"Robin, we're in a convent!"
Marian flipped over in bed to face her husband and pushed him away. Robin had only lifted her hair and kissed her neck, but she suspected it a prelude to him wanting more.
Robin chuckled at Marian's shocked dismay. Grinning, he said, "I only wanted to kiss you goodnight."
It was true. It wasn't that they were housed for the night in a Normandy convent, but that he knew Marian was tired. They had travelled far that day, bidding Queen Eleanor goodbye at Windsor, then reaching the coast and crossing the channel. Robin had hired another coach and pair, as well as an additional horse to carry them to King Richard's camp and then south to Aquitaine along the white dusty roads built by the Romans.
He stopped laughing and gazed into her face, smiling with admiration and tenderness.
"Why are you looking at me?" she asked.
"It's just the way my eyes are pointing." His look of adoration increased. "Seriously, Marian, it was only a kiss. Goodnight, my love."
Was that all, she wondered, not even a kiss on the lips? "I can't go to sleep with you staring at me."
Robin chuckled again, then drew her close in his arms. "There," he said, gently stroking her hair. "You can't see me looking now."
"But what are you looking at? You can't see my face with it on your shoulder, only the top of my head."
"Shh."
"You know I hate being shushed."
"I thought you wanted to sleep."
Marian lifted her face and looked into his. His eyes were closed, but he wore a smile of complete happiness. Sighing, she settled back against him, feeling tense and unhappy.
Robin was smiling because he loved her, because she had needed to loosen the laces on her gown that morning as their unborn child grew, and because he knew she would never allow herself and their children to starve if something should happen to him. She was, he reflected happily, stronger than she looked.
That last thought took hold because of something that had happened earlier that day.
Along their journey while still in England, they had met a group of soldiers who believed Prince John still in charge, who were threatening a man caught shooting one of the king's deer with a long imprisonment, or the loss of his hand.
Queen Eleanor, wanting to surprise the soldiers, had told Robin to handle the situation first.
"What is your sentence?" Robin had asked the captured man.
"Jail time for me," the man answered, "and death to my wife and children."
Robin understood the removal of the family breadwinner would spell death to many families, and that is why he smiled going to sleep now, admiring Marian for being strong and capable.
"Let him go," Robin had ordered the soldiers. "Let him feed his hungry family."
"Prince John rules otherwise," a soldier had disagreed.
"The last time I looked," Robin had said, "Richard was our king."
"Richard's deserted us again," the soldier complained. "We serve Prince John now."
"Prince John is no longer in charge," Queen Eleanor had announced, revealing herself at the coach's door.
The soldiers had dropped to their knees, the man was released, and the travelers continued their journey.
Marian, lying in the convent bed beside her smiling husband, wanted to trace his beautiful features with her fingertips, but resisted. Knowing he was to meet the king in his camp tomorrow, she fretted and worried, and pulled away from Robin so that she wouldn't cling to him as she longed to do. What if, she worried, Robin should decide to join King Richard's fight, and send her and their daughters home to Locksley?
Robin's breathing grew rhythmic, and Marian knew he was asleep. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep as well, but couldn't. Something ominous oppressed her, and she believed it to be her concern over Robin deserting her again for the glory of the battlefield.
She couldn't know that something, or rather someone, they would encounter along their journey, was a far bigger threat.
...
Several miles distant, Guy of Gisbourne sat drinking alone in a tavern, listening for any news of King Richard and his armies.
Guy hated the tavern, a filthy place full of dirty drunken Frenchmen and a handful of ugly serving wenches. He hated his mother Ghislaine's village more, the hovel he'd grown up in after his father's village in York had been stolen from their family, the same village he was hiding in now, a wanted fugitive for all the crimes he'd committed in England and the Holy Land.
And now, the King of England had invaded these shores and was waging war on King Philip, fighting to regain his duchies lost under Prince John's regency.
If, Guy reflected, he could somehow kill King Richard, Prince John would not only forgive him, he would elevate him to power and position, and Guy could live again. But how? Without clever Vasey to advise him, Guy had no plans of his own, only his desire.
Desire...Guy heard a sweet, soft voice at his elbow inquiring whether he would like more wine, or something else.
Guy looked at the girl, and felt a familiar flush awaken in him.
She was impossibly young, and pretty, just the type he preferred. The two women he'd ever cared for...more than cared for in Marian's case, had similar qualities. Annie and Marian, both lovely and soft spoken, had awakened more than lust in him, had awakened a desire to protect and care for them, especially Marian. It consumed him still, even after he'd learned of her betrayals. Meg, the woman he had married whom Isabella had killed with her poisons, had fallen short, not having their sweetness but only their spirit. This serving wench now seemed to have some of their sweetness, but was she also spirited? Probably not.
"Nothing," Guy told her, speaking the common man's French.
An older serving wench accidentally bumped into the girl, and Guy saw the young beauty's eyes flash and watched as she flipped the other wench's tray.
"On second thought," he said, warmed by her show of spirit...
She was warm silk in his arms, upstairs in a filthy bed in the tavern. She was docile as she placed her arms around his neck, docile and submissive the way Annie had been, the way he'd always imagined Marian should be. Instead, Marian had fought him with everything she had, the time he had surprised her outside Bonchurch and tried to make her his own. He had been punishing her as well, but he wouldn't have done, if only she had submitted and let him love her!
Guy reached over their heads and snuffed a candle, pinching out its flame, so that the room became dark.
"You don't wish to see?" the girl asked. "Or is it you who do not wish to be seen?"
Her voice was soft and lovely, though common like Annie's. Guy could forget it wasn't noble, because it spoke French. "Marian," he imagined, breathing heavily as he thrust into her.
It was soon over, leaving Guy spent but disappointed. "Marian!" he wanted to scream. "You should have been mine!"
His eyes had grown used to the darkness though the girl did not guess it, and he watched her rise from the bed and quickly cover herself, then hunt through his discarded clothing and pull out his purse. Instantly he was on his feet, naked with his sword in his hand.
She looked terrified as he backed her against a wall.
"Stealing from me?" he sneered, mockingly, his sword pressing against her throat.
"No, good sir," she stammered, truly frightened and dropping his purse. "I only wanted to take what you owe me."
He knew she was lying, that she would have robbed him had he not seen.
"You're worthless!" he bellowed. "A common whore, a thief and a liar!" A liar...Marian! His manner grew even more threatening. "I owe you nothing!"
Tears streamed from her eyes. "Please, sir," she begged, trembling, "don't hurt me."
He could kill her, he knew, and no one would care, least of all him. But he didn't want to. She had done him a favor, helped him escape the wretched world he lived in and imagine he truly possessed Marian, if only for a few minutes.
He hoped his mind would let him escape a different reason, but it didn't.
"Get back downstairs," he commanded, lowering his sword. He could almost hear Vasey's voice mock him, "Mercy, Gisbourne? What's the matter, hmm? Lose your taste for bloodshed, like Hood?"
Guy crumpled as he realized he couldn't thrust his sword through the girl, fearing his nightmares of having done so to Marian would haunt him again, night after night.
Relieved, the girl scurried away, leaving Guy alone. He dressed quickly, then followed her down the tavern stairs, turning his imposing presence on the tavern keeper, to whom the girl had told her tale.
"Coward," he muttered under his breath, recognizing the man's fear.
He left the tavern without bloodying his sword, his thoughts still obsessed with his love for Marian and his hatred for the man she had chosen over him, the man he still called "Hood."