doing all this for the common folk, Scar, not the nobles. And when did you become the moral compass of the band?” he asked.

That stung. It weren’t meant to, but it did. I took the bag of jewels he’d left. “John, want to come with me to Nottingham to sell these off?”

“We can wait till tomorrow,” Rob said.

“Don’t want to,” I said. “John?”

“Sure,” John said, running over. “I’ll even carry the bag, m’lady.” He gave me a big, lord-like bow.

“I’m courteous to common women too, Scar,” Rob yelled as I walked with John.

I waved a hand, not looking round. Rob weren’t neither. But he didn’t want to cop to that, and I didn’t want to fess that I were a little jealous. He weren’t all “courteous” to me. You make me watch you like a hawk, and I don’t want to. He wouldn’t never say that to a gentle lady.

“You’re frowning,” John told me.

“Rob’s so high and mighty,” I said. “Rubs me wrong.”

“He’s an earl, Scar. We can’t forget that.”

“He won’t let us.”

“Come on, now, you follow him for the same reason I do. He’s a good leader and he’s that despite hard injustices. He came home from the Crusades and found he had no home. That’s hard enough.”

“It’s stupid. Men think they are their title, and women can’t even hold one till they squeeze onto their husband’s.”

“I thought all this was arguing against noblewomen. Change of heart?”

“No. I don’t like that Rob thinks he’s better than us, and I don’t like how women get nothing for their own selves.”

“Rob is better than us, Scar. Better than me, for sure.”

I pushed him. “Don’t say that. Why, because he’s noble? You’re just as good as he is.”

He gave a little when I pushed him, and he rocked back and then forward. “You saying you wouldn’t take the chance to be a noble?” he asked. “All silver spoons and ‘yes, milady’s?”

My cheeks flushed dark. “No. I wouldn’t. And what do that have to do with being better or worse?”

He shrugged. “Everyone wants to be wealthy, and landed, and titled. That’s why they’re better—because they have what everyone wants.”

Before I could stop myself, I stamped my foot like a child. “It ain’t better, being wealthy, landed, titled. If I had a choice, I’d choose to be just as I am. Over and over again!” I shouted. Only, that didn’t quite strike true in my chest. Seeing that lady, seeing Rob’s smiles, it all made me wonder. If he had known me back then, before the thieving and the scars and before my soul turned so black, would I have earned his smiles?

Would that have made that whole awful life worth it?

“No, I’d take it in a heartbeat,” John kept on. “Chests of jewels to shower on all the ladies in the kingdom. Bribe one of them to marry me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Come off it, John. You needn’t bribe any girl, and you’re a fine enough man as it is.”

He caught me, pulling his arm round my waist. “Now, who could resist you when you say something like that?”

He pushed me up against a tree and tilted his head like he were going to kiss me. I tried not to laugh as I put a hand over his mouth. “John,” I stopped him.

He opened his eyes. “What?” he asked, my hand still on his mouth.