Bound By Honor: An Erotic Novel of Maid Marian (4 page)

Will’s fingers tightened, though he kept his face blank. He knew without looking what—or, rather, who—had caught the Angevin’s attention. It was inevitable.

And now he had to tread very carefully. “Ah, so you have seen Marian of Morlaix,” Will said casually. He reached for his wine again, the metal of his goblet cool and textured beneath his grip. “She is quite the comely bitch. I had the misfortune of coming upon her in the wood today after Robin Hood had taken her off during the robbery.”

“Is that so?” John said, but his eyes remained fixed on Marian. “Misfortune?”

Will didn’t have to look directly out into the hall to know where she sat now, for he’d seen a glimpse of that brilliant coppery hair shining in the torchlight. He kept his attention on John instead of the woman. “He left her in the wood and that was the cause of his escape this day. I dare not leave a gentlewoman alone in the forest to chase after him, as he well knew. So I was forced to bring her back to her escort. By that time, Robin’s men had taken what they desired and had all disappeared.”

“So he took her off into the wood, did he?”

“ ’ Twas merely a diversionary tactic, my lord,” he said. “I’m certain he meant to draw me and my men into the wood after him to rescue Lady Marian.”

“Lady Marian,” mused John, his voice hollow as he lifted his goblet to drink. “I’ve never seen such hair. The color of flame, ’tis. And a face to go with it. Alabaster skin, full lips just right for sucking cock—”

“And the temperament as well,” Will added, disregarding the fact that he’d interrupted his liege. “I’d like nothing better than to take that in hand.”

“Indeed.” For the first time, John seemed to hear what Will had said. “Do you know the lady?”

“I fostered with her father at Mead’s Vale. She tormented us most handily, and hid behind her father’s hauberk when we would have had our revenge. Even then she showed the sign of becoming a most annoying, mouthy woman.” He closed his own mouth at that point, acutely aware that his companion’s mother had long been criticized for the very same faults—and more.

“Damme, and she is a widow too,” John said, rich speculation in his voice. “ ’ Tis almost too convenient.”

Even the prince would be hard-pressed to excuse the deflowering of one of his wards, but a widow was the easiest fruit to pluck. No male family members to cry dishonor, and no maidenhead to broach.

“A sharp-tongued one. I trow, the woman should be taught to keep her mouth closed . . . unless she has it otherwise engaged,” Will said with a meaningful laugh. He’d somehow picked up his eating knife and realized his fingers had curled tightly around it. Keeping his voice even, he continued. “I should like to take that task on myself, my lord. I’ve a desire to otherwise engage that impudent tongue.”

John turned to look at him again, his eyes so dark they appeared black. “And how does it happen that I have long urged you to find a field in which to rut, but now that you have set your eye on one, ’tis that of my own desire.” His voice, low and easy, nevertheless carried a warning note.

“My lord, I knew that woman when she was but a young girl, a tease and a tormentor. And it’s long been my desire to teach the lessons that I was never able to at that time. And aside of that, ’tis indeed a ripe field to plow. But,” Will continued boldly when he saw that the prince was about to speak, “mayhap I have a way that you might find pleasing as well. She is a fire-haired bitch, and ’twill be a task to tame her. If you set that task to me, I’ll take it gladly, my lord. Thus, none of her complaints can be directed at you, but at me instead. Then, I shall promise you a tame and willing woman to warm your bed when all the spite is gone from her. A well-trained and willing one in the stead of a surly, mouthy bitch.”

John had closed his mouth to chew on a particularly tough piece of fowl, if the way his jaw worked was any indication. A spark of interest had flared in his eyes and he reached for his goblet to drink, still chewing.

Will used his eating knife to spear the last bit of pheasant and bring it to his own mouth, keeping his attention firmly on the prince. He uncurled his fingers and let the small knife rest next to the trencher. And waited. Waited as if to learn whether he would be sent into battle on a cold gray morning.

“Aye,” said John at last. “Aye, ’tis a good plan, Will. There is only one stipulation I must insist upon.”

“What is that, my lord?”

“That whilst you are going about the taming of that luscious little cunt, you’ll provide me some entertainment.” John wiped his face with a small cloth. “I desire to watch.”

 

 

Marian found the great hall at Ludlow cramped, close, and smoky. All great halls were, to some extent, but it was worse here than usual. A royal court—even if ’twas only that of John Lackland—required numerous serfs to keep things running smoothly, countless pages and men-at-arms, and all the ladies and lords who curried favors. In a keep as small as Ludlow, the swell of people pushed at the very limits of the space.

She’d managed to find a seat in the second row, not far from the wall, where a torch burned down a pleasant circle of light. Though it was late September, fires blazed in two different fireplaces: a smaller one behind the high table, and a large one on the opposite wall. Dogs slunk underfoot, looking for their daily fare, while serfs dashed to and fro with their platters of food.

Marian glanced at the high table, where she caught her first glimpse of Prince John. He was a handsome man, with a neatly trimmed beard and fine clothing. His dark eyes seemed too small for his face, but they gleamed with interest and cunning as he conversed with the man next to him.

His companion had turned away momentarily as John gave an openmouthed guffaw, and was speaking to a page behind him, so Marian couldn’t see his face. She cast a quick look about the hall. Nottinghamshire’s sheriff was nowhere to be seen, for which she was unaccountably disappointed. Yet there were so many people crowded around the tables, she would not be surprised if he was there, but not visible to her. No doubt a man of his rank would sit closer to the prince, Marian thought.

“My lady, I heard you were set upon by that outlaw Robin of the Hood!”

The breathless question came from Alys of Wentworth, one of Queen Eleanor’s wards whom Marian knew from her days in the queen’s court. Though she was only eighteen, Alys had been sent as chaperone to deliver one of Richard’s very young wards to John’s court while the king and his mother were traveling to the Holy Lands.

Tonight, Alys was with two women who were only passing acquaintances of Marian’s from previous court visits. Finding Alys here, who not only had been a good friend but also had a reputation as an excellent healer, was a welcome diversion for Marian.

“Aye, he attempted a robbery of my wagons,” Marian replied.

“What was Robin Hood like? Was he as handsome as they say?” asked another of the ladies, who introduced herself as Catherine.

“He was friendly for a bandit,” Marian replied, noticing that some of the other nearby gentry had turned to listen. “No one was hurt, and he was quite gallant.” What else could she say? She wasn’t about to admit that he’d swept her up on his horse and stolen a kiss.

“And handsome?” Catherine pressed, her eyes dancing as though she knew something Marian didn’t.

“Quite handsome,” Marian replied, smiling back. She happened to look toward the front of the hall at that moment, and her whole body froze. It chilled, then suddenly exploded into unpleasant heat in her cheeks.

Prince John was looking at her. Not merely looking at her, but pinning her with hooded dark eyes as though he wished to be doing so with his hands . . . or something else. Marian pulled her gaze away from his and felt her heart pounding rampantly. Her stomach suddenly felt unpleasantly heavy and disrupted.

“Is it true that the sheriff rescued you and his men chased off the bandits?” ventured another of the ladies.

Marian swallowed back the churning in her stomach that threatened to bubble up her throat. “The sheriff did arrive quite fortuitously,” she said, and was unable to keep from glancing back at the high table.

John was still watching her, slipping a chunk of food into his mouth and masticating as though he meant to be feeding on her rather than the food. The expression was unmistakable. Marian tore her eyes away again and they skittered over the prince’s companion, who, this time, was facing the front of the hall. Her throat dried again.

She hadn’t recognized him before, or perhaps she hadn’t looked closely enough. But ’twas most definitely Will there, sharing the most prominent seat in the hall with the prince as though he was his closest crony.

He, at the least, wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he leaned closer to John and spoke intimately to him while lifting a chunk of meat to his mouth on a small eating knife. Even from here, she saw the tension and harshness in a face tanned the color of deer hide, and made even more shadowy by the dark hair that brushed against it. And then the sudden gleam of a humorless smile.

“Why does he sit with the prince?” she asked. “In such a place of honor?”

“Oh,” said the lady who’d asked about him in the first place, and whose name Marian had forgotten, “he and the prince are inseparable companions.”

“Indeed,” Marian said, feeling her brows draw together in a frown. “Does the sheriff seek favor from the prince, then?”

“Nay, ’tis not so much that he seeks boons from the prince, but that the prince finds him amusing,” replied Sir Roderick, who had barely taken his eyes from Marian since she sat across from him. “The prince must include de Wendeval in all his amusements and activities or he is displeased by his absence.”

Will and Prince John? She looked again at the acquaintance of her youth and his royal companion. The depravity and lust shone unabashedly in John’s eyes, and though Will’s face was half-turned away, she recognized anew the hardness there. Unrelieved and stoic. Emotionless.

’Twas most definitely not the young man she’d known. If he and John had become constant companions, he must no longer be merely quiet and brooding, but as brutal and cruel as the unloved prince.

“The sheriff has not been able to capture Robin Hood,” Marian said, wondering about those two men. As children, they’d been rivals of a sort. Had that rivalry grown into something more ominous? Will was charged with catching, sentencing, and, if necessary, executing bandits such as Robin. “I trow the prince cannot be happy with that lack.”

“Nay, but the prince himself has been witness to Robin Hood’s cleverness. John and Nottingham have plotted many traps for the bandit, each one more dangerous than the last. And Robin Hood seems always to slip through the smallest crack and to make his escape. The sheriff was to execute a boy for treason. Hang him on the dais in the Ludlow bailey, in front of all who wished to watch. He intended to make an example of the poor boy.”

“Treason? ’Tis a serious offense.” And must be punished if law and order were to be kept. But a boy?

“Aye. The boy claimed he took only a deer that was already dead from the forest, in order to feed his family.”

Marian felt a little pang in her middle. It was treason to steal from the king, indeed, but . . . “Surely the beast was examined. It would be no hardship to determine if it had been freshly slaughtered.”

Sir Roderick shrugged. “Aye, and there were those who claimed the deer had not been recently killed. But the sheriff meant to hang him anyway, the boy. Merely fourteen winters he was, and if it weren’t for Robin Hood, the boy would have been swaying in the breeze.”

“Robin Hood?”

“Aye. He rescued him right off the scaffolding, whilst the sheriff could do naught but look on furiously.”

Fourteen. That was the same age Will and Robin had been that last summer spent at Mead’s Vale. Hardly boys, but not quite men.

Again she wondered about their rivalry. Even that short moment in the clearing, before she’d recognized Will, the antipathy between the men had been palpable.

Was it possible that they hadn’t recognized each other?

Nay, of course not. She had recognized Robin immediately; surely Will had done so. But Robin could not claim innocence. He was an outlaw.

And it was Will’s duty to punish outlaws.

Duty.

Marian felt her mouth tighten. Oh, she knew well of duty, for ’twas duty that brought her here, into the court of the cruel and lustful John Angevin. Duty to her king, by way of his mother.

She loved Eleanor as much as one could love a strong-willed liege—particularly one of the lesser gender, but who moved among men as if one of them—but Marian was not ignorant of the queen’s faults. It would be no surprise to her if Eleanor hadn’t picked her for this task purposely, knowing that Marian would catch John’s eye. For, in Eleanor’s mind, one must make sacrifices, and one must use whatever skills and advantages one had in order to complete the task. She herself had done so, and expected those whom she trusted to do the same.

Marian was one whom Eleanor trusted, and as she felt the heavy salaciousness of John’s gaze on her, she shivered deep inside. Perhaps it was no boon to be a favorite of Eleanor’s after all.

Yet, what choice did she have? Duty. She would do her duty, regardless of what she must endure.

Though she feared it was too late to escape the prince’s attention, Marian spent the remainder of the meal with her back angled away from the high table and as close to the wall as possible. Perhaps some other fresh face would attract him in her stead. Alys, who was much more beautiful with her spun-gold hair and big blue eyes, was safe from the prince, as she was the heiress to Clervillieres, one of Eleanor’s strongest vassals in Aquitaine. She was still a virgin, due to the fact that her betrothed, a lord eight years younger than she, had recently died before they were wed. Even John dare not sully her maidenhead.