Romancing Robin Hood Read Online Free Page B

meeting a fellow medievalist.
    Yours etc.
    Rob (Franks)
    â€˜Creep.’ Grace experienced an immediate dislike for this man she’d never met. ‘Fellow medievalist’ indeed! He made it sound like an exclusive club.
    Finally Grace read an email from Daisy.
    Hope you got my card. You WILL be my right-hand girl on this won’t you? I couldn’t possibly go through this wedding lark without your support.
    Went to find a dress today – bloody disaster.
    Have NO idea what suits me or what I want. I’ve even bought some wedding magazines in a desperate attempt to get ideas. ME – WASTING MONEY ON MAGAZINES – the world has gone mad!
    Anyway – when can we meet up to get your outfit?
    Hope you ok. Give my love to RH!!
    D xxx
    Grace smiled; Daisy always sent Robin Hood her love, as if he was a really was a tangible person in Grace’s life. Her smile died a little, however, as she thought of Daisy buying magazines. That was not natural at all. And when the hell was she going to find time to go dress hunting in the next few weeks?
    She felt guilty. Grace knew she should offer to go with Daisy to get her wedding dress as well as her own bridesmaid’s dress, but when? Shooting off an email, Grace privately vowed to herself that writing, lecturing, marking, and forthcoming viva notwithstanding, she would find time for her best friend.
    Of course I will be your bridesmaid. Looking forward to it.
    Will consult calendar first thing tomo morning re. dress shopping, and we’ll hit shops. (I won’t whimper too much if you promise I don’t have to wear pink!!)
    RH says hi.
    G x

Chapter Four
    Pulling back her curtains, Grace couldn’t help but smile as the rain washed down the window. The hot sticky weather was all very well if you were comfortable wearing floaty skirts, or were happy to reveal your pasty legs for the critical observation of others. Grace wasn’t. She never quite right unless she was wearing her trusty denims – black for work – blue for home.
    There was something reliable and safe about pulling on a pair of jeans each morning. Grace knew they had become part of her identity over the years, and the last two weeks of sunshine-enforced thin linen trousers had made her feel wrong in a way she could never have explained to anyone else.
    The view from her bedroom window was reassuringly the same as ever. Victorian terraced houses queued along the thin pavement opposite; parked cars lined up next to them in tight formation. Early morning dog walkers and paperboys and girls strode along the unexpectedly damp pavements of Howard Road.
    Content with the scene, Grace reflected on how lucky she was to live in such a nice terrace within a stone’s throw of work, and to be occupying one of the few homes in the area that wasn’t neighboured by student accommodation on all sides.
    It was only seven o’clock. Students usually cut through the street to the university from their residences at the top of Queen’s Road, but at this time of year it was blissfully quiet.
    Grace showered, pulled on her jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, shook out her shaggy mass of unruly brown hair, ignored the idea of breakfast, and, gathering her notes together headed into the muggy, warm Midlands air.
    She felt strangely optimistic. Finally, Grace could see that all her work was beginning to pay off. Her novel was coming together, and the usual small voice of doubt at her superior’s reaction at her prioritising of projects was, for once, happily lacking.
    Determined to make the most of the day before her, Grace was already logged onto her office computer by eight o’clock, and was halfway through preparing a tutorial on the impact of the Black Death on the East Midlands for the MA students still in residence when, at ten o’clock, her stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten since her takeaway last night.
    Saving her work, Grace grabbed the notes she’d