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Alan bobbed his eyebrows. “You weren’t calling me useless last night when I had your cock in my hand, swirling it inside our little songbird.”
Will’s pale cheeks flushed. “No. I suppose I wasn’t.”
I also blushed, and faced the tart in my lap like it was the most interesting thing in Sherwood Forest. When I flaked off a bit of it and put it in my mouth, I let out a low hum of approval and it melted my insides in a not-so-dissimilar way as the Merry Men had last night. “Fuck, that’s good . . .” I murmured softly to myself.
“If you’d like, love,” Alan turned back to me, a proud expression on his face after shooting Will’s argument about his usefulness down, “I can serenade you with musical tales of splendor while you bathe and feast on your morning dessert.”
I looked up at him. “Huh?”
He suddenly had his lute in his arms, pulled seemingly out of nowhere. His perfectly tilted eyebrows bobbed again.
Will slapped him in the arm. “She doesn’t want to hear you croon about nonsense while she’s—”
“I’d love it,” I blurted, smiling at the minstrel and giving him another win against our infuriating, curly-headed warrior. My arms went out wide, gesturing to everything. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, boys. Honestly. Thank you.”
Tuck bowed his head low, like I was his queen. “As Little John told you when you first chanced upon us in the river: We are not savages, lass. Aftercare is important, especially after a session of such depravity and debauchery. And there’s nothing better for the mind than clean skin, fresh hair, and a full belly.” He winked. “I would know.”
“You don’t have any hair,” Will pointed out.
“I meant the ‘full belly’ part, you dunce!” Tuck growled.
Alan strummed his lute. “Now then, love, sit your ass down in that steaming water before it gets tepid, and lose yourself to the wonders of my pitch-perfect voice and unerring fingering.”
“. . . Fingering . . .” Will muttered.
“Oh, will you shut up! I meant the strings!”
“Of course you did.”
“Always humble, Alan,” Tuck said wryly, snorting.
“Humility never—”
“—benefitted the storyteller,” I finished for him.
Our eyes locked and we laughed. A smile glued itself on my face. Outside, past the slit in the tent flap, I could tell it was a sunny morning.
Things are certainly looking up, and in a hurry.
This was a hell of a way to start the day, after having a hell of a way to end the night.
Perhaps I didn’t need to dwell on my insecurities and doubts any longer. If the Merry Men kept this up, I’d forget all about my failures by the time the sun went down.
HOURS LATER, I EXITED my tent feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Tuck was right: A bath was the perfect thing to right my mind and prepare me for a long day.
Emma and Much wandered up to me seconds after I left my tent. A pang of guilt hit me as I wondered just how long the day would truly be.
I winced as they approached. “Apologies for—”
“The young lady has something to say,” Much began, interrupting me with a flourish of his hand at Emma.
“I can speak for myself, Much,” Emma snapped.
Much’s choice of words were interesting, given that the “young lady” in question was easily eight years his senior. I had a feeling Much had been stuck to her hip all night, and Emma was starting to grow exasperated with his lurking, “protective” presence.
Like Alan-a-Dale, I supposed the boy had to make himself feel important somehow—by speaking for Emma, and then guarding her like he had any chance in hell of stopping even the weakest Merry Man if it came down to it.
A small smile crept up my face as I recalled Alan in the tent earlier, making himself feel important . . . and then I thought about him from last night and my face felt abruptly warm.
