Marian took Elena’s hand but was too moved and dumbstruck to do anything but hold it in hers. “I’m glad you didn’t kill him,” she whispered.
Elena, who had tended Marian in the hours after she’d shot the guard in the corridor at Nottingham Castle, let out a breath and squeezed Marian’s hand in acknowledgment.
Marian felt a smile tug at her cracked lips. “I wonder if Alan will ever try to tell you again to stay behind.”
FORTY-ONE
MARIAN SAT ON THE ground, leaning sideways against the fence post, watching Jonquille nip lazily at the grass beyond. It hurt still to lean her back against anything hard, but she could move and walk a short way and she could sit in the sun.
A line of reddish brown marked Jonquille’s right flank, where a sword had slashed at her. It had healed more quickly than Marian’s wound and seemed to irritate the mare more than pain her—her skin would twitch now and then, as if trying to shake off an itching fly. Jonquille sometimes meandered nearer the fence and lowered her head over the top rail and chuckled at Marian’s hair.
All is forgiven, Marian thought, watching her horse and fighting the desire to scratch at her bandages. Two of the village boys were working nearby, gathering fruit up in the branches of the apple tree. Marian could hear them talking and laughing, and the occasional thump as an apple fell, disturbed by their climbing, to the ground below.
She watched them for some time before she realized she was being watched herself. It began as a prickle of unease, and she rubbed at the edge of her bandage, restless. The prickle spread, and grew, and when Marian turned to look for Jonquille, she found instead that a man was standing at the corner of the house, half-concealed in the shade cast by the thatched eaves.
He wore a faded tunic of rust brown, and leggings of gray, and might have been one of the Edwinstowe farmers, had she not known his face by heart.
Gisborne saw her recognition but continued to watch her, motionless, for a stretch of frantic heartbeats so quick Marian thought she might faint again. Finally, he moved, pushing away from the wall and coming toward her. His face was as calm and as cold as it had ever been. There was not a crack in the granite, not a twitch in his scarred cheek.
“Good afternoon, Lady Marian.” A pause as his eyes traveled down her body, lingering where, hidden by her dress, the bandages held her wounded shoulder together. “You look well.”
Her hands had curled to fists in the grass, and her muscles screamed for action—Run, they told her. Run, damn you. But she couldn’t run, injured and weak as she was. He would seize her before she’d be able to stand. She said nothing.
Gisborne’s eyebrows rose. “No greeting? Have I offended you in some way, Lady?”
A thud came as one of the boys dropped out of the lower branches, gaze swinging from Marian to the man in peasant garb a few steps away. “Lady?” the lad called, uncertain. “All’s well?”
Marian spared him only a glance, her eyes fixed on Gisborne’s. His black eyes narrowed a fraction. “Answer him,” he suggested softly.
Throat dry, Marian had to clear it twice before she managed, “All’s well. Save me an apple.”
The boy grinned and climbed nimbly back up into the tree. Gisborne watched him, his scarred profile betraying nothing to Marian’s eyes. Only once the lad had vanished did he move again. He sank into a crouch before Marian, a respectful distance between them. He did not speak, but waited, and watched her, and cut at her with his indifference.
“How did you come without being seen?” she said finally. “I have men watching the road.”
Gisborne’s head tipped a little as he considered the question, then turned so he could watch Jonquille grazing peacefully some distance away. “Over the past few days, I’ve come to a realization. What strikes me most about Robin Hood is his arrogance. So certain that his tricks will fool his enemies—a simple cloak as disguise, shortcuts through the trees to avoid patrols on the road—and just as certain that his enemies would never think to use those same tactics against him.”
Marian’s vision blurred, her urgency and her fear drawing tears to her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but they clung to her lashes, scattering the afternoon sunlight.