"Robin, what are you doing?" Marian asked, almost echoing her husband's recent question to her.
Robin, having heard enough, had grabbed Isabella by her elbow and was dragging her across the room of his and Marian's bedchamber, toward the door.
"Only following your advice," he smirked, unpleasantly. "I'm locking this viper in a room, so she can't use her fangs on you, or on Ellie."
Isabella felt torn between being thrilled by Robin manhandling her, and furious at him for daring to lay his hands on her. "My, my, Robin," she chided him. "Manhandling a lady? Where's your famous chivalry now? I always guessed it was overstated...nothing but a fable, just like your prowess in the bedroom."
"The only fable here is your masquerade, pretending you're a lady. You've the soul of a murderer, and the heart of a whore."
"Robin, release her!" Marian insisted, but her husband ignored her demand. Exiting his room, he continued pulling Isabella along the upstairs corridor, then opened the door to another room, dragging Isabella inside.
"You've got what you need in here," he told her, while she stared daggers at him. "There's clean drinking water in that pitcher, and everything else you need. If not, knock on the door, and one of my servants will bring you what you want."
"You're not locking me up, are you?" Isabella asked, amazed.
"Only until I think of a place to take you," he smirked back at her. "You can't stay here, under my roof."
"Take me?" she echoed, her features settling into a provocative glance. "Why don't you 'take me' here? You know you want to."
Disgusted, Robin only grimaced, then slammed the door shut, locking her in, alone.
He mustn't let her affect him, he was thinking. She had a way of sending his pulses racing, but not in the way she suggested. She held no allure for him, only anger and disgust. The sooner she left his home, the better.
Returning to his room, he found Marian sitting up in bed, obeying Matilda's order of bed rest. She appeared to be engrossed in the pages of a law book, but she was too worked up to absorb what she read.
"Don't you ever use my condition, to accuse me of losing my reason!" she scolded her husband angrily, as he stood by their bed. "Do you hear me?"
"Why did you befriend her, Marian?" he asked, no longer angry now that Isabella was locked away, but merely bewildered by the change in his wife. "You know she's nothing but trouble. She poisons everything she touches, literally."
Neither one liked the distance their argument put between them, but mutual pride kept them from relenting.
When Marian answered by rolling her eyes, Robin's anger returned. "I would have thought you would have learned by now," he shouted at her, just as he had done in the cave, years before. "Anyone with the name 'Gisbourne', can't be trusted."
"What are you planning to do with her?" Marian asked him, ignoring his reference to Guy. "You can't keep the Queen of England locked up, a prisoner in our house. And you mustn't send her back to her husband."
"What did she tell you, Marian?" he asked.
"I don't want to tell you."
Her tone was superior, snippy even, but when she saw how unhappy he looked from believing she didn't trust him, her anger melted away. "It isn't you," she assured him, lovingly. "It's just what she said is so unspeakable. Trust me, Robin. It involves torture, and humiliation, and something so base and ugly, I can't describe it. I don't care any more how awful she is; we have to protect her."
Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she sucked in her breath. Immediately, Robin sat beside her on the bed.
"What is it?" he asked, concerned.
The law book slid off the bed and dropped to the floor, but Marian answered her husband's concern with an excited, wonderous smile.
"I felt the baby kick," she told him, bringing a smile to his face that matched her own.
"Already?" Wonderment shone on his face and in his voice.
Positioning himself behind her, he wrapped his arms around her middle. Fanning out his fingers, he rested his hands on her abdomen, held his breath, and waited.
Her hair was soft as silk against his cheek and neck, her scent delicate and lovely as a distant spring garden. Isabella was forgotten, as he held Marian in his arms, hoping to feel their unborn child move within her.
She was his one true beloved, and he would kill before he'd let another Gisbourne hurt her.