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“Well, well…” she murmured, circling me like a hawk — or a wolf, I supposed. “Lion shifter. How very noble.”
I kept my eyes on the floor, waiting as her glittery shoes made one pass after another.
Then, out of nowhere, she laughed. “You’re wasted in the clergy.”
No kidding, I could have sighed. Though, after the images Daniel had shared with me, I was rethinking the brave knight thing. Maybe I could find something more worthy. Something closer to home. Something I could be in control of rather than being a puppet in the all-too-real theater of a powerful man’s games…
Lady Thornton snapped her fingers at me. “Look at me.”
A woman accustomed to barking orders. Well, I could pretend I loved to obey — especially since the abbot wasn’t there to set the record straight.
I kept my eyes straight ahead as she circled in and out of my view. For a few seconds, I saw long, flowing black hair and a pinched, haughty face. Then when she continued her endless circles — like a mule hitched to a mill, though I didn’t say as much — my eyes focused on the animal heads mounted on the wall beyond. Ghostly eyes saw through me, antlers jabbed in my direction, and teeth showed in eternal snarls. Snarls that accused me of doing that to them.
I wished I could proclaim my innocence. Then I thought of the villagers Daniel encountered during the Crusades. Had he felt the same when forced to confront them?
“I’ve been wondering…” Lady Thornton spoke slowly, giving me too much time to wonder what she’d wondered, over and over in an endless loop with no beginning and no end.
I counted the sets of antlers on the wall. Seven…eight…nine…
“Wondering about a lion shifter, young and well-built…” she practically purred those last few words.
I gritted my teeth. Was this how Marian felt when people commented on her beauty, her figure, her grace? And, ugh. I pictured being an attractive young woman circled by a much older, much more powerful man, uttering the same suggestive message in the same seductive tone.
Ugh. My lion grimaced the way he did when he coughed up hair balls.
My brothers had once joked that women had it easy. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
“And yet, you were overcome and kidnapped by the outlaws of Sherwood Forest,” Lady Thornton finished.
Oops. I hadn’t considered how that would look.
“Well?” she demanded.
I looked at her directly for the first time. “Is that a statement or a question?”
And, oops. Hadn’t Daniel warned me not to give anything away? Being defensive suggested I had something to hide.
“In the abbey, we’re expected to remain silent unless asked a direct question,” I added, covering up quickly.
“Ah. So obedient.” Her voice was dry. “Then I shall ask, as you request. How is it that a lion as capable as you could be so easily overcome by a few outlaws?”
“They promised not to hurt anyone if I cooperated, and I didn’t want to endanger an innocent person.”
“So noble,” she dripped. Then she tapped her lips, speaking more to herself than to me. “Not a bad strategy.”
I stared. She didn’t mean my strategy. She meant the idea of blackmail. God, how sick was she?
More silence ensued. More circling. I forced myself not to shift from foot to foot.
“Tell me about Robin Hood and his camp,” she finally ordered.
Her camp, I wished I could say. Then I regurgitated the details I’d invented months ago for Daniel’s official report. I’d been blindfolded, I claimed, with no sense of where the camp lay. And the scene I described after the blindfold was removed had no relation to the truth. Neither did the number of outlaws, which I multiplied by ten.
It was terrifying, I nearly embellished but decided not to. Better to stick close to the truth.
Which meant picturing John Little when I described Robin Hood. Not anywhere as brilliant as the real Robynne, but hey. He fit the image most people painted in their minds.
“I see,” Lady Thornton said in that lazy hiss of hers. “In other words, you’re as much help to me as the sheriff.”
