To her surprise and dismay, Marian felt tears stinging her eyes and blinked hard. She could trust her father when it came to Gisborne and the Sheriff—he would never turn her in or betray her identity.
But if he knew, it would put him in danger. Her father had a reputation as an honorable man, but she could not know how the Sheriff would react if Marian were ever caught and found out. If she were a man, she’d hang for the things she’d done so far, and that would be the end of Robin Hood. As a woman, though, they might well assume that she couldn’t have acted alone and that her father must have helped her. Women did hang, but noblewomen . . . the people would much more readily find someone else to seek vengeance on. If he knew nothing, there was a chance they would not be able to prove to anyone’s satisfaction that he had done wrong.
And if he knew, he would certainly forbid her from going out as Robin again, and keep her so closely under watch that she’d have no hope of a moment’s freedom again.
And it had taken only seconds, standing there in Gisborne’s arms, shivering with cold and reaction, listening to his uncharacteristic reassurances with that strange triumph coursing through her, to know that she would go out as Robin again. As often as she could. And as long as it took to see change.
Marian searched the rainy landscape one more time and then left the window to join her father in the other chair before the fireplace. “I . . . I sought him out.” She wove this altered tale effortlessly, so aware of the way her father viewed her that she could match her story to that image without hesitation. “Lady Seild said he was so like Robin that I had to see him. I had to know.”
Her father’s expression softened as she twisted the ruby ring around and around where she wore it now on her finger.
“No one captured me,” Marian went on, mentally bracing herself. “I offered to be a hostage when I found out that Robin Hood needed a way to steal that grain from the Sheriff.”
Her father’s eyes widened with a combination of fear and fury, and for a moment he couldn’t speak. Marian searched his face, certain that as the surprise began to die, she’d see a glint of something else—maybe not admiration, but a recognition of some kind.
“Good God, Marian,” he said, his voice sounding haggard, his eyes suddenly ten years older. “You offered to . . . Why, in God’s name? He isn’t Robin, it cannot be loyalty or . . .” He stiffened, his eyebrows shooting up. “Or is that why you . . . It’s not him, is it?”
Marian paused only for a heartbeat. If she claimed her other self was actually Robert of Locksley, she could be proven a liar. She could hardly be mistaken about the identity of a man she’d grown up with and was promised to marry. The moment someone returned from the war who had known Robin, had seen him die, she’d come under suspicion.
“No,” she said softly, fingers tightening around the ring. “But Father . . . the people are suffering because of the Sheriff’s taxes. They’re losing their right to work the land, being forced from their homes. Families are being torn apart when they can’t pay. Yes, Robin Hood is breaking the law, but the laws are wrong. That grain will go to feed the people of Nottingham now, not line the Sheriff’s coffers with gold. This man, whoever he is, he’s doing what Robin would have done, if he’d come back to us.”
Her father gaped at her, and for a moment Marian thought wildly that her rhetoric had convinced him. He shared her convictions, had every bit as much compassion for the suffering of his people. He only needed to see that what Robin Hood was doing was right, even if it wasn’t lawful.
Then he burst out, “Good God, my girl, Robin would never have acted this way. You claim you loved him, and yet you—” His lips thinned.
Marian’s face stung as if she’d been slapped. Eyes burning, she whispered, “And yet I what?”
Her father already regretted his outburst. “You say this madman in the cloak, the masked Robin Hood, wanted by the law and most likely destined to hang when they catch him . . .