Robin returned to the convent to find his little daughters happy and untroubled, but their nurse decidedly upset.
"Are you alright?" he kindly asked her, after greeting his daughters and receiving their hugs and kisses. Robin assumed something trivial was bothering the nurse, something like purple stains on her charges' feet, and he wanted to help assuage her anxiety if he could. But when she told him the cause of her unhappiness, its weight threatened to crush him.
"Her ladyship is unwell," the nurse explained, keeping her voice low so the little girls would not hear. "She almost lost the baby!"
Robin's voice sounded strange in his ears as he barely managed to speak, "Excuse me," before racing inside the convent toward the rooms he shared with Marian.
Silently entering the bed chamber, his heart ached to find Marian lying on the bed, staring dully up at the ceiling, unaware of his presence. She looked lovely yet listless and pale, with all her flash and sparkle he loved so much drained out of her. Seeing her suffering hurt him physically, as if a knife was being twisted through his heart.
Quietly and gently, he spoke her name.
"Marian?"
She looked at him, and much of her inner sparkle returned. She smiled briefly, then broke into tears.
Instantly, Robin was on the bed beside her, gathering her in his arms.
"It's alright, my love," he assured her. "Nurse says you haven't lost the baby."
"I almost did." Letting herself be comforted by his loving concern, she allowed her words to admit the guilt troubling her heart. "It's my fault. You warned me not to eat, but I did."
"You think were poisoned?"
"I know I was. I tried to be careful, but Isabella tricked me. I'm sorry, Robin."
"Shh." He held her and soothed her, then looked into her eyes and said, "You did nothing wrong, Marian. I didn't mean you shouldn't eat. You have to eat, in your condition. I only meant to be careful."
"I thought I was. There was a bowl of apples, and she ate one in front of me. I thought they were safe, but I took extra precaution by peeling away the skin before I ate one. It turns out she hadn't poisoned the apples, but the knife. What if I had sliced one and shared it with Ellie or Grace?"
"You didn't, and they're fine. I saw them just now, outside playing. They're fine, Marian, and so are you. Aren't you?"
"I feel a little weak and dizzy is all. I was so worried I had killed our baby, like...!"
She was remembering the baby she'd been carrying when Gisbourne plunged his sword through her, in the Holy Land. Robin thought of it, too, and held her closer.
Marian let Robin comfort her. She loved it that he didn't say a single accusatory word against her, but lovingly held her, assuring her everything was going to be alright.
"Together we're stronger," she thought, remembering the words he'd used when he proposed to her. They kissed, and she really did feel stronger.
Knowing his anger toward Isabella was boiling under his surface of care and concern, Marian asked, "What will you do about Isabella?"
"Take her to the king, I think," Robin answered. "I'll let Richard decide what punishment she deserves for poisoning the woman who once put herself between him and Gisbourne's sword, when he was wounded."
Marian felt pleased and proud by Robin's compliment to her bravery, especially because she felt so vulnerable now. She knew it was his way of letting her know it hadn't been her fault their first child had died, but Gisbourne's. But she doubted now that Robin would be able to locate Isabella. "Do you think she's still here?" she asked. "Surely she's run away by now."
"And miss her chance to gloat at me, for what she's done? Hardly."
Marian wasn't sure she liked the idea of Robin confronting and laying hands on Isabella, even in anger. But she agreed the woman needed to be stopped before she hurt anyone else, especially the innocent, trusting nuns here at the convent.
"That is best," she agreed. "Let the king decide her fate."
Robin waited to go until Marian fell asleep in his arms. "I love you," he whispered, his heart full. Gently, he kissed the top of her sleeping head before disentangling himself and leaving her side.
His anger toward Isabella, no longer tempered by his concern over Marian, rose to the surface and drove him to hunt down the woman he hated.