THIS LITTLE CORNER OF ENGLAND

Guy rode his horse across the meadow toward the twinkling lights shining in the cottage windows in the village of Locksley as he headed home from Nottingham.

The frost-nipped pastures and the barren plowed earth, brown and russet and gold in the fading light, lay in wait for spring and the planting of crops. All around him, as far as his eye could see, the land was his. It was his inheritance, the Gisborne property, lost to him for many years after he was driven out of the village, along with his sister, for a crime he did not commit.

He reined in his mount, and gazed across the gently rolling fields, bordered by woods.

All this is mine, and someday I will pass it on to my firstborn son. It was given to my father, but taken from me unjustly after my parents died. What a strange twist of fate that I am in Robin of Locksley's debt, and King Richard's debt, for restoring my lands and title to me. Two men, one now dead, whom I once hated and tried to kill, yet because of them I have all this again.

His hard, restless features relaxed into a serene smile as he watched the sun sink below the horizon in a glory of brilliance. Behind him, the moon glowed with a pale, cold silver light.

There is peace here, in this little corner of England. All I want now is to live in peace, to oversee my estate, raise my family, and grow old enough to see my grandchildren born. Someday I'll rest here, too, under this land, beside my father and mother, and my children will carry on the Gisborne name after me.

Politics, power, fame—all those things so important to me once—are now in the past, and that's where I want them to stay. The pursuit of them brought me nothing but pain.

Everything is a choice, everything we do, and this is the life I've chosen, not the life that was thrust upon me and that I lived without conscience or thought to where it would lead me.

He had made the choice, fifteen years earlier, to turn from his vain and vengeful course and join up with Robin of Locksley. His association and cooperation with Robin and his gang had given him a purpose again, a chance at a worthy life, and a sense of pride he had lost while he was Vaisey's misled slave and the prince's gullible pawn.

I risked my life, and nearly lost it, helping Robin get the people of Nottingham to safety during the siege. Afterward I faced King Richard's wrath with no expectations of clemency, only the strong conviction that for once I was doing the right thing, the honourable thing.

I expected to die. I had no hope of life, nor did I much care. If I had to die, I wanted to die knowing I had done what was right. I wanted to face justice, and take the consequences of my crimes, without shrinking back, without the cowardice of which I was so ashamed.

And so I did. I turned myself in. I confessed to everything. I made no defense at my trial, no excuses for my conduct. I took the full responsibility for my own wrongdoing, and stood before the king and judge as a man should, not as the coward I'd been.

I threw it all on the table, I gambled everything—and I won.

Life was good. He had his lands, his title, and a beautiful and loving wife who had given him three beautiful children.

I got down to the business of living after that, but later than most, as did Robin. The other men in the village who are our age are already grandfathers. If only I'd listened to Marian, it could all have been mine long ago. She might have been mine.

No, Marian was never really mine. Her heart was always Robin's. She belonged with a man worthy of her, a better man than I could ever be. But God tempered the just punishment of my sins with mercy. I lost Marian, but He gave me Meg.

He thought back to the first time he saw Meg. Little had he known then what that chatty, annoying, and brutally honest girl would come to mean for him.

He hadn't loved her right away, no, not like he had loved Marian from the first time he laid eyes on her. His love for Meg had been born out of gratitude. This love had crept up on him unawares, while his life was swirling out of control around him. Through it all—his near execution at his own sister's hands, joining Robin's gang, the siege, the killing of Vaisey, the unspeakable ordeal of his trial—Meg had been there by his side.

I was buried alive in that dungeon, already a dead man in more ways than one. But Meg wasn't afraid of me. She didn't turn her face away from the loathsome creature in the cell beside her. She held a mirror up to my soul instead, and forced me to see what I had become. My soul was poisoned and ugly, so hideous that she should have turned from me in revulsion. She took me into her heart instead. She saw the good in me, the good buried so deep I was certain it no longer existed. She cared for me when no one else would. She saw past my darkness to the man I wanted to be.

And then she gambled, and almost lost, her innocent young life to save mine. A man like me, with nothing to give back to her, nothing left in my heart but bitter regret and shame.

To think, not so long before that I believed my offer of marriage to a woman, any woman, would be the bestowing of a great honour and privilege. To elevate a woman worthy of my notice to the position of Lady Gisborne, and to feel her gratitude.

What a fool I was, what an arrogant fool! It was Meg who did that for me. She did far more for me by marrying me than I could ever do for her. I am the grateful one now.

And Marian? The shock of seeing her alive, after believing her dead for a year, was soon overshadowed by the grief of losing her to Robin, and the knowledge that she would never be mine.

Not even Robin knew the depths of the anguish I suffered in the outlaw camp, with Marian so close, and yet a million miles from me. She gave me her caring, her concern, and even her forgiveness, but not her love. That had already been given to Robin. It took a long time to accept, and even longer before the pain of my loss was bearable.

I loved Marian once, and some part of me always will. But she is Robin's wife, and Robin is my friend. Meg has given me what Marian never could—the fullness of her heart, her undivided love. She faced the threat of a terrible death for me, when I was someone so undeserving of her kindness, let alone her love. I would never betray my darling wife in such a way, or hurt and shame Robin or Marian by some impetuous act.

Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of Marian's smile, and the sparkle of her beautiful eyes, and he would feel the familiar pang in his heart from the memory of a lost dream. But time was a wonderful healer, and his love for Meg and their children a strong deterrent against allowing his thoughts to stray down dangerous paths.

My father was an honourable man, and I will be, too. I can't have everything I want in this life, and perhaps it's better if I don't. After all, I've been a poor judge of what's best for me. I gave my youth and strength to Vaisey, I followed him blindly, and he nearly destroyed me and everyone I cared for. Thanks to Robin, thanks to all of them, I finally broke free.

Not that life was perfect now. No, far from it. There were all the everyday hassles and irritations to deal with. Petty squabbles amongst the villagers that he could no longer settle quickly and neatly with threats of dreadful punishments. The troubling undercurrent of hostility toward him wherever he went. Robin often encouraged him to deal with it all with a sense of humour, but that was easy for Robin to say. The people of Nottinghamshire loved him. He had no vile reputation to live down.

At least my children won't have to go through the same. I can spare them that. They can learn from my past, and not repeat the mistakes I made. That is, if I can work up the courage to tell them the truth.

What was it Meg had said yesterday, that she was concerned about Rodger? He'd been moody lately, and fighting more than usual with Eleanor? Well, he hadn't exactly been a sunny child, when he looked back on it. The boy was too much like him in some ways.

And fighting with Eleanor? He smiled to himself, and wondered if Robin and Marian felt the same way he did sometimes when he saw their children together. His son was like him, and their daughter was like them. Was it any surprise that they fought and bickered and argued, and then, before long, were friends again? 'The apple doesn't fall far from the tree', he'd heard someone say, and now he understood the expression.

He'd placate Meg and have a talk with Rodger. Not about his past, no, he wasn't ready for that talk yet. Maybe Robin or Allan could help him. They were better with children than he was. They could figure out what was bothering the boy. Perhaps Rodger would be more willing to confide in someone outside the family. Meg had told him more than once that he was overbearing, and frightened his son with his temper. Probably she was right. He was trying hard to rein that temper in. It wasn't easy to unlearn a lifetime of bad habits, not at his age. But he loved her and their children dearly and wanted to make them happy, so he did his best.

He turned his horse toward Locksley. In the deepening twilight he saw a figure approaching. It wasn't until the man was nearly upon him that he saw it was Robin.

"There you are," said Robin, as he took hold of the horse's bridle. "I've been all over the village looking for you. Allan told me you'd gone to town."

Guy smiled. "Nice to know I was missed."

Robin grinned back at him. "How's everything in dear old Nottingham?"

"Same as ever. I got my business done without more than half a dozen dirty looks, but I wasn't there very long."

Robin nodded in sympathy. Their friendship had come too far for any sarcastic rejoinders along the lines of 'what more could you expect after the things you've done?' Such thoughts no longer came to Robin's mind, let alone flew from his lips.

"Guy, could I ask you and Meg to meet with Marian and me tonight, at our house? We need to talk."

"Is there a problem?"

"Not exactly a problem, but a concern. It's about our children. We need to decide what we're going to tell them, you know, about us."