hands reached out to steady her as she reeled back.
Marian looked up, and relief washed over her. “Midge!”
Her father’s stable master blinked slowly, the only outward sign of his own surprise. He released her once she was on her feet again and stepped back with a hint of a frown.
“Midge—what are you doing here?” Marian regretted the question the instant her ears caught up with her tongue—Midge had far more reason to be here than she did.
But the stable master only gazed at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, then hooked his thumbs through his belt and puffed out his cheeks in a sigh. “I was thinking about our horse thief,” he said finally. “A few other things were missing that morning, gear I’d seen the night before. If he’d been caught robbing someone else, then he—and his loot—would’ve ended up in Nottingham’s armory.”
Marian caught her breath. Midge hadn’t said that her sword was missing along with Robin’s gear, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed. “And?” she prompted.
Midge seemed to consider her all over again, squinting in the gloom to better make out her features. “I’ve nothing to report.”
Disappointment and relief together made Marian shiver. “The gear isn’t there?”
Midge’s head tilted to the side. “The bow and cloak that vanished from the stables? No, my Lady.”
Marian hesitated. She didn’t want to reveal to Midge that her sword was missing, but she needed to know if it was there. The sword could be traced back to her eventually, if anyone thought to put together the pieces.
When she didn’t speak, Midge rubbed a hand through his short-cropped hair. “I’d suggest you take a look—perhaps you’d recognize something I didn’t—except that I suspect your father would not want you to be seen poking around the castle’s weaponry. Not to mention being seen by the unsavory handful of men in there playing at dice.”
Marian blinked and scanned Midge’s features. Could he have guessed why she was here? Urging her to look, but warning her of the men inside . . . But his face was as grave and bland as ever, revealing nothing but polite interest and the habitual fond crinkle of his eyes when he spoke to Marian.
She swallowed. “All . . . right. Thank you, Midge.”
“Of course, my Lady. If you’ve gotten turned around, there are stairs leading back up just down the hallway. You’ll find yourself not far from your and your father’s rooms.”
Marian peered at him more closely but still could find nothing in his face to suggest anything other than geniality. “Um. Thank you, Midge,” she repeated, and hurried away from the armory toward the stairs he’d mentioned.
TWELVE
“ARE YOU WELL?” ELENA was waiting for her when Marian reached her room after leaving the armory. Her maid was carefully transferring embers from the fire into a warming pan. “I heard from the other servants that you were ill this afternoon.”
Marian shook her head. “Weary from the ride,” she said finally, though guilt at the deception tightened her throat. Elena could keep a secret—after all, she’d kept Alan a secret from everyone for years. But Marian couldn’t bear to heap more danger upon her maid—the more people who knew Marian’s secret, the more she risked discovery. And to reveal that Robin hadn’t come back after all would only dash her maid’s hopes that Will would be saved. After all, Marian fully intended that he would be—she just hadn’t figured out how to do it yet.
“Did you find out anything about Will?” Marian asked gently.
Elena shook her head, eyes on the bed as she placed the warming pan beneath the covers and smoothed them. “Only that he’s still alive. And that news is two days old, from one of the cooks whose sweetheart is a guard.” She kept smoothing, chasing down every last wrinkle and crease in the cloth under her hands.
Marian left her spot by the door and went to her maid’s side. She’d never been a terribly affectionate person, even with Robin—but she took Elena’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “We’ll help him,” she promised.
And in her mind, Robin said, Don’t make promises that you cannot keep.
When Elena had gone, she dragged the dressing stool back to the side of the bed to retrieve the clothes belonging to Robin that she’d gone back to stash with the cloak on the bed’s canopy.
They smelled mostly of dust and lye, but as she climbed off the stool with her arms full of cloth, she caught the faintest hint of a