"Please!" Isabella begged Robin again, playing the role of repentant nun. Dropping to her knees before him, hands clasped imploringly before her, she lifted her eyes to his face, her expression pleading, submissive, and holy. She knew she looked lovely, even dressed in a nun's wimple and habit, and she let her clear, beautiful blue eyes plead her case.
Isabella watched as Robin's expression changed from anger and disgust to pity. Part of her triumphed over fooling him, but another part became enraged. She had seen that look on his face once before, just after he had rescued them from drowning and he'd rejected her offer they should run away together. She remembered so vividly that all that day, after he had brought her a gift of strawberries, she had felt him distancing himself from her, his mind occupied elsewhere...on Her, the wife he believed was dead. Isabella had tried many ploys to draw him back to her, but she was unable to seduce him. When her obvious hints toward seduction failed to move him, she tried eliciting his pity, forcing tears to her eyes as she tried to bind him to her with their mutual hatred of Guy. When that failed, she tried to act as she believed Marian must have, stubbornly bucking him the way Guy had told her Marian behaved, arguing about the direction to Clun. And then, when they were clinging together under water, and she knew Robin would find a way to save them, she had made up a stupid dream of living together in a cottage, with "two boys and two girls," just the sort of dream he longed to share with Her. And when he told her to take off her dress, something she was only to eager to do, she had played the modest maiden, knowing he was planning to use it to save them.
But afterwards, when they were safe and free to run away together, he had looked into her face with pity, and told her he couldn't. And after trying for several hours to act like Marian, Isabella had been forced to cry out, "I'm not Her!"
No! She couldn't stand seeing him look at her this way! His smug, overly confident look of anger or disgust still implied his attraction toward her, she believed. But this look of pity...! Isabella would not have it! Risking the importance of her plan to kill King Richard, she unclasped her hands, tore off her headdress, shook down her hair, and grabbed his buttocks.
"So," she said, looking seductively up at him, "here we are again, with me on my knees."
Robin, angry again, freed himself from her grip and strode several steps away. "I knew you were lying," he shouted.
"It was you!" she accused, rising to her feet. "You tried to make me forget my holy orders, and seduce me! I shall go immediately to the Mother Superior, and tell her what you have done!"
"What I've done? It was you, Isabella!"
He threw back his head, disgusted at her, and at himself for arguing with her. "Goodnight, Isabella," he said, wanting nothing so much as to be gone from her.
He planned to go to the Mother Superior in the morning before he and his family left the convent, to offer any help the convent needed as well as to warn her about Isabella's true character, or lack of it. But now, all he wanted to do was be close to Marian and hold her.
Isabella always made him feel soiled, no matter what transpired between them. He needed to cleanse himself from spending time with her, and the best way he knew how was to be close to Marian.
Not wanting to wake her, he carefully opened the door to their room and silently tiptoed inside.
"You're back," he heard Marian say from the bed.
"You're awake." Already, just by hearing her lovely voice, he felt worlds better. He undressed quickly and climbed into bed.
Contentedly, Marian snuggled her back against his chest as he held her gently and kissed the top of her head.
"I have to tell you something," he said, wishing he didn't have to. "I've just been talking with Isabella of Gisbourne."
Marian whipped around and faced him. "Isabella?" she repeated, incredulously. "What is she doing here?"
"I asked her the same question. She made up a story about wanting to truly be a nun, repenting from her sins."
"She tried that in Locksley. Why here, Robin? Is the king in danger?"
"Always, but not from her, I think. Philip's armies are much more likely to..." His voice trailed off, not wanting to think of his king's possible demise. "I think she's here because it's close to her mother's village...the one she lived in growing up."
Marian thought back to meeting Gisele and later her sister Ghislaine, confessing, "That was her mother, in Aquitaine. I didn't tell you I confirmed it because...I know how you get when you think about Guy. I'm telling you now because her mother told me about them when they were children. She had no love at all toward Isabella, Robin. It almost made me pity her. Isabella, I mean."
Robin looked adoringly at his wife, then kissed her. "Don't waste your kindness on her, my love. She doesn't deserve it."
"Is any kindness truly wasted?"
"When it's toward the Gisbournes, yes."
"What are we going to do about it? Her being here, I mean."
Robin thought a moment before answering. "Leave tomorrow, as planned. I do plan to warn the Mother Superior and tell her all I know about her new recruit, and warn the king about her presence, when I meet with him."
"What if we don't leave tomorrow?" Marian asked.
Robin grew uncomfortable, wanting to head home as well as put distance between his family and Isabella. But he knew Marian needed to be heard. "What are you suggesting?" he asked.
"Why don't the girls and I stay here one more day, while you go warn the king. Before you object, listen! The girls love it here, and it's good for them to play and run about before shutting them up in that coach another day. While you're warning King Richard, let me stay here and warn the Mother Superior, and...I'd like to question Isabella myself, Robin. She might actually tell me the truth, once I tell her I've met her mother."
Robin, having more idea than Marian did that Guy of Gisbourne was also in the convent, reluctantly agreed to his wife's suggestion. "Alright," he said, "but be careful. Don't be alone with her, whatever you do. And be armed. And don't touch any food or drink unless she tastes it first."
"Worries, worries," Marian teased. "Much is miles away, but his influence-"
"I have to worry," Robin interrupted, "without Much here to do it for me."
"Is that why you kept him around?"
Robin cringed, remembering the horrible lies circulating about himself and Much in the songs Alain the minstrel invented in Aquitaine. He knew prince John was circulating the same lies about King Richard to discredit him, claiming he had no legitimate heir because he preferred sleeping with men rather than his beautiful queen, Berengaria. He only hoped Much, whose heart was good, loyal, and true, would never hear the songs.
"I kept him around because he's a true friend, Marian," Robin answered, sincerely.
She kissed her husband. "I know he is. He's my friend, too. He stopped my wedding to...to Gisbourne, reminding me you needed me."
"Is that what convinced you not to go through with it?"
"It was. I was torn even then, to protect my father. Much also said the so called king was an imposter, and Guy warned me my father would only be safe if I married him."
"So you chose me over-"
"I trusted you to save my father."
"Which I did."
Marian let his cockiness go unscolded. He had earned it, after all. besides, it was part of his charm. "Yes, you did," she admitted, kissing him again before rolling over and snuggling her back against him again. "Goodnight, Handsome."
"Goodnight, Gorgeous."
"Not so gorgeous any more," she said, "at least for now and the next several months."
Robin gently placed his hands over her belly. "Always gorgeous," he said, kissing her neck. He pulled his face away, gasping excitedly when he felt the baby inside her move.
"I know," Marian said, as pleased as he. "I love you, my husband."
"I love you, my wife."
Blissfully happy, without any clue of the dangers awaiting them, they drifted off to sleep.