A Place to Call Home Chapter Seven (8/?) PG13 (original) (raw)

Title: A Place to Call Home, Chapter Seven (8/?)

Rating: This chapter: R (Please note change in rating)

Characters: Guy/Marian

Summary: “I do not love you,” she cried in frustration. “Why do you want me?”

Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of the BBC. All rights reserved. No copyright infringement intended and no profit is made by the author.

A/N: I’ve set this story immediately after the events of the first season finale. However, I have included information derived from subsequent episodes, in particular from season three’s “Bad Blood” used here for my purposes as source material and plot motives for the characters.

As a further note, I personally found the character of Isabella to be a tired and terrible plot contrivance, so for my purposes, she never existed. Guy was raised an only child.

Chapter Seven

A low rumble of thunder woke Marian. Rain pelted the glazed glass of the window and as lightning briefly illuminated the room, she was startled by the figure standing near the fireplace. She gasped and groped for the heavy pewter candlestick on the bedside table as a weapon.

“Marian.”

Relief rushed through her at the sound of her husband’s voice.

“Guy!” She set the makeshift weapon down. “I was not expecting you home tonight. What time is it?”

“Late,” he muttered. “Very, very late.” He turned his face toward her. “I did not mean to awaken you. Go back to sleep.”

Marian propped herself up against the pillows. “Why did you not stay at the castle instead of traveling through such terrible weather?”

“Because I cannot stand it there.” He spoke so softly she was not sure that she heard him correctly.

“What was that?” she asked.

“The storm caught me unaware,” he replied. He seemed to be struggling with something on his clothing. She squinted through the darkness to better see what was going on. His low string of muttered curses had her flipping the covers back and climbing from the bed.

Shivering, she drew her wrap from the foot of the bed and flung it about her shoulders. Crossing the room, she grabbed the fireplace poker and stoked the dying fire. Fanning the flames to life, she added a few pieces of wood until a small steady blaze was dancing in the hearth. Touching a long taper to the flames, she lit the candles atop the mantle.

“What is wrong?” she asked as he continued to fumble with his clothes.

“I cannot get this bloody thing open!” He snarled as he tore at the clasps running down the front of the short leather jacket he wore.

Marian blinked in surprise. While Guy could be quite rough around the edges in many ways, his manner of speech was ordinarily quite formal. It was unusual for him to express his frustrations through coarse language.

She reached out to help and gasped as her fingers brushed his.

“Your hands are like ice!” she exclaimed. She was abruptly aware of the tremors coursing through his body. “You are soaked!”

“The storm came out of nowhere,” he mumbled and she realized that he was fighting to keep his teeth from chattering. “A bitter wind blew in from the north and the rain was right behind it.”

“You will catch your death in these wet clothes.” She pried open the stubborn clasps and pushed the jacket from his shoulders until it fell onto the floor in a heap. The leather had kept out the worst of the wetness but rain had seeped beneath the collar and the shirt beneath it was damp. She could feel the chill which had permeated his skin through the fine linen.

She unbuckled his sword belt and loosely wrapped the trailing ends around the scabbard before setting it aside. She bent her head and began to work at the cross-lacings of his breeches. The rain had saturated the rawhide strips until they were swollen with moisture and stubbornly knotted.

“I h-have long imagined you eagerly undressing m-me,” he said through a shiver. “But n-not under these circumstances.”

“I need a knife,” she said flatly, ignoring his attempt at humor.

His gaze dropped to where her hands were resting against the front of his breeches and he arched one brow in contemplation of her words. After a moment’s thought, he withdrew a small blade from a sheath hidden beneath his arm and handed it to her.

“Small enough to hopefully minimize any damage you may choose to inflict,” he smirked before another tremor wracked his frame.

Marian took the knife from him and studied it carefully.

“Any other instructions you wish to grace me with, my lord?” She looked pointedly from the knife to the leather ties held in her other hand and then back up into his face.

He laid chilled fingers over hers.

“Carefully, my love.” He gave her a tired smile.

She felt her cheeks heat at the endearment and was grateful for the shadows cast by the dim light. She was aware of his chilled skin beneath her fingers and the ripple of his stomach muscles as she slipped one hand into the waist of his breeches. She sawed through the wet rawhide and stripped the ruined laces free.

“There.” She gave him a gentle push into a chair near the hearth.

“Take off your boots.” She moved away to rummage through a wardrobe for a length of cloth. Turning back she saw that he had made no effort to remove the rest of his clothing. His slumped shoulders and drooping head were evidence of his weariness.

He grunted in surprise when she draped the cloth over his head and briskly used it to absorb the wetness from his hair. His head lolled forward and back under her ministrations and he willingly submitted to her care. At length she set the damp material aside and crouched on the floor to grasp a boot in her hands and he roused himself enough to protest.

“I can do it.”

“It will be faster if you let me help.” Together they pried the boots from his feet and she set them near the fire to dry. Turning back to him, she gathered the hem of his linen shirt in her hands. Sliding the fabric up his torso, she was pleased to note that his skin was warming and the tremors wracking his frame had decreased. Urging him to his feet, she began to push his breeches from his hips until sudden embarrassment at the easy familiarity with which she touched him had her snatching her hands away. She turned her attention to draping his jacket on the back of the chair and spreading his shirt out to dry. She surreptitiously watched him strip the wet leather down his legs. She could not help but note the way the firelight gleamed golden on the well-defined muscles of his chest and abdomen where his braies rode low on his hips and she felt a now familiar throbbing sensation deep within her.

“When did you last eat?” She cleared her throat and resolutely turned her thoughts to more practical matters.

“This morning,” he mumbled. She flinched at the popping sound made by his jaw as he let out a mighty yawn.

“I will go to the kitchen.” Marian turned toward the door, happy for a chore which would get her out of the room for a few moments.

“Do not bother,” he said as he neared the bed.

“You must have something,” she protested. “At least some bread and cheese.”

He swept the covers back and stretched out onto the mattress with a grateful sigh.

“I thank you,” he said through another yawn. “But I wish only to sleep.”

“But–”. Her voice trailed off as she watched the slow rise and fall of his chest indicating his rapid descent into sleep.

Blowing out all but one of the candles on the mantle, she carried the other across the room and set it down on the bedside table. Easing into bed so as not to awaken him, she drew the covers up to his shoulders. Sitting with her back braced against the headboard she studied her husband in the flickering candlelight. She had thought that sleep would bring a softening to his features but his mouth, surrounded by a day’s growth of beard, was set in a grim line. He twitched – as if unpleasantly surprised by something in his dreams and she saw him fist his hands beneath the blanket. A frown drew his brows together and his limbs shifted restlessly.

“Shhh,” she breathed softly. Unable to resist, she smoothed an unruly lock of hair away from his face.

“Marian.” Her name escaped his lips on a barely audible sigh and he rolled onto his side as if pulled toward her by an invisible force. Mesmerized, she threaded her fingers through his hair, lightly scratching her nails against his scalp. His hands relaxed and the grim line of his mouth softened. She marveled at his response to her touch and wondered if the day would ever come when she was not left hopelessly confused by him.

*************

He was home in the middle of the morning – a rarity. He looked up from his study of the household accounts when he heard Marian’s voice. She was deeply in discussion with the housekeeper and he allowed himself the simple pleasure of watching her. She was unaware of his regard and he knew that if she looked toward him she would catch him staring at her like a besotted youth. Even in a simple gown with her hair hanging down her back in a single thick plait, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on.

He waited until she was finished her conversation. Rising from his seat, all of his impatient yearning for her barely harnessed, he went to her.

“My lady.” He wrapped gentle fingers around her wrist. “If you would come with me, I have something to discuss with you. In our chamber.” He tugged her toward the stairs.

Her cheeks flushed, for despite the casualness of his request, his meaning was all too evident and she was wildly aware of her own body quickening in response. Telling herself that she wanted only to avoid a scene, she followed him willingly. A sound from below caught her attention and she glanced over her shoulder. Mortification flooded through her as she saw Alyce and a young maid whispering and giggling behind their hands as they watched their ascent.

He pulled her into his arms the moment the door to their chamber swung shut behind them and lowered his mouth to hers.

“It is the middle of the day, my lord,” she protested with a weak push of her hands against his shoulders.

“Good.” His words vibrated against the soft skin of her throat as he placed a scorching trail of kisses along its slender length. “I want to see you in the light of day.”

He pressed her down onto the bed, tugging the leather cord from her hair and spreading the dark, silken mass over his pillow.

He kissed her again, lips and tongue searching, teasing, and demanding. Annoyance rose within him at her lack of response.

“Marian,” he breathed. “Kiss me.”

She shook her head stubbornly.

“Everyone knows what we are doing up here.” Embarrassed heat stained her cheeks. “It is unseemly.”

“I do not care.” Frustrated – for he saw her protests as merely another excuse – he battled against the ferocity of his own desire as once again he was forced to coax a response from her. She lay beneath him, docile and obedient, neither spurning nor welcoming his advances.

He tore himself away from her in disgust. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he braced his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands.

“Why do you force me to seduce you every time?” His query was muffled behind his fingers.

She lay behind him, her hands lax against the tangled sheets and gave no answer.

“Do you think that I do not know you find pleasure in my touch?” He turned and pinned her with a hard look. “Do you think I do not feel your body responding to mine?” he asked harshly. “Why must I always cajole and coax you?”

He stretched out beside her and ran his knuckles along the smooth column of her throat before flattening his hand against her chest. He could feel her heart thudding against his palm as his long fingers slipped inside her bodice to trace idle patterns over the silken skin of her breast, coming ever closer to the sensitive center with each passing sweep.

“Even now,” he murmured, his mouth a hairs-breadth from hers, “I feel you responding.” He skimmed calloused fingertips over the turgid peak of her breast and her breath escaped on a long, shuddering sigh that stuttered across his lips.

“I know you reach the heights of pleasure,” he whispered hotly against her ear. “Why do you deny it? Do you think that by lying passively beneath me or turning away after you can hide the truth? Why, Marian? You are my wife. Short of death, there is nothing now which will change that.”

She knew the reason well for she grappled with it every time he touched her. It was the loss of her self-control. Each time she lay with him, he stripped it from her more and more easily. Even now, despite her protests and embarrassment, she could feel herself responding, her body softening and liquefying in eager anticipation of the invasion of his. She could barely acknowledge this to herself – let alone tell him – and stubborn pride had her lashing out hatefully instead.

“I am your wife,” she agreed in a voice carefully devoid of feeling. “The laws of this kingdom and the laws of the church give you a right to my body and I will not deny you.” She turned her head so that she was looking directly into his eyes. “And I may be weak and unable to stem my body’s response… but that does not mean that I have to give to you my soul.”

“You may possess me as you do this house, but you have no more right to claim ownership of me than you do this land.” She turned away from him and stared toward the window.

Rage at being so dismissed washed red and hot through Guy. He slowly sat up and raked trembling fingers through his hair. Rising, he clamped his hand around her wrist and yanked her to her feet. She cried out and tried to pry his fingers from her arm but his grip was like iron. She risked looking up and instinctively cringed away. Unfettered fury blazed in his eyes and for the first time she was truly afraid of him.

He practically tore the door from its hinges as he hauled her from their chamber. Down the steps and out of the house, he pulled her along in his wake. She was forced to trot alongside him in an undignified and certainly unladylike manner in order to keep up with his angry strides lest she risk falling, for she sensed that he would rather drag her than allow her to regain her feet.

He tugged her across the front yard, past the drying green where the bed linens were stretched across the closely clipped grass to dry and bleach under the heat of the autumn sun. His grip was like an iron manacle around her slender wrist. She stumbled behind him, her breath escaping her in great pants as he dragged her up the crest of a hill and down the other side. Finally, he came to a halt in the high grass of the meadow at the base of the hill.

“Do you see the creek?” His chest rose and fell rapidly as he sucked much needed air into his lungs. She looked at him stupidly, unable at first to process his question.

“Do you?” he thundered and shook her arm.

“Yes!” she cried. “I see it.”

He stepped up behind her and curved his arms around her waist. His unyielding grip on her wrist made a mockery of the embrace.

“And do you see the wheat field?”

She nodded, unable to speak. The low threatening tone of his voice frightened her. For though she had heard it directed at others countless times in the past, until this moment he had never spoken to her thusly.

“That field,” he murmured silkily, “and all of the property west of it to the boundary lines of the next landholder were once the Gisbourne lands.” His breath was hot against her ear, the words biting with barely leashed rage.

“You lie,” she gasped. “That land belongs to Locksley. It belongs to Robin!”

“Robin, Robin, Robin,” he said mockingly. “You extol his virtues and would make of him a noble and princely creature.” He released her wrist to curl his fingers around her upper arms in a punishing grip.

“But I have known him since we were children. He was then – as he is now – spoiled and full of his own importance.”

“The land you are looking at is my birthright, stolen from me when I was too young to do anything to stop it and handed to your precious Robin on a silver platter.” He pointed toward the fields stretching westward. “But I am no longer a boy and now I have not only reclaimed what once was mine but have taken everything from him.”

She shivered, frightened by the tone of malicious joy in his voice.

“Why should I believe you?” she whispered.

“Oh, Marian.” He turned her and smiled tauntingly. “You are always so sure of yourself – so certain that you know everything.” He dropped his hands and paced several steps away. “You would sit in righteous judgment over me and yet you have lived so sheltered a life… you know nothing of the world.”

“I know this land belongs to Robin,” she insisted stubbornly.

“Robin.” His face contorted and he spat the name as if it left a sour taste. And then as suddenly as it had come on the rage seemed to leave him and he sank wearily down into the tall grass.

“Why do you hate him so much?” she asked.

Guy peered up at her, squinting against the midday sun. “I have many reasons,” he told her, circling back to the beginning. “I hate him because everything has always come to him so easily. I hate him because he has your love and devotion.”

Marian flushed and looked away.

“But first and foremost – and always – I hate him because he stole my birthright.”

“I cannot believe you,” she argued. “I have never heard such a tale – indeed, I had never even heard the name ‘Gisbourne’ until you arrived here with the Sheriff and yet you would have me believe that the very property I am looking at was once your family’s land.”

“And yet, for all your disbelief, it is true.” Guy tore a blade of grass from the earth and twirled it idly in his fingers. “My father was Roger, married to Ghislaine of France. He took up the cross and was rewarded for his service with property and a title.” He pointed with the blade of grass toward the wheat field.

“We – my mother and I – received word that my father had been killed in the Holy Land. I was not yet sixteen at the time – and my mother sought to hold the land for me until I came of age. She took up with Hood’s father – Malcolm of Locksley.”

His fingers betrayed his agitation, tearing blade after blade of grass from the ground.

“I found them on more than one occasion – cavorting in the stables. She let him make her his whore before my father’s body was even cold in some distant grave.”

“Guy,” she protested weakly. Caught up in the story and in the pain so evident in his voice, she sank to the ground beside him. “That is a terrible thing to say.”

“The truth is often terrible,” he pointed out. “I was still grieving the loss of my father while my mother snuck off nightly to meet her lover. Hood’s father,” he spat.

“Robin would have been a child,” she said softly. “He was no more responsible for his father’s actions than you were your mother’s. What has any of this to do with him?”

He suppressed a bitter laugh.

“Everything,” he said finally. “Even then, he was a spoiled, indulged brat. The golden child. Beloved by all. Incapable in everyone’s eyes of doing wrong.” He tossed a handful of grass down. “But in truth, incapable of accepting blame when he was in the wrong.”

Marian forced back her instinctive need to defend Robin for she wanted to hear the rest of the story.

“There was to be a celebration on the night of the harvest.” His gaze unfocused, he stared unseeingly toward the wheat field. “The bailiff of the town hated my mother.”

“Why?”

“Because she was a woman?” he guessed. “Maybe because she was French. But mostly, he hated us for having land which he coveted for himself.” He shook his head, still unable – after all of the passing years – to truly understand the events which were set into motion that night.

“There was an accident,” he remembered. “The village priest was badly injured. I was blamed – though the fault lay with young Robin of Locksley.” Bitterness coated his words. “While my mother fought to save the priest’s life, the bailiff convinced the others that there was no need to wait to mete out my punishment and I was dragged off to be hanged.”

He pinned her with his gaze. “Robin could have spoken up at any point, but he said nothing.”

“If you are telling the truth, it makes no sense to hold the actions of a child against the man he became,” she protested automatically.

“A child less than a handful of years younger than I,” he shot back. “The golden child,” he reminded her. “He would not have been facing the noose and he knew it.”

“I struggled.” He fell silent and looked off into the distance for a long moment. “I struggled,” he repeated after clearing his throat, “but they were too many and I could not free myself.” He ran his tongue over suddenly dry lips. “A horse and rider thundered into the midst of the crowd, the rider shouting at the men as they slipped the noose over my neck.”

“It was my father.”

Marian bit back a gasp. How was it possible for this story to be truth? It was already too fantastical and yet she had the sense that he had only just begun to tell it. She was drawn in and said nothing as she waited for him to continue.

“Seconds later, my mother raced toward the crowd shouting that the priest would live. And when she saw my father…” He cast his eyes about – at the sky, at the grass, at the winter wheat growing in the near distance – unable it seemed, to focus on any one thing for very long.

“When she saw my father – her face… Disbelief. Fear. I saw all of that in her expression. But not joy. Not happiness that he was alive after all.”

“I am sure that she was just shocked. Overwhelmed.” Marian offered hesitantly.

“I am sure,” he agreed dully. “Eventually, the crowd disbursed and we went to our home.”

“You must have been overjoyed,” she said trying to smile.

“I wanted to be,” he admitted. “But for days after, my parents acted so strangely – whispering their conversations and ceasing to speak when I would enter to the room. My father was quiet and did nothing but sit by the fire and brood. And my mother’s eyes were always sad.”

Guy rubbed an agitated hand over his jaw and mouth. “Two days later, I saw her slipping off into the forest and I knew – I knew that she was going to meet Locksley.” Again he stopped talking and she could see his throat working as he swallowed over and over in an attempt to regain control of his emotions.

“She was not gone much more than an hour before she returned. I stood in the stable doorway and watched her disappear back into the house. I do not know how much time passed – no more than a few minutes – before a group of men, led by Locksley, burst into the house and dragged my father outside.”

“You see, the secret my parents had been keeping was out. My father returned from the Holy Land a leper.”

************

He was dry-eyed and expressionless now. Marian listened in shocked disbelief as Guy spun out the rest of his tale in a voice steady and detached. She fought back tears as he described the funeral-like procession as his father was led out of the village. Of Roger’s humiliation as he was forced into a shallow grave while his wife declared herself to be a widow. Of the priest – devoid of empathy or compassion, speaking the damning words which would separate a husband from his family. Of a young man’s rage and despair when only moments after his father’s banishment, he learned that his mother was to remarry another. She felt sickness roil in her stomach when he told her of how he had tracked down his father only to be chastised and sent away with the admonishment to be a man and not to do anything which would bring further humiliation on their family.

And she felt a tiny flicker of hope when he described his father’s return to their home one evening. But nothing could prepare her for what was to come.

“I was sitting in a chair by the fire,” he recalled. “My parents were upstairs in their chamber and I remember praying harder than I had ever prayed before that somehow all would be well. And then I heard shouting from outside. A child’s voice shrieking ‘The leper is back! The leper is back!’ ”

“It was Hood.” His face was a carved mask of repressed grief and remembered rage.

“The door was flung open and Locksley burst inside. I wanted him to go – I just wanted him to leave us be.” The words were spilling out of him now, faster and faster. “I looked around for a weapon and snatched a burning log from the fireplace. I wanted only to hold him off – to frighten him into leaving. We struggled and the burning wood slipped and then… and then the house caught fire.”

His eyes were vacant as he stared unseeingly past her shoulder. “Locksley pushed me outside and ran up the stairs.” Traces of the fear and confusion of that terrible evening leached into his voice. “I do not know why I left,” he whispered. “When I tried to return to the house, the others held me back. And then… and then…”

His voice hitched and broke.

“The bailiff was shouting – and some of the men had torches. And suddenly the entire house was ablaze. Robin was screaming for his father – screaming at me to do something. But I did nothing. I let them die.”

She saw his chin wobble for a moment and was moved to lay her hand over his.

“No, Guy.”

“I did. I killed them. I just let them die and did nothing to save them.

Tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “I do not believe that. Guy, you were a boy.”

“I hated them.” He jerked one shoulder in an ill-tempered shrug. “She, for her faithlessness and he for abandoning us – first when he took up the cross – and again when he would not fight to stay with us. I hated them both for their weakness and selfishness.”

“The house was still smoldering the next day when the bailiff made his move. He declared my father’s lands as his own. The priest stepped forward to challenge him and I thought – finally – someone would intervene. But the priest declared that with my father’s death, the lands should revert back to Locksley.”

“The bailiff did not think much of that idea.” Guy barked out a cynical laugh. “He and his henchmen began to immediately make their way about from house to house, threatening to collect taxes and I was run out of the village with nothing more than the clothes on my back.”

His voice took on an almost dreamlike quality. “I remember standing on the edge of the village – listening to the bailiff barking out orders and the angry shouting of his cronies. Listening to the nervous chatter of the villagers and then hearing the high, shrill voice a boy – Hood – declaring that this was his land and those were his people and that he would defend them. And I heard the priest and the others rally around him. Together, they drove the bailiff off.”

Marian’s lips quirked upward in a private smile for she could well imagine those words falling from a young Robin’s lips.

“I returned to the village later that night and approached the priest. I wanted to speak with young Locksley about my lands. They listened to me – quite politely – but then the priest told me that I had no place there and that despite my father’s sacrifices for king and country, the lands would remain part of Locksley in perpetuity.”

Again, that cynical, ugly laugh escaped him.

“Your beloved Robin did nothing. Said nothing. Refused to even look at me. He simply stood there with the priest’s hand on his shoulder and his father’s bow at his side and I was sent once again on my way.”

“Guy, I understand your bitterness.” Her expression and voice were filled with sympathy. “But you cannot condemn a man for his actions as a child…”

“I have stripped myself bare to you,” he said as the rage began to build once again. “And your only response is to defend Hood?” His voice rose in disbelief.

He clamped his hands onto her arms and gave her a hard shake. “Once again, you let your loyalty blind you to the lesson.” He tangled his fingers in her hair and dragged her head back.

“So let me instruct you plainly,” he ground out as he pulled her down into the grass and pressed her into the earth with the weight of his own body. “You told me that I have no more right to ownership of you than I do of this land. But now I have laid out the basis of my rightful claim to this property and by your own calculation that gives me equal rights to all that is you.”

His fingers were like vices around her wrists as he stretched her arms above her head until she was splayed beneath him like a sacrificial offering on an altar. Gone was the man who coaxed a response from her with gentle touches and persuasive kisses and in his place was one who crushed his mouth onto hers and with lips and teeth and tongue demanded that she yield.

Excitement and fear roared through Marian with equal force and she quivered beneath him. Though she tried at first to resist, the empathy and compassion she had felt for him earlier left her stripped of her usual defenses. Her body responded eagerly to his biting kisses and fevered caresses as his passion for her spilled forth wholly unfettered for the first time. She gasped when he yanked the bodice of her gown away. Overwhelmed by sensation, her nipples contracted painfully as they were exposed first to the chilled air and then to the heat of his mouth and she could not help but to cry out.

His head snapped up at the sound of her exclamation and the haze of lust and anger fell away as he took note of the bruises in the shapes of his fingers already blooming on the white skin of her wrists and the red marks caused by his mouth and the scrape of his jaw stood out in stark contrast to the milkiness of her breasts.

He tore himself away and drew his knees up, hiding his face as a litany of muttered words of apology fell from his lips. Marian fumbled to pull her gown back into place. Compassion and unfulfilled desire combined to form an irresistible pull and she crawled toward him. Threading her fingers through his hair she whispered his name over and over.

Finally he raised his head and for a long moment they stared sorrowfully at each other, faces close enough that all they had to do was move a few inches and their lips would meet again. A breeze kicked up, rippling through the tall grass and the spell was broken when she shivered as the cold penetrated her gown.

Guy pulled the short leather jacket from his body and helped ease her arms into the sleeves. Tugging the too large jacket closed around her, he clenched his fingers into the material and pulled her close. Pressing his mouth to her forehead, he muttered an apology against her skin and then scrambling up, he ran like a man possessed.

Marian staggered to her feet and dashed off after him. Calling his name, she tried to catch him but his long-legged stride lengthened the distance between them quickly. Panting, she stood at the crest of the hill and watched him fling himself onto the back of his unsaddled horse, the two of them thundering down the road as if chased by the devil himself.

TBC