The breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding slowly eased out of her.
With the two leaders coming to a temporary truce about her, all the eyes on them disappeared as the men returned back to what they’d been doing before her arrival.
Robin turned and gripped Nixie’s elbow. “I’ll take Maid Marian back to my tent for questioning. Please have Cuthbert bring in some tea and biscuits.”
With a final glance in her direction, John trotted off toward one of the campfires.
“Come.” Robin’s voice was curt, but Nixie didn’t need to be told twice.
She followed him on a circuitous route through the camp. Robin was so much more at ease here than he’d been during their trip. Smiling and waving cheerily. Calling his men out by name and asking them about any ailments they might have, or whether they’d been practicing their sparring.
The men in kind were very responsive to him as well. Everyone seemed generally pleased to see one another.
And Robin said he had no emotions. She snorted. The man might like to believe himself cold-hearted, but if this was his mask, he was either a really good actor, or he didn’t know himself at all.
Everything about the camp felt like it should. Men. Fire. Tents. Roasting meat. And yet, something felt like it was missing too. She frowned, wrinkling her nose as she studied her surroundings.
Finally he seemed to be headed in the direction of one tent in particular. It was all the way toward the back of the camp and surrounded on one side by a giant chain of boulders that looked to top twenty to thirty feet in height easily.
The tent itself was nothing special; in fact, it looked like every other one they’d passed. Just green-colored leather tarp tied down with rope. Nothing about it would denote it as belonging to the leader of the group.
Frowning, Nixie suddenly realized why the camp had felt strange to her. “Where are your horses?”
His lips twitched when he looked back at her. “Horses? And how exactly would you expect us to keep those hidden this close to the castle walls?”
She shrugged, brushing fingers through her sweat-slickened curls. “Well, you always have horses in the movies.”
Pulling his tent flap up, Robin stood aside so that she might enter first. Nixie bent slightly so that her head would not hit the top of the flap as she stepped through.
“By movies I imagine you speak of something from Earth?”
Giggling, she nodded. “Yeah. Something like that.”
He gave her a crooked side smile, and she could almost hear his thoughts. Could tell he was baffled and amused by her words and antics. It shouldn’t have made her blush, but it did.
The interior of his tent was completely dark and her heart gave a tiny flip when he joined her inside. She could feel his breath waft across the back of her neck, breaking her out in a wash of goosebumps.
Trying hard to ignore the electric connection between them, she stepped to the side, bumping into something hard at hip level.
“Ouch,” she hissed.
“Hold on.” His voice came out a throaty growl. Then there was the strike of a match and suddenly the dark tent was full of a golden wash of light.
Nixie studied his home as he lit several fat candles.
There was a desk beside her. Clearly the thing she’d bumped into. Though it wasn’t big or as sturdy-looking as she’d expected. It was mostly just scraps of wood that’d been nailed together to give him a flat surface to write on.
On the floor lay several animal skins. More than likely his bed, and in the corner was a small silver bowl full of water.
“My humble abode.” He spread his arms. “You’ll be staying with me these next few nights. I hope you don’t mind.”
She wrapped her arms around her waist, suddenly shy and nervous in a way she’d not been when they’d slept under the stars. “I don’t think they bought the damsel in distress act, do you?”
It was the first thought that popped into her head, well, not really. It was the second. The first had been just where in the world he planned to make her sleep? In the tent, or in her lamp? And if in his tent, would she be forced to lie beside him?
That thought make her body tingle.
Swiping off his shirt, Robin laid it carefully over his desk and walked to his water basin. Reaching into his pants pocket he pulled out a rag and dipped into the water, bathing his arms and face and filling the air with the scent of herbal soap.
“It’s not their place to wonder. Though I’m sure they will, they also understand I would never bring anyone into our camp that sought to do them harm.”
“Yeah, just like they understood that when you first found me. I don’t trust John.”
His voice was curt as he said, “He’ll never touch you again. I love John as a brother, but I will maim any man who attempts to take you away from me.”