Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01] Read Online Free PDF Page A

are peasants; they have no sense of decorum.”
    “And perhaps they are only tales.” Marian looked toward the dais. “I cannot imagine there is anything anyone could say of Robert that impugns his honor. The king knighted him—”
    “In war,” the sheriff said grimly, “honor is often lacking. Survival is what matters.”
    “And if there is truth in these stories,” she retorted, “why are you so eager to wed Eleanor to him?”
    The sheriff laughed aloud. Brown eyes glinted. “You know better than that: he is still the son of an earl.” Amusement faded, replaced by a quiet intensity. “ Did you come for Locksley?”
    Marian drew a constricted breath, conscious of her reddened face. How could she explain? She herself did not know all the reasons she had come. “I came ...” She hesitated. “I came because my father would have wished it. You knew him, my lord ... would he not have wished it?” Neatly done, she thought. Let deLacey deal with it.
    He smiled, saluting her with a raised goblet. “Indeed, he would have.” Before she could answer, he squeezed her shoulder briefly. “You will excuse me, I pray—I must present Eleanor now.”
    He left her, gliding smoothly through the throng to gather up his youngest daughter and escort her to the dais. He ignored those before him, depending on authority to take the place of rank. He was not a lord by ancient ancestral heritage, being of a minor Norman family, but the Conqueror had rewarded exemplary service in the defeat of England by distributing confiscated land and titles. Thus the sheriff had been born into the new nobility and had, with each wife, married above himself. His appetite for power was obvious to Marian, but oddly enough it did not diminish him. He was the sort of man who survived no matter the odds.
    Marian looked to the dais. Much as Robert did.
    Unlike the sheriff, she waited her turn. She drank wine, gave the empty goblet to a servant, and eventually reached the dais where she looked fully into the face that was devoid of all expression, into pale hazel eyes masked to all of those before him. Indeed, the fires were banked. There was little left save an ember.
    She opened her mouth to ask him her single, simple question, but no words came out. She was utterly bereft of speech, robbed by cowardice. Who was she to ask him anything, and why should he know the answer?
    He doesn’t care. Look at him—he’d rather be somewhere else than wasting time with sycophants! Self-consciousness sealed her throat. But she was there before them both, duly presented to the earl and his son. Short of turning and fleeing, the least she could do was blurt out the words of welcome she’d practiced at Ravenskeep. She’d meant them to break the ice; now they would save face, a little.
    “My lord Earl.” She curtseyed. By rote she said her little piece, uninspired by the subject for whom she had invented it. She hardly heard the words herself; they contained something of gratitude and honor, a scrap of piety. She cared no more than Locksley, who stood so bored beside his father.
    And then the boredom vanished. A hand was on her arm even as she turned to go. The wrist, she saw clearly, was no longer thin and bony, but sheathed in firm muscle. The fingers were taut as wire. “Marian of Ravenskeep? ”
    Baffled, she nodded—and saw rage blossom in his eyes.

Three
    Locksley’s clasp on her arm hurt but Marian let it go, offering yet another curtsey, briefly startled by his question as well as the contact. She looked more closely at him, baffled by the unexpected tension. The rage had dissipated, replaced with impatience; he did not require the honor everyone gave his father.
    “Yes,” she told him clearly, wondering what it was about her name that drove him out of silence into abrupt intensity. “Marian of Ravenskeep; Sir Hugh is—” she checked, “ was my father.”
    The hand remained on her arm as if he had forgotten. Through the fabric of her clothing she