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“How long has Mama been dead, you lying, conniving hellhound?”
Father pursed his lips. He glanced over at Guy, who lounged in the corner of the room against the door, ankles crossed, staring down at his gloved hand. He showed complete disinterest in this familial spat.
“Sir Guy,” Father said, “would you please hit her for me?”
Guy blinked at him. Then at me. He said, “I am not being paid to injure her.”
“You are being paid to end her,” Father snapped, his rage taking over. “Yet you won’t hurt her?”
“There’s a difference, Sir Thomas. A thin line you might not understand. If I am going to hurt someone, I am going to enjoy it. This is not the place for that.”
When he looked at me, his expression chilled my blood. He smiled as if he wanted to flay the skin from my bones.
“I’ll pay you more silver,” Thomas said.
With a sigh and a shrug, Guy shook his head. “You truly are as wicked as the whore says you are.”
With that, Guy stomped over and I crab-crawled away from him, but I wasn’t fast enough. He lunged and kicked me in the side, and the air shot from my lungs. Pain lanced through my ribs. I toppled over and shriveled up into a ball of agony, shaking on the floor.
My father said, “Your mother succumbed to the heartbreak of Robert’s death the day after the Merry Men raided our carriages and stole you, Robin. God rest her soul, Joan was not strong enough for that trip. Just as I warned your uncle.”
I clenched my jaw, staring up at him from the floor. “E-Everything you took with us. The chests and clothes—” I coughed. “You were never planning on going back to Wilford.”
“Not until I got my affairs in order. No. It was Joan’s damned brother I had to appease. He wouldn’t let it go—swore this heathen healer could save her.” He scoffed at the ridiculousness of it. “Of course she was well on her way out by that time.”
I moaned as the pain in my side became a dull ache. Crawling so I could sit up, I implored my father with wide, bleary eyes. “But why?!”
He crept closer to me, a predator in full. The fire crackled behind him, filling the room. He crouched in front of me. I was close enough to spit on him, and I would have if I thought it would’ve made a difference.
“Do you understand, dear daughter, how humiliating it was to live by the side of your monumental mother? Her asinine narcissism? Her vanity and neglect of me? How the other noblemen saw me as a man lifted unto greatness, but born into none of it my own? A second-class lord. As if Joan was doing me a favor?
“No, of course you don’t understand, because you were born into her favor. Into her wealth and influence, with your whole life laid out for you. Yet you couldn’t even do that right!”
“The wrong child died,” I croaked, sniffling.
“Amen.” He stood, pacing in front of me while he talked. “Once Robert died, you were locked into the future of the Wilford estate. A stupid girl who would rather gallivant in the woods and play soldier than do her duty as an heiress. A girl who couldn’t understand the weight of what that decree meant. I had to do something about the backwardness of it all.”
“So you act on nothing but impulse, greed, and opportunity,” I spat. “The worst traits in a man.”
He raised a finger. “Opportunity, yes. The opportunity to make a life for myself, without the constraints of your mother holding me down. The opportunity to start anew and build something for myself and my children.”
I scoffed. “Build something off the back of the woman who built everything for you!”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “She built nothing for me. It was all for you and Robert. Such are the times, Robin. Your mother refused to listen to me. Refused to amend her writs of inheritance and succession. Wouldn’t take any of my ideas for her business seriously. We were supposed to be a team, and she treated me as an inferior. A subordinate. Not as a husband.”
“You are inferior to her, Father. You’re just too blind—”
His foot lashed out and cracked across my face. A rainbow of stars exploded behind my lids as my head whipped back and I landed on the floor, staring up dizzyingly at the ceiling.
He stood over me. “Don’t speak unless you are told, Robin. I thought I taught you that.”
Coppery blood trickled out the corner of my mouth. I choked before turning my head over to spit.
“At last,” Father said, cheery, “I found a woman who had all the things your mother lacked. She has passion, cunning, and a drive to match my own.” He swept his hands out with a smile, to the corner of the room.
Maid Marian sauntered forward. She crossed her arms under her ample chest. “Your mistake was trying to steal them from me, girl. You could have had an ally.” Shaking her head, she added, “You should have escaped the Merry Men and never returned.”
“I . . . tried.” A bloody smile curved across my face, splitting my lips. “My conscience wouldn’t let me stay away. It’s not my fault they saw you as a tool to be discarded. Untrustworthy and pitiful.”
