Curiosity niggled at her, and Marian could not resist. She moved silently through the forest, taking care to step only on the thick covering of pine needles, which muffled any sound, and to avoid sticks and bushes. The ability to move thus was a skill she’d learned long ago, when she sneaked after the fostering boys at Mead’s Vale and spied upon them. When she heard the voices clearly enough to recognize that they belonged to two men who were speaking in low rumbles, she crouched and peered around a tree.
Will sat atop his massive black horse in the midst of a dark, thick section of the wood. The trees grew so close here that little sunlight reached the ground. Leaves and pine boughs created a canopy above Will’s head, but he stood unfettered and fully in view in the middle of the shadowy forest.
At first, Marian thought he must be alone, and that his companion-or whomever he’d been talking to-had gone. But then she heard a murmured reply filtering from somewhere, and she looked up into the trees.
Robin?
Robin and Will were talking, there in the midst of the forest?
Or had Will chased the outlaw deep into the wood, and now Robin sat high in a tree, taunting the sheriff from his perch?
Marian strained to hear their conversation, but just then, Will gave a loud disgusted sound and wheeled his horse sharply about. He slammed his heels into the destrier’s side, and with a great leap, they began to bound toward her. Heart in her throat, Marian stumbled back, out of the warhorse’s path, and ducked behind a fallen tree. She tripped over the huge trunk, tumbling onto the other side and landing in a pile of gown and kirtle.
Worried that Will had heard her ungainly escape, she pulled herself up and peered over the top of the trunk, half-expecting him to come galloping over to yank her out from her hiding place. But he barreled on past, and she watched him go with another worry; he might not have found her, but if he kept on in that direction, he would see her horse and mayhap her men.
Marian scrambled up and began to run, not back on the route from which she’d come, but at a slightly different angle. Will would certainly come back into the forest, looking for her, and she wanted to be as far from this place where he’d been with Robin as possible.
She also wanted time to think about what she’d seen: Will and Robin, talking in the middle of the wood.
Had they met intentionally, and Robin taken the opportunity to taunt Will from his place in the tree? Or had it been happenstance, and the sheriff had once again allowed the outlaw to slip through his fingers? That hardly seemed to be the case, since Will had left first. But even so, she suspected that the sheriff would be less than pleased to know she’d witnessed their dealings.
She tripped and fell once because she wasn’t watching the ground, so worried was she that Will might come bursting through the wood upon her. Pulling herself back up, Marian realized her veil had been torn from her hair somewhere along the way, and that branches had pulled tendrils from her thick braids. Her skirts were soiled and she was out of breath by the time she heard what she’d been expecting: the bellow of her name, and the dull thud of hooves on the forest floor.
Pausing to catch her breath, she smoothed her hair and her skirt and tried to appear as if she were merely examining a growth of moss on the side of one tree. She’d seen one of the healers use moss to pack a wound once-
“Marian!”
She forced herself to look mildly surprised to see him, but it was difficult when faced with the dangerous black figure before her. The warhorse pawed and pranced as Will drew him up and around, coming toward her.
“Madwoman!” he thundered. “What do you here alone? Was not one attack by outlaws enough for you? Do you wish to be taken off and assaulted?”
“Nay, of course I do not,” she shouted back, startled into anger. However she had expected their next meeting to be after the events of the night before, this was not a scene she would have imagined. “My men are nearby, in fact. They will like be coming to my aid, for they’re certain to hear how you have attacked me thus.” Her voice had calmed and now bore a tinge of disdain.
“Or mayhap you simply troll through the wood in hopes of meeting Robin Hood,” he continued furiously, as if she’d never spoken, his voice infused with venom. He took little care to keep the destrier from pawing and snorting, fairly atop her in his close proximity.
If she did not know how well he controlled his horse, she might be frightened enough to step back from the four-legged beast, but Marian was not about to show any further weakness. Instead, she stood her ground and glared up at him, hardly able to accept that only last night he’d been sliding in and out of her body, making her cry and writhe with pleasure.
“I presume this is yours?” His fist whipped out and she saw that he was holding a scrap of blue ribbon.
