Fallout - Chapter Six
Marian has missed being the Nightwatchman, missed the exhilarating swoop of power that comes every time she kisses such heady, undiluted freedom. When she creeps out of her tent and into the waning dusk, she can’t help but think of all those times she climbed from her bedroom window at Knighton Hall to explore Nottingham without the hindrance of her rank and station. Not even Robin knows that sometimes when she put on her mask, she had no “mission” other than eluding confines of her dutiful life. On those nights, she would climb to the top of a thatched roof to look at the moon or linger outside a tavern window to hear forbidden conversations. Of course, if she happened to run across people in need, she helped them. But the nights she cherished the most were the peaceful ones, the ones where no one intruded on the gloriousness of just being herself.
Tonight, however, she has a mission: find Guy. The air is cool and quiet, the perimeter of the camp still. It is not difficult to slip past the few soldiers who remain at their posts; their slumping shoulders and drooping eyelids suggest they would have rather been asleep hours ago. Even so, Marian makes sure to stay alert and stick to the shadows, easing from dark corner to dark corner as she formulates her plan of attack. She will find him in the prisoners’ tent, and then… well, she will think of the next step when the time comes.
But he is not in the prisoners’ tent, and he is not along the main road either. It is then that the panic begins to build. At first it is a flutter low in her stomach, faint as a cat’s purr, but when she does not find him in the King’s tent, it becomes something sharp and taunting, an insinuating demon that whispers wild scenarios she can do nothing to quell.
As she retraces her steps, she prays that her increasingly insistent inner voice will be proven wrong. He is dead, it says. It is your fault, it says, before beginning to echo the things that Guy himself had accused her of before.
“You used me as a tool to advance your own ideals…”
“Inside, you are just as diabolical as the Sheriff…”
“You like tormenting me. You like the lies. You like seeing my desire for you, knowing that you will never give in...”
She had shaken her head, she had protested. She had used him, yes, but only in a pursuit of a higher cause. It was necessary to use him as a tool-and he deserved it, she told herself, because he had aligned himself with the Sheriff.
But there is a difference between stabbing someone and twisting the knife; she realizes this now, now that the ground feels like it’s falling out beneath her and now that they have reached the end of this quickly fraying rope and all that’s left is question after question after question, her abilities of denial have abandoned her. She had liked it, had liked the feeling of power that came from manipulating those with power, from seeing how her cleverness trumped all their diabolical schemes. And she had liked the game, liked the challenge of keeping her wits about her when Guy did everything he could to disconcert her: standing close, invading her space, leaning forward until her skin and lips tingled from the proximity of his. How tempting it was to just give in, to follow the path of least resistance and succumb to the side where she could just let go, where there was nothing she believed in fighting for. And how empowering it was to rise above that again and again. . .
Only once had she lost the game. The night she visited Guy at Locksley with intentions of spouting a few sweet words to get back in his good graces, only to find him out of the black garb and awash in firelight that softened his features and made him seem, briefly, like an entirely different person. All of her lines of practiced flattery had fled, and she had found herself babbling on about friendship as she reached out to touch his skin like some sort of simpleton distracted by shiny things. And then Robin had peeked through the window, and she was angry, angry at Guy for not being his usual hulking, scowling, fearsome self, angry at herself for her unease, and angry at Robin for seeing her.
She stops walking, disoriented. She is standing out in the open, the moonlight dripping all over her. If anyone were to come out of their tents or turn a corner, she would be immediately exposed. Suddenly she craves the shelter of the tent, needs it to try to contain her wild thoughts. She will regroup, and then try again-she won’t give up until someone shows her his death warrant, his grave, the weapon that did him in, his spilled blood.
But when she is finally back in the tent, when she is finally alone in the stuffy darkness, her resolve to remain optimistic crumbles. She has killed him with her rash words, her wild dreams, just like she did her father. Stumbling to a corner, she collapses, buries her head in her knees and cries like she hasn’t done since she first saw her father’s body laid out on the ground, cold and waxen.
Dimly, she hears a deep, angry voice ask “Who is here?” Her head snaps up-there is a dark shape in front of her. Her breath catches; it is too large to be Robin.
“Guy?” she tries tentatively, cursing her recalcitrant limbs as she gets to her feet.
“Stay back,” the voice says again, and Marian’s heart catches when she hears the familiar gruffness. Before she knows it, she is running toward him and wrapping her arms around his neck, his neck that is so very very alive.
“Marian-,” he says, but she doesn’t want to complicate this feeling with words. She grabs his cheeks and kisses him square on the mouth. It is not the most artful kiss she has ever given him-the angles are all wrong and it starts with more bumping teeth than it should-but it is the only one that has ever been free of anything other than sheer happiness.
Then it softens. His hands settle on her waist, but then disappear as he pulls off his gloves behind her back then throws them to side. I’m sorry, she thinks, moving closer and doing her best to convey through the kiss that which she can never put into words. There have been too many lies that she drove too far, too much uncalled for subterfuge.
He slides his hands up her back and to her shoulders, slipping them beneath the heavy press of the velvet jacket and sliding it off so that it falls around their feet. The flutter in her stomach is back, only this time it is the panic that comes from not knowing what to do next, not even after listening outside of so many tavern windows. All she knows is that she wants to keep proving Robin’s words wrong. There is genuine feeling here. It is not a cold-hearted transaction, it is not.
She moves her hand to the top clasp of his jacket, fiddles with it. When it fails to do her bidding, she makes a frustrated noise.
He pulls back, surprised, and she hears him say her name with great uncertainty. His thumb comes up to brush her cheek, the pad of it coming across a tear in the process. He looks down at his hand for a brief second before snapping to attention.
“What is wrong? Are you hurt?” he asks. The fingers of his left hand clutch at her shoulder as he pats her down her side as if checking for gaping wounds. “Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing at all happened,” she says, voice shaky but happy. “Thankfully.”
“Then why are you crying?”
She can’t make out his expression in the dark, but the impatience she hears in his voice makes her smile. The relief that courses through her veins is still strong; she feels almost drunk on it. She is horrified to hear herself emit a strangled sound, something that comes out sounding something like a cross between a giggle and a hiccup.
“Were you struck in the head?” he asks, and his complete and utter seriousness makes her giggle harder. There’s a short, confused pause before he barks “We need light.”
“No!” she protests, suddenly sober. She has never felt more comfortable with him as she does now here in the dark. If they could just stay in the dark forever, she thinks wildly, she may never suffer another qualm about their marriage. But he doesn’t listen. “Guy!” she tries again as he grabs the candle William brought earlier from a small stool by the door and leaves.
When he comes back, it is lit. After setting it down, he turns toward her in the flickering light. The shadows it creates cast his sharp features into even starker relief. He frowns.
“You are wearing my shirt.”
She looks down at the thin black shirt she had hastily thrown on in the rush to find him. “I suppose I am.”
He sucks in a sharp breath. “Marian, you promised me that the Nightwatchman was dead.”
“He is!”
“It does not look that way to me.” He rubs at his eyes, frustrated. “What great injustice could you possibly have to fix now?”
She does not like the sneer embedded in that last question. “At the moment it does not seem great at all,” she says testily, hoping he’ll catch her underlying meaning.
But Guy is the thickest, most oblivious man imaginable. “I cannot protect you if you insist on running off every time my back is turned. It is foolish. You will end up hurt.”
It is too much. “I was not ‘running off’,” Marian snaps.
“Of course. You were just taking a midnight stroll dressed in men’s clothing,” he spits. “I am not a fool.”
“That is debatable.”
His nostrils flare; before he has time to implode, she closes the distance between them and pokes him on the chest. “I was looking for you.”
Guy goes completely still. If she were not so annoyed, his expression would be almost comical. Having been caught by her meaning in mid-protest, his mouth hangs open for a half-second before clicking shut. She hears him swallow. “For me?”
She nods slowly. “I had heard that Robin arrived with the Pact of Nottingham. I was afraid…,” she stops, the fear that had gripped her so tightly less than an hour before swimming up again for one horrifying second. “I was afraid that you were to be put to death. I would not want anyone to die because of my urging.
“Anyone?” he asks, capturing her gaze. In the candlelight, his eyes are a dark, dark blue. Beautiful, really.
“I would not want you to die because of my urging,” she says more softly, and then is shocked to see his lips curve into what would be immediately recognized as a smile if anyone else were doing it. It transforms his face; gone is the hard, shuttered mask she is used to. In its place is something boyish and innocent and so handsome it takes her breath away.
He reaches out before she can react, hooking an elbow around her waist and pulling her toward him. Leaning forward, he places a trail of scorching kisses along her neck that causes an unfamiliar throb to well up from deep between her legs. “And how were you going to save me?” he rumbles teasingly in her ear before giving the lobe a nip.
Something inside her breaks, something that urges her to cut off their connection before she can be sucked in any deeper. This level of intimacy, coupled with the normal unease created by his proximity, is a dangerous combination. She pushes at his chest, feeling the rapidity of his heartbeat beneath the thick leather, and slips from his embrace.
“Tell me what happened with the King,” she says, smoothing her hair as she tries to regain her composure. The look on his face isn’t helping. He has folded his arms across his chest, but far from being angry, he still smiling. This time, however, it is sly and cocky. “Your name was on the pact, I presume,” she says darkly.
The smile disappears. He looks away from her and frowns into the corner. “It was,” he says tersely.
“I told you that it was a document of which I would not approve,” she reminds him, lifting her eyebrows in a presumptive arch.
He glowers at her. “I am not half-witted, Marian,” he says through gritted teeth. “I knew what I was getting into.”
“Oh, I am positive of that. What I would like to know is how you got out of it.”
“I proved that my loyalties had changed,” he says. His voice is sure enough, but his gaze skitters to the side. He is not telling the whole truth.
“Have they?”
“Have yours?” he shoots back, and then closes the distance between them, the distance she has been trying so hard to protect, with two long strides. She tries to turn away, but he captures one of her wrists. His thumb presses against the trembling vibrato of her pulse. His other hand lifts, moves forward as though to caress her cheek, but then drops, becomes a fist. “My loyalties are to you, Marian, and no one else. I have proved that time and time again. But I am not convinced that yours are to me.”
“They are,” she promises stiffly.
“Are they? I know that you saw Hood.”
“He came to see me, yes.”
“Most likely to boast of my imminent demise,” Guy scoffs. “And?”
Marian refuses to itemize every moment she has ever shared with another man just to assuage his insecurity. “And what?”
Guy’s eyelids lower, as does his voice. “Marian, there are things that you are not telling me.”
“Robin Hood and I share nothing but the same wish to see England’s people free of the plague of fear brought about by men like Vasey,” she says. And it is true. Now.
“That is not what Allan said.”
She rolls her eyes. “You two gossip like small girls!”
“It is a necessity when you will not give me the truth,” he growls. “You were betrothed to him once. And you were helping him this past year. No,” he barks and holds a finger up when she opens her mouth to protest. “Don’t deny it. You revealed yourself the second you raised a sword to the Sheriff. And there are other things, coincidences I let go because I wanted to believe . . .”
She bites her lip, and it is answer enough. His fingers tighten around her wrist, and she feels a frisson of fear; after all, he has always warned that to be in league with Robin Hood means death. But as she stares at the paleness of his hand in the soft candlelight, she realizes that it is not a threat. Instead it is the grip of a man who is desperately trying to hold on to something he fears that the next few seconds will rip away.
“If you tell me now,” he says suddenly. I may show lenience.” From his noble expression, it is clear that he believes himself to be a saint. Her anger flashes white and hot.
“Lenience?” she hisses, ripping her hand from his startled grasp. “My feelings, my choices, do not need lenience. Yours or anyone else’s.”
There is a pause where all she can hear is her own enraged breathing, and then Guy speaks.
“Have you given yourself to him?” he asks abruptly, his gaze dropping to run over her body as though it might offer up evidence of her maidenhead.
“I am more than my chastity!” she snaps.
“That does not answer the question.”
“And you never answered mine. I have a hard time imagining that Richard would be so quick to say bygones. What is that truth, Guy?”
“It is not your concern,” he says tightly, leaning forward once again to trespass on her space and all her instincts of self-preservation. “It should be enough that I have promised myself to a man that I hate, a man who-,”
“A man who what?” she asks, leaning forward to counter his invasion.
“Sir Guy,” a voice says from beside them. Startled, Marian leaps backward and looks to where Carter’s head pokes through the tent’s entrance.
“Leave us!” Guy roars, and then turns back to Marian as though expecting total obedience. But Carter is not a castle lackey.
“It is going on two hours,” he says firmly. “I need to show you to your tent.”
Guy’s face contorts. Marian feels the crackle of the gathering storm.
“And I am tired,” she says quickly, and only afterward realizes how much it is true. Her normal defenses are in tatters, and she is sick of arguing in circles. He will be angry at her, but that is not new. She can deal with his icy disdain for a few days. Thankfully, she no longer has a house to burn, and she doesn’t much care about this tent.
She watches as Guy closes his eyes, watches his jaw tic as he visibly attempts to calm himself down. When his eyes open, they seem lighter. He turns to Carter.
“I will only be a minute.” There is still anger in his voice, but it is a pebble where once there was a boulder. Marian has to stifle the flash of amusement that comes from seeing how he raises his eyebrows when Carter fails to retreat quickly enough.
When he turns back toward her, she expects his anger, expects him to set conditions, cold and adamantine, for any future discussions. But instead he sighs, and then bends over to brush her lips in a gentle kiss. After everything that came before, it is so surprisingly unconditional that she puts her hands on his shoulders to brace herself before she knows what she’s about.
“We will talk tomorrow of the truth,” he says with an edge that contradicts this tiny bit of affection. But then he hesitates. “When we are both less tired,” he adds and then walks out to leave her in the company of her own hopelessly tangled thoughts.
Tonight, however, she has a mission: find Guy. The air is cool and quiet, the perimeter of the camp still. It is not difficult to slip past the few soldiers who remain at their posts; their slumping shoulders and drooping eyelids suggest they would have rather been asleep hours ago. Even so, Marian makes sure to stay alert and stick to the shadows, easing from dark corner to dark corner as she formulates her plan of attack. She will find him in the prisoners’ tent, and then… well, she will think of the next step when the time comes.
But he is not in the prisoners’ tent, and he is not along the main road either. It is then that the panic begins to build. At first it is a flutter low in her stomach, faint as a cat’s purr, but when she does not find him in the King’s tent, it becomes something sharp and taunting, an insinuating demon that whispers wild scenarios she can do nothing to quell.
As she retraces her steps, she prays that her increasingly insistent inner voice will be proven wrong. He is dead, it says. It is your fault, it says, before beginning to echo the things that Guy himself had accused her of before.
“You used me as a tool to advance your own ideals…”
“Inside, you are just as diabolical as the Sheriff…”
“You like tormenting me. You like the lies. You like seeing my desire for you, knowing that you will never give in...”
She had shaken her head, she had protested. She had used him, yes, but only in a pursuit of a higher cause. It was necessary to use him as a tool-and he deserved it, she told herself, because he had aligned himself with the Sheriff.
But there is a difference between stabbing someone and twisting the knife; she realizes this now, now that the ground feels like it’s falling out beneath her and now that they have reached the end of this quickly fraying rope and all that’s left is question after question after question, her abilities of denial have abandoned her. She had liked it, had liked the feeling of power that came from manipulating those with power, from seeing how her cleverness trumped all their diabolical schemes. And she had liked the game, liked the challenge of keeping her wits about her when Guy did everything he could to disconcert her: standing close, invading her space, leaning forward until her skin and lips tingled from the proximity of his. How tempting it was to just give in, to follow the path of least resistance and succumb to the side where she could just let go, where there was nothing she believed in fighting for. And how empowering it was to rise above that again and again. . .
Only once had she lost the game. The night she visited Guy at Locksley with intentions of spouting a few sweet words to get back in his good graces, only to find him out of the black garb and awash in firelight that softened his features and made him seem, briefly, like an entirely different person. All of her lines of practiced flattery had fled, and she had found herself babbling on about friendship as she reached out to touch his skin like some sort of simpleton distracted by shiny things. And then Robin had peeked through the window, and she was angry, angry at Guy for not being his usual hulking, scowling, fearsome self, angry at herself for her unease, and angry at Robin for seeing her.
She stops walking, disoriented. She is standing out in the open, the moonlight dripping all over her. If anyone were to come out of their tents or turn a corner, she would be immediately exposed. Suddenly she craves the shelter of the tent, needs it to try to contain her wild thoughts. She will regroup, and then try again-she won’t give up until someone shows her his death warrant, his grave, the weapon that did him in, his spilled blood.
But when she is finally back in the tent, when she is finally alone in the stuffy darkness, her resolve to remain optimistic crumbles. She has killed him with her rash words, her wild dreams, just like she did her father. Stumbling to a corner, she collapses, buries her head in her knees and cries like she hasn’t done since she first saw her father’s body laid out on the ground, cold and waxen.
Dimly, she hears a deep, angry voice ask “Who is here?” Her head snaps up-there is a dark shape in front of her. Her breath catches; it is too large to be Robin.
“Guy?” she tries tentatively, cursing her recalcitrant limbs as she gets to her feet.
“Stay back,” the voice says again, and Marian’s heart catches when she hears the familiar gruffness. Before she knows it, she is running toward him and wrapping her arms around his neck, his neck that is so very very alive.
“Marian-,” he says, but she doesn’t want to complicate this feeling with words. She grabs his cheeks and kisses him square on the mouth. It is not the most artful kiss she has ever given him-the angles are all wrong and it starts with more bumping teeth than it should-but it is the only one that has ever been free of anything other than sheer happiness.
Then it softens. His hands settle on her waist, but then disappear as he pulls off his gloves behind her back then throws them to side. I’m sorry, she thinks, moving closer and doing her best to convey through the kiss that which she can never put into words. There have been too many lies that she drove too far, too much uncalled for subterfuge.
He slides his hands up her back and to her shoulders, slipping them beneath the heavy press of the velvet jacket and sliding it off so that it falls around their feet. The flutter in her stomach is back, only this time it is the panic that comes from not knowing what to do next, not even after listening outside of so many tavern windows. All she knows is that she wants to keep proving Robin’s words wrong. There is genuine feeling here. It is not a cold-hearted transaction, it is not.
She moves her hand to the top clasp of his jacket, fiddles with it. When it fails to do her bidding, she makes a frustrated noise.
He pulls back, surprised, and she hears him say her name with great uncertainty. His thumb comes up to brush her cheek, the pad of it coming across a tear in the process. He looks down at his hand for a brief second before snapping to attention.
“What is wrong? Are you hurt?” he asks. The fingers of his left hand clutch at her shoulder as he pats her down her side as if checking for gaping wounds. “Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing at all happened,” she says, voice shaky but happy. “Thankfully.”
“Then why are you crying?”
She can’t make out his expression in the dark, but the impatience she hears in his voice makes her smile. The relief that courses through her veins is still strong; she feels almost drunk on it. She is horrified to hear herself emit a strangled sound, something that comes out sounding something like a cross between a giggle and a hiccup.
“Were you struck in the head?” he asks, and his complete and utter seriousness makes her giggle harder. There’s a short, confused pause before he barks “We need light.”
“No!” she protests, suddenly sober. She has never felt more comfortable with him as she does now here in the dark. If they could just stay in the dark forever, she thinks wildly, she may never suffer another qualm about their marriage. But he doesn’t listen. “Guy!” she tries again as he grabs the candle William brought earlier from a small stool by the door and leaves.
When he comes back, it is lit. After setting it down, he turns toward her in the flickering light. The shadows it creates cast his sharp features into even starker relief. He frowns.
“You are wearing my shirt.”
She looks down at the thin black shirt she had hastily thrown on in the rush to find him. “I suppose I am.”
He sucks in a sharp breath. “Marian, you promised me that the Nightwatchman was dead.”
“He is!”
“It does not look that way to me.” He rubs at his eyes, frustrated. “What great injustice could you possibly have to fix now?”
She does not like the sneer embedded in that last question. “At the moment it does not seem great at all,” she says testily, hoping he’ll catch her underlying meaning.
But Guy is the thickest, most oblivious man imaginable. “I cannot protect you if you insist on running off every time my back is turned. It is foolish. You will end up hurt.”
It is too much. “I was not ‘running off’,” Marian snaps.
“Of course. You were just taking a midnight stroll dressed in men’s clothing,” he spits. “I am not a fool.”
“That is debatable.”
His nostrils flare; before he has time to implode, she closes the distance between them and pokes him on the chest. “I was looking for you.”
Guy goes completely still. If she were not so annoyed, his expression would be almost comical. Having been caught by her meaning in mid-protest, his mouth hangs open for a half-second before clicking shut. She hears him swallow. “For me?”
She nods slowly. “I had heard that Robin arrived with the Pact of Nottingham. I was afraid…,” she stops, the fear that had gripped her so tightly less than an hour before swimming up again for one horrifying second. “I was afraid that you were to be put to death. I would not want anyone to die because of my urging.
“Anyone?” he asks, capturing her gaze. In the candlelight, his eyes are a dark, dark blue. Beautiful, really.
“I would not want you to die because of my urging,” she says more softly, and then is shocked to see his lips curve into what would be immediately recognized as a smile if anyone else were doing it. It transforms his face; gone is the hard, shuttered mask she is used to. In its place is something boyish and innocent and so handsome it takes her breath away.
He reaches out before she can react, hooking an elbow around her waist and pulling her toward him. Leaning forward, he places a trail of scorching kisses along her neck that causes an unfamiliar throb to well up from deep between her legs. “And how were you going to save me?” he rumbles teasingly in her ear before giving the lobe a nip.
Something inside her breaks, something that urges her to cut off their connection before she can be sucked in any deeper. This level of intimacy, coupled with the normal unease created by his proximity, is a dangerous combination. She pushes at his chest, feeling the rapidity of his heartbeat beneath the thick leather, and slips from his embrace.
“Tell me what happened with the King,” she says, smoothing her hair as she tries to regain her composure. The look on his face isn’t helping. He has folded his arms across his chest, but far from being angry, he still smiling. This time, however, it is sly and cocky. “Your name was on the pact, I presume,” she says darkly.
The smile disappears. He looks away from her and frowns into the corner. “It was,” he says tersely.
“I told you that it was a document of which I would not approve,” she reminds him, lifting her eyebrows in a presumptive arch.
He glowers at her. “I am not half-witted, Marian,” he says through gritted teeth. “I knew what I was getting into.”
“Oh, I am positive of that. What I would like to know is how you got out of it.”
“I proved that my loyalties had changed,” he says. His voice is sure enough, but his gaze skitters to the side. He is not telling the whole truth.
“Have they?”
“Have yours?” he shoots back, and then closes the distance between them, the distance she has been trying so hard to protect, with two long strides. She tries to turn away, but he captures one of her wrists. His thumb presses against the trembling vibrato of her pulse. His other hand lifts, moves forward as though to caress her cheek, but then drops, becomes a fist. “My loyalties are to you, Marian, and no one else. I have proved that time and time again. But I am not convinced that yours are to me.”
“They are,” she promises stiffly.
“Are they? I know that you saw Hood.”
“He came to see me, yes.”
“Most likely to boast of my imminent demise,” Guy scoffs. “And?”
Marian refuses to itemize every moment she has ever shared with another man just to assuage his insecurity. “And what?”
Guy’s eyelids lower, as does his voice. “Marian, there are things that you are not telling me.”
“Robin Hood and I share nothing but the same wish to see England’s people free of the plague of fear brought about by men like Vasey,” she says. And it is true. Now.
“That is not what Allan said.”
She rolls her eyes. “You two gossip like small girls!”
“It is a necessity when you will not give me the truth,” he growls. “You were betrothed to him once. And you were helping him this past year. No,” he barks and holds a finger up when she opens her mouth to protest. “Don’t deny it. You revealed yourself the second you raised a sword to the Sheriff. And there are other things, coincidences I let go because I wanted to believe . . .”
She bites her lip, and it is answer enough. His fingers tighten around her wrist, and she feels a frisson of fear; after all, he has always warned that to be in league with Robin Hood means death. But as she stares at the paleness of his hand in the soft candlelight, she realizes that it is not a threat. Instead it is the grip of a man who is desperately trying to hold on to something he fears that the next few seconds will rip away.
“If you tell me now,” he says suddenly. I may show lenience.” From his noble expression, it is clear that he believes himself to be a saint. Her anger flashes white and hot.
“Lenience?” she hisses, ripping her hand from his startled grasp. “My feelings, my choices, do not need lenience. Yours or anyone else’s.”
There is a pause where all she can hear is her own enraged breathing, and then Guy speaks.
“Have you given yourself to him?” he asks abruptly, his gaze dropping to run over her body as though it might offer up evidence of her maidenhead.
“I am more than my chastity!” she snaps.
“That does not answer the question.”
“And you never answered mine. I have a hard time imagining that Richard would be so quick to say bygones. What is that truth, Guy?”
“It is not your concern,” he says tightly, leaning forward once again to trespass on her space and all her instincts of self-preservation. “It should be enough that I have promised myself to a man that I hate, a man who-,”
“A man who what?” she asks, leaning forward to counter his invasion.
“Sir Guy,” a voice says from beside them. Startled, Marian leaps backward and looks to where Carter’s head pokes through the tent’s entrance.
“Leave us!” Guy roars, and then turns back to Marian as though expecting total obedience. But Carter is not a castle lackey.
“It is going on two hours,” he says firmly. “I need to show you to your tent.”
Guy’s face contorts. Marian feels the crackle of the gathering storm.
“And I am tired,” she says quickly, and only afterward realizes how much it is true. Her normal defenses are in tatters, and she is sick of arguing in circles. He will be angry at her, but that is not new. She can deal with his icy disdain for a few days. Thankfully, she no longer has a house to burn, and she doesn’t much care about this tent.
She watches as Guy closes his eyes, watches his jaw tic as he visibly attempts to calm himself down. When his eyes open, they seem lighter. He turns to Carter.
“I will only be a minute.” There is still anger in his voice, but it is a pebble where once there was a boulder. Marian has to stifle the flash of amusement that comes from seeing how he raises his eyebrows when Carter fails to retreat quickly enough.
When he turns back toward her, she expects his anger, expects him to set conditions, cold and adamantine, for any future discussions. But instead he sighs, and then bends over to brush her lips in a gentle kiss. After everything that came before, it is so surprisingly unconditional that she puts her hands on his shoulders to brace herself before she knows what she’s about.
“We will talk tomorrow of the truth,” he says with an edge that contradicts this tiny bit of affection. But then he hesitates. “When we are both less tired,” he adds and then walks out to leave her in the company of her own hopelessly tangled thoughts.