The next morning Rob and I woke, and called for the servants that dressed us. I watched him as they went, tugging and pulling and tying both of us.
He had changed, just a bit. The way he stood, the angle of his chin—these were like they were when I’d known him first. When the luster of nobility hadn’t been taken away from him, when he hadn’t been brought low and humbled.
He caught me looking and grinned at me. “Thank you,” he said, with an authority that really meant they were dismissed. His servants bobbed to him and left, and mine hesitated.
“Milord, her dress—” one said.
“I will serve her Grace,” Rob said, smiling just at me.
The girl bobbed and left, leaving my dress half-laced in the back.
“Now,” he said. “What was that look for?”
Placing my hands on his chest, I let my fingers trail over him. The fancy shirt and expensive tunic, the sharp way his strong neck came up out of the clothes. I touched the hollow of his throat, drawing in a breath.
He sucked in air, and his throat moved against my finger.
“You were born for this,” I whispered to him. “Being a noble again. This was where you were always meant to be.”
There were a rumble in his chest, like a purring from a cat. I looked up and he were looking at me, staring at me, his eyes peeling everything away until he were left with whatever were at my deepest core.
The way he’d always looked at me.
“I didn’t deserve this—I couldn’t do this—until you, Scarlet. So if there’s something I’m meant for, it’s you.”
Looking at me like that, his words that rushed through me, it were better than any of his incredible kisses. It were the feeling of hope, that we might be able to win through this. I nodded, like he knew my thoughts. “Time to begin.”
He nodded back. “Time to finish this.”
Westminster Palace weren’t properly part of London. A short walk outside it, it were considered its own town, and the nobles took full advantage of that to keep themselves from the squalor of the city. Just outside the palace walls, there were long greens where the nobles flocked to now that the sun were warm and they had all gathered here to hide from the unrest of the country.
We went out, my arm in Rob’s like I were some proper lady, and my fingers curled into his arm within the first few feet of the palace walls. Margaret walked alongside me, close enough to reach for me.
I had faced fires, weaponry, and marriage, but nothing seemed quite so terrifying as facing down a field of bored nobility.
“There he is,” Margaret whispered.
I followed her gaze, and saw de Clare laughing at something an older gentleman said. The man looked stern, if not outright offended.
Margaret’s gaze also drew his notice, however, and de Clare clapped the man on the back and came over to us.
Rob took a small step forward as he did, positioning himself between de Clare and me in a tiny little way. I frowned at him.
Rob’s eyebrows lifted. “You think I don’t know the way he spoke to you last he was in Nottingham?” he told me soft. “The man’s damn lucky I don’t put an arrow through his eye.”
“There she is,” de Clare said, loud, still a step or two away. He came closer still, reaching for Margaret’s hand. She tried to step back but he caught her, bowing over her hand and kissing it. “My future wife.”
Margaret went stiff and still, curtsying to him. “My lord de Clare,” she said quiet.
He looked at Rob and me. “And Lady Huntingdon,” he said, releasing Margaret to drop his head to me, not near the full bow my rank required. “And the Sheriff.”
Rob didn’t so much as incline his head. “That’s the Earl of Huntingdon, de Clare,” he said. Rob took my hand and kissed it.
De Clare laughed. “Well, the prince was right about men lapping at the teat of power, wasn’t he? Well played, Locksley,” he said.
Rob’s face were flat, and he stepped forward, close enough that de Clare stepped back. “‘I can find her in the castle, alone, vulnerable. I can do whatever I want to her.’” Rob’s voice were a low, measured growl.
I frowned at Rob, confused, and de Clare looked much the same, glancing from me to Rob and back.
“Is that not what you said to my lady wife once?” Rob asked. “You seemed to insinuate that it is easy to get a person alone. To pay them back for any perceived threat with the promise of punishment.”
De Clare’s face went a little more pale.
“Don’t speak to her. Don’t speak about her,” Rob said, glaring hard into de Clare’s eyes. “Ever.”
De Clare stepped back, but the slick, smug smile returned. “Come along, Margaret. Why don’t we get to know each other a little better away from such company?”