“I don’t know if I can shoot anymore,” I told him soft.
“You haven’t been gone that long,” he told me, brushing my wrist again.
Wondering if two could play such a game, I took his hand and traced my fingertips over his palm, edging one finger, then the next, then the next. He sucked in a hard breath. “Not because of the time,” I admitted, unearthing my half hand from where I’d hidden it in my skirts.
He took this hand, unwrapping it and really looking at it for the first time. The scarred stumps were discolored, almost black, and tough and rough to the touch. Hard. Flipping it over, the palm were red and scraped up from the rope. He lifted my hand, kissing a bit of the uninjured pad at the base of my thumb. “Your hands have seen far too much pain. But if you want, I’ll teach you to shoot like I taught you the first time.”
I pulled away from him with a gasp. “The first time!” I yelped, outraged. “You never!”
He grinned. “You couldn’t shoot a horse’s ass when I found you,” he boasted. “I taught you everything you know.”
“You taught me some things,” I said, lowering my voice. He raised his eyebrows and leaned closer to me. I pushed him back with a grin. “And none of them have anything to do with weaponry.”
My eyes dropped to his mouth, and lingered there for a long breath.
He sighed and stood. “Scarlet, we should—I should—” He stopped, and he shook his head.
I stood as well. “Rob, I shouldn’t have walked off this afternoon.”
He looked at me, waiting for me to speak.
I lifted my shoulders. “I know you were trying to say something reasonable, but all I heard—” I stopped, looking down, and he stepped closer to me. “All I heard was that you don’t want to marry me anymore.”
He looked at me, meeting my eyes in that way that made me feel strange things sparking like kindling inside of me. He glanced away, looking round the hall. “Come,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’d rather not speak about this here, but there is much to say.”
My chest felt tight as I looked at his hand.
“And none of it has to do with me not wanting to marry you, Scar,” he told me, his voice a low, private rumble. “Come to my chambers, and we can discuss it all.”
I nodded, putting my hand in his.
He held my bandaged hand and brought me up through the castle. When I thought we’d continue up the stairs, he started tugging me down the hall. “You don’t stay in the lord’s chambers?” I asked. They were the nicest rooms, where Prince John stayed when he were here.
He shrugged. “No. I couldn’t much stand the thought of him, and besides . . . ,” he said, trailing off as he tugged me down the hall. As we grew closer to the room and he smiled broader, I felt the blood running out of my face. “I wanted to stay in the only room that reminded me of you. With your things in it, no less, so I could pretend like any day you’d appear again.”
He loosed my hand to open the door, and my heart were pounding at the thought of going into that room, like it could bring Gisbourne back to life, like he would be there, putting his hands on me again.
Rob turned back to me and frowned, taking my hand. “Scar, we don’t—”
I pulled away, so hard when he let me go I hit the wall and jerked with pain as my back hit rock. I shrank from him.
“Scarlet!” he said, frowning and confused.
I could bare breathe, and Rob came to me, standing before me, hesitant to touch me.
Like he thought it were him I didn’t want to be touched by, like he couldn’t see Gisbourne’s ghostly hands reaching out for me, grasping at me.
“Locksley!” Winchester shouted down the hall. “Have you—Marian! Come quick, Bess is asking for you.”
I pulled round Rob. “Bess?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
He grinned. “She’s having the baby.”
My eyes went wide. “What am I meant to do?” I demanded, panicked.
He chuckled. “I think she wants a friend there, Marian.”
With little idea what I were doing, I went. Maybe to run from telling Rob so many truths, and maybe because even if I weren’t sure I were yet, I wanted to be Bess’s friend. I wanted to protect that baby from the moment it were alive in the world.
I rushed back to the room I’d left her in. Much were outside, his arms crossed, looking fair tortured and grim. “God, Scarlet . . . ,” he started, shaking his head.
Jumping forward, I kissed his cheek. “I’ll take care of her,” I told him. It were a silly promise to make—I didn’t know the first thing about women and babies and care. But I promised it to him because he needed to hear something from his friend.
I heard her yell, and Much flinched. I opened the door and went in. Women were in there already, four of them, piling linens and getting water and doing it all without a word.