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His hand reached out and he tilted my chin with a single finger, so I was forced to look up into his stormy eyes through my blurring vision. “I won’t tell you what happened to your uncle, lass, because it might jeopardize all of us. You just have to trust me when I say he’s not dead.”
I quickly shook my head away from the calluses of his rough finger. “I can’t trust you,” I said, my voice defeated. “How could I? I don’t even know you. All you’ve done is proven you’re proper bastards and criminals.”
Little John let out a heavy sigh. He studied my face for a beat longer. “Then I suppose we’ll just have to work to change your mind.”
It was the first earnest, honest look I’d gotten from the huge man yet. Not the stoic expression, or the dangerous one, but a pained one. It crept into his dark eyes, a cosmos full of stars and comets I was willing to let crash into me if it meant believing him.
I found myself wanting to trust Little John and the Merry Men.
Tucking my head away from his finger, I dropped my chin to avoid his gaze. I can’t do it. All I’ve ever known is disappointment and abandonment and loss. How can I possibly trust anyone—and men like this, no less?
“Merry fucking Men,” a voice said at the base of the hill, earning everyone’s attention.
A woman in a tight corset and locks of tumbling red hair stood with her hip pumped out in a pose, her arms folded over her breasts.
She gained the hill, glancing behind her at my uncle’s carriage in the clearing. “I see the job was a success.” She popped a single eyebrow at the naked men above her. “Even more so, I suppose, judging by the way you’re following around this shrill waif like lost dogs. Did you gang her in the river already, boys? Or is there another explanation for you being bare and ready for a tumble?”
“Woman, calm yourself!” Little John yelled, flustered and startled. He raised his palms in surrender—the first look of discomfort I’d seen from him.
John’s reaction alone made me pause at the middle of the hill, eyeing this woman as she walked up with a sigh.
She was tall, dressed like a nightlady. Could have been friends with the four who came yesterday. Yet she carried herself with more strength and swagger. Her blue dress flowed around her, ruffled and full. She had an air of superiority and confidence, though I knew she wasn’t noble born.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Her ruby-red lips pursed tight around her pale face, then stretched into a knowing smile. “I’m Maid Marian, girl. I’m the one who found them the job that destroyed your life.”
Chapter 20
Robin
Maid Marian, as she called herself, frowned and patted my shoulder when I gawked at her admission. “Well, snatching a titless young thing wasn’t part of it.”
I spluttered, “I have ti—”
“Ransacking your carriages was, though.” She turned to the others. “Who is she?”
“Heiress of an estate in Nottingham,” Little John said.
Marian’s head tilted left to right, her curls bobbing on her shoulders. “Dangerous game you’re playing, sir.”
“Aye.”
“One might say you’re asking for trouble.”
“Aye.”
She paused. Then she grabbed my arm and started dragging me back up the hill, but not before eyeing the men from head to heel one last time, eyes stopping between their legs. “You scoundrels best find some garb, before I decide to take you all at once.”
The men became flustered in an instant, and it was then that I recognized the power this woman had over them.
Another clue, I thought, which might help me in the future. Especially if I’m stuck with them for a time. At this point, I didn’t expect the men to kill me. I was too valuable. But I also didn’t believe them about Uncle Gregory.
I wasn’t a fool. What good could come of letting a powerful military man—with connections—leave here alive? Gregory served no purpose other than providing a barrier between me and these ruthless barbarians.
“Where do you think you’re going with her?” John asked, folding his arms over his barrel chest.
“I take it she didn’t bathe with you,” Marian replied. “Else she’d be limping out of here.”
