Bound By Honor: An Erotic Novel of Maid Marian (32 page)

At the bottom, she was met with a gray stone wall and two choices of direction. The steward’s son had told her he believed that the new prisoner was held in the last chamber to the right, so Marian turned that way. Her torch exposed a long, dark passage with barred doors along one side.

The sounds of little scrabbling paws, the drip-drop of water, and the stench of death and darkness consumed her. Marian continued on, gripping the torch, determined to get this over with as quickly as possible. She wasn’t certain how she’d release the man once she found him, but she’d figure that out when the time was right.

At the end of the passage, she found the fourth and final chamber did indeed hold the man who’d been taken off the archery field today, the one who’d been snared in some sort of rope trap in the wood. The one who was supposed to be Robin Hood. She identified him in the low light as the new prisoner because he was the only one of the inmates who looked up and appeared to be aware of his surroundings, and because she recognized his clothing.

When she paused at his imprisoning bars, casting the light more fully between them, he pulled to his feet and limped toward her. At this close range, she immediately recognized him, and despite the iron studs between them, she stepped back in surprise. The prisoner was one of the desperate men who’d attacked her the day of the boar hunt, when Robin had come to her rescue.

Will told her he and his men had found some of the outlaws in that band. . . . Either this man was one of those who’d been captured before, or he had been caught today. Either way, he was no innocent man or unfortunate villein used as a scapegoat.

He growled at her, rattling the bars, but she turned away, heart skipping with relief and alarm. The clanging iron studs echoed like a fury in the silence, sending uncomfortable jitters up her spine. Could anyone abovestairs hear it? Would the noise call a guard or man-at-arms down to investigate?

And then, as if a signal to the other inmates, the ratcheting, rocking noise drew them from their stupors to rock their own gates of iron. Soon the dim, damp passage was filled with the horrible sounds, the desperate bids for release and freedom, exuding anger and despair.

Head ducked, hood falling forward, she rushed back toward the stairs, using the torch to light her way as her heart pounded. Just as she reached the stairwell, she found her path blocked by a pair of large black boots standing in a shallow puddle at its base. Marian’s heart thudded and at first she didn’t look up, afraid that she would be recognized and John would learn that she was not ill at all this night. She would have slipped past him—or tried to do so—but his words stopped her.

“Have you thus assured yourself he belongs in captivity?” Will’s voice lashed out, low but nevertheless rising above the clamoring that filled her ears.

Marian looked up, her torch held so that the light illuminated his visage from below. His eyes were in shadow, and his dark, whiskered jaw and mouth fully alight.

That mouth was pressed in the firm line, an expression that had become so familiar to her, that disparaging, annoyed, tightly controlled look. As the cacophony reverberated around them, he grabbed her arm and began to tow her up the stairs. She managed to grab her hems in one hand to keep from tripping, while the other still held the torch.

“Will,” she said, speaking the first thing that popped into her mind. “You aren’t ill?”

“Not any longer. I give no gratitude to you for that good fortune.” He stopped on one of the wider triangular steps at a curve in the stairs, leaving the metallic clamoring below as nothing more than a distant echo. With a sharp movement, he shoved the hood from her head, leaving her without a place to hide. “You thought I’d imprisoned an innocent man.”

Marian felt the rough stone against her, its chill seeping through the sleeve of her light kirtle. She still brandished the torch, lifting it higher now between them, casting his face in better light. “What else would I think?” she returned. “A man who would burn the homes of poor villagers would not hesitate to incarcerate a man simply because it pleased him to do so. Would he?”

“Nay, he would not.” He stared down at her, eyes dark and fathomless, and Marian felt something shift . . . as if the world had fractured, and then righted itself, but in a slightly different way. Her chest felt tight and she found it difficult to swallow.

“Will,” she began, but he cut her off.

“If John learns what you’ve done, your punishment won’t be confined to his chambers and his bed. Do you not understand that?”

“What is it that I have done?” Marian asked calmly. Her heartbeat thudded harsh and strong through her body. Her palms dampened, and she felt . . . odd.

“You tainted the meat,” Will said in a low, seething voice.

“There is no proof. And why would the finger point to me? Was I not the one who first complained that the meat was rank? Was I not the first to become ill? Did I not warn the prince?”

Though she’d not thought it possible, Will’s lips tightened even further. Now the only part that showed was white with tension. “If anyone dies, Marian, you know what will happen. Particularly if something befalls the prince.”

Marian resisted the urge to reply that she and much of England would find it no great loss if John were to slip into an early grave, but she did not. “Alys has assured me that no one will die,” she replied. “After all, the draught she pressed upon you did not kill you.” She looked up at him, watching for something in his face. But it remained harsh and unyielding, without that flash of vulnerability and softness she’d seen earlier at the table.

At the memory—the image of his eyes fluttering and the smooth control of his face as he sighed with release—a flush of warmth surprised her, blushing up from her throat. Her belly shifted, deep and low. She wanted to see that in his face again. And she wanted to be the cause of his release.

“Why did you do it?” he demanded, standing as far away from her as the step would allow.

“But you must know why,” she burst out, one hand shifting to reach for him, then falling to her side. “Will.”

He crossed his arms as if to ward her off, to keep the distance between them. “And what of the morrow? And the night after that? And after that? You cannot think to hold him off forever—or do you plan to make your escape into Sherwood? To go to Locksley?”

“Nay,” Marian told him. “I’ll not go to Locksley.” She held his eyes for a beat, a long heartbeat, and then she looked away.

For a moment, she contemplated telling him what Alys had said—that the queen would arrive within the sennight—but she held back. She had suspicions, but she did not yet know for certain where his loyalties lay. “I know ’tis only time until I find myself with John, but if I can delay it for a night or so . . . I shall. I have no desire to submit to him.”

He stepped away at that, down one step, as if she’d shoved him back. “Should I count myself fortunate that you didn’t see fit to poison me as well?”

Marian simply looked at him. Though he stood a level below her now, more than an arm’s length away, she still had to lift her face to see him. The torch’s flames tangled up inside themselves, softening his marble features with wavering light. “Why did you burn those houses, Will? Why did you do it?”

“Why not? Is it no more than is expected of the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire? Senseless cruelty in order to prove my power over those weaker than me?”

“Why did you burn them?”

“They were old and falling down, hardly worth keeping,” he said with a sneer. “I merely helped them get rid of the useless structures.”

“And Robin Hood has already begun to assist them to rebuild.”

“A paragon of virtue, Locksley.”

Marian pursed her lips. She’d seen the cracks in his expression; she’d recognized the quickly obscured pain in his eyes. The backs of her shoulders prickled with awareness. She was close to the truth. “You met with Robin in the woods.”

She didn’t see him draw up and back, for it was the slightest change in his demeanor . . . but she felt it.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw you together. You made no move to capture him. What would John say if he knew this?”

“What are you suggesting, Marian?”

She’d never heard his voice so soft . . . barely a whisper. As if he could only force the words out on a breath.

“You’ve been protecting Robin. And thus he goes behind you, cleaning up the dung you create on the orders of the prince—in exchange for his freedom. Is that it, Will?”

“Marian, you speak treason.” Again, quietly. With a whisper of disbelief. “I am beholden to my liege. Do you not impose such dishonor on me.”

“Your liege, you say. But who is that, the king . . . or the prince?”

“Richard, of course. Always Richard. ’Tis an insult to say otherwise. But John acts in Richard’s name, and I cannot avoid that.”

Marian simply looked at him. His eyes held hers, and the argument, the tension, between them stretched and changed into something deeper.

“Marian . . .” Her name came out on a low whisper, laced with anguish . . . and anger.

Her stomach did a somersault as he reached for her. Not gently, not as his voice would have implied, but roughly. Strong fingers curled into her arms, not painfully, but not easily either. Then one hand moved, plucking the torch from hers. He tossed it down so that it rolled three steps below them, away from the hem of her skirt, resting harmlessly on the stone.

Its weakened flame danced tall shadows and a muted glow up around them as he dragged her against his chest. His fingers bit into the backs of her shoulders as he bowed toward her, his mouth covering hers as she lifted her face to meet it.

At first, she felt the desperation and drive in his kiss, the harshness. Was he trying to frighten her with brutality?

Yet after a moment, his lips softened, and he sagged against her, gathering her body up into his, loosening his grip on her torso. His mouth was no longer flat and hard but sensual and hot, his tongue sweeping the inside of her mouth as though he must taste every bit of her.

Dizzy, huddled against him, Marian closed her eyes, smelled his smoky, clean smell, felt the impossible breadth of his shoulders beneath her fingers, the pounding of his heart under her palms. She tasted wine and spice in his mouth, the soft sensual swipe of his lips as they slipped and slid and formed to hers, over and over.

Oh, aye. Oh,
aye
.

Except in her dreams, only once before had he kissed her . . . that first night in the hall, when he placed his claim on her. But this was nothing like that unemotional
taking
. This was hot and lovely, bringing her body alive and awake, making her breathless and weak.

Just as she was about to slip from the upper step into him, to lean fully against his strong body, he pulled back and fairly shoved her away. His eyes wild and dark in the sketchy light, his lips parted, breathing as if he’d just run a league, he stepped back, down, away.

“Get you away from me, Marian. Go.” Will’s voice was terrible. Low, but filled with loathing that matched the expression in his eyes.
“Now.”

“Will,” she began, trying to collect her thoughts, wanting to drag him back down to her—but then he startled her, striding up the steps, brushing past her and ascending into the darkness above.

“Leave me be.” The command filtered down to her, and the sound of his boots scraping against the gritty stone faded.

Knees weak, breathing rushed and harsh, she leaned against the wall for a moment, trying to catch her breath, to assimilate the sudden change in him: from a moment of sleek passion to one of . . . disgust.

Aye, but not merely disgust.

Fear.

It had been both that sent him away, fear and loathing. There’d been real terror in his eyes, mingling with revulsion.

She held her skirts out of the way and stepped down to reach for the foundering torch. When she lifted it, the flames tipped upright and caught more strongly. Marian hurried up the steps, her knees trembling, her fingers bracing against the gritty, damp stone, but her breathing better controlled. She wasn’t certain why he’d thrust her away and run. . . . It couldn’t be that
she
disgusted him, could it? No, she remembered all too well his words:
I do not deny ’twould please me greatly.

Nay, she did not think he found her abhorrent. He might
prefer
sweet, delicate Alys, or sensual, catlike Pauletta, but he was not disgusted by her. That she knew for certain.

She hurried up the stairs, and at the top of them, she came out into the darkened great hall. A few low rumbling snores met her ears, and she recognized several shapes of men slumped over the tables, well asleep. But no tall, broad-shouldered sheriff.

Disappointed, she began to walk into the hall when a shadow detached itself from the wall at the head of the stairs. “Lady Marian.”

She didn’t recognize the voice and reared back a bit, her heart pounding unpleasantly. Lifting her torch toward him, she demanded, “Who is it?”

The man stepped into her torchlight and she recognized one of Will’s men-at-arms.

“Nottingham directed me to escort you safely to your chamber,” he said with a little bow.

Marian’s mouth tightened. So he had truly run away, and left one of his own men to see to her.

What she did not know was whether ’twas cowardice or disgust that had the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire shirking his duty.

 

 

Will watched from deep in the shadows as Merle escorted Marian from the hall.

To his overwhelming relief, she did not appear to be overset. There were no tear streaks on her cheeks, and although she’d started when Merle appeared in front of her, there was no terror on her face. He’d not torn at her clothing, nor pulled her hair down.

Not that he could recall anything but her taste and softness, and his own great need, once he pulled Marian against him. A whirl of pleasure and comfort, and, damn him, hope. A moment of hope.