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Sir Thomas was dressed in a nightgown, a silly floppy hat atop his head. His face went from pale and alarmed to scrunched and suspicious in a matter of seconds.
“You’re not Sir George of Nottingham.”
“No, I am not the Sheriff. Have you sent for him?”
He moved to slam the door in my face.
“You’ll want to hear what I have to say, sir.”
He scowled at me with one eye through the slit opening of the door. “I have a sick wife to tend to.”
Anger stabbed through me like a spear. “Is there not another who has . . . slipped through the cracks?”
The man had the gall to look confused.
My muscles clenched. I had half a mind to barrel into the door, grab this man, and beat him over the head with my quarterstaff until his skull turned into a mushy pulp. “Another member of your family, Sir Thomas?”
“Oh. Robin.”
The way he said it made me sick. An afterthought, as if her name brought a rancid taste to his tongue.
I was caught off-guard. I had expected a disheveled man, distraught with worry. Even if his wife was ill, this man was not worried. He was ready for bed.
“Yes. We uncovered her secret late last night.” I let my eyes twinkle, to drive the point home.
Still, Sir Thomas looked confused. He scratched his scraggly cheek. “Ah,” he said, embarrassment crossing his face. “Her attempts to become a man. Right. If your barbaric lot was fooled by that ruse, you’re bigger idiots than I imagined.”
My nostrils flared. “The Merry Men have your daughter, Sir Thomas, and we expect fair compensation for her safe return.”
He gained a more relaxed posture in the doorway, the shitbag. Clearly unaware I was two seconds away from snapping his neck like old kindling. “So this is an extortion call, is it?”
I nodded curtly. Glanced around. “Where are all your guards?”
“You killed them all, you hellhound.”
Oh. A damned shame, that. “You took all of them with you on your journey? Shit, we should have just robbed your house while you were gone instead.”
His neck tightened, hollowing with anger. “I brought the valuables with us, expecting just such an occasion.”
Incredibly stupid? Or stupidly lucky?
“How much has Robin spilled to you?” he asked. “The dumb little cunt.”
My legs moved before my brain could tell them to stop. “Don’t call her—” I lunged forward and he closed the door tighter, back to a sliver of opening.
Sir Thomas let out a cruel tsk. “Ah. I see. She has you wrapped around her little finger already, does she? Not good for negotiating, is it?”
“She’s your daughter, madman,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Keep her,” Thomas snapped. “She’s your problem now, cur. The girl is better off in the forest, where she can frolic and get lost all day long, uncaring about her duties. She was shit at them anyway, and already spent more time in Sherwood than I care to admit.” For a moment, his lips twitched with sadness. “When we lost Robert, we lost her, too.”
There were so many things I wanted to say, wanted to do, to this bastard. I wanted to castigate him for his cruelty; break his head open like a ripe melon; tell him all the amazing things about his daughter I’d learned in a single night, when he’d had his entire life to try and learn, if he’d only attempted. “You’re going to regret this, Sir Thomas.”
That’s all I said. My voice was low—a menacing tone I reserved for the vilest people, such as the rapist in the alley I cracked with Tuck and Marian.
“I’ll get past it,” he said with an easy shrug.
Ready to write off his daughter completely.
