they were moving, Marian could barely keep her tongue quiet. Questions and explanations burst half-formed in her mind, and the need to put distance between them and the men took over her good sense.
It wasn’t until Jonquille had to skip over a fallen branch that Elena protested. It wasn’t a jump so much as a little hop, but when their weight came back down against the horse’s back, Elena stiffened and let out a little groan.
Marian reined in her mare, her hands tense and shaky. She dismounted, then reached up to help Elena down, trying to lift her by the waist and instead ending up half dragging the poor girl to the ground.
They stood, holding one another’s arms, bemused and breathless. Then, carefully, Elena let go one with one shaking hand and reached up to push Marian’s hood back and tug her mask up over her brow.
Marian stood, blinking in the afternoon sun, nose itching with cold and the smell of autumn leaves. Elena’s eyes searched hers, grave and as unreadable as her betrothed’s. Marian tried to dismiss the strange fear that tingled along her every nerve. Elena was her servant. Marian didn’t answer to her—it was the other way around. Elena ought to be the one afraid, caught sneaking out to see her beau.
But everything had changed. Elena had become her friend, which meant Marian did have to answer to her.
Elena let her breath out audibly, steaming the air, and closed her eyes. Before Marian could digest this reaction, her maid leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Marian. “It was you,” she whispered. “You saved Will, the night Gisborne’s men came for him.”
Marian’s throat was tight, and her mind empty of words.
“You’ve saved him three times now.” Elena drew back. Her eyes were wet. “But the rest—Lady Seild’s midnight intruder, the grain from Nottingham, the stories they whisper in town . . . My Lady, how long have you been Robin Hood?”
“Always. I didn’t mean to be at first—Will mistook me for Robin, that first night. I wore his cloak so I wouldn’t be recognized, and instead . . .”
“Instead you were recognized as him.” Elena’s eyes were sober and earnest, and Marian found it hard to look at her for more than a moment or two. “And the rest?”
“All me.” Marian let the truth fall and straightened as if she’d been bent under a heavy burden. The words that had been so conspicuously absent from her mind a moment ago came rushing up in a torrent. “I didn’t intend any of it. But I am Robin Hood now. Oh, Elena, I would have told you, but—”
Her maid’s eyebrows rose, and she shook her head. “You’d have been mad to tell me,” she countered breathlessly.
Marian’s head jerked up. “You’re not going to scold me? Tell me I’m being foolish or reckless?”
Elena let go of Marian’s arms and tugged at the edge of her tunic to settle it into place. “I don’t know if you’re being foolish. Probably you are. Probably so am I. But it’s done, isn’t it? You can no more stop being Robin Hood now than I can stop seeing Alan.”
Marian let the air out of her lungs to draw a new breath, dizzy. “To speak about it,” she whispered. “To a friend. What it means, you can’t know . . .” Her eyes stung, vision blurring.
Elena’s expression softened into a tiny smile. “I thought you were in love with him,” she admitted. “With Robin Hood. And that’s why you were vanishing all the time.”
Marian laughed, as giddy as if she’d had too much to drink. “I suppose I am, in a way. In love with being Robin Hood. The difference it makes—to speak to men and have them listen to your words. To act in the world, not merely react. To ride out when I choose and be free.”
Elena gave the horse a sidelong look and tugged awkwardly at her leggings. “I’m sure it made for a theatrical exit, as Alan would say, but I don’t much care for riding post, my Lady.”
Marian laughed again and reached for Jonquille’s reins, then wiped the tears from her eyes. “I was going to suggest we walk the rest of the way.” She hesitated and then started forward as she added, cheeks warming, “You have to wear something under the leggings if you’re going to ride.”
Elena fell into step beside her, and rather than casting a scandalized look at her mistress, she said thoughtfully, “And all that bouncing—I