Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01] Read Free Page A

would sooner go to bed.”
    The earl nearly gaped at his unexpectedly recalcitrant heir. Then astonishment altered into autocracy, reshaping eyes, nostrils, jaw. Clearly the refusal, however politely couched, was not to be borne, nor could its understated plea be acknowledged. “By God—you will come out. At once. Everyone was invited. Everyone has come. Everyone is expecting —”
    The residue of memories overlaying the present thinned, tore, then faded. Locksley had learned to adopt a quiet intransigence others viewed as self-confidence, though he himself knew better. Stubbornness, perhaps. Defiance, more like.
    He kept his tone soft, but firm. The fleeting plea was banished. “It is none of my concern what everyone expects. You gave them leave to expect it without consulting me.”
    The earl closed the door with the force of damaged authority and a desire to mend it at once. “By God, Robert, I am your father. It is for me to plan what I will plan, with or without consultation.” And then the thunderous expression faded. The earl crossed the shadowy chamber to clap both hands on his son’s arms. “Ah Robert, let this go. Why must we argue now, and about such a trivial matter? I thought you dead —and yet here you stand before me, full-fleshed and larger than life....” Blue eyes shone; the smile was a mixture of wonder and intense pleasure. “By God, all those prayers answered at last ...”
    Locksley gritted teeth. When his jaw protested he relaxed the tension with effort. Let him have it, he told himself. Let him have this moment. For all I know it was the strength of his prayers.
    “Come now, Robert—you must admit your return is worthy of celebration! The Earl of Huntington’s only son back from Crusade with King Richard himself? I want them to know, Robert! By God, I want them to know! ”
    “They know,” his son replied quietly. “You have seen to that.”
    “And do you blame me? Do you?” Bluffness dismissed, the earl now was intent, albeit underscored by parental impatience. “I believed my son dead. I was told my son was dead, killed at the Lionheart’s side ... and yet a year and a half later that son comes to my castle, close-mouthed and dry-eyed, saying little of such things save the stories lied. ‘Not dead,’ he says. ‘Captured by the Saracens’ ...” The earl’s blue eyes filled. “By God, Robert!—no father alive could resist a celebration.”
    Very quietly, with infinite respect no less distinct for its resoluteness, Locksley suggested, “Had you consulted me—”
    “Back to that, are we?” The earl scrubbed his clean-shaven, furrowed face with both hands, mussing clipped white hair, then gripped the top of the nearest chair and shut his hands upon it, leaning toward his son to emphasize his declaration. In muted light, crease-couched blue eyes were now nearly black. “Two years on Crusade may have grown the boy to manhood, but I am still the father. You will do as I say.”
    Age had dog-eared the edges, but the tone was well-known. It was one to be obeyed, one to be feared, presaging punishment.
    But that had been in boyhood. Save for the scratchiness the tone was unchanged, and so was the expectation of instant obedience, but the son who heard it was not the same individual.
    Something odd and indefinable moved in the son’s eyes. Had the earl been as adept at judging his own flesh and blood as he was at judging most people, he would have seen the brief interplay between duty and desire, the pale glint of desperation quickly banished and replaced by grim comprehension.
    To the earl, his son was a hero returned from battle and captivity, companion to the king. Above all, his son was his son. That superseded all other knowledge, all other judgments. But Robert of Locksley now was far more than an earl’s son, and, by his own lights, far less than a free man.
    The earl’s belligerence faded as he gazed at his silent son, and the tight-clenched line of his jaw weakened