by Sue Wilson
And damn himself, as well. Knowing Aelwynn as he did, why had he ever thrust her into Monteforte's arms, even as a momentary diversion for the man? Bitterly, he wondered which ring on the baron's thick, bejeweled fingers had bought what passed for Aelwynn's loyalty.
Damn Monteforte! Damn Richard and John and the miserable shifting of political intrigue on which his fortune so wobbly rested. Damn them! Damn them all!
Gisborne kicked at the rushes, striking sparks against the stone floor with his spurred heel. He and his cousin had struggled for years in endless, nauseating submission to the fat-pursed barons of this shire. De Stradley and Luterell, with their estates and their titles. Monteforte with the rolling acreage of Wythestead around him. When had the lard tub of a man ever broken sweat for his wealth, save the few grunting moments he must have passed between Aelwynn's thighs? Gisborne glared balefully around the hall. Behind which tapestry? he wondered. On which table? In whose borrowed bed? Damn her!
He had come full circle, knowing only that his cup and gullet were dry. He banged the empty tankard on the table, calling for more ale, wanting only oblivion, or an evening clouded enough that he did not-could not-think of the choice Aelwynn had given him.
His father.
Gisborne shuddered and his stomach heaved, sending the sour froth of ale up into his throat. He remembered the estate in Normandy, the years spent under his father's black, polished boot-loveless, haunted years when he came to know how piddling an excuse for humanity he was in his father's eyes. He remembered the endless hours of lifting a sword too heavy for his stringy arms, of lessons in horsemanship with the whip always close at hand.
He possessed not a single attribute his father demanded in a son. Small, imperfect, awkward in a gangly way from limbs that grew overlong for his runty stature-only a viciously tempered will kept him from crumpling into tears at the end of a day's grueling efforts at knightly skills.
True, he lived with wealth and finery, but anger and hostility undercut every advantage. To this day, all he could remember of his father was the scent of leather, the strike of his hand, and the stern, unforgiving lectures that burst unexpectedly from his thundercloud visage.
And the rest? While he grew up all too aware of his position as a landless younger son, he had been spared the worst of his father's disapproval. That Lord Gisborne saved for the stable boy, Gisborne's only friend. His "cousin" in all but blood.
"Whipping boy," the stable master had called him, resentful of having lost a good hand to the manor house. But while it was true, Gisborne acknowledged darkly, he had refused to hear such an ignominious title laid on his adopted kin. He'd put a pitchfork in the man's thigh for the remark.
That was the beginning, he supposed, and that small seed of loyalty had grown and blossomed as his peculiar comradeship with the boy developed. His cousin was the one relief in an otherwise bleak and oppressive day, the one person he could reliably best at swordplay, thereby earning a small smirk of approval from his father. The boy accepted him as he was, puny and sniveling-rich, and pulled no punches. Not with words. Not with fists. With his stable-soiled dignity, the boy taught him the meaning of survival and invented daring, fun-filled exploits with which to balance Lord Gisborne's cruelty.
God's oath, he had pulled his cousin's ass from one hapless incident after another, from the childish pranks they concocted together to the horrors of their near-fatal ambush in Sherwood. And he had bound himself with words, with deed, long past the time when childhood was done.
Gisborne clambered to his feet, calling loudly for ale. "Where the hell did the girl go? Where are my servants?" he demanded, the drunken roar of his voice sending the hounds into a nervous skittering at his feet. Disgusted, he threw the tankard aside and staggered from the hall, lurching down the dark corridors.
He had not minded leaving Normandy, or his home. As he remembered, it had even been his idea, for the bent of his father's temper had grown lethal and murderous. It was a coward's insult to steal away under cover of night as he had, repudiating his father's efforts to secure him a position in the king's service. And yet Gisborne had turned his back on his father without regret, choosing to follow his cousin instead. Even an uncertain life in the lists was preferable to one his father designed for him, one where he would be but a strategically placed pawn linking his father and the royal court, where the only requirements of him would be silence, deference, and an obsequious manner.
Instead he and his cousin traveled from tourney to tourney, scraping together a living off their winnings and finally amassing armor and horses enough to secure positions in the king's army. Eventually, his cousin rose through the ranks and obtained the post of sheriff. And always the unspoken loyalty lay between them.
In the intervening years, he heard through others of his father's wrath, learned that, as in childhood, he had escaped the brunt of it. As angry as he was at his son's departure and the toppling of his carefully laid plans, Lord Gisborne still predictably faulted the bastard stable boy for his son's errant ways.
"As if I had no mind or will or spirit of my own!" Gisborne growled into the darkness. "As if I am the Sheriff's puppet...or his!"
Caroming off the side of the stone wall, he urged his feet up the first coil of steps, scraping his elbow against mortar and mail. A rumble of laughter cracked deep within his chest. Ironic that even now, years later, his father had found a way to reach to England, and Nottingham, to soil his manicured hands with the dirty, ignoble work of manipulating the monarchy.
"It would seem the old man has managed well enough without me, squirming his way into Lackland's good graces, siphoning off promises in exchange for support. Does he think me a fool? The game has not changed at all. Only the stakes are higher." Gisborne paused. "A sheriffdom..."
No. He shook his head. There was still a price for his father's offer. And a motive. The same motive that had always existed in Lord Gisborne's resentment-filled mind. Remove the bastard Sheriff, and with Nottingham stripped of his position and prestige, buy back the fealty of his son to use in his political games.
Gisborne squinted through the murky half-light of his ale-fogged world. Oh, yes, he could see himself in his cousin's silks, could envision the same servants who were slow to fill his cup, bowing and quaking at his feet. But the cost? To be his father's man, bought and paid for? To feel the crushing weight of his polished boot again? To lose his cousin, for whom he felt both admiration and envy, who had earned, and now commanded, his loyalty with a power his father could not begin to grasp?
Aelwynn could not fathom how hopeless was her cause. He would warn the Sheriff now, drunk or no, let him know he would not be duped into this treacherous scheme. Not for the barons or his father. Not for anyone.
He reached the top of the stairs, ale sloshing in the pit of his stomach like liquid fire. Fighting down the urge to retch, he found himself at the passageway that led to the Sheriff's chambers. Suddenly he stopped, his head spinning with the memories from that morn when some poor excuse of a sentry had sent him away. And later that smothering Saxon protectress had flapped her skirts at him with a hale "Begone!"
He was there-Nottingham-undoubtedly still pleasuring himself with his surgeon, with the woman he had found in the meadow and marked for himself. Christ, what a craving that spirited, defiant wench had ignited in him! With the haughty rebellion in her midnight blue eyes, the daring thrust of her chin, the exquisite coolness of her lies-he had wanted her, wanted her now with excruciating, unslaked thirst. And yet-
Gisborne braced himself against the wall as his knees buckled and the world spun dizzily around him. Cold sweat prickled his forehead and upper lip, causing the desire in his blood to stir with sickening, drunken arousal.
She was with him, wrapping her sweet, herb-scented flesh around him, whimpering her love for him, moaning her passion. For him. Because he was Nottingham, the lord high sheriff. While he-
Gisborne closed his eyes, shutting out the too-brilliant nimbus of torchlight. He
was nothing. An underling. Nottingham's lackey, if not his father's. A man beholden to his cousin for his future, if not his very existence. A man who surrendered his woman to the Sheriff without so much as an argument. Because he was Sheriff.
Jealousy roiled in his gut, and his fingers clawed into fists.
"Are you here again?"
He heard the swish of skirts and the heavy waddle of the Saxon servant.
"Are you?" he muttered, opening his eyes to the lancing pain of pulsing torchlight and the woman's shrewish frown. "A boon, Mildthryth. Surely the man's seed has run dry by now."
"He's ill, Sir," she said, stiffening her oxen-strong shoulders.
"Ill-"
"And I've seen eels less pickled than you are now. The reeking stench of you will sit poorly with his offended belly."
"His belly, you say. Tell your tales somewhere else. I've important news."
"'Tis not a thing can't wait till the morrow, till you've cast off the rankness of your ale and he's more fit to hear you."
"But I must tell him. The whore-Aelwynn-"
"Are you telling me, my lord, you can't keep the she-wolf occupied and out of harm's way for a single night? Are you needing help with that as well?"
"Mildthryth-" The warning died in his throat as the woman huffed an indignant breath and turned her back on him. Damn it! She would not speak to him this way. She would not dismiss him out of hand. Not if he were anything but a common soldier. Not if he were sheriff.
Gisborne glanced toward Nottingham's well-fortified door, imagining the feel of sable beneath his bare back, the soft curtain of Thea's mahogany hair spiraling around them, the blood-red flesh of her lips-
If he were sheriff.
~*~
"You will have me smelling like a flowery mead. The bees will be trailing me from as far as Fletcher's Gate."
Thea arched one brow, and a smile eased across her face as she slid her oiled hands down the center of the Sheriff's chest. The scent of lavender permeated the air, and he wrinkled his nose and sniffed as if to make his point. Her smile broke into laughter.
"Lavender brings refreshment, restores vigor," she cited in a voice pretending at neutrality. Of course, it did no good to play the herbal authority with this man. Vigor was not what he needed; he had that in ample supply.
Once, early in the afternoon, they had managed to dress. The Sheriff had fumbled reluctantly with the laces at the sides of her woolen kirtle. Thea had struggled with his belt and boots only to pull them off again, then his trews, quickly, frustrated beyond understanding that she could want him again and again when he satisfied her so thoroughly each time.
Nottingham had made a wanton of her, and they had passed the day loving-fiercely at first, as if they could not have enough of each other; then leisurely, drawing out the pleasurable tension with kisses and touches that lasted for hours.
The snow had stopped and started all the day long, piling soundlessly into white drifts below the tower, and now the pale sun dipped below the horizon, reflecting the purple twilight of evening through the windows.
They had left off any attempts to dress again-Nottingham remaining in braies by the fire; Thea clad only in a shift of white silk-an unspoken surrender to the passion that spiked their tender loveplay and intermittent snatches of sated sleep.
Thea smiled to herself as she smoothed the aromatic oil over the Sheriff's shoulders and streaked it in a glistening trail to his belly. She had never known such bliss, had never known the lazy indulgence of spending the day wrapped in the arms of the man she loved, of sipping languidly from a shared cup of wine and murmuring the sweet, nonsensical endearments that so often ended in a kiss. So rare it was-this peace, this quiet intimacy that grew between them with each touch, each word, each moment spent captive in the dark trance of his eyes.
She loved him with the intuitive certainty that she had known him for centuries, lived beneath his skin with him, shared the same heartbeat. Yet each time she looked at him, she thrilled to the power and beauty of the man as if seeing him for the first time.
Never, not even in the sanctity of marriage, had she known a man's body so thoroughly or felt such need as she felt for Nottingham. It leapt from nowhere, born of nothing more than a stray touch or a whisper of a thought, seeming to match some desire in him that ignited with as little warning.
In the fragile moments that followed their lovemaking, when the Sheriff invariably drew her close and anchored his body briefly to hers, Thea wondered if they ever dared venture from this room again. Surely they could not walk from solar to great hall without his fingers seeking hers or his gray eyes blackening with the memories of what they had shared. Perhaps Mildthryth would stay at their door forever, guarding them from the rest of the world.
The Sheriff flopped unceremoniously to his belly and clutched a wadded handful of sheepskin beneath his head for a pillow. Thea's thoughts scattered as she saw the scarring of his back. The stripes overlaid each other, angled right to left, from shoulder to buttock, then left to right, as if the outlaw had set some deliberate pattern in his own brutal mind.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she reached out gingerly to trace a welt with oil-smeared fingers.
Outlaws had done this. Not Robin or John, but criminals who lived as they did, hiding in Sherwood's haunted sanctuary, feeding off the king's land, and taking whatever else they needed with well-executed thievery. She could see how the Sheriff had blurred the distinction, even forgave him for assigning the same cruel motives to men she trusted. If only he could be convinced. They would never have harmed him so.
She stopped suddenly, her hands splayed over the span of his shoulders. Would they? Would Robin and his men have been any more merciful with the Sheriff in their grasps? Would they have spared his soldiers? His back? His wife?
A season ago, she would never have doubted it. Now? She did not know. In a fit of rage, John had asked her to take Nottingham's life, and there had not been a soul among Robin's men to see the madness in more bloodshed.
"Most have looked upon that with revulsion. You with only quiet contemplation."
The Sheriff's words startled her, making her realize how distant her thoughts had become. She became aware again of the scarred flesh beneath her hands and of the heated oil that bathed him.
"They are battle wounds," she said softly. "As honorable as any title a king could bestow."
"And yours?"
She looked at him, perplexed.
"You think I did not notice? In all this time we've been together, when I've touched you, kissed you there?" He reached out to touch between her breasts, and her lips parted in surprise.
Thea glanced away from him, her hands twisting in the silk of her shift. She had not wanted to remember, and for nearly a day, she had not. Now the strife in Sherwood came back to her, the enmity she could not heal with all her physic's skill. She pushed it aside. "It is nothing."
His fingers laced through hers and pulled her hand to his lips, dragging her gaze with it.
"So you are not the creature of perfection I thought you to be," he quipped. A smile curved above her knuckles as he dropped a kiss there.
"This is a game with you. A way to charm me out of my shift...again."
He reached for the ribbons of her shift, unlaced them, bared her shoulder, a breast, and the valley between. With one finger, he traced the pink, rippled skin.
She felt the burning sting as if the cut had just been made, felt the precise nick of the sword, the single, swiftly executed marking that bit through thin flesh to the bone beneath. Memories burned as well-of the meadow, of Norman soldiers, of the Sheriff's lieutenant and his artless intimidation.
She tried to cover the mark, but Nottingham's lips found her shoulder and slid between her breasts. She gasped, stiffening at his touch. "Don't."
"Thea?"
"It is nothing-"
The garment sagged loose on her shoulders, riding the ragged rise and fall of her breast. For the merest fraction of tim
e, she trapped his enigmatic eyes, watching them darken as he frowned. As quickly, the frown was gone, dissolved like the rest of expression from his face.
"Who did this?" he asked, gentle words barely breathed.
"Gisborne," she replied.
The gentleness fell away.
~*~
He had known the answer even before he asked, felt a shudder run the length of his spine with her confirmation. Nottingham's jaw grew granite tense as he closed his eyes, sealing the anger deep within.
"Damned, misbegotten mongrel!" he hissed between clenched teeth. "I'll have his scrawny neck in a noose!" The anger would not be contained. It rankled within him, eating at his gut, at every scrap of self-control. He bolted to his feet and grabbed for the pile of discarded clothes.
"My lord, no-"
"That feeble excuse for a man!" He stabbed his feet into trews.
"It matters not!" Thea clutched his tunic, tearing the garment from his hands before he could pull it overhead. "It happened long ago, at harvest time, when he first came to Thur-leah in pursuit of a pickpocket. He questioned me. It was a means of intimidation, nothing more."
"Disloyal, skulking bastard-"
"He's a fool," she said, her hands gripping his shoulders. "A predictable, swaggering bully-"
"Has he touched you?"
"I-he-" She blanched, as if the crash of his voice frightened the very words from her.
"Tell me!"
"Gisborne struts himself proudly enough, but his sword is soft, his threats nothing more than wishful boasting. It's nothing," she protested. "Had I known it would upset you so-"
"I will butcher him-ballocks and prick, inch by inch-"
"Then it will make for a quick death," she said, her voice and humor sanding the edges of his anger. "Please, I pray you, don't let him rob us of this time."
He pulled free of her hands and turned for the door, hauling it open with such force that the oak cracked against the stone wall. The corridor was a melee of men, armor, and Mildthryth's descriptive oaths.
