"You know I had no choice," Marian shot back at Robin, after his accusation of her marrying Gisbourne. "Besides, I didn't go through with it. What? Did you think I had?"

"Didn't you?"

"Never!"

Robin and Marian stared at one another in astonished relief, not even seeming to be aware of the company of Much and Eve and their small, blond headed, blue eyed children at Bonchurch Lodge.

"But," Robin argued, cracking a smile, "the tavern keeper told me you'd married him...that I was only your second choice."

"Allan!" Much exclaimed. "I knew it! I knew Allan was behind this!"

"Why would Allan tell you such a tale?" Marian asked, wanting to head straight to the Trip Inn and strangle their fast talking friend. "Oh, Robin, he must have been playing a joke on you!"

"Some joke," Robin sniffed. "That man was full of jests, none of which were funny."

"Really?" Much asked. "Not funny? You used to find him hilarious! Why, I remember one night in the forest, all of us sitting around the fire, Allan had you splitting your sides with his story about scaling the walls of Ripley Convent, just to make certain all the novices really were virgins. Oh! Sorry! I shouldn't have said that!"

"Robin, you didn't go with him on that convent scaling expedition, did you?" Marian asked.

"I don't know! I can't remember anything, remember?"

Robin had a moment of worry, for an erotic image flashed in his mind, and he was pretty certain the woman identically resembled the Abbess of Kirklees. He brushed it aside, feeling guilty.

"It was just one of Allan's stories, Marian," Much assured her. "Nothing to worry about. The only holy woman Robin ever kissed was that Abbess of Rutherford."

"Has she recently moved to Kirklees?" Robin asked, nervously.

"No. She was an abbess who wasn't an abbess. She was a thief," Much informed him. "Remember, Robin?"

"She was a charleton," Marian asserted. "You had no business kissing her."

Robin's head was spinning. "May we get back to your wedding?" he asked. "Or rather, your wedding that wasn't?"

"Oh, there was a wedding, alright," Much corrected him. "Marian was all set to say her vows, even though she didn't want to."

"Much was my hero that hour," Marian said, kissing her fingertips and lightly touching them to Much's cheek. "He saved me from a fate worse than death."

"I saved you from marrying Gisbourne the Grotesque."

"Please, must we speak of him? Robin, Allan was lying. For in spite of what you accused me of in my garden, you have always been one of my first choices in husbands."

"One of them?" Robin repeated, grinning.

She didn't use words to respond, but sat at her place at the table, smiling at him, her face aglow with love.

Suddenly, neither one of them were hungry, nor interested in conversation. They simply longed to be alone with one another, to make up their argument.

Robin could read her longing for him in her eyes, and his own gaze echoed it. "Excuse us, please," he said, his throat gone dry while his palms began to tingle. Rising, he pushed back his chair and offered his hand to Marian.

"We need to be getting home," she agreed, as if in a trance, not looking at her host and hostess, but spellbound by her husband's blue eyed gaze.

"Goodbye!" Much called fondly, watching walk out his door. "Glad to have been of help! That's alright, no need to thank me, again! Be careful riding home!"

But they didn't go home immediately, even though Robin wanted nothing so much as to shut himself up alone with her in their bedroom. They first took a detour to where Knighton Hall had once stood, to survey the once charred ground and help Robin remember everything he'd forgotten.