Guy of Gisbourne pressed his back hard against the trunk of a tree, held his breath, and watched.

They were coming. Hood, with Marian, the woman who should have been his, riding closer, through the meadow toward the edge of the forest, where Gisbourne hid, awaiting them.

"Faster!" a child's voice piped, and Gisbourne heard Marian say, "We're going fast enough."

"Anyway, Boo, we're here," Hood decided, reining his horse and climbing down. "Anyone hungry?"

He had a baby strapped to him, yet he moved with ease, as though it were a part of him.

"Me, me, me!" the little brat piped, and Gisbourne tore his eyes from Marian to look upon the child who had ridden before her mother on the same horse.

Hood, lifting her down from the saddle while Marian spread a blanket on the meadow grass, smiled at the scrawny brat with a look of pure adoration lighting up his face. Adeptly, he unfastened the wriggling baby from his chest and set her down on the blanket, lovingly planting a kiss on the top of her bald head. To Gisbourne's surprise, the baby struggled to her feet, then tottered off the blanket on sturdy, though still wobbly legs.

"Look, Gracie!" the older child said. "Let's chase butterflies!"

Gisbourne watched with fury, hatred, and jealousy raging inside him, as Hood and Marian smiled as they watched the two brats tripping through the grass in identical dresses. A loving look passed between husband and wife, a look of deep joy, contentment, and unity such as Gisbourne had never known. Gisbourne seethed inside, longing to run Hood's body through with his sword, and paint the meadow red with his blood.

This was the very spot where he, Guy of Gisbourne, had once hidden to witness his sister Isabella, now King John's Queen, betray him by meeting secretly with Hood to whisper the Prince's plot in his outlaw ears, trying to nibble on them as she did so. They had been all over each other! No matter that the grieving Hood, believing Marian dead and buried beneath the sands outside Acre, had been fooled by Isabella's tricks at remaking herself into another Marian. He'd still had Gisbourne's sister! He'd had her, and now, he had Marian, Gisbourne's one and only love!

Hood needed to die, today.

The day being warm, Robin unwrapped the woolen scarf from his neck and flung it upon the blanket, then removed his leather doublet and pushed up his shirt sleeves. Together with Marian, he began unpacking the picnic supper their cook had provided.

"It's ready," Marian called happily to their girls.

Gisbourne couldn't reconcile the thought of those two brats belonging to Marian. The older one looked nothing like her, being ugly, like Hood. Scrawny, with a thin, freckled face and mousey brown hair, she couldn't have come from a woman of Marian's beauty. The baby, round and rosy, more closely resembled her, though she was ugly like Hood, too, without a single hair on her head.

"We need to pray before we eat," Marian reminded her little ones, as they settled on the blanket. Even the baby knew to fold her hands and bow her head, and Gisbourne's blood boiled as he listened to Hood's hated voice give thanks.

"Hypocrites," he breathed, growing hotter and hotter. "Liars. Thieves!"

"Daddy, what's on your neck?" the little girl asked, between bites of cold chicken.

Gisbourne narrowed his eyes to look closer, then went cold inside when he spied the strawberry mark.

"It's a bite," Hood answered, simply, then winked audaciously at his flustered wife.

"It's...an insect must have bitten Daddy. Eat your chicken," Marian said, clearly embarrassed.

A love bite! Gisbourne found himself tortured by images of Marian locked in Hood's arms, writhing and panting under his thrusting body.

No!

He would kill Hood, now! Silently, with murder in his heart, he drew forth his sword.

At the same moment, the baby opened her mouth and wailed, making Gisbourne freeze.

"What is it, Precious?" Marian asked, concerned.

"She's been stung," Robin answered, springing to his feet. Over the baby's loud cries, Gisbourne heard him say, "Don't worry about the picnic things. I'll take her home."

"Do you want to stay, Ellie?" Marian asked her other daughter.

The three-year-old looked stricken. "It'll be alright, Gracie," she said, trying to comfort her little sister. "Please don't cry. Bad bee!"

Robin, strapping the screaming child to his chest, offered, "Why don't we all go home, and leave our picnic for later?"

"I think that would be best," Marian agreed, relieved.

NO! Gisbourne, impotent with rage, could do nothing while he watched his enemy and the woman he burned for ride from his grasp. Boiling over with fury, Gisbourne bellowed a roar, hacking away at the tree that had hidden him, dulling his sword blade.