Title: Brilliant Disguise (3/?)

Rating: PG-13

Characters: Guy, Marian, Robin/Gang

Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of the BBC. All rights reserved. No copyright infringement intended and no profit is made by the author.

Summary: She fought down the hysterical urge to laugh as she wildly wondered whether she could overcome the confused mix of feelings she had for Guy and sink the dagger into his chest in order to protect Richard.

A/N: Assumes a very different ending to S2's journey to the Holy Land

Richard leaned forward in his chair and rested a gentle hand on each of theirs. "I know that this is much for you to absorb and understand," he said quietly. "You've learned a great deal and I am sure that you have many other questions. I promise that in due time you will have your answers, but for now…" He squeezed their hands with his own.

"All is well," he smiled. "And we will do what we can to heal the wounds in Nottingham."

Chapter Three

Marian sat in a chair near Guy's bedside, quietly lost in thought. In repose, the sharp lines of his features were softened and beneath the heavy stubble of beard that covered his cheeks and jaw, his face was unnaturally pale. His hair lay in dark tangles about his face and stood in stark contrast to the crisp white linens of the pillow beneath his head while thick bandaging covered much of his torso.

She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest and wondered which man was the real Guy. At the best of times, Marian was confused by the push-pull of her feelings for him. With what she had learned from the King, she was quite simply dazed and disoriented. Everything she had believed to be true about him seemed now to be false and she found herself overwhelmed.

She stiffened as Guy stirred in the bed. He turned his head against the pillow and struggled to lift heavy eyelids. His lips curved upward in an unguarded, drowsy smile when he caught sight of her sitting vigil by his bed and she steeled herself against the instinct to smile back.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Thirsty," he rasped. He struggled to sit up and Marian quickly rose to assist him. She poured a small measure of water into a waiting cup and held it to him.

"Small sips," she instructed quietly and watched to be sure that he obeyed. When the cup was empty, she set it back on the table near the bed and sat down.

"Are you in pain?" she asked.

Guy shrugged. "No more than I can handle."

Marian nodded and leaned back into her chair. They studied one another quietly for a moment before she broke the silence.

"You lied to me," she accused.

"Yes."

"Every day you pretended to be something that you are not."

"Yes."

"You made a fool of me!" she cried. Humiliation stained her cheeks as remembered images of their past encounters played in her mind's eye and she realized that though she thought she had been leading him along a merry path, in truth, he had been herding her along his own direction the way a sheepdog maneuvered its flock. That he had done so while pretending to be a lovesick swain under her influence was a particularly loathsome truth to swallow.

"No."

"Yes!" she hissed, frustrated by his one syllable responses. "What did you hope to gain by claiming to be in love with me?" she brooded.

"I hoped to gain your love in return," he said calmly.

"You are a liar," she spat. "How can I trust anything you say?"

Guy tipped his head to one side and studied her intently. "I do not understand," he murmured. "Are you angry because I did not bring you into my confidence? Or are you angry because I'm not the villain you believed me to be?"

"Do you think that the families whose loved ones died at your hands or whose homes were burned to the ground on your orders will forgive you because you now claim to have done so in the name of the King?" she asked coldly. "Do you think I should forgive you for the things you have done to me?" Her cheeks burned with indignation and humiliation at the thought that he had played her for a fool.

"And what have I done to you that is so unforgivable?" he wondered. "I offered you my love. I offered you my name and my protection."

"You lied to me," she cried. "Everything you said, everything you did… you let me think you were… and now it turns out that you are…" Her voice trailed off incoherently as angry tears pooled in her eyes.

"What would you have had me do?" he asked. "Would you have me betray my oath? Would you have me put you in danger by revealing the truth to you?"

"You claim to love me, but you don't trust me!" she cried.

"It had nothing to do with whether I trust you or not," he ground out. "I am a soldier. First and foremost, before anything else, my duty is to the king. To obey his directives. His safety is paramount above all else. Even my feelings for you."

Marian felt an uncontrollable rage building within her. 'The King' she though venomously. First Robin. Now Guy. Always, she was secondary to their king.

"Your feelings! Your feelings for me were just one more part of the lie," she spat. Marian's emotions were awash with confusion and betrayal and she lashed out like a cornered animal.

"My feelings were true," he insisted. "When I asked you to stay… I meant it. Every time I told you that I loved you… I meant it. When I asked you to marry me… I meant it." He scraped his hands through his hair and dug his fingers into his scalp. "You were the one thing I selfishly wanted for myself," he murmured. "I told myself that if you could see through to the real me… then I was not completely lost." His chin dropped to his chest in defeat. "But you never saw me then and even now… even now you find nothing in me of value."

Marian steeled herself not to be swayed by his words. Words, she knew, were easy. It was actions by which she judged a person.

"You say you love me but you lied to me. Every minute of every day was a lie." Awash in a sense of betrayal, she swallowed down the lump in her throat. "Love does not lie," she insisted, clinging to her girlish views of romance and love. "Love is true."

Guy closed his eyes in despair of ever making her understand. "I was under the King's orders to trust no one with my secret."

"And we both know that you excel at following orders." Marian laughed bitterly. "Richard's orders. Vasey's orders. It doesn't matter whose, so long as you don't have to think for yourself or make moral decisions on your own."

His head snapped back at her harsh accusation though he said nothing in defense of himself.

"What did the King promise you in exchange for your service?" she asked snidely. "Did he promise you riches? A title? Wealth and land beyond imagination?

"He promised me nothing," Guy's face was a mask devoid of emotion.

"Then, pray, what was your motivation? A man like you expects something in return for his service." Frustration at her failure to elicit a response from him; humiliation at having been played for a fool; at having believed his lies, pushed her to cruelty.

"Do you think that you and Hood are the only ones who understand duty and loyalty?" Guy demanded. "I lied to you because I had no choice."

"There is always a choice −"

"No! I had sworn an oath to the King to tell no one." He leaned toward her to force her to meet his gaze. "For years I put up with daily humiliation at the hands of the man I was sworn to destroy. I allowed Vasey to debase me and demean me in the presence of men of great power. I let him degrade and humble me, all the while knowing that you were looking on and witnessing my shame. I withstood Hood's mockery and your belief that he was the better man - the just and righteous man. I withstood your feigned interest in me and the knowledge that you were using me to gather information to give to Hood to use against me."

Guy rubbed his fingers across his forehead as if to knead away a headache brewing behind his eyes.

"Can you imagine what it was like for me to play a part that allowed the woman I loved to believe the most contemptible things about me? Do you not think that I wanted to shout the truth to the heavens? To tell you and everyone else that I was on the side of right and good?"

He slumped against the pillows, exhausted. "Do you have any idea of difficult it was for me to carry through on Vasey's orders? To go against my instinct as a knight of the realm to protect and instead bring hurt to innocent people? Can you imagine what it has been like for me these last few years with no one to confide in; no one to believe in me?" he asked quietly. "I used to comfort myself by imagining what it would be like if I could tell you the truth." He gave a self-mocking snort. "I would lie awake at night and picture the look on your face – pride and love replacing the disgust I had grown accustomed to seeing."

He laughed harshly at his own naïveté. "But I see that I was fooling myself," he said. "Because apparently everything that I have endured pales in comparison to the humiliation you now feel."

He stared past her into the glowing coals in the fireplace.

"He offered me nothing," he repeated in a dull monotone. "I secured no personal reward for my service and instead have lost everything I had hoped to gain."

Shattered at the outpouring of honest emotion she had witnessed, Marian pressed a clenched fist against her lips. "Guy, I… I…"

He rolled his head against the pillow and closed his eyes.

"Please leave."

"Guy," she whispered plaintively, but his only response was to raise his uninjured arm and shield his face behind the crook of his elbow.

Marian stood and reached out with one trembling hand as if to touch him, but his tense stillness fairly screamed for her to keep her distance. She smoothed her hands over her skirts and drew herself to her full height. Knuckling away the tears running freely down her cheeks, Marian silently left the room.

TBC