Page 8 of Robin and Marian
Alan let out a groan, but his best friend could never know the truth. He had to give the new couple some chance at happiness. Glancing over at Marian, he noted her expression of horror. Catching his eyes, she reddened, but instead of his gaze producing smiles, tears pricked her eyes and she stepped away. That hurt a lot, but still he held his ground. The vision of his kid sister getting dragged away in her wedding dress silenced him.
The sheriff rested his hands against his waist, staring over at Robin. The shock and surprise that had filled his face at Robin’s confession had transformed into a smirk as the voices around them erupted into rage. “I could come back with a warrant,” the sheriff said, “but I’m thinking I’d be doing you a favor if you just come with me now.” It might save Robin from the angry mob growing around him, but the satisfaction gleaming in the sheriff’s eyes almost made him refuse. Then he saw his stepmother coming.
Putting out his hands, Robin let the sheriff handcuff him and lead him down the aisle. His cousin Guy pierced him with narrowed, condemning eyes. The videographer was still filming, and he tilted his head at her as he looked into her camera, already feeling jaded. “Congratulations on going viral,” he told her… because she would when she let thisleakto the public.
When he saw Little John, he almost lost it. Oh, Little John! This would ruin him. Robin couldn’t meet his agonized gaze. Midge propelled forward and wrapped his arms around his leg. “Um, Midge,” Robin tried to untangle the child from his leg—a difficult task with handcuffs, “you’re ruining my exit.” He tried to make light of it, for the kid’s sake.
“No! No! You’re not guilty!”
Robin’s throat grew thick at the boy’s anguish. He was everything to that kid. Throwing his head up, Robin searched wildly for anyone to take Midge. Since the day his mom had taken off, that task had fallen to him. Scarlett rushed forward and gathered the boy in her fragile arms, tears running down her cheeks. He didn’t want her to worry for him. He’d always been the stronger one. He loved her enough to do this. “Take care of him,” Robin said gently.
“You should be here for him, not me!” She choked on a sob. “What if… what if you could take it back?”
And then what? She’d be the one in handcuffs. He shook his head. “I’d do it again.” But it was the wrong thing to say because more people overheard him than Scarlett, and he knew what it sounded like. He was the unrepentant thief.
His grandfather hit the limit of his silence and roared out in anger. “This is what you do? This is what we raised you for?” His wrinkled face pulsed with fury as his voice grew louder. “You’re not my grandson—you’re a parasite!”
Scarlett let out a cry and scrambled away with Midge in her arms. Robin watched her go then turned to see the bent back of his grandfather as he retreated the other way. He wondered if he’d ever see him again. He wrenched his gaze away. What was taking the sheriff so long? He was slowly marching Robin through the angry crowd like he was on display. Robin concentrated on the wall at the back of the church, away from the agonized stares and disappointed cries. And that’s when he noticed Marian had joined her aunt and uncle at the back pews. She was trying to comfort her aunt, who had covered her face with her hands.
“Robin!” he saw Marian’s mouth form his name. She left her Aunt Elinor to confront him, her beautiful eyes flashing like an avenging angel—the prettiest one he’d ever seen. “How could you do this? It’s bad enough that you were stealing everyone’s money, but then you—then you kiss me? When you were doing this to my family?”
It was worse than that—the culprit had invited her to be her maid of honor. But leaving this unspoken, Robin stared at her, wanting to find a way to make her understand. Regret filled him when he knew that she never would, and so he forced his voice into indifference. “Does this mean you’re not writing me in jail?”
She was too stunned to reply as the sheriff forced him away from her and the church. Ironically, it was a beautiful sunny day when they broke through the doors. A few birds flew through the bright and open sky. The sheriff stuffed him into the back of the patrol car, and Robin looked over at the church steps to see the wedding videographer still filming.
The sheriff got into the driver’s seat, looking self-important as he rested his arm against the back of his seat to stare back at his prisoner. “I didn’t think someone like you had a problem making your sister take the blame. I’m surprised you fessed up.”
“Me too,” Robin said and settled back into his seat. He might as well get used to the aspersions, the doubt, the limited freedoms. This would be his life now—one without Marian. He could just imagine the headlines as Robin Hood became real. He was about to know what it meant to live as a criminal.
Chapter 3
—4 years later—
Marian sat at her desk, finishing off the rest of her column for theNew England Chronicle. It was her piece on Spring Fashions for May. If there had been a time when the chronicle was a serious paper, it wasn’t now. A ripple of chatter and gasps traveled up the length of the cubicles, which usually meant a celebrity had come for an interview or a photoshoot.
She sighed, pushing “send” on her article to turn it in to her editor. Her updated resume was minimized on a different tab. Her latest assignment was the last straw in getting her to brush up her work history and shoot it out to at least two dozen other companies—all of them out of state. New Hampshire had too many bad memories.
“Guy King is in our office!” Marian listened to the whisper as it made its way to her.
“Our office?” another coworker asked. That was Elly. “You’re kidding. Where?”
“There!”
A few heads popped up from their cubicles, followed by bolder women who stood up to get water from the cooler and meet eyes with the handsome billionaire as they passed him then lingered behind him, giggling.
Marian ducked into her cubicle. Guy had acquired the Chronicle more than three years ago and he’d lost no time taking his cousin’s place as the new media darling. They doted on him with centerpiece articles on his charities and wild bachelor ways. It was the same tired story that they had lavished on Robin, and look what that had done to him? Reflecting back at that time was painful. Not a day went by that she didn’t think of Robin. She’d thought of visiting him in prison, but her legs stopped short when she remembered what he’d told everyone at the chapel.He’d do it again.Such arrogance!
Her Aunt Elinor had lost her entire savings that day, and only managed to hold onto her properties on Mt. Green Hood because of the proceeds from her husband’s life insurance policy after he passed away a few months after. Elinor blamed Robin for that too. Owning the property didn’t do her much good, since the value of the town had gone down. The businesses on Main Street had gone bankrupt. A lot of people packed up and left. Nottingham wasn’t the same without Robin. For a lot of reasons. Marian couldn’t bring herself to leave Manchester to visit anymore.
Guy strode purposefully through her office, his back straight, standing tall with confidence. From the looks of things, he was coming from a photoshoot. He had pushed his hands into the pockets of his Kiton suit—it was a gray number with a black dress shirt that brought out his dark eyes. He kept his black hair in that man bun he liked to wear. At least he carried off the look like a Viking and not an over-the-hill biker.
“Psst, Marian!”
She twisted, meeting the inquisitive green eyes of Elly, their resident gossip columnist. “I think he’s looking for you.”
How did Elly know? Marian hadn’t said anything, but seeing the sly twist of Elly’s lips, Marian sighed. Of course she knew. Nothing got past her, and Marian wasn’t about to give Elly more fodder for her gossip column.
Marian would talk to Guy later, when she wasn’t feeling so out of sorts and surrounded by nosey coworkers. Holding her breath, as if that made her quieter, Marian slipped out of her chair and tried to make her escape, but it was poor planning on her part, because Guy saw her immediately.
