Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood) Read Free

for she has rarely seen fit to stay within its walls. But it certainly will be different. Happy birthday, Robin. I give you now the greatest gift a woman can hope to receive.”
    He paused for a moment to catch his breath. Robin clenched her hands until they turned white, almost ill with foreboding.
    “Lords and ladies, it is my pleasure to announce the engagement of my daughter Robin of Locksley to Phillip Darniel, the Sheriff of Nottingham.”
    Robin froze in horror as Darniel rose to stand next to her father, and the room burst into delighted applause.
     

CHAPTER 2
     
    PLIGHTED
     
     
    “HOW COULD YOU not tell me!”
    Robin’s enraged exclamation startled her father, who had been gazing into the solar fire in deep contemplation while his manservant laid out his nightclothes. Both men turned to stare at the furious girl.
    Robin felt herself flush, but she held her ground. She had dashed upstairs as soon as the last of her well-wishers would permit, determined to have a word with her father. Now the anger and fear she had suppressed at his announcement surged forth unchecked: “Did you think I would welcome a surprise like that?—it was no gift! You should have told me!”
    Lord Locksley considered Robin for a long moment, and at last gave his servant a small nod of dismissal. Only after the man had left did he address his daughter.
    “I will forgive your intrusion this once because I can see that you are upset. I did not reveal my plan to you, Robin, because I did not want to raise your hopes in case the Sheriff refused to have you; he made it a condition of the match to meet you first. I was worried that he would not want a bride taller than himself, but fortunately, he was willing to overlook that fact.”
    “Fortunately!”
    “Yes, quite; though I did refrain from mentioning your affinity for the longbow, knowing you will of course renounce such a childhood fixation once you are married.”
    “Father—!” Robin nearly shouted, but then stopped and bit back the words she had been going to say. It would not do to lose her temper again. She must stay calm, and make her father see reason.
    “Father,” she began anew, “surely this match cannot meet with your approval? I may not have met the Sheriff before tonight, but I have heard of him. He is a cruel man who cheats his subjects mercilessly.”
    Her father shrugged. “You should know better than to heed peasant talk.”
    Rather than argue the point, Robin hastily switched tactics. “Furthermore, he has a daughter nearly as old as I am.”
    Sir Robert of Locksley waved his hand through the air, as though to brush away her concerns. “A man may grow weary of widowerhood no matter how old his children are. I have contemplated taking another wife myself.”
    “You have? But . . . . Wait a moment, that is not the issue here!” Robin cried, losing her tenuous hold on her temper.
    Her father’s heavy fist slammed against the chimney. “Why are you so resistant, Robin? I thought you would be pleased. Darniel may not be a lord, but he is rich—”
    “At the expense of his taxpayers!”
    “—and he is fast becoming a very powerful man. You cannot hope for a better alliance.”
    “Then why does he want to marry me? Surely a man with such . . . such attributes can have his pick of any woman. There are plenty of lords with richer estates and prettier daughters than I.”
    “The Sheriff craves a connection with the king,” Sir Robert patiently explained. “We are his cousins, after all. And while it is true that you are much plainer than your sister, you are the eldest daughter and custom dictates that you must marry first.”
    Unaware of the insult he had just paid, he continued: “Robin, I am not a fool—I know exactly why the Sheriff desires this union. But he has promised to treat you well, and I expect he will hold to that promise, which is all any woman can ask.”
    “Are girls to be bartered away then like nags at market day, for naught more