Page 54 of The Wicked Prince

Robin stared at her blankly.

Marian set her cup down with a rattle and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You are hopeless.”

“Marian, I need your help with John. Not Alan. Although it’d be nice to have help getting in contact with them because I know they haven’t just given up and left me here.”

“I’m going to make this as plain as possible. Alan gave his sweetheart something that would help take care of her during winter. He gave her jewelry he thought she would like. He gave her a spinning wheel to show her he cared about the things she cared about and wanted her to have the tools necessary to do the things that mattered to her. Does any of this sound familiar?”

Robin opened her mouth to tell Marian to get to the point, when she realized she was fiddling with her necklace. The little arrow.

Oh.

The wool dresses and training clothes for winter.

A necklace that he thought she would like because of its simplicity and minimal cost.

A new bow and quiver of arrows.

That was just the surface.

“But—I—No. Marian, no. Alright, that’s not—” Robin stuttered.

“Men really aren’t all that different when they’re trying to win a woman’s affections. It just looks a little different when you’re a prince than when you’re a pauper.”

“But men do that in order to convince a woman to marry them. We’re already married!”

“Men do that when they want a woman towantto marry them. John wants you to want to be his wife. Not simply be stuck as his wife because he caught you.”

“Why?”

Marian huffed. “Because he’s obviously in love with you!”

No.No.That couldn’t be possible. It was Prince John. He couldn’t be capable of it.

Yes, he might not be the manifestation of evil that she’d once thought, but that didn’t mean he could fall in love. Especially with her.

She was everything a prince wasn’t supposed to want.

“Rob, he wrote to me so he could personally paint a portrait of you and your parents because you said you couldn’t even remember what they looked like.”

Robin couldn’t even remember saying that. He’d remembered some kind of small off-hand comment and it was enough for him to go through all that work for her?

It was too much. Robin couldn’t—

“Why haven’t the Merry Men come for me?” Robin grabbed onto the nearest issue instead. The only thing that could help her avoid this realization. “Alan said they were coming.”

“Do you even still want them to?” Marian whispered. “Have you ever considered… maybe you’re wrong? That maybe this isn’t a prison? That maybe this was where you’re meant to be in order to do the most good? That you can choose to be happy? That you can choose to love?”

Not after what he’d done to her. Not Prince John. Not a wicked coward.

Chapter22

Just when everything seemed to be falling into place, something changed. John just couldn’t figure out what.

He couldn’t say what he’d been doing had beenworking, but it hadn’tnotbeen working. It wasn’t easy trying to figure out how to get the wife he’d trapped in marriage to fall in love with him. He tried gifts that weren’t too extravagant to offend her sensibilities. He tried physical closeness without being too amorous and pushing too far. But one day it was like all the progress he had made vanished.

Robin declared him proficient enough that he probably wouldn’t be immediately killed if someone came at him and stopped going to the training grounds at all. Their afternoons were still together, but Robin was wholly focused on work and often scheduled herself meetings or spent time with Marian. Their dinners now included Guy and Marian, and Robin spent the entire time talking to Marian. John ignored Guy’s pointed looks as he watched Robin. The worst part was Robin had stopped coming into his room.

The first night, John had fallen asleep on the sofa waiting for her. The second he paced the room until dawn. The third he’d knocked on the door and received no response.

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