Page 3 of An Earl for the Archeress

Chapter Two

“So much for a meal,” Mariel grumbled.

She had managed to scarf down some scraps from the servants’ tent the night before but had counted on her last coin to purchase a few buns, some apples, and a turkey leg. It had been several days since she had eaten a filling meal. Her stomach growled just thinking about it.

She found her saddle packs where she had left them and hoisted them onto her shoulders. Now she needed to find a hiding place to change out of her bloody gown. She hated the corset. A restriction. Restrictions, whether they be a corset or a father’s edicts, were only designed to control a woman. And that kind of control had no place in Mariel’s life.

As she made her way toward the woods from the fair in the most surreptitious way possible, hoping to find a secluded copse of trees, she heard clanking, and sensed someone’s presence. She turned to look over her shoulder. The man with hazel eyes and perfectly disheveled hair jogged to a halt not far from her, his sword slapping his thigh.

She gave him her full attention and lifted her chin, making a note of her dagger down her bodice and one more in her gown pocket. She would not be able to best him in a duel, but she might manage to escape. Yet, she didn’t perceive that he posed a threat.

“So that’s it? You toss three shillings into our coffers and then depart?” he asked.

“I search for a bit of privacy. The incessant racket down there is enough to make any sane person mad.”

He chuckled. Lo, but don’t his cheeks crease in the most handsome way. The early light made his eyes sparkle, too, an olive green flecked with tan and brown, sitting low on the morning horizon as the sun was doing. She rolled her eyes. A pretty face was a pretty face, nothing more, and there was no reason to take notice of his.

“Do I irritate you?” he asked, walking closer.

“No. Why?” she replied.

“The way you rolled your eyes to heaven would suggest otherwise.”

Dear Lord, but did I actually roll my eyes? She had thought it a sentiment only in her head.

“I’m sorry. I was thinking of something else.”

He smirked and his brows knitted together, thick and arching over the most perfectly cut cheeks and jaw. That wasn’t true. His face was littered with little scars, indicative of good training or perhaps fighting. But he was not a knight, that much was certain. Knighted, probably, but not a warrior. His body had not developed the breadth of a barrel like the other knights whose bones were as robust as well-made ale.

“Do you always move about so freely without escort?” he pressed.

“As a matter-o-fact, I do.” She kept her chin lifted as his eyes did an involuntary glance at her chest, then her body in general.

“You should be careful, Miss. If Elmer has any good sense, he would not allow you to cavort about a fair alone. Rogues lie in wait to seduce fetching faces such as yours,” he teased. “And thieves plague these forests. They’re said to seep out of the trees, attack their quarry, make off with bags of coin, and disappear again like wraiths. William de Wendenal has indeed complained of these attacks more than once. I can’t imagine how they would ravage a woman such as you.”

She knew about William de Wendenal, King Richard’s Sheriff of Nottingham, who had been appointed to uphold the laws upon the king’s departure for the Crusades. Indeed, she had successfully eluded him a few times as his men had stalked the countryside in search of law-breakers. His reputation as a corrupt official who burdened the people of England with unfair taxes and increased rents was widespread. Families, rich and poor, had all fallen victim to him.

“Considering I’m the older sibling, I’ve never thought it wise to submit to the lad’s inferior protective skills,” she said. “And I assure you, a thief would not score much in the way of valuables from me.”

“Have you no parents to ensure your safety?”

She wanted to laugh at that remark. She did indeed have a father, though her safety was not his chief concern. Her mouse of a mother had languished in fear of her father, Harold Crawford, the Sheriff of Ayrshire, before she’d died. A cruel man, her father had earned the nickname The Beast of Ayr. And her sister…

Oh my wee sister! Just the thought of her made the pain in Mariel’s heart ache anew. Madeline was a beauty—soft, demure, obedient, and quiet. So quiet, she was all but a shadow, and because Mariel was a horrible older sister, she had left Madeline behind to fend off their father on her own.

Yet their father had always taken most of his anger out on Mariel, while her younger sister, due to her quiet nature, had escaped much of it. Unlike Madeline, Mariel had never been demure. She had argued when things seemed unjust, spoken out of turn, and Lord, had she rolled her eyes! Her father had hated it. No, Mariel might have had a title, but she had gladly left behind her father’s wealthy castle for a hidden hayloft here, a nook in a back alley there, or a secret campsite deep in the countryside. A hayloft or a campsite meant freedom from Harold Crawford. Thinking of what that man had done to her made her shudder. He was evil. Growing up his eldest daughter had been a curse.

“I have no parents, my lord,” she replied. “It’s just me…and Elmer.” She caught herself.

Now the man chuckled, folding his arms and taking a wide stance, which only enhanced his lean-waisted, broad-shouldered physique. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t stop herself from a quick perusal of his shape—as he had done of hers moments before.

“Come off it, Miss. There is no Elmer, and you and I both know it.” He lifted her hands in his and inspected them. “Wear you no gauntlet for archery?”

She whipped her hands away from him, causing her packs to lurch down her arms. Embarrassingly, it threw her off balance and she stumbled, though the man grabbed her shoulders to steady her. Was her ruse so easily spotted? And her hands and wrists did, in fact, bear marks where the bow had snapped her over the years and where calluses had formed beneath her fingers.

“I…I wear one, but only when I must. The leather is in poor repair and needs restitching.”

He thought for a moment. “’Twas a moderate purse I saw you handling. Why not purchase what you need here? Perhaps a new gauntlet?”