Lady Thief - By Rizzo Rosko Page 0,39
with him and the servants about that as well when she was in a right of mind.
She rode her mare until the wind dried her cheeks. When she felt she was far enough away from the castle she slowed her poor animal to a walk, allowing the both of them to breathe the autumn air deeply.
She was far from her troubles, everyone she hurt was not within a shouting distance of her, but she did not feel like they were far away at all. Her guilt pressed heavier against her chest.
Marianne could still see the castle from where she rode just outside of the forest, and while she felt only a little better for releasing her anger, it did not completely dissipate, and she knew it would eventually return like a violent siege if she did not speak with her father and take all of her anger out on him where it belonged.
Marianne wiped the building moisture from her eyes, disgusted with herself for even considering his motives might be honorable.
He hadn’t a drop of honorable blood in his body, not for several years now at any rate, and she was an emotional fool for thinking he had returned to his former self.
Father or not, if she saw him right away she would strangle him, and being the lady of the castle, to attack a penniless man would do no harm to her whatsoever.
The thought of her hands wrapped around his neck while he had a comical look of strangulation on his face brought a small joy, but the distant cry of another horse pulled her out of her thoughts.
She turned. The form of the small horse become larger and larger as its hooves thundered towards her from the direction of the castle at unnatural speeds, and before she could make out the form of the rider she instinctively knew William rode the beast.
He charged at such a pace that she craned her neck, searching for any threat, alert and fearful of what she could not see. The only sound came from the wind rustling the tree leaves. Marianne felt no danger.
She turned back to William and did not expect that his face would be so twisted with anger when he came close enough for her to see it.
He ripped the reigns to her horse out of her hands, leaving her to only hold onto the neck of the best. William glanced behind her to the trees, and began riding toward the castle without so much as saying a word to her, his expression set in chilled stone.
The easy pace and thick silence after his crazed ride to get to her pressed on her nerves.
She would take none of it. “Will you not say anything to me?”
He grunted, sparing her feelings enough to face her, trusting the horse he rode to lead the way, though his expression remained the same. “There have been times when I assumed my first impression of you to be false, but now I see that I was correct all along, and apparently I need to protect you from yourself.”
Marianne could not say what he was referring to. It did not sound like he was angered with her for listening outside of his door. But if not that, then what?
“I do not know what you are speaking of.”
The angry lines in his face deepened. “You rode outside of the protection of the castle!”
“Some protection it provides when the gate is left open at all hours of the day and night!”
He turned away from her, watching where he was leading the horses instead of looking at her while he reprimanded her. “Well, it shall no longer be so, and despite it being left open, single thieves and murderers looking for foolish ladies traveling alone would never dare try to enter. They hide in the forest waiting for their prey.”
The fog in Marianne’s mind cleared and she knew of what he spoke, and she looked back toward the forest she had been on the brink of entering in disbelief. The calm scene she had thought of it only moments before instantly changed into something sinister. “Murderers? Where?”
He whipped his head at her, a tiny protruding vein thickened along the side of his neck. “They do not sit where you can see! You have never traveled alone before, and even then you are still fortunate to not have come across any. Never run away like that ever again!”
Marianne pouted and fought the urge to argue that she could usually