Page 50 of An Earl for the Archeress

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Teàrlach MacGregor adjusted the peasant’s hood covering his dark hair and watched as Mariel cantered out of the bailey, watched as Robert closed the door to the keep, watched as no one even noticed him. He gathered up a bundle of hay and carried it out through the open gates without issue, no one sparing him a glance. After declaring himself a vagrant down on his luck, a shepherd and his wife had offered him hospitality, and he soon learned that they had harbored a girl matching Mariel’s description the very night he and his laird had stayed the night here.

One thing was right. Dead fish did stink.

Robert Huntington had hidden Mariel right under the sheriff’s nose and feigned ignorance, and from the description the shepherd gave of him kissing her openly in the field, the earl cared for Mariel. He had lied to her very father’s face. And now Mariel was on the run.

Teàrlach had witnessed both Mariel and her younger sister, Madeline, feel their father’s wrath, but Mariel seemed to incite it on purpose. She would neither beg for her father to stop nor would she promise to never commit such an infraction again. And she would most certainly never beg his forgiveness. Madeline had, and she had been able to sink into her father’s shadows. And with Laird Crawford intent on finding Mariel after her disappearance, Madeline now lived in relative peace, rarely under the laird’s scrutiny.

He rolled out his shoulders to shake away the image of young Madeline bearing her father’s wrath and carried his bundle of hay onward, down to the village, to tuck it inside the crofter’s byre for the night…and to slip away into the forest after Mariel Crawford. He was still Laird Crawford’s man, and he would still have to do his duty. And right now, he had just ended an eight-month manhunt. Like hell he would blow it.

Chapter Sixteen

Bracing a ladder against the wall, Robert climbed up to Mariel’s chamber and pulled himself through the window. He dragged up the rope of linens and dropped it in a heap on the floor. He looked around. Despite his heartache, it was interesting to learn that Mariel could scale a wall or utilize a rope so well. She would have made a good fit with his men, if only she could have stayed long enough to become more involved. The phantom, Elmer, all thorns and prickles…

The bed was stripped bare, but Mariel’s packs sat untouched against a trunk. She had abandoned everything to get away from him. He must have made her feel trapped, he realized. He knew he was relentless in anything he decided to pursue, but his incessant knocking must have been suffocating. And so she’d fled.

He left the bar on the door for a moment, gazing at the packs. He picked one up in each hand and carried them to the bed. They were light. He opened one, untying the leather strings that held shut the flap, and pulled out a brush. The paddle was gilded and the handle was carved out of fine ivory. He set it aside and pulled out a matching comb, the handle carved out of the same ivory with dancing forest nymphs detailed in relief. His thumb rubbed over it.

His chest ached as he held her possessions. She was right. What right did he have to worry for her? Detain her? Yet none of his logical questions made his heart ache any less. God, he was becoming infatuated with her. It probably wasn’t healthy. Yet he must go after her and ensure she was well. He should go down on one knee and beg that she listen to him.

He dug around into her packs and his fingers closed on a thick wad of fabric. Pulling it out, it was the gown she had worn at the archery tent. It was indeed shabby, though the velvet and wool had once been fine.

He set it aside and opened the other pack. Her beaded coif was within, wrapped in a cloth to protect the materials, and again, up close, he realized at one point it had been a fine accessory. Looking closely, the beads were not just made of glass or smoothed pebbles, but were intricate seed pearls. Lord, but the garment was an expensive one. Feeling deeper in the pocket, he found a book. He pulled out the book and examined the leather cover.

“Miracles of Evagrius and Gregory of Tours,” he read aloud. Impressive. Mariel was indeed a learned woman. He began to read. It was a short book and its significance to Mariel at first did not seem apparent. But as he read, he learned that the child in the story had been thrown into a fire by his own father and was protected by the Virgin Mary’s mantle. Why had Mariel kept this story? The book was worn and old. How many times had Mariel read it, making the parchment thin and the binding threadbare? How many times had she been thrown into the figurative fire by her father, only to wish someone had protected her?

He finished reading, feeling an angry tick in his jaw. Harold Crawford should be dead. The bastard didn’t deserve to live and most certainly didn’t deserve the honor of raising two daughters. And he, Robert Huntington, had just let Mariel Crawford go, the woman he knew now, without any doubt, he wanted. They might have learned loving from others, but he was determined that she would know him as her last and her only from henceforth.

He searched in the pouch one last time, and his fingers enclosed on the leather purse of coin he had forced upon her. Dammit, she was now both defenseless and penniless. She had indeed found a way to refuse his charitable coin. He needed to find her, let her know he would never give up on her, make her listen to the truth of his visit to Charlotte, that it had nothing to do with favors of the bedchamber and everything to do with a favor of friendship.

But his men were also planning their raid in another day henceforth. He hadn’t slept since the night before and if he didn’t rest for at least a little while, he would risk making a grave, clumsy misstep. Nottingham wouldn’t expect the forest thieves to attack him a second time so soon. He couldn’t miss the opportunity to catch Nottingham off guard. They needed to act on him as he evicted yet another poor man. Thankfully, the eviction would be near the route toward London. And likely, Mariel was traveling that route, since she had expressed that she wished to venture that way. Mayhap he could kill two birds with one stone, so the saying went, and find her along the way.

…

In the blackness of the nighttime forest, finding Robert’s hidden supplies had been too difficult, though Mariel knew there was a stash somewhere close. She had hoped to find a blanket, at the least. She shivered, curled against a tree at the very campsite she had shared with Robert, when he had spoken honestly of his father and mother, where he had lain beneath the covers with her, where he had offered her his shoulder and chest while they slept. She could still taste the sweetness of his lips as he had kissed her and pressed his body to hers, heating her with his warmth.

It was cold. The fire pit sat black and empty. Dawn approached, and the sky was lightening. Her horse lumbered to the little stream and filled its stomach. She roused herself, shivering uncontrollably, and gathered the animal’s saddle up to reassemble her mount for the long day’s journey. Her soul felt tired. Her heart hurt, and more than once, Robert’s voice begging her to open her door, begging that she listen to him, that she had misunderstood, rang in her mind. What if she had?

It was too late. What was done was done. She had her freedom again and could move about at will once more. Her stomach growled, having grown accustomed to the rich foods at Huntington, and she realized she had left her sack of coin within her packs. She sighed at the loss. Forty coins was a lot of money to gain and then lose again.

She wove onward through the dense trees for the better part of the day, sensing the sun dropping lower on its descent toward nightfall. Her stomach ached for food, relentless in its reminders that she was unable to fill it. She crossed the Huntington border, passing a wooden sign staked into the ground by the main road. Tears for her possessions—her book of miracles and the ribbon she had already lost—choked her throat, and she soon realized it was the thought of losing the chance with Robert that was plaguing her heart. Mayhap I’ve made a grand mistake.

She chanced upon a dilapidated cottage. A pile of furs sat untouched on a rickety stand beside the door and looked as if they had been prepared months before. Likely the hut only had room for a cot, a hearth, and a table and chair. Whoever lived here was poor. But the poor were generous, she had learned. It was the wealthy who were stingy with their resources. The poor knew what it was like to have not, and often shared.

She dismounted in the surrounding trees, tied back her straggly hair into a long braid, and looked down helplessly at her bosom cinched upward by her corset. There was no way to bind herself flat again. Hopefully, the person on the other side of the cottage door was kind and would offer her a badly needed meal, instead of trying to take advantage.

She kept her daggers in place and led her horse into the small clearing, walking straight up to the door. Lifting her fist, she rapped upon it and stepped back. Shuffling sounded on the other side. An old man answered, pulling back the door on squeaking, mismatched hinges.

He stooped low but had likely been her height in his younger years. Still, his face was kindly, his beard white and unwashed, and a smile creased his wrinkled face to reveal a mouth of few teeth. He looked her up and down to assess who she was, though he didn’t seem to care that she was dressed in a lad’s clothing.

“Are you lost?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m on my way to London town and hoped for a bit of broth or meat if you have it. I haven’t a way to pay but would be happy to help with a chore or two to earn the meal,” she said in her best English accent.

“What are you doing traveling about alone? Don’t you know thieves could tear you apart?”

She nodded. “I don’t wish to travel alone, but all the same, I need nourishment. If you have nothing to offer, I understand.”