Free Lady Thief: A Scarlet Novel by A.C. Gaughen

hand, and one of the knights caught me up before I fell. Lot of good they were when he were squeezing.
    “Apologize,” Gisbourne said.
    “You’ve lost your mind, Gisbourne,” de Clare said.
    “No one ever said I was sane, de Clare. She’s my wife and I’ll be the one to show her discipline.”
    De Clare folded over to give me a mock bow. “My apologies, my lady.”
    Gisbourne sheathed his sword, satisfied, but Winchester’smug were still storm-filled and dark. “Come along, Marian,” Gisbourne said, and Winchester’s glare twisted to de Clare.
    Gisbourne said nothing until we were back in his chambers. Then he let me go, pushing me forward, and he yelled out the door for some ale. He slammed the door shut, and I sat in the window, opening the shutter a space and trying hard to keep the water in my eyes.
    “You’re a stupid, foolish peasant,” he growled at me, sitting before the fire. “I told you to speak right to the prince. I
told
you to behave.”
    “The prince!” I snapped. “With his
royal authority
. What authority? He ain’t the damn king. He’s a spoiled
boy
.”
    “He’s a
prince
!” Gisbourne roared.
    “He’s your master,” I snarled. “And what, five years your younger? Were you taking orders before he could even hold a sword?”
    “You idiot girl,” he growled. “Just shut up, be still, and do what you’re damn well told. I wouldn’t have to hit you if you’d just do what I tell you.”
    “Keep hitting, see what happens,” I snapped. They were brave words, but they weren’t as honest as they should have been. My arm felt like it had splintered apart like a block of wood.
    His eyes were fixed on the fire. “I can hit harder, Marian.”
    “I’m fair shocked you didn’t let de Clare snap my damn hand off,” I spat at him. “Doesn’t matter to you none.”
    He whipped round in the chair, his eyes blazing hotterthan the flames. “Doesn’t matter? Are you daft? For him to strike you is an insult to my honor. A grave insult that I will not allow.”
    I spat on the ground. “You have no honor.”
    He lunged from his chair, coming to me to loom over me, all darkness and hulk and shadows. “My honor is the only thing that means anything to me.”
    I stared back at him. “Then you have no thought as to what it means. I’m no innocent, so I can’t say I ain’t earned whatever pain you put me to. But you’ve killed children. Without a sin to their name. Honor knows nothing of that.”
    “I protect my own.
My
name. Nothing else matters.”
    Turning my hand, I looked at the new spots of blood on the bandages. “Damn fine job of protecting me you’re doing,” I told him.
    He caught my chin and dragged me up, looking full in my eyes. His were dark, like oil skating over midnight water, and looking in them felt like falling into black. “Are you mine, Marian?”
    My body set to trembling. “You know that answer, Gisbourne.”
    He let me go, looking away, the black waters drying up. “I do. And yet, you came. With bruises on your face, when all of Sherwood defends you.”
    “For the annulment.”
    His lip curled. “Naturally. And yet I wonder if it wasn’t your sweet Huntingdon who has been dishonoring you the same way I’m wont to do.”
    “Rob wouldn’t
never
raise his hand to me. Rob wouldn’t never hurt me,” I said, my mug hot and my blood running fast. “Rob loves me more than he loves his self.” It were all I could manage to say the words clear and true.
    My eyes set to leaking and I went for the door, near knocking a servant with a tray of ale. I passed her and bare made it another bend in the hall before my mug burst with water. I ran.
    I ran through the snow. I made it to the gates, to the towering walls of stone what kept me from Sherwood, from Rob, from the forest that kept some shadow wraith of Scarlet while Marian were here and skirted and chained. And I stopped.
    “My lady?” called a knight, coming close to me. “My lady, it’s freezing.