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“Please,” she said, glancing past him, “may I leave? Will?” She cared not that she begged. She needed to escape from this place.

His mouth settled into a hard line, he gave a sharp nod. “Aye, ’tis safe enough now, for the others are beyond caring. But let us be quick.”

Once again, she bundled herself simply in a cloak, her clothing scrabbled up into her arms, and Will drew her firmly out the door. The guards did not try to stop them, but from the way they looked at them, Marian knew it would have been a mistake to try to leave on her own.

Will’s heavy footsteps rang dully on the stone floor, down the stairs, and over to the other side of the keep as she trotted along beside him. Back up to the chambers on the second floor, and to her door. This route too had become horribly familiar.

And, once more, he spoke not at all, gave nothing away with his expression. If possible, she found his face even more implacable, more unreadable.

When they reached her chamber, he opened the door and preceded her inside. Feeling awkward yet expectant, Marian followed, closing the door.

Ethelberga snored on her pallet, and Will made no move to send her away or awaken her.

He stalked into the rear chamber, and Marian followed, as if drawn by a string. When he turned to leave, he fairly walked into her, standing there in the entrance between the two rooms.

He froze as if afraid to move closer, and she saw his hand curl into a fist at his side.

She was fully aware of her nakedness beneath the cloak, and how tight the chamber felt. Warm and dark and close . . . and how easily he’d slid inside her, how glorious it had felt.

Marian licked her lips, not certain why she stood there, why she’d moved thus . . . what she wanted. Her heart pounded and she looked up into his face, saw the glitter in his eyes and the tight press of his lips. Tension filled the space, pounding in her ears along with her heartbeat, and she swallowed hard.

“You are not hurt,” he said suddenly, his voice low. The words came out like short little bites, as if dragged from deep within. He would not meet her eyes, but instead she felt his gaze score over her.

“Nay, Will. You . . .” Her voice gave way, her mouth dried, as the awareness became too much to bear. How could she want him to touch her with those hands . . . hands that had set fire to those houses, hands that would have gestured for the hanging… ? Yet she did.

“I warned you,” he said in a harsh voice. “That you must submit. You made your choice.”

“Aye,” she breathed, surprised at the anger. Did he truly think she would have preferred John? She opened her mouth to tell him she’d wanted him-reached, even, to touch him-but he pulled her aside and brushed past, into the antechamber.

At the door to the passageway, a full room between them, he turned and looked at her. “I warn you again, Marian. . . . Do not allow John to find you reading his papers, or even I won’t be able to protect you.”

Then he was gone, leaving her alone. Suddenly bereft and empty.

And wondering if he would return to the Court of Pleasure . . . and the sinuous white body of Lady Pauletta.

CHAPTER 12

W henever Will had cause to spend any length of time with his knees grinding into a chapel’s stone floor, he was reminded of the night vigil before his knighting, more than a decade earlier. Long and silent, spent fully prone on his face, the hours had gone by in a drone of noiseless prayer and anticipation for the great accolade.

His life had changed that day, and until he’d become one of King Richard’s most trusted men, he’d had little trouble keeping the oaths he’d made before the archbishop of Canterbury. The oaths of loyalty to his liege, to honor God and protect women, to despise and renounce traitors.

Now the cold stone beneath his knees served as reminder of his faults, his weaknesses and failures. And, for the first time, Will could no longer see the way to fulfill those God-sworn oaths. There was no way to obey his liege while retaining his honor and protecting the weaker gender . . . for to do one, he must renounce the other.

’Twas an appalling dilemma. One that had drawn him to the chapel, to his confessor, these last nights . . . he’d come from the debauchery of John’s chambers to spend hours on his knees doing penance for the desire to forswear his vows. Seeking solace. Searching for an answer.

But at last, the balancing act had taken its toll, and he’d succumbed this night, stepping over the line and beyond reason. He gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes closed at the realization of what he’d done.

How far he’d gone.

The vow he’d shattered.

Even now, as he knelt, holding himself fully upright, his legs trembling from exhaustion, from lack of sleep and from intense physical activity, he could not dismiss the sordid details of his transgression.

He told himself he’d had no choice. That it had finally come to the point from which there was no turning away.