26. Baron
BARON
“Sheriff!”
A soldier jogged up to the roped edge of our training arena just as my opponent came at me again. I blocked his strike, drove my shoulder into him, and followed with a hard blow that sent him sprawling into the dirt.
Sweat stung my eyes, and when I tried to wipe it away with my arm, I only smeared more perspiration across my face.
I stepped over the fallen man and marched toward the stool where I had left a cloth.
I’d spent the entire morning trying to convince myself that I didn’t care that Laurel was likely preparing to leave for Sherwood Forest without so much as a single word to me.
The soldier hovered near the ropes. “Sheriff…”
“What?” I barked.
He flinched. “It’s—it’s… your horse, sir.”
I lowered the cloth from my face and looked at him. “What about him?”
The soldier swallowed. “Well, sir… he’s gone.”
For a moment, I said nothing. Then I vaulted over the ropes and set off toward the stables at a brisk pace. The soldier hurried after me, nearly tripping over his own feet in his effort to keep up.
“Did the stable boy say what happened?” I asked.
“Ah, no, sir. It seems he was preoccupied with asking a young lady to accompany him to the festival.”
Of course he was. Everyone in the castle seemed to have lost what little sense they possessed over festival week. Soldiers had been trading shifts so they could sneak off to dances.
I strode into the stable and there, in my allotted stall, instead of my horse was a note pinned to the back wall by an arrow. I stopped short and tore the parchment off the wall.
I thank you, sir, for your fine horse.
It will be returned in due course.
He was taken for a purpose good,
Yours most humbly, Robin Hood
Squeezed into every corner of the paper were tiny double cursive Ls, looped so neatly that anyone else would mistake them for ornamental flourishes.
I knew better. Her signature was her little boast to make certain I knew exactly who had taken my horse while leaving everyone else to blame Robin Hood.
Only Laurel would have the audacity to steal the Sheriff of Nottingham’s horse from Prince John’s own stables.
She was gone, then, off for a up to a week of tournament games back in Sherwood Forest. Off to compete, laugh, flirt, and enjoy herself among people who didn’t have to explain away their pasts.
She was off while I remained here, buried in reports, soldiers, taxes, and the miserable work of earning Prince John’s trust.
The soldier stood behind me, watching anxiously. If my father had found his horse stolen from the royal stables with a taunting note from Robin Hood left behind, he would have flown into a rage loud enough to frighten every groom in Nottingham.
The soldier expected me to do the same. “What does it say, Sheriff?” he asked.
I read the note aloud, keeping my voice cold and hard. When I finished, I crushed the parchment in my fist and turned on him. “Search the grounds immediately. If Robin Hood is here, I demand that he be brought to me alive.”
He scampered off at once, shouting orders before he had even reached the stable door, likely glad that he hadn’t received worse for delivering the bad news.
I waited until his footsteps faded, then slowly opened the note again.
The paper was wrinkled now, but Laurel’s handwriting still stared back at me. It was bold and clean, and I could picture her perfectly, head bent over the paper and mouth curved in that infuriating smirk.
I should’ve been angry.
I was angry, in a way. My horse was gone and Conrad was a fool. My soldiers would waste half the day searching the grounds for an outlaw who wasn’t there. And Laurel, despite ending things with me, still had the nerve to reach into my life and give another painful reminder that she was free of me.
Saints, I missed her.
I folded the parchment carefully and tucked it into my pocket. If anyone asked, I could say I was keeping it as evidence, but I knew that I kept it because it was hers.