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“What is it you wanted from . . . me? Before the archery tournament, Robert, I hadn’t seen you in years. I’d thought you dead for nearly another year beyond that.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Robin. I truly am.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was distraught to find Mama and Father gone once I returned. I was hoping you might have some answers as to their whereabouts . . . though I suppose you’ve just told me about Mama Joan.”
The guilt brewing inside me swelled like a living fire. My breath became short as I recalled thrusting a sword through Sir Thomas’ chest. Murdering my father.
I blinked at Robert. “Oh . . .” I eked out.
A new voice joined the fray from a tent off to the side.
The scratchy voice said, “I suppose this is my fault as much as anyone’s.”
I spun to face the man standing under the flap of his tent.
“Uncle Gregory?!”
Chapter 32
Robin
Unlike my confusion and hesitance at first seeing Robert, I ran at Uncle Gregory. There was no trepidation when his stocky, gray-bearded frame took up residence outside the tent.
I wrapped my arms around him. “You’re alive!”
He pulled me back to stare at my face. The kindness I remembered was still there, yet the wrinkles were a little more pervasive, the lines a bit deeper. “Why wouldn’t I be, lass?”
“Because I haven’t heard from you in months,” I said, “and Sherwood Forest has a strange way of making people disappear when they’re gone for too long.”
He chuckled, and it lifted my soul. “True enough, I suppose.”
John came over and grabbed forearms with Gregory. They gave each other curt nods.
My uncle had been through so much. Captured with me by the Merry Men, then forced to leave and give me up, with the promise that if he left, I’d be safe. At one point, I even thought he had acted against me. In a way, he had, by pursuing the Merry Men. Then he learned I loved those men, and his quest to bring me home became less earnest.
Uncle Gregory was the first person to listen to me about my father and his abusive ways. The first man who truly believed me, and commiserated with me.
Now, staring at his kind half-smile, and his tired face, my brow bunched together. “Why would any of this be your fault?”
“Because I kept secrets from both of you. Nephew and niece, kept in the dark by their wily uncle.”
Some of the Oak Boys around us chuckled. I glanced around, noticed the snickering and smiling, and realized he was well-received here.
It felt good knowing my uncle had found a home for himself, after the tragedies of his life: losing his wife, losing his sister, losing his niece and nephew.
Except it appears he didn’t lose those last two. And that he might have known? “What do you mean?” I pressed. The pieces fell together, and it completed a puzzle in my heart I didn’t want to believe. I didn’t want to look at. “Did you . . . know that Robert was alive?”
His face pinched with pity, and that’s how I knew he knew—even before he said anything. I had always been able to read Uncle Gregory well because he didn’t try to hide his emotions. It was what made him so relatable and beloved by nearly everyone he met, present company included.
“I did, Robin. I am sorry for it.”
My neck hollowed with a sharp inhale. “How long did you know?”
“After the Merry Men let me go and I returned to Wilford, your parents were still missing. It was a while before you chanced upon me in the estate, when I showed you the map that had been embroidered in the orphan girl’s dress. Robert had arrived a few nights before, demanding to know where everyone was.”
I recalled Uncle Gregory’s strangeness that night. Not only at learning I trusted the Merry Men—which he found appalling. I vaguely remembered thinking something else was bothering him. Something he never shared with me.
I swallowed hard, nodding. “And?”
“And I didn’t tell him.”
