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Will had inadvertently dropped a clue, which gave me motivation and made me think of the situation differently. Lean into my impulsiveness. Embrace it. Use it to benefit me.
In turn, it would benefit the Merry Men.
Will said, “For instance, right now, while no one is watching, I want nothing more than to take you behind Tuck’s tent and fuck you raw until you can’t walk or think straight.”
“There’s that spontaneity,” I said with a smirk. It sounded amazing, honestly. If Tuck wasn’t injured, and John wasn’t busy, and Alan wasn’t playing music, I would have invited everyone along for the fun. It seemed like the perfect moment.
“You disagree?” he asked.
“I don’t,” I said, and then leaned in to kiss him on the lips and put a hand on his chest. Every sensation inside me was telling me to let him have me—to give in to the depravity and think about plans tomorrow.
But something gave me pause.
We aren’t ready for it, because there’s still so much I have to prove. And I can’t relax until I finish my goal—success or failure.
“Perhaps tomorrow, my savage lover,” I said. “I’m exhausted.”
His grin darkened. “Never stopped you before.”
Another fair point.
I wanted John, Will, Tuck, and Alan worse than anything. I knew that. They knew it. There was seemingly no better time. On top of that, the plan brewing in my mind was possibly the most foolish plan I’d ever had. Thanks to Will, of all people, who had urged me to welcome my rash spirit. My stubbornness.
The Merry Men weren’t whole.
And I knew what I needed to do to fix it.
BEFORE THE FIRES WERE snuffed out—all but one of them, which would provide minimal light for the night watchmen—I joined Gracie and Ada at the girls’ fire pit.
That’s what they were calling it. Aplace where they could freely gossip and feed rumors in hushed whispers, circled around the fire. Their Realm of Solitude, where they could treat themselves like the rumormonger nobility for once in their lives.
Because of the nature of their campfire, no one thought it odd I joined their circle. My guys likely expected I needed some time to speak with the fairer sex for a moment, since I hadn’t gotten the chance to in days now.
I couldn’t deny the ease with which I joined them, and how calmed I felt sitting down between Ada and Grace. For a half-hearted, funny moment, I wondered how much better I would have fit in to the group if we were called the Merry Women, and our membership was made up entirely of lasses and ladies.
Admittedly, we’d probably get twice as much done and half as much done at the same time. We wouldn’t be as violent and feral, certainly. Our needlework and cooking would be unparalleled. We’d gossip more than we’d act, and our words would be our weapons, because we wouldn’t have any men to protect us from other men. That didn’t bode well.
Awkwardly, I thought, I’m describing a brothel, with myself as the madam. Sad, that a house for ladies of the night is the only understandable, logical place for a gang of women who don’t fit into proper society.
When I sat down, a girl from the orphanage named Taffa was leaning into the fire, speaking like a soothsayer to the group of six around the pit. She kept everyone’s attention rapt with an innocuous, spooky story of a man-eater in Sherwood Forest. Every once in a while, her eyes would glance over my shoulder.
I looked back and saw the one-eyed boy from the almshouse, Brand, shooting her shy smiles. Taffa’s round cheeks were painted pink, and it wasn’t from the heat of the fire.
The girls around the fire giggled as Taffa reached a crescendo of her story, slapping her hands together, startling everyone.
“Hoy, keep it down over there, little lasses!” cried out one of the older soldiers around a different fire. “You’ll wake the dead.”
Sensing my moment, I spoke out the corner of my mouth. “Gracie, Ada, I need your assistance.”
From my right and left, the two girls spun to face me.
“No, stare ahead,” I said quietly. Taffa’s story raged on, keeping everyone else occupied while the fire crackled in front of us. I grabbed a stick from the ground near the log I sat on, and said, “When everyone sleeps tonight, I need you two to come to my bed.”
Gracie’s eyes widened in shock. “What are you asking of us, Lady Robin?”
“This is most peculiar, ma’am. Come to your bed? But—”
I snickered, cutting her off.
