"Lady Marian, Master Robin is returning home."

Marian's heart fluttered at the news, and her eyes sparkled at Thornton.

"He's sure to be soaked and muddy," she mentioned, for the rain had continued all day. "Please have a hot bath prepared."

Thornton issued the order, and Marian, holding her daughter, whispered in Ellen's tiny ear, "Daddy's home."

A bath would warm him, Marian believed, as well as giving them a chance to talk, undisturbed, about the Council. And no doubt, Robin would invite her to join him in the bath, and then...eager warmth flushed through Marian as she thought about it.

Dripping, Robin stepped into his home after first stabling his horse with Ian. "Thank you, Thomas," Robin told his manservant, handing him his drenched cloak and his sword.

"Welcome home, Master," Thornton said warmly.

Robin nodded and smiled. His eyes flew to Marian, confusing her by their look.

They showed none of their usual affection...none of the adoration they typically cast on her. They neither teased, gazed, nor smoldered. They looked pained, and searching. And then, quickly, they grew hard, as if to protect the man behind them from being hurt.

Stepping toward her to greet their child, Robin seemed himself again.

"Not until you're dry," Marian told him, fondly. "There's a hot bath and dry clothing waiting for you, upstairs."

"That sounds perfect."

Still no kiss, not even one on her cheek. Marian wondered what could be wrong. Reminding herself that the servants surrounded them, and that Robin was soaked to the skin, Marian handed Ellen to her nurse and followed her husband upstairs.

Steam rose from the tub. Marian closed the door behind her, watching her husband undress.

She loved his body, every inch of it, even his scars. She couldn't help it. She so loved the man, and found it wonderful that as his wife, she could enjoy his body as well as his thoughts and his companionship.

Lowering himself into the steaming rose-scented water, Robin breathed a long sigh.

"How was the Council?" Marian asked, wanting to close the odd sense of distance she felt between them.

Robin barely looked at her.

"Worse than I expected," he answered. "I won one battle, when I should have won the war."

"Is it a war?"

"Trying to convince greedy, selfish men who've grown accustomed to lining their pockets with other people's hard-earned money to give it back? Trust me, it's war."

"Well, it's a good thing you're such a good soldier then. There will be other battles, Robin. What point did you win today? Tell me."

Robin relaxed, naming the one and only tax he was able to abolish.

"It's a start," Marian said, approvingly.

"I need to think of another way to approach them, next time. What would you say to me inviting them here, to Locksley, to show them how everyone can prosper, without unnecessary taxes?"

"I'd say it was brilliant, if everyone was prospering. But they're not, Robin. I visited several homes today, where they're still suffering."

"Who?"

Robin sat straight up in the bath. His drive to help his people was strong. He was doing his best for them, wanting to restore Locksley to the village it had been before he'd gone to serve his king and country in battle.

"The worst were Jean and Old Widow Barrett. I cannot believe the cruelty Guy inflicted on them!"

It had slipped out. All day long Marian had wanted to cry, having learned the awful truth about Gisbourne. She wanted nothing so much as for Robin, wet and naked though he was, to climb from his bath and fold her in his arms, comforting her from the cruelty of the man she'd tried to rescue from his own evil nature.

But Robin didn't. He was silent and still. The water in his bath did not even ripple.

Marian's eyes met his, and the hard look on his face startled her.

"Yet you dream of him," he harshly accused.

Marian blinked her eyes, having no recollection of her nightmare. "Dream?" she repeated. "What are you talking about?"

"This morning," Robin answered. "In your sleep, you spoke his name. Twice."

Marian stared back at him. He was seething with anger, trying hard to keep it in check.

"You can't be jealous!" she shouted. "Of a dream?"

"You still hold feelings for him."

"Don't be ridiculous."

She was angry now. When would Robin ever learn? She had NEVER loved Guy!

"Grow up," she snapped.

Too worked up to sit still, Robin climbed from the tub, wrapping a towel around his waist. He knew he was being unfair, but he couldn't seem to help it. His hatred, his jealousy toward Gisbourne always seemed to turn him vicious.

The man was a monster... a monster who'd committed monstrous acts upon Robin's people, not to mention toward Marian herself.

"He tried to murder you," Robin reminded her.

"He tried to murder you!" Marian shot back.

Neither one mentioned their unborn baby who had died from Gisbourne's sword-wound to Marian, but both thought of him.

"How dare you accuse me of wanting him?" Marian demanded, "especially when I so readily forgave you?"

"Forgave me? For what?"

"Kissing Kate. She told me. She thinks you wanted to marry her. Tell me, Robin, was it only kissing? A girl doesn't usually credit a man with wanting marriage from a mere kiss."

Marian hated that he looked so attractive, wearing nothing but a towel. It conjured up all kinds of thoughts of him with Kate.

The girl's angry confession hadn't really bothered Marian until now. She knew that Robin had been confused, out of his mind with grief over her supposed death. She knew all about his brief, intense relationship with Guy's evil sister Isabella. And she'd heard Kate refer to herself as Robin's "girlfriend," but she'd never credited it. Not until today. Not until he accused her unjustly of harboring "feelings" for Guy.

If he could be jealous, then so could she.

"What happened between you and Kate, Robin? You never told me."

Robin let out a sigh. Marian's shocking news that Kate had expected marriage knocked all the jealousy out of him.

He must have hurt the girl. He'd never wanted that. Obviously, he had some explaining to do. And not only to his wife, who stood before him looking so beautiful with her eyes flashing and her cheeks flushed. But to Kate as well.

"I did kiss her," he admitted, "though I should never have done. I was drunk."

Marian, listening to him with all his anger gone, found hers ease away as well. She remembered now Much's description of them as "two foxes in a sack," and she regretted her part in their argument.

"It's alright," she told him. "You don't have to tell me."

"I should have already. She'd let me know she liked me, by kissing me before. I had no idea. I wasn't all there most days, trying to forget you, and not being able to. Needing to, but not wanting to."

Marian understood completely. She'd felt exactly the same, when he'd left her for war.

"Go on," she urged, gently.

"I was involved with Isabella, like I told you. Huge mistake. I knew it was wrong. I was trying to recapture what we'd had, Marian, and it wasn't fair, neither to Isabella nor to me. No matter how I wanted her to be, she wasn't you. She even told me so herself. "I'm not Her," she said. And one day, after she described us spending a life together, I faced the truth. I let her down as easily as I could. In essence, I freed myself from her, and it felt good. So that night, around the fire, I had one too many ales, and I kissed Kate."

"Another huge mistake?"

"I wouldn't say a huge one, at least not to me. If she's still bitter, thinking I would have married her, then yes, I'll have to agree it was huge."

"And it went no further?"

"I swear it didn't."

"Good."

They stood facing one another, and finally, both began to smile.

"You haven't kissed me since my birthday," Marian informed him. "Did you know that?"

"Serve me one too many ales, and I will," Robin teased.

Marian laugh once, a quick grunt of a laugh. She wanted to make up the quarrel, but he was so difficult. What she really wanted to do was to crawl in the bath tub with him, provided the water was still warm. Or sneak into their bedchamber and lock the door. Nothing was easy with a household of gossipy servants, interested in every nuance of her relationship with their beloved master.

Robin approached her, his eyes and his smile passionate and adoring. Taking her in his arms, he slowly kissed her, igniting the fire that had been smoldering within her.

"That's better," she sighed when they came up for air.

His eyes searched hers, asking permission. Her "yes" was clear, they forgot all about servants who wondered how long the bath would stay warm as the supper downstairs grew cold.