Fallout - Chapter Sixteen
Marian does not go to sleep. She waits for Guy to come back, waits for what feels like hours without touching any of the bread or fruit that sits on the table before her. In her head, she rehearses what she is going to say, hoping that this time she will be able to keep control of her temper and explain herself properly. It was only because Guy had been quiet and strange-well, stranger than usual-that she had lost her footing and told him about Nottingham in the worst way possible. She waits until the fire is close to dying and her eyes are drooping from exhaustion. When the room is dark and he has still not returned, she gives in, stumbling up the unfamiliar stairs to the first bed that she can find. Now it is official; she will not let him know how glad she was to find him or how worried she had been.
She does not know how long she sleeps-an hour, maybe two? All she knows is that when her eyes pop open again, her stomach is grumbling loud enough to wake the dead. She and Allan had not found much to eat on the road; the food she had stashed away in Tyre did not survive even harshest rations and they had very little money. An image of the meal downstairs flickers in her mind like a stubborn guest who refuses to leave. She should not have refused to eat just to spite him.
Rolling onto her back, she stares at the cracked ceiling. The largest crack runs the length of the room, starting at her feet and branching out like a delta near her head. Small fissures creep up on it from the side like tiny ambushers. It makes her think of maps, of adventure, of the sense of freedom that came from finally escaping that wretched camp. Every morning she would wake up and realize that no one other than Allan knew where she was or what she was doing. She would climb on her horse, look up at the blue sky and let the sun shine down on her face as though it could scorch all the guilt and doubt from her body. Her mood would lift, her spirits would rise, and for a brief moment she would feel as though everything was as it should be.
And then she would have to stop, climb off the horse, and throw up.
Marian has a very good idea what that means, and her body hasn’t seen fit to give her any proof otherwise. But when she thinks about it too much, her chest tightens until she can no longer breathe, so she forces herself to keep moving forward, to set a goal and work toward it. Finding Guy was a good goal. Now that she has achieved it, the thoughts and worries threaten to eat away at the fragile barrier between the present and the future.
Searching for distraction, she lets her head fall to the side, where she sees the dark, lumbering shapes of baggage and a spindly chair. Clothing hangs limply over its back, and a pair of boots lie sheltered within the cave of its legs. With a start she realizes that this must be Guy’s room, Guy’s bed. She had not even looked when she ran up the stairs, tore off her clothing and fell onto the sheets. Now she recognizes the slight masculine smell that lingered in the pillows as his. Leather and spice.
Bolting upright, she wonders what time it is. Swinging her legs around, she touches a tentative toe to the cool ground just as her stomach protests its empty state once again. Food. That’s first on the agenda, right after she finds something to wear.
Other than the barest hint of silvery moonlight, the room is dark, which makes her search tricky. After more than a few knee-bumps and elbow-scrapes, she locates a long robe hanging on the wall. In the dim light, she is unable to tell its color, but the fabric flows easily between her fingers; it feels expensive. It does not seem like something Guy would wear, although how would she really know? Maybe, like Vasey, he has a fondness for silk pajamas.
The thought is accompanied by an image, and surprisingly, the image makes her giggle. Marian is still snorting softly when she throws the robe around her shoulders and cinches the belt at her waist. It is too large, causing her to constantly readjust it on her shoulders as she steps out of her bedroom and tiptoes down the stairs. Rogue firelight flickers at their base, casting fleeting shadows across the arch of her bare feet as she takes the final step.
Her eyes take a few moments to adjust, and then they follow the long slab of the table to where it ends before the roaring fire. Nothing has moved since earlier in the evening-not the food on the table, not the long shadows cast by the high-backed chairs, and not the slumbering black dog in the corner. And Guy-Guy has returned.
Marian ignores the relief in favor of the indignation at being left to wonder at his whereabouts. She studies him from her spot in the entryway. He is sitting low in the high-backed chair, one foot braced on the opposing seat as he stares into the fire with his fingers laced before him. All she can see of his face is the line of his jaw, an ear, and the curling hair at the back of his neck. It’s grown wilder in the past month. And if the broken crockery scattered about the hearth is any indication, so has he. It appears that he has been amusing himself by throwing cups at the wall.
He has not noticed her; at the moment, she would like to keep it that way, even if it means taking her food upstairs and nibbling on it, rat-like, in the dark. Holding her robe at the waist, Marian tiptoes to the end of the table drags the loaf of bread and heavy knife toward her. It makes a rasping sound as it comes, and she sucks in a quick breath as she watches him for any sign of movement, praying that the popping of the combusting wood covers any of the small noises she is bound to make.
She cuts the end from a loaf then turns it around to remove the other. She has never liked the hard nubs at the end; growing up, her mother used to scold her for being wasteful, but it’s a small extravagance that she’s never been able to overcome. With a few more clean slices, she has her midnight meal.
“Marian, I know that you are there.”
His voice startles her, and she drops the knife with a clatter. It wobbles on the edge of the table before falling to the ground. She winces at the noise, feeling as though she has lost a game.
Marian decides not to acknowledge her previous attempts at stealth. “Did you have a nice walk?” she asks, unable to stop a note of prim disapproval from coloring the question.
He does not respond, choosing instead to continue his scrutiny of the hearth. Marian longs to escape back upstairs, but going now feels like a retreat. Pulling out the nearest chair, she sits and takes a tentative nibble of her bread. Hunger overtakes her on the first bite. The next thing she knows, she’s staring at a constellation of crumbs dusting the table and nothing else. After checking to make sure that Guy’s attention is still elsewhere, she licks her finger and makes them disappear.
Thirsty now, she eyes the pitcher of water blocking Guy’s elbow. “Can you please pass that?” she asks.
“Pass what?”
She does not like his attitude or his tone-grey and bored. “The only piece of crockery that still remains intact,” she says, feeling waspish. “Or would you deny me water as you’ve refused me my opinion?”
He turns his head to study her-finally-but the shadows cloak his expression. She does not know if his eyes actually narrow, or if it is a trick of the wavering light. When he makes no move to do as she’s asked, she pushes away from the table, walks over, and grabs the handle of the pitcher before realizing that there is no longer anything to pour liquid into. She sets it back on the table with a dull thud, hard enough that water sloshes from the top, wetting her fingers. She does not know how to deal with this Guy, this Guy who does not seem to even care that she is in the room. If anything, she is used to him being boorishly attentive.
Suddenly overcome by the childish need to make him react, she grabs the toe of his boot, and lifts. His eyes widen slightly as she pushes his feet off the chair. Guy watches with an impassive face as she makes a show of sitting, smoothing the fabric of the robe across her lap and crossing her feet at the ankle before giving him a serene smile.
His gaze drops to her shins, and she sees a flicker of interest ripple across his features. Confused, she looks down to find that that the bottom of her robe is caught beneath her knees. Furiously covering her legs, Marian hazards another look in his direction, expecting to meet a smirk.
But Guy does not look amused; he looks angry. “What are you wearing?” he asks gruffly, his mouth tightening in disapproval even as his eyes linger on her toes.
Bringing her knees up, she tucks her feet beneath the tent of the material. “Surely you have seen a robe before?”
He refuses to rise to her sarcasm. “Where did you get it?”
Marian studies the garment in question, which the firelight has revealed it to be an emerald green. “It was on the back of the bedchamber door. I assumed it was yours,” she says tightly, even though she had assumed no such thing.
Guy looks slightly affronted. “I would not wear that.”
“Then it was obviously left here. Who lived here before Baldrick?”
“I have no idea, nor do I care,” he says flatly. “You should sleep. You’ll have a long day of travel when the day breaks.”
He still insists on pretending that she is going somewhere tomorrow, does he? Marian drops her knees and leans forward. She did not mean to resurrect this argument in the dead of night, but now that he has brought it up, she will not let it go. “I am not going anywhere until you tell me what you know.”
“And I will tell you what I know when you tell me how you earned Richard’s permission to leave the camp,” he retorts, raising his eyebrows in a way that suggests he knows how doubtful this trade is.
Marian falls back in her seat, realizing that they are at an impasse. She studies the insufferable man who will be her husband if they ever make it out of this tangled mess. She has become used to Guy’s rigid mannerisms; he never slumps, and he rarely leans, especially not around her. But now she watches his head fall as he sinks down in his chair and brings a hand up to worry his brow. She has never thought of Guy as particularly old or particularly young, but now he looks like he has aged ten years in a single day. It unnerves her, makes her feel guilty for where she has brought them.
“Locksley is not the only manor,” she reminds him softly. "Nottingham is not the only shire."
Her words only earn her a dark look. “I know that.”
“Perhaps . . .,” she starts but then stops and licks her lips. When she finds her voice, she is shocked to hear it waver. “Perhaps this is a good thing.”
He rubs his forehead harder. “A good thing,” he mutters, soft enough that Marian wonders if she was even supposed to hear it. It is a good thing for the people of Nottingham, she thinks, but that is not something that she can tell him. And in all honesty, she does not know if she could deal seeing Robin day in and day out, not after what she has done and not as Guy’s wife.
“Perhaps it will be a good thing for us to have a fresh start somewhere else,” she says slowly, hugging her knees. She is surprised to feel how hard her heart is pounding, to feel how her breath sticks in her throat.
His hand stills over his eyes and then drops. She meets his gaze without flinching as she waits to see if he will acknowledge the dizzying amount of life implied in those words.
When he doesn’t say anything, she stumbles on. “There is a lot of . . . history . . . in Nottingham.”
His gaze continues to hold hers, and for a moment his eyes lighten. She is reminded of the day Prince John’s men surrounded Nottingham, the way he looked at her when she told him that she would stay. But then he turns away.
“It is not that simple,” he says as though she is a halfwit. “There are . . . obligations.”
Marian feels her cheeks start to burn-she feels as though she walked out on a limb only to have it snap beneath her feet. “You are not the only person who has had to readjust their vision of the future,” she says stiffly, willing to say anything in order to take back all the ground that she’s just given.
He rears back, his face contorting in anger. “Of course,” he says. “Tell me, when was the happy day to be?”
Confusion replaces the lingering hurt. “What?”
“When were you to marry Hood?”
“That is not what I meant.”
“I want to know.”
“Guy, stop it,” Marian says, beginning to feel uneasy. She had not even been thinking of Robin when she said that. She has been trying not to think of him at all.
“You told me you would stay. You said that you would.”
“I know! And I meant it!”
“As another man’s wife?” he scoffs, shaking his head. “No, Marian, tell me how long you were going to wait before running off to marry the outlaw.”
He will not give up. Fine. If he wants answers, she will give him answers. “We were to marry when the King returned.”
But Guy does not rage. He laughs, and it’s loud and rich and long. He laughs long enough that the dog raises its black head and glares at him through yellow eyes.
“I do not see what is so funny,” she snaps when he has finally stopped.
“I do not think that you ever intended to marry Hood.”
“We were engaged,” she insists, not caring if it fans the flames. “We knew we could not be happy until the people of Nottingham were free from harm. And he was legally an outlaw.”
“So? It seems to me that you would have enjoyed being an outlaw’s wife. If you wanted to marry him, you would have done it. You have never cared about rules before.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about!”
He shifts forward with a smirk, resting his elbows on his knees. If she did not want to smack him, she might be relieved to see a spark of emotion in his eyes, pigheaded though it is. He is too close. She scoots back in her chair, causing the shoulder of her robe to slip down. Angrily, she tugs it back up.
“Do I not?” he says. “I know that when you decided to marry me, for all your reasons, you showed up in the middle of the night half-dressed.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I wanted to get it over with,” she snaps, hoping that will make him retreat, but he just continues to give an infuriating half-smile. He is near enough that he could reach out and touch her legs; if he tries, she swears that she will kick him in the face.
Luckily for him, he doesn’t try. He just tilts his head to the side as though he is studying a particularly intricate design. She looks to the fire to escape his gaze. It is true that she never dreamt of a wedding day or children or a home, but that was just because there was too much to do, too much to fix. The future was a luxury. But then she remembers the night after Robin’s proposal, when her hand was no longer in his and the congratulations had all been said. She had lain awake wondering why her chest was so tight, why she felt the same way she did the night after she agreed to marry Guy. No matter how often she repeated “Marian of Locksley,” hoping that it would suddenly feel familiar and right, it never had.
“Perhaps I do not want to marry anyone,” she says after a long silence, and the minute it passes through her lips, she feels like she’s confessed her darkest secret. But it is true, she realizes. It has always been true.
Guy leans back, his expression veiled, and she realizes how that must have sounded. Why does she always blunder into insults with him?
“But I will marry you,” she concedes quickly, studying the fingers which are still wrapped around her knees. “I have promised.”
He snorts and looks away. “I am truly blessed,” he says bitterly. “You would make a better duck than a nun.”
It is said with such an air of disgruntlement that Marian wants to smile; she can feel it tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Guy frowns. “It is not a compliment, Marian.”
“Who said that I desired to be a nun?”
“There is little other option,” he says, and then leans back until head clunks against the chair. His eyes are closed, his throat exposed and showing the dark stubble that dots his neck.
“Society allows me little other option,” she says. “But like I said, it does not matter now. We have already . . . That is to say. . . There are those who would consider us married already.”
Her breath catches. It is the first time that she has acknowledged what has passed between them, and she hates how it makes her stutter. She has always prided herself on her ability to keep her composure under any circumstances, and yet here she is rattled by everyday intimacies that other women seem to take in stride.
She steals a glance at Guy. His arms are crossed over his chest, and his eyes are darkened by an emotion that she cannot define. “Nothing is ever certain where you are concerned, Marian.”
Again, she wants to smile; she ducks her head to hide it, but it is too late.
“Also not a compliment,” he adds, but for a brief moment Marian thinks she hears a note of grudging humor. A glow of pleasure propels her to say something that she’s never told anyone before.
“I had a friend,” she shares, “a friend who died. She was wonderful and then she married a cruel man and died.”
At first Guy just stares at her, blinking. He clears his throat, but when he speaks his horror is plain. “You think me cruel?”
It’s on the tip of her tongue to say no, but then she thinks of all the scars: the ridge of tissue along her side, the thin white hairline on her forearm, the mark from her knife that sits like an eye in the center of her palm. She does not mind them-in fact sometimes she is proud of them-but they are a grisly testament to their shared history.
“I think that we have both been blind,” she says. “And that has made us cruel.”
Guy opens his mouth as though to say something, but then shuts it, turning to contemplate the fire. Marian lets the silence fall. The dog shuffles to its feet and circles the table, putting its nose to the ground as though searching for any stray morsels of food. She watches its progress, enjoying the fire’s warmth on her toes, which refuse to stay hidden beneath the robe’s hem.
“They are not all like that,” Guy says suddenly.
“What are not all like that?”
He looks at her as though she is missing a crucial piece of her brain. “Marriages.”
“I have not seen many happy ones.”
“My parents were happy,” he says, and then shifts in his chair as though uncomfortable with the subject.
Apparently that is all the information he wants to give her. Back when Guy had first started showing up at Knighton with disturbing regularity, he had spoken often of his mother and father, but she had rarely listened, too consumed with protecting her father from the Sheriff and herself from Guy’s obvious designs. But now she finds that she is curious.
“You used to speak of your parents often,” she prods, bringing her knees down.
“I used to think that you wanted to listen.”
She moves forward in her chair. “I want to listen now,” she insists.
At first Marian thinks that he is refusing her request. Leaning his head back, he looks at the ceiling instead of her. His eyes follow the ripple of light and shadow. He is silent long enough that when he speaks, she jumps.
“They loved each other very much,” he says, his voice gruff. “I do not know if they still loved each other after everything was taken away. They had found us places-it didn’t matter where. I was sent to Vasey’s estate.”
The name still has the power to make Marian tense, but she forces herself to relax. They do not need to be drawn into another argument over a dead man.
“What happened to them?” she asks.
“They were imprisoned for a time.”
“And after?”
Guy gives a jerk of his shoulders that Marian supposes must be a shrug. “I do not know. I met a distant cousin at one of Vasey’s functions, who told me they died a few years before I came to Nottingham.”
Marian watches him for a sign of emotion, but his face is impassive. Her mother had died in childbirth, along with her new baby brother, but she had always had her father and a few distant aunts and cousins. They had stopped visiting when Edward was ousted from Nottingham.
“I am sorry,” she tells Guy now, surprised to find her voice thick with emotion.
Guy lowers his head. “It is the past,” he says sharply, but his gaze softens when it touches her face. “Your friend. How did she die?”
“In childbirth. As did my mother.”
He says nothing, much to Marian’s dismay. The simple confession breaks down the tenuous barrier between her and the concerns that she has exiled for later. They flood her thoughts. Three months. At the most she has three months before she is no longer able to hide her condition from Guy or anyone else. If she returns to the convent and Guy is detained, there will be questions and shame. She tells herself that she does not care what people think, but deep down she knows that this will be harder than losing your hair for a few pieces of bread. And then there is the endless waiting. If she must wait and wonder and watch her stomach grow, she will go mad. She cannot go back; she can’t.
“Guy,” she says, moving forward quickly enough that his eyes widen in surprise as he looks down at her. She speaks feverishly. “I do not want to go to the convent. I want to stay.”
His lips press together in consternation. “Marian-,”
“Please,” she says. “I will not get in the way.”
Guy gives a weary laugh. “You know that is not true.”
“I can help!” she insists, growing angry when he fails to respond. “Half of Robin’s plans were of my devising.”
His face darkens. “You are not helping your case.”
She pulls her chair closer to his, frustrated at herself for losing control, for saying things that she shouldn’t. Placing a hand on his knee, she spreads her fingers out to cover it. “Please,” she repeats. “I cannot spend another second waiting and doing nothing. I hated the camp, and I will hate the convent.”
Guy’s gaze drops to where her thumb clutches the inside of his leg. He stares at it, and Marian takes the opportunity to lean forward more. In doing so, the shoulder of her robe slips down again. Her fingers are on the material to fix it when she catches Guy’s eyes on the exposed skin. He clears his throat and then looks away, but not before she sees the flare of interest. A tiny thrill courses through her body; the balance of power is tilting in her favor. Stepping between his knees, she puts one hand on his shoulder and the other over his heart. It beats heavy against her palm. Guy says nothing, only watches her with hooded eyes and a detached expression.
“Let me stay,” she coaxes. His hands come up to span her waist, and she feels a sense of triumph, although she would feel more if he would move to kiss her. She lowers her lips, expecting him to meet her halfway, but his fingers only tighten at her hips. Confused, she pulls back.
“It is late. You should go to bed,” he says without much inflection, and she realizes that the hands she thought were preparing for an embrace are restraining her.
“I don’t want to go to bed,” Marian snaps, more from surprise than anger, as she tugs her robe up and stands. “Not if it means that I am leaving in the morning.”
“Marian, you cannot stay here.” For once his tone is more of a resigned statement than an order.
“Why?” she challenges. “After everything, why do you think me incompetent?”
“It is not a matter of competence! It is a matter of…,” he makes a frustrated sound and cuts himself off, taking a hand from her waist and rubbing his eyes.
She is getting nowhere. For a brief second she wonders if she should tell him that she thinks that she is with child. If she has learned anything it’s that Guy plays by the rules until you push him out of the game; he will not want to risk a scandal. But then there is Guy’s ridiculous obsession with protecting her; add a child to that and he will clip her wings to the root.
“Do you want me to beg?” she says suddenly, already feeling the weight of stone walls and punishing silence that the convent would bring. She will not be able to do anything if she is forced to leave. She will say anything to stay.
He blinks. “I do not--,”
“Please. Do not make me go anywhere. I beg of you.”
Guy looks at her, his expression a mix of confusion and surprise. She feels the threat of tears, a common affliction of late. If it happens again-now-she will tear her eyes out. Lifting her chin, she tries to keep what pride she has left.
“What is the matter?” he asks, leaning forward.
He is not reacting the way that she wants him to react. The frustration provokes the tears that have been building to spill. Knocking his hands away, she faces the fire and swipes at her cheeks, embarrassment taking the place of desperation.
“Nothing. I will leave you to your thoughts,” she says and then turns to go back upstairs.
"Wait,” Guy barks, and then stands to grab her arm. “Tell me what is wrong.”
“I do not want to leave. I told you.”
Guy shakes his head. “There is more,” he insists and tugs her toward his chest.
“I do not need to be comforted like a child,” she snaps, but her body has other ideas. It lets itself be drawn into an embrace. Once she is there, she buries her head in his shoulder and cries-because she is a long way from a home that doesn’t feel like home anymore, because she has betrayed everyone she has ever loved for reasons that now seem inconsequential, and because she no longer has control of anything, not even her own body.
Guy’s hands are light against her back; they hold her tentatively, moving every so often to smooth her hair. She is breathing hard enough to get mouthfuls of shirt; she turns her head toward his neck. The stubble is rough against her forehead. He smells . . . warm. Solid. The feel of his arms around hers are more comforting than she would have ever expected.
Then again, they were the last time he held her like this. She waits for him to ruin it, but his chin stays on her head. She watches the rise and fall of her fingers on his chest, listening to his easy breathing and the crackle of the dying fire. The circle of light around them is slowly shrinking.
She raises her chin and meets his eyes. Guy’s thumb comes up to brush away a tear that still lingers on her cheek. When it slides to trace her bottom lip, Marian sucks in a breath. He cups the back of her neck and brings his head down for a kiss. Her small moue of surprise is muffled beneath his lips, and she tastes salt between them. She starts to push him away out of habit, but then stops; this is what she wanted. It feels nice. It feels like something she can lose herself in, and for once-for once-she wants that to be enough. She kisses back, tilting her head and parting her lips to deepen the embrace. Her chest is pressed up against his, and the silk between them rubs her skin every time they shift.
He pulls back with a curse. “You should-,”
“Do not tell me to go to bed again,” she says. “I do not feel like sleeping.”
He opens his mouth to protest but she kisses him again, putting her hands on his shoulders. She lifts her heels for better leverage just as his hands slide down her back. They do not stop at her waist. Before she can react he grips the back of her thighs and lifts her onto the end of the table, dropping her so quickly that her tailbone knocks against the heavy wood. She barely has time to organize her thoughts before he steps between her legs and leans forward, his hands on her knees.
“Guy!” Marian cries, startled. Her robe has slid up to her thighs; his palms are hot and rough against her bare skin.
“This,” he snaps and then gestures between them, “won’t change anything.”
“You kissed me first!”
His thumbs brush the sides of her knees. “There was a deal on the table before that,” he says tightly. “This one was better cloaked.”
Marian tries to shove down the robe, but his hands are in the way. Does he know where they are? she thinks wildly. He is not acting like he does; his gaze remains fixed.
“There was no deal,” she says, embarrassed anew. She covers his hands with her own, letting their fingers tangle to bring at least the illusion of control. “You are reading too much into--,”
Guy interrupts. “I am seeing clearly, for once. You speak of cold marriages, but it is you who would twist anything between us until there is nothing left. I have no more patience for games. Not now.”
His eyes flick over her face as they always do when he is trying to read her. Here it comes, she thinks, and braces herself for the blame. If she is being honest, she has been waiting for it, wanting it. If he would just put it on the table, she can release some of the guilt that has weighed heavily in her stomach ever since her naïve planning had been ripped to shreds like a child’s doll.
But he does not say anything more, just watches her as the earlier reserve begins to overtake his features once again. She has taken so much from him in the name of giving to others; her blindness and arrogance seems inconceivable now. Raising a hand, she tries to touch his cheek. He flinches.
She pulls back, stung. “It was not a game,” she says softly, studying the rejected fingers. “I wanted to. . .”
“Wanted to what?” he asks, and his tone is once again flat. He is losing patience.
She closes her eyes and fights the urge to run. Why is it that the simplest things are always the most difficult to say?“I wanted to kiss you.”
“So you could get your way.”
“Partly,” she admits.
Her honesty unnerves him; he blinks a few times before he catches himself. “And if I told you that I couldn’t promise you anything?”
Her pride is screaming at her to make demands, but for once she tells it to be quiet. “Then I would be hurt,” she says, and then prays that her voice remains steady for the next confession. “But I would still want you to kiss me.”
Marian waits for his reaction, and when it comes, it is not what she expected. He leans forward, a calculating glint in his eye, and begins to slide his hands further up her legs. At first she is annoyed-he knew where they were-but that feeling is soon replaced by an urgent curiosity about how his palms will feel against the skin of her upper thigh. Every so often a thumb presses into the flesh, and she has to work to keep herself from emitting small gasps of surprise.
Guy is watching her face. He is testing her, Marian realizes, and if the doubtful tilt of his head is any indication, he expects to be stopped. When he isn’t, puzzlement threatens o overtake the skepticism clouding his eyes, and Marian is besieged by the familiar thrill that comes from defying expectations.
His fingers reach the hem of the robe, catch it, and take it with them. Warmth from the fire hits the newly exposed skin in a rush. She grabs the edge of the table to steady herself as he dips his head and leans in closer. His lips brush hers, and despite the fact that this is what she has told him she wants-and she does want it, she does-she pulls back slightly.
She experiences a moment of panic; he will think her hesitation a sign of falseness, when in reality she was just to loath to be distracted from the pleasure that is zinging in circles beneath her skin. But Guy doesn’t pull back and accuse her of anything; instead he changes course, moving his lips to kiss her cheek, then the spot below her ear, then the soft dip where her shoulder meets her neck. When one of his hands leaves her legs she lets out a sharp hiss of disappointment that she quickly sucks back in when the hand moves to cover her breast. His thumb presses against the point of her nipple through the silk, and then starts to move back and forth over it. He steps closer, until she can feel the evidence of his desire pressing against her. Remembering how quickly the last time turned from pleasure to pain, she pushes against his chest until he steps back.
The low light fails to hide Guy’s irritation. His brow dips as he looks at her. Marian can only imagine the scene she makes. Her skin is flushed, her robe askew, and her hair mussed. She tries to smooth the latter into some semblance of order and then concentrates on rearranging the fabric over her legs. When she looks up she expects to deal with his anger-and her own disappoint, because she didn’t really want it to stop, not really-but it is no longer there. He is smirking.
“I think I believe you,” he says, his eyes flicking her over from head to toe.
Caught off guard, Marian can only say, “Believe me how?”
“I believe that you want me to kiss you.” His gaze lowers to her lips and then slides to her chest. “Among other things.”
Marian stares at him, angry. She will stick her head in the fire before she admits to anything more than the kissing. And now that she is looking at him, she hates that he does not seem nearly as affected by their recent . . . activities. . . as she is. She stands up.
Guy catches her arm as though he expects her to run off. “Marian,” he says, and while his voice still holds irritation, it also carries a note of apology. If he is going to say more, he stops when he sees how she is looking at him.
She continues to give him a close-lipped smile. Heart pounding, she lets her fingers go to his shoulders and then trail down his chest to the hem of his shirt. Feeling more daring than she ever did as the Nightwatchman, she slides her hands beneath the rough fabric of his grey shirt and starts to nudge it upward. She sneaks a glance at his face; the former cockiness has disappeared, replaced by a look that can only be described as fearful wonderment. Making sure that her thumbs are in constant contact with his skin, she pushes the shirt up over the planes of his abdomen, over his ribs, over his nipples. When it reaches his shoulders he tugs it the rest of the way off and throws it to the side before turning back to look at her with an expression that is both expectant and challenging.
He quirks an eyebrow, an eyebrow that asks what’s next, but Marian can see the way his skin flexes beneath her fingers. She hears how his breath catches every time her fingers brush lower than his chest. That is something that Marian has always liked about Guy, even when she did not like him. He reacts when she touches him; it makes her feel powerful in a way that her interactions with Robin never did.
If Guy wants to turn this into a contest, she will win.
Sliding her hands up to rest on his shoulders, she braces her weight and lifts her lips as though to kiss him, feeling a sense of triumph when he immediately lowers his own. At the last minute she veers to the side and goes for a stubbled patch of his neck instead. The skin is salty beneath her lips. When he doesn’t react as much as she would like, she adds tongue. And teeth.
He sucks in a breath and then curses. Frightened that she has gone too far, Marian pulls back. Before she can register whether his eyes are angry or pleased, he digs his fingers into the flesh of her hips lifts her up. Instinctively, Marian wraps her arms and legs around his body, not realizing that he is heading for the chair until he has sat down and hauled her onto his lap.
He grabs her waist and tugs her forward until her body is pressed flat against him, her legs sprawled on either side. She is wearing nothing beneath the robe, a fact that she knew but didn’t really know until now, when she can feel his hardness pressing against her bare sex, only the leather of his trousers separating them. She squirms to put some distance between them, but he holds her still.
“It’s fine, Marian,” Guy breathes into her hair. “Just relax.”
Pulling back, she tries to meet his eyes but only makes it to his lips.
“Look at me,” he insists, and when she is finally able to obey, it is less embarrassing than she feared, although her back is still stiff.
“You can bite me again if you’d like,” he says wryly.
Her cheeks go hot. “I didn’t mean to-”
“Don’t apologize,” he interrupts gruffly, and then nudges his hips upward so she can tell just how much he liked it. He leans forward and traps her lips in another kiss before she can decide how to react to the ache of pleasure that his movement set off between her legs. He brings a hand up to her shoulder, which is bare. The robe has fallen halfway down her arm. He pulls it the rest of the way down before she can tug it back up, and then leaves her lips to trail kisses down her neck and chest.
When his mouth closes around her nipple she gasps. Her fingers tangle in his hair, and she moves her hips forward. There is a sensitive spot between her legs that responds every time it hits the ridge of his arousal. She moves again, and the pleasure of that combined with the sensations of his tongue on her breast makes her moan.
She wants to clap a hand over her mouth. Is she winning or is she losing? She can’t tell anymore. When he lifts his head she lowers her own, kissing his chest in an effort to make him feel the same loss of control. His heart pounds against her cheek, but he doesn’t make any noise. She runs her fingers down his chest, noticing that his breath quickens the closer they get to the ties of his trousers. She trails light touches along the line where skin meets leather, waiting for the burst of daring that will help her break that last barrier. It doesn’t come.
Together they watch her fingers dance at the edges. Suddenly, Guy grabs her hand and moves it down. For a few seconds she feels the heat of him pulsing against her palm before she wrests her hand away, startled.
“You are a tease, Marian," Guy says, his face full of bemused humor.
“I am not,” she says, disgruntled.
He raises his eyebrows. “Scared?”
“No!”
“Then touch me.”
Marian’s mind races; she thinks that she has just been manipulated. From the supercilious way Guy’s lips quirk, he thinks so too. Reaching between them, she holds her breath, grabs one end of his trouser tie, and pulls. The triumphant expression on Guy’s face is replaced by surprise. Marian feels a surge of victory until she realizes that she has just suggested that they move on to the part of this that is much less fun.
Guy’s fingers tangle with hers as he finishes untying the laces and then lifts his hips to ease his trousers down his thighs. His hand moves between them as he tries to urge her down. Her legs tense as she holds herself away.
“It won’t hurt,” he says, his eyes on her face, frowning when she fails to relax. “I’m sorry, Marian.”
At first she doesn’t understand-is he apologizing for it not hurting?-but then she realizes that it is an apology for the last time.
“I wish that I had not . . . ,” he says and then stops and swallows. “It will be better. Just trust me.”
She licks her lips; trust has never been their strong suit. Still, when he pulls her forward again, she does not resist, not even when he’s thrusting up inside her.
There’s a momentary discomfort. Liar, she thinks, but that is soon washed away when she gets the groan that she wanted. And truthfully it does not feel like it did the last time. She feels stretched and strange, but it does not hurt. He bumps his hips up, hitting a spot that is so deep that she gasps and digs her nails into his shoulders.
“Wait,” she says, and her voice sounds so breathy that she barely recognizes it as her own. She tries to put into words what she wants, but they will not come. She wants to know what to do; she wants to not feel like a passenger.
Guy is watching her lips, his eyes half-closed and hooded as his hands wander up and down her back. She shifts forward, enjoying the way it makes his breath catch. His fingers dig into her hips as he makes her repeat the motion, and she lets herself be guided. With every other downward stroke, the point of aching pleasure hits his flesh. The pressure builds, but every time it feels like it might be close to breaking, he guides her away from her mark and it returns to the dull tingle.
He is gripping her waist hard, so hard that Marian wonders if tomorrow will bring bruises. Grabbing his hands, she drags them up to cover her breasts so she can be free to move on her own. This time when she shifts downward, she hits it right. She cries out.
Guy’s thumbs tease her nipples before he leans forward and kisses her neck. She feels the scrape of teeth, and no longer regrets biting him. It is nice.
“I knew it,” Guy says into her ear, his breath hot against her skin. “I knew that there is something between us.”
“Guy,” she starts, but if there was ever anything to follow that, it was lost the second after it was conceived. Right now . . . right now when he is inside her and his hands feel so wonderful against her skin, Marian believes it.
“Ride me,” he says, nipping her neck again, and while the words shock her enough to make her lose her rhythm, they make the ache burn even hotter.
“Harder,” he orders just as she surges forward. The hard knot of pleasure crests and then explodes. Grabbing his biceps, she rests her forehead on his shoulder, her chest heaving as she tries to make sense of what just happened. He was not lying; this was much better than last time.
Guy is still moving beneath her, and every upward thrust sets off a series of aftershocks that make her feel pockets of warmth in the strangest places, like the top of her thighs and the small of her back. The ghosts of arousal are stirring, taking shape once again. But then he stops.
“We shouldn’t have started this,” he says.
Marian pulls back and looks down at him, confused. He is breathing heavily, his eyes linger on her breasts rather than her face, and yet he wants to stop.
“What is wrong?” she asks, and then remembers what he said the last time about it being a mistake and the possibility of children. “It doesn’t matter,” she tells him, still dazed and reveling in the unfamiliar glow. After all, she is unlikely to become more pregnant.
“Marian--,”
“It doesn’t matter,” she insists, and then regrets it immediately. His brow creases as he searches her face.
“Why does it not matter?”
She does not want him to know now; that will only make the real more real. He is destroying her tiny bubble of respite. “Because we will be married soon,” she says, hoping that it sounds optimistic instead of a weak excuse.
“It is not that--,” he starts, but then stops when she rocks her hips forward. When he looks like he wants to say something else, she does it again and again until he stops saying anything. Grabbing her hips, he jerks them forward hard and groans into her neck as she feels a rush of warmth between her legs. His head falls back, exposing the column of his throat. Her limbs feel heavy and languid, and she lets herself fall against his chest, her head on his shoulder. She waits for his questions, but they don’t come. Slowly, she starts to relax.
Turning her head, Marian studies his profile. His eyes are closed, the lashes dark against his cheek. Before she knows what she is doing, she lifts a finger and traces the tiny scar by his eye. It’s on the tip of her tongue to ask him how he got it, before she remembers that it involved her punching him at the altar. She pulls her hand back; what they were and what they are seem like two halves that don’t fit, and she’s not sure that she likes either of them.
Pushing herself up, she reorders her robe, which is tangled at her waist. The world is coming back now-this was stupid and solved nothing. It may have even complicated things.
“Guy,” she says, and repeats it until he raises his head and looks at her warily. She opens her mouth to tell him again how she does not want to leave, but stops when she sees how he is steeling himself for that very request. She does not want to ruin the truce, not yet.
“You should sleep,” she says.
His eyes widen at the unexpected change of course. “You are in my bed.”
At first she thinks that he is making a joke, but no-he is being serious.
“Under the circumstances, I think that we can share it.”
The fire is dying, making it difficult to gauge his expression.
“I don’t know if that is safe,” he says, and she thinks his lips curve into a small smile.
“What does that mean?” Marian asks, confused.
“Nothing.” He rubs his eyes. “I need to think. I do not think straight when you are here.”
“That is not my fault,” she says and stiffens. Truth be told, he is thinking straighter than she would like and she is not thinking at all. She climbs off of his lap, turning away as he reties his trousers. When he does not say anything more, she bids him a goodnight, but instead of sounding brisk and terse, it comes out questioning and confused. She takes a deep breath to steady herself and adds, “I will see you in the morning.”
“Wait,” Guy says and stands. He takes her hand and runs his thumb over the knuckles, his face solemn. “I am . . . glad that you are out of the camp. I am glad that you are safe.”
“I meant what I promised,” she says softly. “I stayed until I had reason not to.”
“I know.”
Marian did not realize how much she wanted to hear those two words until he said them. She looks down at their hands, and then up at his face. He looks as though he wants to say something else, but at the last minute he just sighs.
“I will come up. Later.”
She wanted to hear those words as well; nothing has gone as planned or expected. It is enough to make her eager to retreat to the solitude of her own thoughts. After giving him what she hopes is a reassuring smile, she flees upstairs.
She does not know how long she sleeps-an hour, maybe two? All she knows is that when her eyes pop open again, her stomach is grumbling loud enough to wake the dead. She and Allan had not found much to eat on the road; the food she had stashed away in Tyre did not survive even harshest rations and they had very little money. An image of the meal downstairs flickers in her mind like a stubborn guest who refuses to leave. She should not have refused to eat just to spite him.
Rolling onto her back, she stares at the cracked ceiling. The largest crack runs the length of the room, starting at her feet and branching out like a delta near her head. Small fissures creep up on it from the side like tiny ambushers. It makes her think of maps, of adventure, of the sense of freedom that came from finally escaping that wretched camp. Every morning she would wake up and realize that no one other than Allan knew where she was or what she was doing. She would climb on her horse, look up at the blue sky and let the sun shine down on her face as though it could scorch all the guilt and doubt from her body. Her mood would lift, her spirits would rise, and for a brief moment she would feel as though everything was as it should be.
And then she would have to stop, climb off the horse, and throw up.
Marian has a very good idea what that means, and her body hasn’t seen fit to give her any proof otherwise. But when she thinks about it too much, her chest tightens until she can no longer breathe, so she forces herself to keep moving forward, to set a goal and work toward it. Finding Guy was a good goal. Now that she has achieved it, the thoughts and worries threaten to eat away at the fragile barrier between the present and the future.
Searching for distraction, she lets her head fall to the side, where she sees the dark, lumbering shapes of baggage and a spindly chair. Clothing hangs limply over its back, and a pair of boots lie sheltered within the cave of its legs. With a start she realizes that this must be Guy’s room, Guy’s bed. She had not even looked when she ran up the stairs, tore off her clothing and fell onto the sheets. Now she recognizes the slight masculine smell that lingered in the pillows as his. Leather and spice.
Bolting upright, she wonders what time it is. Swinging her legs around, she touches a tentative toe to the cool ground just as her stomach protests its empty state once again. Food. That’s first on the agenda, right after she finds something to wear.
Other than the barest hint of silvery moonlight, the room is dark, which makes her search tricky. After more than a few knee-bumps and elbow-scrapes, she locates a long robe hanging on the wall. In the dim light, she is unable to tell its color, but the fabric flows easily between her fingers; it feels expensive. It does not seem like something Guy would wear, although how would she really know? Maybe, like Vasey, he has a fondness for silk pajamas.
The thought is accompanied by an image, and surprisingly, the image makes her giggle. Marian is still snorting softly when she throws the robe around her shoulders and cinches the belt at her waist. It is too large, causing her to constantly readjust it on her shoulders as she steps out of her bedroom and tiptoes down the stairs. Rogue firelight flickers at their base, casting fleeting shadows across the arch of her bare feet as she takes the final step.
Her eyes take a few moments to adjust, and then they follow the long slab of the table to where it ends before the roaring fire. Nothing has moved since earlier in the evening-not the food on the table, not the long shadows cast by the high-backed chairs, and not the slumbering black dog in the corner. And Guy-Guy has returned.
Marian ignores the relief in favor of the indignation at being left to wonder at his whereabouts. She studies him from her spot in the entryway. He is sitting low in the high-backed chair, one foot braced on the opposing seat as he stares into the fire with his fingers laced before him. All she can see of his face is the line of his jaw, an ear, and the curling hair at the back of his neck. It’s grown wilder in the past month. And if the broken crockery scattered about the hearth is any indication, so has he. It appears that he has been amusing himself by throwing cups at the wall.
He has not noticed her; at the moment, she would like to keep it that way, even if it means taking her food upstairs and nibbling on it, rat-like, in the dark. Holding her robe at the waist, Marian tiptoes to the end of the table drags the loaf of bread and heavy knife toward her. It makes a rasping sound as it comes, and she sucks in a quick breath as she watches him for any sign of movement, praying that the popping of the combusting wood covers any of the small noises she is bound to make.
She cuts the end from a loaf then turns it around to remove the other. She has never liked the hard nubs at the end; growing up, her mother used to scold her for being wasteful, but it’s a small extravagance that she’s never been able to overcome. With a few more clean slices, she has her midnight meal.
“Marian, I know that you are there.”
His voice startles her, and she drops the knife with a clatter. It wobbles on the edge of the table before falling to the ground. She winces at the noise, feeling as though she has lost a game.
Marian decides not to acknowledge her previous attempts at stealth. “Did you have a nice walk?” she asks, unable to stop a note of prim disapproval from coloring the question.
He does not respond, choosing instead to continue his scrutiny of the hearth. Marian longs to escape back upstairs, but going now feels like a retreat. Pulling out the nearest chair, she sits and takes a tentative nibble of her bread. Hunger overtakes her on the first bite. The next thing she knows, she’s staring at a constellation of crumbs dusting the table and nothing else. After checking to make sure that Guy’s attention is still elsewhere, she licks her finger and makes them disappear.
Thirsty now, she eyes the pitcher of water blocking Guy’s elbow. “Can you please pass that?” she asks.
“Pass what?”
She does not like his attitude or his tone-grey and bored. “The only piece of crockery that still remains intact,” she says, feeling waspish. “Or would you deny me water as you’ve refused me my opinion?”
He turns his head to study her-finally-but the shadows cloak his expression. She does not know if his eyes actually narrow, or if it is a trick of the wavering light. When he makes no move to do as she’s asked, she pushes away from the table, walks over, and grabs the handle of the pitcher before realizing that there is no longer anything to pour liquid into. She sets it back on the table with a dull thud, hard enough that water sloshes from the top, wetting her fingers. She does not know how to deal with this Guy, this Guy who does not seem to even care that she is in the room. If anything, she is used to him being boorishly attentive.
Suddenly overcome by the childish need to make him react, she grabs the toe of his boot, and lifts. His eyes widen slightly as she pushes his feet off the chair. Guy watches with an impassive face as she makes a show of sitting, smoothing the fabric of the robe across her lap and crossing her feet at the ankle before giving him a serene smile.
His gaze drops to her shins, and she sees a flicker of interest ripple across his features. Confused, she looks down to find that that the bottom of her robe is caught beneath her knees. Furiously covering her legs, Marian hazards another look in his direction, expecting to meet a smirk.
But Guy does not look amused; he looks angry. “What are you wearing?” he asks gruffly, his mouth tightening in disapproval even as his eyes linger on her toes.
Bringing her knees up, she tucks her feet beneath the tent of the material. “Surely you have seen a robe before?”
He refuses to rise to her sarcasm. “Where did you get it?”
Marian studies the garment in question, which the firelight has revealed it to be an emerald green. “It was on the back of the bedchamber door. I assumed it was yours,” she says tightly, even though she had assumed no such thing.
Guy looks slightly affronted. “I would not wear that.”
“Then it was obviously left here. Who lived here before Baldrick?”
“I have no idea, nor do I care,” he says flatly. “You should sleep. You’ll have a long day of travel when the day breaks.”
He still insists on pretending that she is going somewhere tomorrow, does he? Marian drops her knees and leans forward. She did not mean to resurrect this argument in the dead of night, but now that he has brought it up, she will not let it go. “I am not going anywhere until you tell me what you know.”
“And I will tell you what I know when you tell me how you earned Richard’s permission to leave the camp,” he retorts, raising his eyebrows in a way that suggests he knows how doubtful this trade is.
Marian falls back in her seat, realizing that they are at an impasse. She studies the insufferable man who will be her husband if they ever make it out of this tangled mess. She has become used to Guy’s rigid mannerisms; he never slumps, and he rarely leans, especially not around her. But now she watches his head fall as he sinks down in his chair and brings a hand up to worry his brow. She has never thought of Guy as particularly old or particularly young, but now he looks like he has aged ten years in a single day. It unnerves her, makes her feel guilty for where she has brought them.
“Locksley is not the only manor,” she reminds him softly. "Nottingham is not the only shire."
Her words only earn her a dark look. “I know that.”
“Perhaps . . .,” she starts but then stops and licks her lips. When she finds her voice, she is shocked to hear it waver. “Perhaps this is a good thing.”
He rubs his forehead harder. “A good thing,” he mutters, soft enough that Marian wonders if she was even supposed to hear it. It is a good thing for the people of Nottingham, she thinks, but that is not something that she can tell him. And in all honesty, she does not know if she could deal seeing Robin day in and day out, not after what she has done and not as Guy’s wife.
“Perhaps it will be a good thing for us to have a fresh start somewhere else,” she says slowly, hugging her knees. She is surprised to feel how hard her heart is pounding, to feel how her breath sticks in her throat.
His hand stills over his eyes and then drops. She meets his gaze without flinching as she waits to see if he will acknowledge the dizzying amount of life implied in those words.
When he doesn’t say anything, she stumbles on. “There is a lot of . . . history . . . in Nottingham.”
His gaze continues to hold hers, and for a moment his eyes lighten. She is reminded of the day Prince John’s men surrounded Nottingham, the way he looked at her when she told him that she would stay. But then he turns away.
“It is not that simple,” he says as though she is a halfwit. “There are . . . obligations.”
Marian feels her cheeks start to burn-she feels as though she walked out on a limb only to have it snap beneath her feet. “You are not the only person who has had to readjust their vision of the future,” she says stiffly, willing to say anything in order to take back all the ground that she’s just given.
He rears back, his face contorting in anger. “Of course,” he says. “Tell me, when was the happy day to be?”
Confusion replaces the lingering hurt. “What?”
“When were you to marry Hood?”
“That is not what I meant.”
“I want to know.”
“Guy, stop it,” Marian says, beginning to feel uneasy. She had not even been thinking of Robin when she said that. She has been trying not to think of him at all.
“You told me you would stay. You said that you would.”
“I know! And I meant it!”
“As another man’s wife?” he scoffs, shaking his head. “No, Marian, tell me how long you were going to wait before running off to marry the outlaw.”
He will not give up. Fine. If he wants answers, she will give him answers. “We were to marry when the King returned.”
But Guy does not rage. He laughs, and it’s loud and rich and long. He laughs long enough that the dog raises its black head and glares at him through yellow eyes.
“I do not see what is so funny,” she snaps when he has finally stopped.
“I do not think that you ever intended to marry Hood.”
“We were engaged,” she insists, not caring if it fans the flames. “We knew we could not be happy until the people of Nottingham were free from harm. And he was legally an outlaw.”
“So? It seems to me that you would have enjoyed being an outlaw’s wife. If you wanted to marry him, you would have done it. You have never cared about rules before.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about!”
He shifts forward with a smirk, resting his elbows on his knees. If she did not want to smack him, she might be relieved to see a spark of emotion in his eyes, pigheaded though it is. He is too close. She scoots back in her chair, causing the shoulder of her robe to slip down. Angrily, she tugs it back up.
“Do I not?” he says. “I know that when you decided to marry me, for all your reasons, you showed up in the middle of the night half-dressed.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I wanted to get it over with,” she snaps, hoping that will make him retreat, but he just continues to give an infuriating half-smile. He is near enough that he could reach out and touch her legs; if he tries, she swears that she will kick him in the face.
Luckily for him, he doesn’t try. He just tilts his head to the side as though he is studying a particularly intricate design. She looks to the fire to escape his gaze. It is true that she never dreamt of a wedding day or children or a home, but that was just because there was too much to do, too much to fix. The future was a luxury. But then she remembers the night after Robin’s proposal, when her hand was no longer in his and the congratulations had all been said. She had lain awake wondering why her chest was so tight, why she felt the same way she did the night after she agreed to marry Guy. No matter how often she repeated “Marian of Locksley,” hoping that it would suddenly feel familiar and right, it never had.
“Perhaps I do not want to marry anyone,” she says after a long silence, and the minute it passes through her lips, she feels like she’s confessed her darkest secret. But it is true, she realizes. It has always been true.
Guy leans back, his expression veiled, and she realizes how that must have sounded. Why does she always blunder into insults with him?
“But I will marry you,” she concedes quickly, studying the fingers which are still wrapped around her knees. “I have promised.”
He snorts and looks away. “I am truly blessed,” he says bitterly. “You would make a better duck than a nun.”
It is said with such an air of disgruntlement that Marian wants to smile; she can feel it tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Guy frowns. “It is not a compliment, Marian.”
“Who said that I desired to be a nun?”
“There is little other option,” he says, and then leans back until head clunks against the chair. His eyes are closed, his throat exposed and showing the dark stubble that dots his neck.
“Society allows me little other option,” she says. “But like I said, it does not matter now. We have already . . . That is to say. . . There are those who would consider us married already.”
Her breath catches. It is the first time that she has acknowledged what has passed between them, and she hates how it makes her stutter. She has always prided herself on her ability to keep her composure under any circumstances, and yet here she is rattled by everyday intimacies that other women seem to take in stride.
She steals a glance at Guy. His arms are crossed over his chest, and his eyes are darkened by an emotion that she cannot define. “Nothing is ever certain where you are concerned, Marian.”
Again, she wants to smile; she ducks her head to hide it, but it is too late.
“Also not a compliment,” he adds, but for a brief moment Marian thinks she hears a note of grudging humor. A glow of pleasure propels her to say something that she’s never told anyone before.
“I had a friend,” she shares, “a friend who died. She was wonderful and then she married a cruel man and died.”
At first Guy just stares at her, blinking. He clears his throat, but when he speaks his horror is plain. “You think me cruel?”
It’s on the tip of her tongue to say no, but then she thinks of all the scars: the ridge of tissue along her side, the thin white hairline on her forearm, the mark from her knife that sits like an eye in the center of her palm. She does not mind them-in fact sometimes she is proud of them-but they are a grisly testament to their shared history.
“I think that we have both been blind,” she says. “And that has made us cruel.”
Guy opens his mouth as though to say something, but then shuts it, turning to contemplate the fire. Marian lets the silence fall. The dog shuffles to its feet and circles the table, putting its nose to the ground as though searching for any stray morsels of food. She watches its progress, enjoying the fire’s warmth on her toes, which refuse to stay hidden beneath the robe’s hem.
“They are not all like that,” Guy says suddenly.
“What are not all like that?”
He looks at her as though she is missing a crucial piece of her brain. “Marriages.”
“I have not seen many happy ones.”
“My parents were happy,” he says, and then shifts in his chair as though uncomfortable with the subject.
Apparently that is all the information he wants to give her. Back when Guy had first started showing up at Knighton with disturbing regularity, he had spoken often of his mother and father, but she had rarely listened, too consumed with protecting her father from the Sheriff and herself from Guy’s obvious designs. But now she finds that she is curious.
“You used to speak of your parents often,” she prods, bringing her knees down.
“I used to think that you wanted to listen.”
She moves forward in her chair. “I want to listen now,” she insists.
At first Marian thinks that he is refusing her request. Leaning his head back, he looks at the ceiling instead of her. His eyes follow the ripple of light and shadow. He is silent long enough that when he speaks, she jumps.
“They loved each other very much,” he says, his voice gruff. “I do not know if they still loved each other after everything was taken away. They had found us places-it didn’t matter where. I was sent to Vasey’s estate.”
The name still has the power to make Marian tense, but she forces herself to relax. They do not need to be drawn into another argument over a dead man.
“What happened to them?” she asks.
“They were imprisoned for a time.”
“And after?”
Guy gives a jerk of his shoulders that Marian supposes must be a shrug. “I do not know. I met a distant cousin at one of Vasey’s functions, who told me they died a few years before I came to Nottingham.”
Marian watches him for a sign of emotion, but his face is impassive. Her mother had died in childbirth, along with her new baby brother, but she had always had her father and a few distant aunts and cousins. They had stopped visiting when Edward was ousted from Nottingham.
“I am sorry,” she tells Guy now, surprised to find her voice thick with emotion.
Guy lowers his head. “It is the past,” he says sharply, but his gaze softens when it touches her face. “Your friend. How did she die?”
“In childbirth. As did my mother.”
He says nothing, much to Marian’s dismay. The simple confession breaks down the tenuous barrier between her and the concerns that she has exiled for later. They flood her thoughts. Three months. At the most she has three months before she is no longer able to hide her condition from Guy or anyone else. If she returns to the convent and Guy is detained, there will be questions and shame. She tells herself that she does not care what people think, but deep down she knows that this will be harder than losing your hair for a few pieces of bread. And then there is the endless waiting. If she must wait and wonder and watch her stomach grow, she will go mad. She cannot go back; she can’t.
“Guy,” she says, moving forward quickly enough that his eyes widen in surprise as he looks down at her. She speaks feverishly. “I do not want to go to the convent. I want to stay.”
His lips press together in consternation. “Marian-,”
“Please,” she says. “I will not get in the way.”
Guy gives a weary laugh. “You know that is not true.”
“I can help!” she insists, growing angry when he fails to respond. “Half of Robin’s plans were of my devising.”
His face darkens. “You are not helping your case.”
She pulls her chair closer to his, frustrated at herself for losing control, for saying things that she shouldn’t. Placing a hand on his knee, she spreads her fingers out to cover it. “Please,” she repeats. “I cannot spend another second waiting and doing nothing. I hated the camp, and I will hate the convent.”
Guy’s gaze drops to where her thumb clutches the inside of his leg. He stares at it, and Marian takes the opportunity to lean forward more. In doing so, the shoulder of her robe slips down again. Her fingers are on the material to fix it when she catches Guy’s eyes on the exposed skin. He clears his throat and then looks away, but not before she sees the flare of interest. A tiny thrill courses through her body; the balance of power is tilting in her favor. Stepping between his knees, she puts one hand on his shoulder and the other over his heart. It beats heavy against her palm. Guy says nothing, only watches her with hooded eyes and a detached expression.
“Let me stay,” she coaxes. His hands come up to span her waist, and she feels a sense of triumph, although she would feel more if he would move to kiss her. She lowers her lips, expecting him to meet her halfway, but his fingers only tighten at her hips. Confused, she pulls back.
“It is late. You should go to bed,” he says without much inflection, and she realizes that the hands she thought were preparing for an embrace are restraining her.
“I don’t want to go to bed,” Marian snaps, more from surprise than anger, as she tugs her robe up and stands. “Not if it means that I am leaving in the morning.”
“Marian, you cannot stay here.” For once his tone is more of a resigned statement than an order.
“Why?” she challenges. “After everything, why do you think me incompetent?”
“It is not a matter of competence! It is a matter of…,” he makes a frustrated sound and cuts himself off, taking a hand from her waist and rubbing his eyes.
She is getting nowhere. For a brief second she wonders if she should tell him that she thinks that she is with child. If she has learned anything it’s that Guy plays by the rules until you push him out of the game; he will not want to risk a scandal. But then there is Guy’s ridiculous obsession with protecting her; add a child to that and he will clip her wings to the root.
“Do you want me to beg?” she says suddenly, already feeling the weight of stone walls and punishing silence that the convent would bring. She will not be able to do anything if she is forced to leave. She will say anything to stay.
He blinks. “I do not--,”
“Please. Do not make me go anywhere. I beg of you.”
Guy looks at her, his expression a mix of confusion and surprise. She feels the threat of tears, a common affliction of late. If it happens again-now-she will tear her eyes out. Lifting her chin, she tries to keep what pride she has left.
“What is the matter?” he asks, leaning forward.
He is not reacting the way that she wants him to react. The frustration provokes the tears that have been building to spill. Knocking his hands away, she faces the fire and swipes at her cheeks, embarrassment taking the place of desperation.
“Nothing. I will leave you to your thoughts,” she says and then turns to go back upstairs.
"Wait,” Guy barks, and then stands to grab her arm. “Tell me what is wrong.”
“I do not want to leave. I told you.”
Guy shakes his head. “There is more,” he insists and tugs her toward his chest.
“I do not need to be comforted like a child,” she snaps, but her body has other ideas. It lets itself be drawn into an embrace. Once she is there, she buries her head in his shoulder and cries-because she is a long way from a home that doesn’t feel like home anymore, because she has betrayed everyone she has ever loved for reasons that now seem inconsequential, and because she no longer has control of anything, not even her own body.
Guy’s hands are light against her back; they hold her tentatively, moving every so often to smooth her hair. She is breathing hard enough to get mouthfuls of shirt; she turns her head toward his neck. The stubble is rough against her forehead. He smells . . . warm. Solid. The feel of his arms around hers are more comforting than she would have ever expected.
Then again, they were the last time he held her like this. She waits for him to ruin it, but his chin stays on her head. She watches the rise and fall of her fingers on his chest, listening to his easy breathing and the crackle of the dying fire. The circle of light around them is slowly shrinking.
She raises her chin and meets his eyes. Guy’s thumb comes up to brush away a tear that still lingers on her cheek. When it slides to trace her bottom lip, Marian sucks in a breath. He cups the back of her neck and brings his head down for a kiss. Her small moue of surprise is muffled beneath his lips, and she tastes salt between them. She starts to push him away out of habit, but then stops; this is what she wanted. It feels nice. It feels like something she can lose herself in, and for once-for once-she wants that to be enough. She kisses back, tilting her head and parting her lips to deepen the embrace. Her chest is pressed up against his, and the silk between them rubs her skin every time they shift.
He pulls back with a curse. “You should-,”
“Do not tell me to go to bed again,” she says. “I do not feel like sleeping.”
He opens his mouth to protest but she kisses him again, putting her hands on his shoulders. She lifts her heels for better leverage just as his hands slide down her back. They do not stop at her waist. Before she can react he grips the back of her thighs and lifts her onto the end of the table, dropping her so quickly that her tailbone knocks against the heavy wood. She barely has time to organize her thoughts before he steps between her legs and leans forward, his hands on her knees.
“Guy!” Marian cries, startled. Her robe has slid up to her thighs; his palms are hot and rough against her bare skin.
“This,” he snaps and then gestures between them, “won’t change anything.”
“You kissed me first!”
His thumbs brush the sides of her knees. “There was a deal on the table before that,” he says tightly. “This one was better cloaked.”
Marian tries to shove down the robe, but his hands are in the way. Does he know where they are? she thinks wildly. He is not acting like he does; his gaze remains fixed.
“There was no deal,” she says, embarrassed anew. She covers his hands with her own, letting their fingers tangle to bring at least the illusion of control. “You are reading too much into--,”
Guy interrupts. “I am seeing clearly, for once. You speak of cold marriages, but it is you who would twist anything between us until there is nothing left. I have no more patience for games. Not now.”
His eyes flick over her face as they always do when he is trying to read her. Here it comes, she thinks, and braces herself for the blame. If she is being honest, she has been waiting for it, wanting it. If he would just put it on the table, she can release some of the guilt that has weighed heavily in her stomach ever since her naïve planning had been ripped to shreds like a child’s doll.
But he does not say anything more, just watches her as the earlier reserve begins to overtake his features once again. She has taken so much from him in the name of giving to others; her blindness and arrogance seems inconceivable now. Raising a hand, she tries to touch his cheek. He flinches.
She pulls back, stung. “It was not a game,” she says softly, studying the rejected fingers. “I wanted to. . .”
“Wanted to what?” he asks, and his tone is once again flat. He is losing patience.
She closes her eyes and fights the urge to run. Why is it that the simplest things are always the most difficult to say?“I wanted to kiss you.”
“So you could get your way.”
“Partly,” she admits.
Her honesty unnerves him; he blinks a few times before he catches himself. “And if I told you that I couldn’t promise you anything?”
Her pride is screaming at her to make demands, but for once she tells it to be quiet. “Then I would be hurt,” she says, and then prays that her voice remains steady for the next confession. “But I would still want you to kiss me.”
Marian waits for his reaction, and when it comes, it is not what she expected. He leans forward, a calculating glint in his eye, and begins to slide his hands further up her legs. At first she is annoyed-he knew where they were-but that feeling is soon replaced by an urgent curiosity about how his palms will feel against the skin of her upper thigh. Every so often a thumb presses into the flesh, and she has to work to keep herself from emitting small gasps of surprise.
Guy is watching her face. He is testing her, Marian realizes, and if the doubtful tilt of his head is any indication, he expects to be stopped. When he isn’t, puzzlement threatens o overtake the skepticism clouding his eyes, and Marian is besieged by the familiar thrill that comes from defying expectations.
His fingers reach the hem of the robe, catch it, and take it with them. Warmth from the fire hits the newly exposed skin in a rush. She grabs the edge of the table to steady herself as he dips his head and leans in closer. His lips brush hers, and despite the fact that this is what she has told him she wants-and she does want it, she does-she pulls back slightly.
She experiences a moment of panic; he will think her hesitation a sign of falseness, when in reality she was just to loath to be distracted from the pleasure that is zinging in circles beneath her skin. But Guy doesn’t pull back and accuse her of anything; instead he changes course, moving his lips to kiss her cheek, then the spot below her ear, then the soft dip where her shoulder meets her neck. When one of his hands leaves her legs she lets out a sharp hiss of disappointment that she quickly sucks back in when the hand moves to cover her breast. His thumb presses against the point of her nipple through the silk, and then starts to move back and forth over it. He steps closer, until she can feel the evidence of his desire pressing against her. Remembering how quickly the last time turned from pleasure to pain, she pushes against his chest until he steps back.
The low light fails to hide Guy’s irritation. His brow dips as he looks at her. Marian can only imagine the scene she makes. Her skin is flushed, her robe askew, and her hair mussed. She tries to smooth the latter into some semblance of order and then concentrates on rearranging the fabric over her legs. When she looks up she expects to deal with his anger-and her own disappoint, because she didn’t really want it to stop, not really-but it is no longer there. He is smirking.
“I think I believe you,” he says, his eyes flicking her over from head to toe.
Caught off guard, Marian can only say, “Believe me how?”
“I believe that you want me to kiss you.” His gaze lowers to her lips and then slides to her chest. “Among other things.”
Marian stares at him, angry. She will stick her head in the fire before she admits to anything more than the kissing. And now that she is looking at him, she hates that he does not seem nearly as affected by their recent . . . activities. . . as she is. She stands up.
Guy catches her arm as though he expects her to run off. “Marian,” he says, and while his voice still holds irritation, it also carries a note of apology. If he is going to say more, he stops when he sees how she is looking at him.
She continues to give him a close-lipped smile. Heart pounding, she lets her fingers go to his shoulders and then trail down his chest to the hem of his shirt. Feeling more daring than she ever did as the Nightwatchman, she slides her hands beneath the rough fabric of his grey shirt and starts to nudge it upward. She sneaks a glance at his face; the former cockiness has disappeared, replaced by a look that can only be described as fearful wonderment. Making sure that her thumbs are in constant contact with his skin, she pushes the shirt up over the planes of his abdomen, over his ribs, over his nipples. When it reaches his shoulders he tugs it the rest of the way off and throws it to the side before turning back to look at her with an expression that is both expectant and challenging.
He quirks an eyebrow, an eyebrow that asks what’s next, but Marian can see the way his skin flexes beneath her fingers. She hears how his breath catches every time her fingers brush lower than his chest. That is something that Marian has always liked about Guy, even when she did not like him. He reacts when she touches him; it makes her feel powerful in a way that her interactions with Robin never did.
If Guy wants to turn this into a contest, she will win.
Sliding her hands up to rest on his shoulders, she braces her weight and lifts her lips as though to kiss him, feeling a sense of triumph when he immediately lowers his own. At the last minute she veers to the side and goes for a stubbled patch of his neck instead. The skin is salty beneath her lips. When he doesn’t react as much as she would like, she adds tongue. And teeth.
He sucks in a breath and then curses. Frightened that she has gone too far, Marian pulls back. Before she can register whether his eyes are angry or pleased, he digs his fingers into the flesh of her hips lifts her up. Instinctively, Marian wraps her arms and legs around his body, not realizing that he is heading for the chair until he has sat down and hauled her onto his lap.
He grabs her waist and tugs her forward until her body is pressed flat against him, her legs sprawled on either side. She is wearing nothing beneath the robe, a fact that she knew but didn’t really know until now, when she can feel his hardness pressing against her bare sex, only the leather of his trousers separating them. She squirms to put some distance between them, but he holds her still.
“It’s fine, Marian,” Guy breathes into her hair. “Just relax.”
Pulling back, she tries to meet his eyes but only makes it to his lips.
“Look at me,” he insists, and when she is finally able to obey, it is less embarrassing than she feared, although her back is still stiff.
“You can bite me again if you’d like,” he says wryly.
Her cheeks go hot. “I didn’t mean to-”
“Don’t apologize,” he interrupts gruffly, and then nudges his hips upward so she can tell just how much he liked it. He leans forward and traps her lips in another kiss before she can decide how to react to the ache of pleasure that his movement set off between her legs. He brings a hand up to her shoulder, which is bare. The robe has fallen halfway down her arm. He pulls it the rest of the way down before she can tug it back up, and then leaves her lips to trail kisses down her neck and chest.
When his mouth closes around her nipple she gasps. Her fingers tangle in his hair, and she moves her hips forward. There is a sensitive spot between her legs that responds every time it hits the ridge of his arousal. She moves again, and the pleasure of that combined with the sensations of his tongue on her breast makes her moan.
She wants to clap a hand over her mouth. Is she winning or is she losing? She can’t tell anymore. When he lifts his head she lowers her own, kissing his chest in an effort to make him feel the same loss of control. His heart pounds against her cheek, but he doesn’t make any noise. She runs her fingers down his chest, noticing that his breath quickens the closer they get to the ties of his trousers. She trails light touches along the line where skin meets leather, waiting for the burst of daring that will help her break that last barrier. It doesn’t come.
Together they watch her fingers dance at the edges. Suddenly, Guy grabs her hand and moves it down. For a few seconds she feels the heat of him pulsing against her palm before she wrests her hand away, startled.
“You are a tease, Marian," Guy says, his face full of bemused humor.
“I am not,” she says, disgruntled.
He raises his eyebrows. “Scared?”
“No!”
“Then touch me.”
Marian’s mind races; she thinks that she has just been manipulated. From the supercilious way Guy’s lips quirk, he thinks so too. Reaching between them, she holds her breath, grabs one end of his trouser tie, and pulls. The triumphant expression on Guy’s face is replaced by surprise. Marian feels a surge of victory until she realizes that she has just suggested that they move on to the part of this that is much less fun.
Guy’s fingers tangle with hers as he finishes untying the laces and then lifts his hips to ease his trousers down his thighs. His hand moves between them as he tries to urge her down. Her legs tense as she holds herself away.
“It won’t hurt,” he says, his eyes on her face, frowning when she fails to relax. “I’m sorry, Marian.”
At first she doesn’t understand-is he apologizing for it not hurting?-but then she realizes that it is an apology for the last time.
“I wish that I had not . . . ,” he says and then stops and swallows. “It will be better. Just trust me.”
She licks her lips; trust has never been their strong suit. Still, when he pulls her forward again, she does not resist, not even when he’s thrusting up inside her.
There’s a momentary discomfort. Liar, she thinks, but that is soon washed away when she gets the groan that she wanted. And truthfully it does not feel like it did the last time. She feels stretched and strange, but it does not hurt. He bumps his hips up, hitting a spot that is so deep that she gasps and digs her nails into his shoulders.
“Wait,” she says, and her voice sounds so breathy that she barely recognizes it as her own. She tries to put into words what she wants, but they will not come. She wants to know what to do; she wants to not feel like a passenger.
Guy is watching her lips, his eyes half-closed and hooded as his hands wander up and down her back. She shifts forward, enjoying the way it makes his breath catch. His fingers dig into her hips as he makes her repeat the motion, and she lets herself be guided. With every other downward stroke, the point of aching pleasure hits his flesh. The pressure builds, but every time it feels like it might be close to breaking, he guides her away from her mark and it returns to the dull tingle.
He is gripping her waist hard, so hard that Marian wonders if tomorrow will bring bruises. Grabbing his hands, she drags them up to cover her breasts so she can be free to move on her own. This time when she shifts downward, she hits it right. She cries out.
Guy’s thumbs tease her nipples before he leans forward and kisses her neck. She feels the scrape of teeth, and no longer regrets biting him. It is nice.
“I knew it,” Guy says into her ear, his breath hot against her skin. “I knew that there is something between us.”
“Guy,” she starts, but if there was ever anything to follow that, it was lost the second after it was conceived. Right now . . . right now when he is inside her and his hands feel so wonderful against her skin, Marian believes it.
“Ride me,” he says, nipping her neck again, and while the words shock her enough to make her lose her rhythm, they make the ache burn even hotter.
“Harder,” he orders just as she surges forward. The hard knot of pleasure crests and then explodes. Grabbing his biceps, she rests her forehead on his shoulder, her chest heaving as she tries to make sense of what just happened. He was not lying; this was much better than last time.
Guy is still moving beneath her, and every upward thrust sets off a series of aftershocks that make her feel pockets of warmth in the strangest places, like the top of her thighs and the small of her back. The ghosts of arousal are stirring, taking shape once again. But then he stops.
“We shouldn’t have started this,” he says.
Marian pulls back and looks down at him, confused. He is breathing heavily, his eyes linger on her breasts rather than her face, and yet he wants to stop.
“What is wrong?” she asks, and then remembers what he said the last time about it being a mistake and the possibility of children. “It doesn’t matter,” she tells him, still dazed and reveling in the unfamiliar glow. After all, she is unlikely to become more pregnant.
“Marian--,”
“It doesn’t matter,” she insists, and then regrets it immediately. His brow creases as he searches her face.
“Why does it not matter?”
She does not want him to know now; that will only make the real more real. He is destroying her tiny bubble of respite. “Because we will be married soon,” she says, hoping that it sounds optimistic instead of a weak excuse.
“It is not that--,” he starts, but then stops when she rocks her hips forward. When he looks like he wants to say something else, she does it again and again until he stops saying anything. Grabbing her hips, he jerks them forward hard and groans into her neck as she feels a rush of warmth between her legs. His head falls back, exposing the column of his throat. Her limbs feel heavy and languid, and she lets herself fall against his chest, her head on his shoulder. She waits for his questions, but they don’t come. Slowly, she starts to relax.
Turning her head, Marian studies his profile. His eyes are closed, the lashes dark against his cheek. Before she knows what she is doing, she lifts a finger and traces the tiny scar by his eye. It’s on the tip of her tongue to ask him how he got it, before she remembers that it involved her punching him at the altar. She pulls her hand back; what they were and what they are seem like two halves that don’t fit, and she’s not sure that she likes either of them.
Pushing herself up, she reorders her robe, which is tangled at her waist. The world is coming back now-this was stupid and solved nothing. It may have even complicated things.
“Guy,” she says, and repeats it until he raises his head and looks at her warily. She opens her mouth to tell him again how she does not want to leave, but stops when she sees how he is steeling himself for that very request. She does not want to ruin the truce, not yet.
“You should sleep,” she says.
His eyes widen at the unexpected change of course. “You are in my bed.”
At first she thinks that he is making a joke, but no-he is being serious.
“Under the circumstances, I think that we can share it.”
The fire is dying, making it difficult to gauge his expression.
“I don’t know if that is safe,” he says, and she thinks his lips curve into a small smile.
“What does that mean?” Marian asks, confused.
“Nothing.” He rubs his eyes. “I need to think. I do not think straight when you are here.”
“That is not my fault,” she says and stiffens. Truth be told, he is thinking straighter than she would like and she is not thinking at all. She climbs off of his lap, turning away as he reties his trousers. When he does not say anything more, she bids him a goodnight, but instead of sounding brisk and terse, it comes out questioning and confused. She takes a deep breath to steady herself and adds, “I will see you in the morning.”
“Wait,” Guy says and stands. He takes her hand and runs his thumb over the knuckles, his face solemn. “I am . . . glad that you are out of the camp. I am glad that you are safe.”
“I meant what I promised,” she says softly. “I stayed until I had reason not to.”
“I know.”
Marian did not realize how much she wanted to hear those two words until he said them. She looks down at their hands, and then up at his face. He looks as though he wants to say something else, but at the last minute he just sighs.
“I will come up. Later.”
She wanted to hear those words as well; nothing has gone as planned or expected. It is enough to make her eager to retreat to the solitude of her own thoughts. After giving him what she hopes is a reassuring smile, she flees upstairs.