My eyes dropped to the bow, miserable. “I can’t do this, Rob.”
He slid closer behind me, kissing my cheek quick before drawing his arms round me. He pressed my whole hand against the shaft of the bow, and slid my other hand on the string. He took an arrow, wedging it careful between my two remaining fingers, and I shifted my thumb to hold it against the string.
He let go, and the arrow dropped, clattering slow through the tree. Birds flew off at the noise. “Dammit!” I snapped, trying to pull out of his arms.
But we were on a tree branch, and he were blocking me, and I couldn’t get free without knocking him off. And considering the path the arrow took, I weren’t keen to do it just yet.
“Hush,” he said against my ear. “Try again.”
I twisted hard to glare at him. “What, Rob? You want to hear me say I’m some strange crippled girl and I’ll never shoot the bow again? That—that—without being able to hold these weapons I’m not sure of anything? What do you want?”
His mouth hooked up. “I want you to try again,” he told me.
He didn’t guide my hands as I clutched the arrow, trying to draw it on the string. I could hold all the parts, but I couldn’t aim it—I couldn’t even hold the damn thing straight, and my hand were cramping.
I unstrung the arrow, shaking my hand out. “Hurts?” he asked.
“Yes. Is that what you want to hear?” I grumped.
He took the hand, rubbing the muscles.
I pulled away. “I can’t do this, Rob.”
His shoulders lifted. “Very well.”
I frowned.
He nodded into the clearing. “There’s a deer. Someone should probably shoot it.”
“Go ahead.”
He leaned back, crossing his arms and watching me. “Don’t feel like it.”
“Don’t feel like it? Robin!”
He lifted his shoulders again.
“You’d really starve your people to prove a point?” I snapped.
“Would you?” he returned.
“Fine!” I snapped. I strung an arrow and aimed it. I let it fly, and it went so wild the deer didn’t even spook. “Fantastic,” I told him. “I hope I didn’t kill Godfrey. If they’re not laughing themselves to death down there.”
His arms were around me again, guiding my hands. “Like this,” he said, shifting my fingers a bit. “Listen to your bow. Mind your breath. Find the moment, Scar. You can do this,” he whispered in my ear.
I drew in a deep breath. My hand hurt holding the arrow, and I knew it were sweating I were holding it so tight. I let the breath out, waiting for the lull between heartbeats, and I let it go.
“Hey!” Rob yelled, pointing as the arrow landed in the rump of the deer. It started, frightened and hurt, and it were disoriented enough that Godfrey could leap over and cut its throat.
“I hit the ass,” I grunted.
“Well, you’re acting like an ass, so that’s perfectly fine,” he told me.
“I’m acting like—” I started to yell at him, but he ducked closer, tilting my chin to kiss him, feeling like maybe, hidden in a tree and acting like our old selves, the rules of the world didn’t apply. I only let it go a few moments too long, before pulling away with a frown.
“You hit the deer,” he said soft. “You did it.”
I glanced out. Godfrey and David were trussing the deer so they could move it from the clearing. “I hit the deer,” I allowed.
He rubbed my cheek and turned my face back to his, waiting, and with a sigh I kissed him, twisting on the tree to have an easier time of it. He rubbed along my legs as we kissed, drawing one up and hooking it round his waist to pull me closer. I drew a breath through my nose, not breaking the kiss—with both of us in pants, it felt close. Very close. Bending my knee pushed him harder against me, and our lips broke as we both drew a ragged breath.
“I love you, Scarlet,” he told me, his eyes dark and shimmery blue in the green shade of the trees.
“I love you too,” I told him, not looking at him. He reached to kiss me again, and I leaned back. “We never finished that talk ’bout whether or not you want to marry me,” I told him, not looking up.
He drew a breath, leaning back too. “I want to,” he said.
I looked up at him, but he were looking out over the forest. “Talk or marry me?”
His mouth twisted up. “Marry you, Scar.”
“But.”
He looked at me. “But you’re a noblewoman. I can’t forget that.”
“I’m a bastard with royal blood and royal favor,” I told him. “You were the one born a noble.”
“You can protect Nottinghamshire if you marry, Scar. You must realize that.”
I crossed my arms. “I do. Essex just offered for my hand this morning, in fact.”
“He what?”
“Yes. Said that would be the best way to protect me, and protect Nottinghamshire.”