Bound by Honor

“Robin Hood’s luck had best change sooner rather than the later,” John grumbled. He cast his attention around the luxurious chamber and his eyes fell on another of the wenches he had collected for this night’s entertainment.

Her eyes goggled and Will saw her breasts-barely covered by a thin shift-rise and fall as though she were running. But she dared not move from where she sat on her haunches, either to hide or attempt escape.

John, who was considered a rather handsome man, with his dark hair and well-trimmed beard and mustache, smacked his full lips and gulped again from his goblet, but did not call the girl to him. Perhaps he was sated for the time. Will hoped that was the case, for he had little interest in watching his liege, especially when his jaw was as lief to crack with a wide yawn. A long day it had been, patrolling the Forest of Sherwood, on the hunt for outlaws like Robin Hood.

“Bitches,” John said, slamming the heavy goblet down. He glowered at the frightened girl. “They stink and scuttle in fear the moment someone looks at them. ’Tis a blessing that Isabella will leave for Westminster in two days. Then we shall have a much more interesting variety to sample.”

Isobel of Gloucester was John’s wife, and it was well-known among the prince’s confidants that she demanded at least the pretense of fidelity while she was in residence with him. That simply meant that her husband refrained from tupping any of her ladies-in-waiting, or the wives and daughters of his vassals, while Isobel was about.

But upon her removal from the prince’s residence, the ladies became the same fair game as the does John hunted during the day . . . whether they wished to be or not. And when John’s two other bosom companions, Sir Louis Krench and Lord Ralf Stannoch, were also in attendance . . . well, Will thought ’twas rarely a pretty sight.

“Indeed, my lord.” Will bowed, then attempted to divert the king back to the reason he’d rousted him from bed so late at night. “Did you have some news for me, my lord?”

“Ah, yes. But of course.” John plucked a piece of cheese from his mother’s homeland of Aquitaine and slipped it into his mouth, brushing tiny crumbs of bread from his neat beard. “I received word earlier today that Lady Marian of Morlaix shall arrive here at Ludlow Keep sometime in the next sennight. As she’s returning from her dead husband’s lands as a ward of the king, it is expected that her baggage will be extensive. A perfect opportunity for Robin Hood to make an attempt to ambush her carriage. And of course, the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire shall be waiting to thwart such an attempt, and to save the fair maiden.”

“Indeed,” Will replied a trifle later than he should have. His brain had turned sluggish as soon as her name passed the prince’s lips.

Marian was returning.

Lady Marian, she was now. No longer the maiden he and Robin of Locksley had known during their childhood when they’d been fostered with Marian’s father. How wealthy she had become, and how far Robin had fallen-from the young landed lord to an anonymous outlaw resigned to hiding out in the forest. Yet, Will had recognized him the first time they’d come face-to-face during an aborted robbery.

Marian’s father, Lord Leaford, was a baron well-known for his skill in training young boys to be knights, and until his death, he had been popular among the lower ranks of nobles who could not afford to send their boys to a more powerful lord for fostering.

Yet, it was the baron’s daughter Will remembered best. The tart-tongued, quick-witted, coppery-haired girl who’d ridden circles around both him and Robin, teasing and pestering and laughing at them with her sparkling green eyes. Now she was no longer a girl of twelve, but a woman grown and widowed, a rich heiress . . . and returning to Nottinghamshire.

A woman who had haunted him ever since their youth.

A ripe target for Robin Hood, indeed.

And, Will realized, with a glance at the handsome, lascivious prince . . . a ripe target for John Lackland, who would be fascinated by any new woman at court. But especially one as fiery and bold as Marian.

By all that was holy, what was he to do?

CHAPTER 1

L ady Marian of Morlaix peered through the shuttered windows of her traveling wagon, but to her annoyance could see little of interest. The tall, close trees of Sherwood Forest allowed only dappled sunlight through on a bright day, but when there were clouds and rain threatening as now, the woods were as dark as night. The smell of loam and damp bark was thick in the air.