Page 31 of An Earl for the Archeress

“I, too, have royal relatives, confirmed ones,” Robert continued, “though I find it poor taste to use mention of them to strengthen my position. I offer my hospitality to you and hope that you’re a gracious guest, despite my meager six and twenty years. Secondly, though I respect all peers, I don’t swear allegiance to you. You hold no jurisdiction over me. Therefore, nobody searches my estate, though it has nothing to do with your ill-behaved daughter and everything to do with principle.”

He took a calming breath and attempted to summon a smile. He failed at the smile but at least reestablished a pleasant demeanor.

“Why, pray tell, do you suspect your daughter of being here? East Anglia is quite a distance from Ayrshire in Scotland and not an easy voyage to make, even when well-made plans are laid. Have you no control of her?”

Harold Crawford’s face was as taut as a bowstring, and Robert’s chastisement seemed to do nothing except make it tighter.

“Word from the Sheriff of Nottingham is that you allow woeful wretches hearth and home, if they come begging.”

“But why here? Would it not be difficult for a woman to come so far on her own accord?”

“She’s a crafty one who has eluded me. I have nay a doubt she’ll find a way to do as she pleases.”

“Have you not considered that she’s dead? Or kidnapped? A lone woman, young and virginal as your daughter no doubt is”―he chose not to look at Jonathan, knowing that Mariel had not acted virginal with either of them―“wouldn’t stand any chance against a thief or criminal.”

“I’ve considered this, but my daughter, as it turns out, is a skilled archer. I have nay a doubt she can survive.”

“A female archer?” Robert’s eyes widened, sending John and his other men who knew her to be his competition at the tourney a glance to keep their ale portals shut. “You still haven’t told me your reasons for bringing your search to East Anglia.”

“It’s been some time since I’ve visited, since I met with your faither. If it’s true that you allow stragglers to seek refuge, then mayhap she’s here.”

Robert stared at him, which Crawford mistook as surprise.

“Indeed,” Crawford said. “The lass is mad, is she not?”

“Or she has bollocks,” Robert said. “She might have valuable skills to offer you.”

Crawford scoffed, a sound Robert deduced was the closest he ever came to laughing. “She’s a wench. ’Tis preposterous.”

“I don’t recall any unescorted women coming to me for refuge,” Robert said, feigning ignorance. “What does she look like? My father mentioned once that she was fetching. I don’t recall meeting her on your journey southward for her betrothal.”

“Blonde hair, green eyes, even nose.”

Crawford might have just described a rock with his lack of enthusiasm. He made no hint that her hair was not blonde but a color that could only be described as a nuanced blend of barley and honey at sunset. And her eyes weren’t green. They were shaped like almonds, mossy, deep, and shone with intelligence and quick wit. They were lined with thick lashes that required no darkening. Now that he had come to know her, he was amazed that anyone could mistake her fair features and delicate proportions for those of a lad.

“Blonde hair and green eyes describes a goodly portion of Englishwomen, sire. But I’m afraid I cannot help you. The only new people who have moved here are families, the latest, a man and woman with several children, and the woman is English and of low birth.”

Robert gestured back to the seat and Crawford obliged, slapping his boots back onto the stool one at a time so that clumps of mud fell off onto the rushes. He gestured to Crawford’s guard to take a seat as well, a dark-haired man he had at first hardly noticed, though the guard shook his head no and gave a respectful bow of the head.

“Please enjoy more refreshments whilst I freshen myself. I’ve been out all day and have need of washing the road off me before I sup.”

“Word has it you were gone since yester eve,” the Scotsman remarked, taking a knife from his waist to clean beneath his nails, dusting the grime onto the rushes.

Robert frowned. The way Crawford made his statement implied deeper knowledge.

“Indeed,” he replied, “though that isn’t a detail that matters, considering its personal nature.”

“It doesn’t,” Crawford agreed. “’Tis an interesting time of day to depart is all, a secretive time.”

Robert put on his best mask for his irritation and attempted to achieve calm, for Crawford only made him want to put his fist clean through the front of the man’s head and out the back. And the sheriff’s persistence made him uneasy. Perhaps because you’re a guilty man. But despite the law stating he should turn over a man’s property to him, he’d known within five seconds of Crawford’s company that he had made the right decision about Mariel. She would fare poorly at his hand.

“When it becomes law that I clear my outings with a Scottish lord, then and only then will I tolerate your disrespect,” he ground out, leveling his eyes at Crawford’s. “As I’m not in the habit of including my staff in my personal decisions, I will tell you. I’ve a young widow who services me well and I enjoy her company on occasion, hence my departure yester eve. Certainly a man such as yourself with, what was it, five bastards and two legitimate”—he tapped his chin—“can understand a man’s urges. I was en route to inspect landholdings when your untimely arrival happened this morning, causing me to have to return tonight, and it puts me behind schedule now.

“I cannot think of any reason why I would warrant your scrutiny. However, you have done much already to warrant mine. And so we’re clear, if you don’t amend your methods to those more becoming of a guest in another lord’s home, I will see fit to withdraw my hospitality and have you escorted to my border.”

Crawford studied him. Robert couldn’t tell by his stern expression whether or not his diatribe had just earned him more disdain or a little respect. And his lie, such a grand lie. He had bedded a villager or two a long time before, in his teenage years, but had grown into a more confident man who needed no such pleasure when it had potential to disrupt the relationships between his castle’s maidens. Nothing, he had discovered, made women more envious of one another or fueled feelings of rivalry than when one friend was welcomed into the bed of a favored liege lord while the others were not.

When Crawford said nothing but simply watched him with a tick in his jaw and a scrutinizing eye, Robert turned to Jonathan, who had not strayed far, and ordered him and his men to keep the Beast of Ayr and his guardsmen under a watchful eye.