looked back over at the bed, noticing abruptly that Seild was alone. There was no sign of Owen, her husband, not even a second dimple in the sheets. She didn’t stop to thank her good fortune, for Owen was no stranger to the sword, and crossed toward the bed.
“I won’t harm you,” she breathed, when Seild scrambled back. “Be still, and do as I say.” Marian wished she could sound more sympathetic, but she had to disguise, however poorly, her true voice. Seild’s eyes rolled toward the door, and Marian stepped to the side, blocking that escape. “You have my word, my Lady.”
Seild shifted her grip on the sheets pulled up around herself. Her knuckles were white, her jaw tense. But she breathed out again, lifting her chin and fixing her eyes once more on Marian.
Marian scanned the darkened room. Her eyes fell on Seild’s dressing gown, hanging by her washbasin.
No man gets through without being searched. . . .
But Marian wasn’t a man. And Gisborne could hardly expect his future wife, as he hoped, to submit to being searched.
Marian strode across the room, glancing at Seild to make sure she wasn’t about to run, and then set her sword aside so she could reach for the gown.
“It’s fine quality,” Seild said, voice halting and rough with sleep and fear. “Take it. Sell it for coin.”
Marian paused. A thief, breaking into a noblewoman’s bedchamber to steal a single gown? Too strange to escape notice. “Your jewels,” she said abruptly, turning to Seild. “Where are they kept?”
Seild was trembling, and the fear in her expression made Marian’s heart ache. If only she’d broken into the room of a stranger. “The box there by the washbasin.”
Marian dug through the little box—it held a tiny wealth of jewelry, a few rings, a hairnet seeded with pearls, a gold rope of a necklace, and a few jars of precious cosmetics—charcoal for lashes, powdered angelica for the cheeks and lips, crushed lily root to whiten the face. Marian pushed them aside and scooped up a few of the rings.
A sound from the bed made her pause—Seild’s fear had gone, making way for something else. “The turquoise,” she whispered when Marian looked back at her. “It belonged to my mother.”
Marian opened her fist, but she could think only of her own ring, and the panic she’d felt when John had asked her to surrender it. She glanced back at Seild, who looked so very small in the large bed, alone, huddled against the headboard.
She wanted to tell her again that she had nothing to fear, but she was afraid to speak any more than she had to. Marian hesitated, then drew herself up so she could bow toward the bed. The motion felt strange, stilted—she’d seen it countless times, a gesture as familiar as a smile or a wave, and yet her legs wanted to fold into a curtsy. She held herself straight with an effort and dropped the rings back into the box. She took the hairnet instead, and slipped it inside her tunic.
She could wear the dressing gown to hide her man’s clothing, but it would not hide her cloak and sword, and she could not leave them here. She strode back toward the bed, Seild’s eyes following her.
“Your sheet,” she whispered.
Seild’s face had cleared a little, her tears drying—but now she went rigid, her fear crystallizing like frost on the surface of a pond. “C-c-compassion, sir,” she managed. “My husband—”
“I won’t touch you,” Marian interrupted, haste shortening her voice. “I only want your linens.”
Seild hesitated, staring at Marian. She gazed so long Marian feared she could see through the shadows cast by her hood, see enough of Marian’s chin or mouth to recognize the girl she’d known for so many years. “Why are you here?”
Marian paused, mind freezing. “To save a life,” she whispered finally. Whose life she meant—Will’s, hers, the starving boys’ outside Nottingham’s gates—she didn’t know.
Seild said softly, “Thank you for leaving my ring.” She tugged the blanket free of the linens beneath, pulling the heavier fabric toward herself so Marian could reach the sheets. Her fear was fading, and she watched Marian now with something like curiosity.
“Thank you, my Lady.” Marian bundled up the fabric in her arms and headed for the door. She could hear nothing on the other side of it, and when she pushed it open a fraction, the hall looked empty.
She was about to leave when Seild’s voice came again from the bed. “Robin?”
Marian froze. When