Hello! I'm going to be away traveling for a couple of days so I figured I would get this chapter up. It's short and sweet, and wasn't even a part of my original story plan... I just wanted to visit Robin's hometown! By the way, many works have referenced, and historians have suggested, the places of origin of the "real" Robin Hood (if he was even real). Huntington, Wakefield, York, etc... all have been put forth as possibilities. Most seem to suggest he was probably from somewhere in the region of Yorkshire, England. After a bit of Googling, I decided on my Robin being from York. I've never been there, but after seeing some pictures (and researching English breakfasts), I'm ready to go!
Anyways, there are some big decisions coming up soon for our lovely couple, and yes, this story will also draw to a natural conclusion very soon. Speaking of which, I thought I'd wrap up the story between these two and move on to something else. My imagination, however, has other plans. I've started to dream up ideas for a sequel, and am already planting a few seeds for it in these last few chapters. So, we'll see about that.
Happy reading!
- Ana
They left for the train station very early the next day. Two hours after the high-speed train departed Paris, they found themselves in London, a fashion capital that Regina somehow had never visited before.
Leaving France, even for what was supposed to be just a short trip, had a strange impact on the two of them. They stopped obsessing over the choice Regina had to make, seemingly leaving that problem temporarily behind in continental Europe.
Instead, they read on the train and gazed out the windows, their attention focused on just being together, and after another two hour train ride later - which took them through green countryside and dark tunnels - they arrived in Robin's hometown.
Robin immediately set out for the hospital while Regina checked into their inn (Robin's mother had told them they could stay with her, but Robin felt it best - since he would also be introducing Regina to her for the first time, in addition to all of the other reasons they were there - that they have their own place to stay).
They had traded a hot, dry Paris for a cool, rainy day in York, England. Regina strolled through the streets, feeling a little more at home in the smaller city that she did normally in Paris. Sure, she loved the big city, and her heart belonged on the streets of New York or Paris, but she had grown up in rural Maine, after all, and the relaxed atmosphere of Robin's hometown was vaguely reminiscent of her own.
That, and it also strongly reminded her of the various British programs she'd watched on PBS when growing up. She felt York had a certain story book quality, especially strolling through Stonegate, a Roman street lined with buildings that still looked slightly medieval, quirky with their pretty pained windows and whitewashed walls.
Robin sent her a text message after an hour or so, letting her know his father was doing fine. He'd have to spend one more night at the hospital, but his mother was at least relaxing somewhat with the knowledge that his father was on the mend. In fact, his mother wondered if the two of them could meet at her house in about an hour for dinner, so she could meet Regina.
..•..
It had been a long time since she had to "meet the parents." Indeed, being thirty years old and having to meet the parents was no longer quite the ordeal it had been when she was younger, but nonetheless she wanted to make a good impression.
Regina found herself in front of an old cottage that was worthy of being a part of a Canterbury tale; every bit as charming as a fairy tale. It was a narrow and tall, tudor-style house, complete with a tastefully managed English garden overflowing in the yard. She admired the rosebushes and an apple tree growing in the front yard.
She knocked on the door and Robin answered.
"Come on in," he said to her as she stepped into the cozy house. Regina held up a bottle of wine.
"I wasn't sure what to bring, so I hope your mother likes this?"
"White wine, yes, she does," he said, guiding her into a dining area.
His mother was small, but very pretty. She had beautiful blue eyes - Regina saw at once where Robin got his - and was dressed nicely in a blue shirt and light-colored slacks.
"It's nice to meet you, Regina," she said, walking over to greet her. She looked a bit frail, so Regina urged her to sit back down.
"It's very nice to meet you, too. I'm so sorry it has to be under difficult circumstances," said Regina.
"Not at all," she countered. "I'm glad you are here."
As they ate - Robin had grilled some chicken, and Regina had helped his mother assemble a green salad, a fruit salad, and some rice - in the back of her mind, Regina was trying to find touches of what Robin had been so bothered by as a child, but found it hard to identify anything that was overly difficult about his mother. She seemed to be a little shell shocked from her husband's ailment, however, so Regina knew she wasn't meeting her at a time when she was completely herself.
After dinner, as Regina looked around the house, it was clear that his mother liked fine things, selecting designer fabrics for the drapes and hanging expensive artwork on her walls. She supposed she could see where their only son had grown distant and disconnected during his teenage years. At the same time, she saw several pictures of a young Robin dotted throughout the sitting room in dainty picture frames. Clearly, his parents had been proud of him.
Then again, it's not like Regina couldn't relate. She hadn't exactly been the best behaved child as a teenager, either, and she certainly couldn't relate to her parents' interests when she was a teenager. She still couldn't.
Their conversation during dinner had been pleasant enough, and Robin encouraged his mother to sit down and relax in the back garden after they'd finished. Regina fixed her a cup of tea, and the two of them sat outside in a little covered area as some gentle evening rain patted down on the roof and tapped the green leaves.
"You're so beautifully dressed, my dear. Tell me about your work? Robin told me you are a writer," she asked after Regina handed her a flowered cup filled with orange pekoe.
"I edit mostly, for a magazine, but yes, I write a few articles every week as well."
"So different than Robin's interests, although he's always loved reading," she commented. "How did you two meet?"
"Erm…" Regina hesitated a bit at that one, taking a quick, nervous sip of her own tea. "We were introduced by a mutual friend."
"I'm glad Robin has some friends in Paris. He's had a difficult few years," his mother commented.
"I don't want to speak for him, but it seems he's done well in Paris," Regina suggested.
"He has a wonderful heart, and is loyal and kind." His mother looked up at her. "And I can tell you do, too, my dear."
Regina smiled, and just then, Robin stepped outside.
"Do I feel my ears burning?" he asked.
The two women glanced over at him.
"Just a little girl talk," Robin's mother explained. "You should show her around. Give her the full tour of the house. I'm a little tired or I would myself."
Robin motioned for her to follow him back indoors. "Care for a tour, then?" he asked her.
He showed her the rooms of the house: parlor, library, office, two guest bedrooms. The house was certainly big by British standards, but the rooms were small, and the house was old, which gave it a cozier feel. Robin said his parents had restored it, room by room, when he was younger.
When they arrived at the door of Robin's old bedroom, he stopped, and turned to her, kissing her on the lips.
"I used to not be allowed any girls up here," he whispered, then laughed softly. "Well, that would have been a rule if I actually had a lot of women to bring home with me when I was in secondary school."
Regina snickered slightly. "Of course. But I can't imagine there weren't any girls who took notice of you."
"Sure there were. But more came along later, and by then, mercifully, I was no longer living under my parents' roof."
He kissed her again, then turned and opened the slightly heavy wooden door. "Come in," he said.
The stepped inside. It looked like a typical boy's room.
"So. Young Robin's room," she said, stepping inside. "Such an innocent space for how much trouble you created in here."
"I was stupid and naive enough to think I'd never get in trouble."
"Right." She eyed him, then sat on the bed where a checked blue quilt was tidily spread. She ran her hand over it. Daniel's mother had once given her a similar quilt for Henry. She wondered if Roland would one day get this quilt.
"Hard to imagine you'd want to leave such a cozy space."
He sighed. "I didn't know what to do with myself."
Regina dropped her eyes and glanced around. "You know, I think I can relate. I did the same… craving adventure outside the four walls of my parents' house. Not sure what to do with myself. Finally made a plan, jumped headfirst into a world I didn't know..." she thought about when she left home to go to college.
"I used to collect these," Robin said, walking to a shelf with figurines of people: soldiers, hunters, animals, sitting on a wooden bookshelf. "My own little band of men," he joked.
Robin then sat down next to her. Outside, the light of the long day was finally beginning to fade, and the room was growing darker.
"I can absolutely guarantee," he said in a low voice, "That I have never had anyone as beautiful as you on this bed or in this room. Ever."
They kissed. At first, it was innocent and chaste, but it quickly deepened as his tongue found hers. He began to push his torso closer and closer to hers, melting into her shape, and she started to lean back until she had gently sunk into the bed.
They continued to kiss.
Outside, the rain continued, and Regina could hear it dripping off the eaves and pattering against the glass of the window.
She was warm, and comfortable, and… Robin's hand was wandering, away from its location on her forearm, traveling down to her torso first, then her legs, caressing her side up and down and causing her to shiver.
The bed creaked, a tiny old bed for the weight of two adult bodies. She pushed him gently away. "Not here… with your mother sitting just outside."
Robin made a stifled noise, clearly disappointed.
"Isn't this why you booked us a room at the inn?" she whispered, a teasing grin spreading across her face.
Robin sighed, frustrated but resigned; he knew she was right. "Yes."
He sat up, pulling her up with him. "Yes, it is," he repeated more confidently, offering her his hand.
Regina straightened her clothes.
"You know, when I was younger I had fantasies about women in this bed…" he said as she took his hand and he helped her up. "But I don't think my imagination could have ever dreamed up anything half as amazing as you."
"No, I don't imagine it would have," she teased.
Robin was standing now, and extended his hand to help her up. "Let's say goodnight to my mother, and get back to the inn."
..•..
Robin and Regina both gave his mother a kiss on the cheek goodnight and promised to be back in the morning.
"I liked seeing where you're from," Regina said as Robin drove back to the inn in the car they had rented."It makes me feel like I somehow…understand you a tiny bit better. This place also reminds me of where I'm from."
"Oh?"
"Yes. Perhaps it's the quiet location," she said, looking out the window at the dark country lane, the trees, the full moon that hung above them.
"You will have to show me your hometown in America," he said. "Fair is fair."
Regina nodded. "Sure."
Would they ever get to that point?
They had to park a few blocks away from the inn, as it was located in the center of town and the streets couldn't exactly accommodate a lot of parking.
"Your mother is very sweet," Regina said as they walked the rest of the way to the inn.
"She is," said Robin.
"It's hard for me to quite see the resentment you must have once had for your parents as a teen, as you seem perfectly at ease with her now."
"My relationship with my parents is fine now," he said. " But like I told you... they both were so busy when I was a teenager, then when I left - and kept getting into trouble - I think they questioned some things. But it was too late. When I got older, I realized I am partly to blame, of course. I could have treated them better. They're my only parents, after all. But by then, what was done was done, and we can only move on," he shrugged.
"Would you ever want to move back here? To this town? Your life in Paris seems so far removed from this."
"Home is where Roland is, where my daily life is, and where my couch is," he said. "Or at least a couch that I am welcome to crash on."
"I never want to move back to my hometown in Maine, but I also still think of it as home," Regina mused.
They arrived at the inn, and Robin slid a key into the exterior door. Inside, the cozy sitting room was dimly lit, the innkeeper nowhere in sight, and the two of them climbed a creaky set of stairs up to their room on the first floor.
Their room was decorated with checks and floral patterns that were probably at least 20 years out of date, but charming in their own way.
They didn't really pay any attention to all of that.
Robin poured a glass of wine for each of them from a bottle that Regina had picked up earlier, then sat down on the bed with her.
"At last. We're alone. I've been wanting to do this all day," he said, brushing the tip of his nose to her ear, inhaling her scent, reaching behind her neck and unfastening the zipper of her simple shift dress.
Regina sighed and responded to his attention, turning her head to kiss his neck this time, moving to his throat, helping him help her out of her clothes, then unbuttoning his shirt a moment later.
They were both exhausted from their long day that had taken them such a distance, and Robin from the emotional exertion of visiting a parent in the hospital, but in bed, they fell into a soft familiarity amongst the floral duvet and smooth cream sheets, and being together gave them some energy. After openmouthed kisses trailed up and down skin, Regina rolled on top of Robin and the two of them settled into a rhythm, like waves, relaxed and yet constant, steady, until neither one of them could hold on any longer and they allowed their pleasure to spill over; first Regina, as Robin caressed her arm gently as she rode him, then Robin, studying her face as she came, unable to hold back, finished moments later.
They slept well that night.
…
"Blood sausage is the single most disgusting thing I have ever seen," Regina announced the next morning as they had breakfast at a small restaurant down the street from their inn. Robin promised her the place would have a more than decent cappuccino (he was right), and he was craving a traditional English breakfast before they set out to meet his parents and bring his father home from the hospital.
Robin dramatically stabbed a piece of the grotesquely dark meat with his fork and popped it into his mouth. "Delicious," he said, looking into her eyes.
She laughed and shook her head, then took another sip of her cappuccino.
"I'll admit this smoked smoked salmon eggs Benedict is perfect. It seems like they always poach eggs too long back in the U.S… and I really shouldn't be enjoying this sauce as much as I am."
"I knew you'd like this place. Despite the modest surroundings," Robin said, enthusiastically tackling the other food on his plate, which included baked beans, tomatoes, fried mushrooms, wedges of crispy fried potatoes and a few other assorted meats that Regina wasn't really confident she knew what they were. And eggs. And fried toast.
"The breakfasts here are… hearty," she commented, an eyebrow raised.
"But delicious, aren't they?" Robin finished for her. "And I take what I said back last night, I'm going to move here after all… just so I can have these breakfasts all the time."
"Hmmm… in that case, I might move with you," said Regina, savoring another bite of her food.
He looked up at her, chewing, studying her face, and his expression grew serious for a moment. He clasped his hands in front of him.
"You know, Regina," he said, then shook his head and picked up his fork again. "I… well, no. I shouldn't say anything."
"What?" she asked.
He continued to hold his fork, but didn't pick up anything on his plate.
"Well. I was just thinking. If you want to - decide to - stay, you know, in Paris, perhaps we should live together."
"Oh." Regina set her own fork and knife back on her plate.
"I know that's serious to suggest. And in the grand scheme of things, we haven't known each other for long." He dropped his voice. "But… we're not kids. We have kids. We could make a home for them, a more comfortable place to be. I want to provide stability for Roland, and I think you want the same for Henry…"
"I… do, yes," Regina stammered, wiping the corner of her mouth on her napkin.
He took a deep breath. "Regina, there's something I've wanted to say to you for weeks. And it's only become clearer and more evident to me in these past few days with you. I…"
But she cleared her throat and held up her hand to stop him, then gently dropped it, and placed it on top of his.
"I know," she said quickly.
She did know.
"I'm not ready," she explained.
"Right," he said, leaning back in his chair nervously.
"It's just…"
"Say no more," he said. "You don't owe me an explanation. It's only been a short time after all, and I know you have to make a decision about the job. and truly, I didn't want to influence it."
"It's okay. You don't have to apologize, either," she said.
They ate for a few minutes in silence, though it was not an uncomfortable silence.
"No matter what happens," Robin said to her, "I will always cherish these past few days."
Regina nodded. "I will, too."
..•..
That night, Robin's father sat out on the patio in the garden with the rest of them. It wasn't raining, and Robin had dug up an old bow and arrow that he'd used once upon a time to learn archery. He even dug out an old practice target from his parents' garden shed, and set it up in the yard to see if his skills with the bow and arrow were still sharp.
Regina sat on the patio with his parents and they all watched him in the yard.
"We're proud of Robin," his mother commented as they watched him position himself in place, studying the target. "He has so much energy, though, and he doesn't always know where to put it."
"He's a good father to Roland," Regina said. "I think he puts a lot of energy into him."
"Robin may have made some questionable choices in his past," his father said delicately, "But he will always be fiercely loyal to his family."
"It meant so much when we met Robin in Paris during our first weeks there. Henry hadn't been himself after we moved, and when Robin started to show him around, and point out interesting things to do and see… well, I really noticed a remarkable difference," said Regina.
"He is good with others. Treats everyone well," Robin's father stated.
"He has his heart in the right place," Regina agreed.
"So do you," said Robin's mother to Regina.
"What do you mean?" asked Regina.
"Because, I read 'Saturday Mornings in Paris,' of course. And your other articles. Most of them, at least. I read them right on my iPad," Robin's mother announced proudly.
"Really?" Regina asked, surprised that Robin's mother had already "researched" her.
"Yes. You might write about lovely things like Chanel bags and Lanvin shoes, which I adore, but I also like how you write about the people wearing them. Lovely stories, really."
"I'm flattered you read my work."
"Of course. Ever since Robin mentioned he was seeing you, many weeks ago," she said. "I hope one day Robin finds what makes him happy, like you have with your writing," she said.
"He will," said Regina.
"I told him once he should be a teacher," said his mother. "Back when he lacked… direction. He's so good with people. Calm, and patient, has such a broad world view, much to his father's and my chagrin sometimes… but I know that's a good thing, and served him well."
"Teaching doesn't always pay the bills," chimed in Robin's father.
Regina didn't say anything, as clearly this was a point of contention. But she thought back to how he taught Henry about things that excited him, about how Will had found his way under Robin's mentorship… something like that probably would be better suited to his personality than sitting behind a desk and programming things all day long.
On his next shot, Robin hit a bullseye with the arrow.
..•..
Robin and Regina returned to Paris the next day, retracing their steps on the trains that snaked through the English countryside, then into the thick of London. After a short layover in London (and promises from Robin that he'd take her back there for a visit if she ever wanted to go), they hopped aboard the train that would take them underneath the English Channel and back into Paris.
Regina felt she knew Robin better now, after the unique intimacy of having seen his home, and met his family. His wild story of his past was now tempered with the reality that he was an adult, who maintained a healthy and relatively happy and calm relationship with his parents, their differences set aside. She'd seen his serene childhood bedroom, the charming little room… he'd lost his way for a while, but had found it again. He was finding it again.
The experience, she felt, had brought them closer together.
Which was a shame, considering the decision she'd have to make very, very soon, that might separate them forever.
It only made her choice harder.
They were quiet, but in a companionable way, for most of the journey. When they set foot in Paris again, he asked her if she wanted to rest when she got home, and if so, he would return to his own apartment to give her some space.
Regina simply responded with a kiss, and urged him to follow her home.