Bound By Honor
An Erotic Novel of Maid Marian
Colette Gale
PROLOGUE
“Are you not the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire?” Prince John said in that lazy way of his.
It was not a question; he knew full well to whom he was speaking. His eyes were darker than ever in the dimness of his private chamber, but they were hooded with heavy satisfaction. “Methinks there’s none who knows the king’s Forest of Sherwood as well as you.” He stretched his broad shoulders, and gave a little, almost effeminate shudder.
“Indeed, my lord, I am quite familiar with the forest,” replied Sir William de Wendeval, keeping his voice even and his attention from the generous breasts of the serving wench who was . . . serving . . . the prince at the moment, and had no doubt caused his shiver of pleasure.
Her lips were red and swollen, her jaw stretched wide as she accommodated her liege’s well-used cock. Large breasts hung and swayed with each movement, her nipples threatening to brush the floor. She was breathing hard from exertion, her face red and glistening with sweat.
Prince John, who was lording his royal self about his brother Richard’s country while the king was off fighting Saladin in the Holy Lands, had taken over the ladies’ solar in Ludlow Keep for his own private chamber. His Court of Pleasure, as he called it.
Will was grateful for his choice of the room, for it was large and had two massive fireplaces and several narrow slits that allowed fresh air to come in-a welcome treat on nights like this, when the chamber was thick with the smell of sex and sweat and heat.
“Then . . .” John gasped, stilled, then grabbed the head of the doxy going down on him and jammed his cock deep into the back of her throat. Pleasure narrowed his eyes and thinned his generous lips as the girl coughed and choked and struggled beneath his hands.
John released her suddenly and she fell back onto the floor. Her tangled hair caught under her hands as she collapsed, gasping for breath. From where he stood, Will eyed her critically. She’d live.
Unlike the girl last week, who’d been a casualty of one of John’s experiments that included bondage and a heavy hood.
Will transferred his attention back to the prince, keeping his face devoid of emotion. He enjoyed fucking as much as any man, and in many ways, and the more the merrier-but some of John’s proclivities weren’t to his taste. And, at the least, unlike this pitiful wench, he had some choice in the matter.
So far.
“. . . ’tis inconceivable that you have not yet caught Robin of the Hood!” John continued his sentence as though he’d not stopped to spew his seed, wipe his cock, and then shove it back into his braies-all the while leaving Will, whom he’d summoned from his bed well past midnight, standing there. “He and his band of outlaws have poached from the king, stolen from the tax collector, and they continue to run rampant through the shire.”
Will’s face tightened. He bowed to his liege. “ ’ Tis a matter of great annoyance to me as well, my lord. Robin Hood has been able to remain a bare step ahead of my men thus far . . . but ’twill not be long before we capture him. His luck cannot last forever.”
John shifted on his seat, which happened to be a massive wooden chair piled high with cushions and furs. He’d removed his jewel-encrusted tunic some time ago, and now wore only an undertunic, braies, and soft calf slippers. A goblet of wine sat next to him on a small table, and he lifted it to drink furiously as though he-not the serving wench-had labored for his pleasure.
Will cast a glance around the room. The window slits were uncovered by heavy tapestries this summer night, and a beam of moonlight shone in through the westward side.
The side that faced Sherwood Forest, where the outlaw Robin of the Hood had famously eluded the fearsome Sheriff of Nottinghamshire for nearly a year.
A miracle that the prince hadn’t come to investigate before now, since his pocket had become quite a bit lighter since Robin had taken to stealing from traveling lords and ladies.
John, of course, collected taxes from the English people in the name of his brother, Richard, called the Lionheart, who had left him as regent while on Crusade. Well, to be more precise . . . he’d first left William Longchamp, that humpbacked dwarf, as England’s justiciar and chancellor-completely in charge of the treasury and in control of the country. That was until John, with the support of the powerful nobility, had removed the power-hungry man and sent him scuttling out of England.
Now, flush with the surge of power obtained by the overturning of Longchamp, John plotted to seize even more control. But in a much stealthier manner. Thus, while he acted in the name of the king, a goodly portion of the king’s tax money meant to fund Richard’s war had been lining John’s pockets, and anything that the outlaw Robin Hood made away with was a direct cut to the prince’s coffers.
