I came to them, sitting beside Rob and taking it. It were in Eleanor’s hand, and I broke the seal. “Eleanor’s coming with Essex and Bigod,” I said, reading it quick. “With a considerable amount of silver.”
“No,” Winchester said. “I don’t give a damn about the ransom right now. I’m not letting that monster lay a finger on Margaret.”
“Neither are we,” I told him, leaving the letter in my lap.
“You have to run away,” Rob said. “That’s your only option.”
I rubbed my head. “Not your only option. But it is a good one. Goodness knows that’s how Eleanor married King Henry.”
“That was against her will, though. Margaret’s willing, isn’t she?”
Frowning, I said, “I’m not certain. She wants to honor her father’s wishes. I can’t help you if she doesn’t agree to it.”
“There’s no way I’ll be let near her,” Winchester said. “Will you speak to her, Marian?”
I nodded. “Yes. But if she agrees to marry de Clare, you have to respect her wish,” I told him.
His mouth twisted. “I don’t know if I can,” Winchester said, his voice rough. “But I’ll try.” Standing, he shook his head. “I’m going for a ride,” he said. “I can’t . . . I can’t be here a moment longer.”
He didn’t even wait for good-byes as he quit the room.
Rob leaned back, draping his arm over me and staring up. “And I thought our love was fraught,” he said.
I held up the letter. “If they’re bringing more silver, we need to wait until it’s here to steal it,” I told him. “We can only make this play once, and if Prince John has enough to fill the treasury back up again the plan is useless.”
Rob looked at me. “There’s no way if Eleanor, a huge number of nobles, and de Clare are here for a wedding, Prince John isn’t planning on coming. Especially since I’m sure de Clare has sent word that we’re here by now. Prince John won’t be able to stay away. Which means stealing the money when he’s here. When he’s watching.”
“And when Winchester is either too drunk with grief or running off with his bride to help us,” I added.
He drew a breath and closed his eyes, his throat working. “There are a million ways this can end badly, Scar.”
I nodded. “There always were.”
CHAPTER
That night, I went to visit Margaret. She were awake in her room, staring out the window, quiet.
She turned to me when I entered. “Have you seen Saer?” she asked.
I nodded. “He’s gone riding. I thought that meant an hour or two, but Rob thinks he won’t be back until tomorrow or the next day.”
She sighed. “That will clear his mind.”
“He wants to run away with you,” I said.
She looked at me with wide eyes. “He does?”
Sitting beside her, I nodded. “I told him I would help you both if you consented. If you wanted to overthrow your father’s wishes.”
She looked at me. “You did that, didn’t you? Disobeyed your father. Ran away.”
My shoulders lifted. “It turns out he was not actually my father, but yes. I ran away—without a man—instead of marrying Gisbourne, who my father wanted for me. I was young, though. Not ready in so many ways.”
“And it was the right choice?” she asked.
I sighed. “Maybe. I think life becomes a fabric of choices, interwoven, all related. I think I had to run away then to be married to Rob now. But running away also cost me the life of my sister. It split my life into these two things, thief and lady.”
“You aren’t split. You’re simply more than one thing at once.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think I would have chosen different,” I told her. “But this path has been costly beyond measure, and fraught with darkness and pain. I would wish different things for you.”
She stared out the window again. “I don’t understand if the less painful path would be to marry de Clare and obey my father, or Saer. The man I love.”
Shaking my head, I said, “I can’t say either. But being married to someone you love . . .” I stopped, shivers running over my skin. “I never imagined I could care for someone like this. I didn’t think I had that in me.”
She took my hand, gave me a weak smile, and looked out the window as her smile faded. “I can’t disobey my father,” she whispered. “Not yet.”
Isabel called for a feast to be held the next evening to celebrate the engagement of Margaret and de Clare. Even in so little time, the palace cooks made a ridiculous spectacle of stuffed birds that looked frozen in flight, sugar confections that appeared as if from some kind of strange dream, and food enough to feed half of London.
There were minstrels called in, and I shouldn’t have been a bit surprised to see Allan amongst them, but I were. Rob laughed beside me, grinning my way.
“I have prepared something exquisite for the princess,” Allan said, bowing to Isabel.
She beamed at this. “Very well, minstrel,” she said. “Play on.”
Allan glanced at me with a wink, and I glanced at Rob, horrified and hoping I weren’t the princess he meant. Allan swept out in another, fancy bow for Isabel, and he nodded to his fellows.
A bonny fine maid of a noble degree,