I looked at him, seeing the changes again.
He chuckled. “You’ve gotten very surly, Scar.” I made a face, and he considered. “Well, I suppose you’ve always been surly. You’re just quieter now.”
I took a breath, looking at him. “I haven’t any idea what to say, Much. To anyone.”
He nodded solemn. “I understand that.”
“You and Bess?” I asked.
This made him smile. “Yes. I couldn’t do that to John—let his baby be born out of wedlock. It were Rob or me, and I couldn’t let Rob do it.”
This struck like ice in my chest. “Rob wanted to,” I said.
He shook his head, frowning at me. “Really, Scar? Of course he didn’t want to. When will you believe that he loves you?”
“I believe it,” I said, touching the bed again. “I just don’t know what it means. I think him loving me will always make Prince John hate us both. I think it’s hard to act for love when you know there can be consequences.”
He shook his head again. “Consequences,” he scoffed. “Our overlord just ordered our city burned, and we have to pay a tax so high to bring our king home that we can’t eat. And without our king, that overlord will probably manage to be the new one, and then what? What is ever without consequences, Scar?”
I looked at him, helpless.
“Nothing,” he answered. “So don’t be a fool and cast stones into a path that isn’t meant to have them. Love Rob. Be with Rob. Keep each other safe, and keep each other happy.”
I looked at him. “Is that what you’re doing with Bess?”
He looked so sad as soon as I said it. “Yes, but I’m the stupid one there. She loves John—she always will. And I love her. And unfortunately, the best I can do is protect her and raise John’s baby and make sure no harm ever comes to them. That’s the only way I can love her.”
Reaching out, I took his hand in my wrapped-up paw. “You’re kind of hard not to love, Much. You’ll win her yet.”
“Maybe,” he said, but I could tell he didn’t believe it. “But you need to see to Rob, Scar. He’s the sheriff of a city that just got slaughtered. And more than that, for once, and I thank God for this, he didn’t run into the fray like he always has. He didn’t put his life at risk. He put the people first, before his sometimes misguided sense of heroism, before his need to defeat an enemy. And while it was the right thing to do, I can’t imagine that was easy for him. And losing you—Christ, Scar, that has not been easy on him.”
I shuddered.
He rubbed my arm. “And I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for you either. So why don’t you take the tiny amount of solace that God offers you and stop being stupid and just be in love with him?”
I nodded. He were right about that, at least. “You’re always the best of us, Much.”
“Now that I’m not the only cripple, I might start to believe you when you say things like that,” he said, holding up my half hand in his.
“Come on,” I told him. “People need to eat. Let’s raid the kitchens.”
He stood and pulled me up by my hand, and I smiled.
“Turning into quite the gentleman, Much.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I do my best, m’lady.”
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him—him, if anyone—about my title, about being Lady Huntingdon, but I stopped. I just wanted to be Scarlet a while longer.
“What?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Come on.”
We brought food, and several women went back into the castle to cook more food. I tried cutting salted pork, but it were clumsy and awful with my hands wrapped up. Hissing in frustration, I froze when familiar arms came around me and covered my hands. “Want me to do that?”
I shut my eyes, leaning my head against his for a breath.
Rob’s head leaned against mine. “We need to talk, Scarlet.”
With a sigh, I nodded. “I know.”
“Let me,” he said, nudging me aside.
I moved, leaning my hip on the table to look at him still. I crossed my arms. “I bare know where to start, Rob.”
“Start where you left,” he said, lifting his eyes to mine. “When I saw you last.”
I drew a breath. “Prince John sent my carriage away from the others. He hid me, imprisoning me in castle dungeons. I never knew where I was.” I stopped, the word feeling strange on my tongue, here with Rob, where I thought my hen-picked way of talking were the real part of me.
His eyebrows lifted. “You’re talking different.”
I tightened my arms round myself. “It wasn’t like I didn’t know how to talk before. Eleanor made me practice—but that’s a later part.”
He nodded, waiting for me to continue.
“He moved me round, and then one night he told my guards to kill me. One tried, and David killed him to save me.”
“David was one of your captors,” he said dark.
I nodded. “But before he tried to kill me, Prince John said Richard wasn’t coming back.”