"Kissing?" Marian repeated indignantly. "I don't know what you mean."
Gisbourne glared at her, mastering every impulse crying out within him to slap her face, grab her by her shoulders, and shake her until her teeth rattled. "Don't play innocent with me," he sneered. "My soldier swears he saw you, and that you paid him for his silence."
"And you believe him over me?" Marian asked. "I thought we were better friends than that."
"Friends," Gisbourne sneered back at her.
Martin of Aylesbury seized this opportunity to scurry away. Sir Edward had heard more than enough insults paid to his noble daughter. Summoning his waning strength, he rose to his feet and objected. "Sir Guy," he began.
Needing to hurt someone, Gisbourne flung back his arm and struck the old man forcefully across his face. With an anguished moan, Sir Edward fell back onto his chair, holding his hand to his cheek.
"Father!" Marian cried, rushing to his side. Then, spinning around and turning furious eyes on Gisbourne, she accused, "How dare you strike my father?"
"I asked you a question," Gisbourne fumed at her. "Who were you kissing?"
"No one, if you must know! I wasn't anywhere near Batley Street," Marian lied. "For your information, I was in Pitt Street, interviewing a woman for a position in my father's household."
Marian had become so skilled at lying, to her own private shame, that Gisbourne found her story convincing. "Is this true?" he asked. And then, suspicious again, he persisted, "Can you produce this woman?"
Marian only hesitated a moment. "I can," she answered, "though it's no concern of yours."
"Bring her here, before me, at once," Gisbourne ordered.
"I'd rather not, Sir Guy," Marian said regally.
"Bring her," Gisbourne repeated, "or I'll have no choice but to believe my soldier over you."
Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode away.
As soon as he was gone, Marian attended to her father. "Are you alright?" she asked, concerned for his injury.
"Are you?" he asked in return. "Were you really interviewing a woman today?"
Marian looked over her shoulder before answering. "No, Father, but I know one I can produce for Gisbourne's benefit."
"But what will he say when we do not hire her at Knighton? We can't afford to pay another servant right now, Marian."
"It will be alright. He'll see immediately why I wouldn't hire her, for only recently, she worked in Gropecunt Street."
Sir Edward gasped in alarm. "You are aquainted with one of those women?" he asked. "What is the world coming to?"
Marian preferred this line of questioning over her father inquiring whom she had been kissing in Nottingham. Little did she realize, Sir Edward had no need to ask, easily guessing it had to have been Robin Hood, for he understood his daughter's heart better than she did.