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Tears trickled down my cheeks as Maid Marian and my father engaged in their grotesque, twisted infidelity.
A wall in the house shook and Marian let out a yelp of surprise as her body landed on something—planted on her ass, it sounded like.
“With Robin an outlaw,” Father said, “her claim on the Wilford estate is forfeit. It goes to me. And you.”
“Lovely.”
“With your connections, I can challenge the Lord of Wilford himself and take his seat. We will be filthy rich.”
Another slam, grunt, and shake of the house.
“So filthy, you wicked man. Harder, dear.”
My father’s voice was a growl now, tense and heated with passion. “You did well, my lovely succubus. Your only error was not killing Robin.”
Marian’s words were thick honey, a purr. “It’s never too late, Sir Thomas.”
I shook my head trying to bury the truth of this revelation. Trying not to sniffle and cry out in agony, for fear of being discovered.
“You’re just as wicked as I am, aren’t you, whore?” Father groaned.
Mama was dead. The last time I got to see her, shortly before being raided by the Merry Men, was the final time I’d get to see her.
My own father poisoned her.
That was her sickness, then? Painful, drawn-out, long-lasting, bedridden months of anguish, caused by the very man who gave me life and supposedly loved me.
How could a person be so cruel?
It was all too much to take.
The sounds of their fornicating, just over my head, were too much to bear. They spoke of Mama Joan as if she were a nuisance, and me as if I were a forgotten detail. Easily fixed.
“Twice as wicked,” Marian hummed, “and you love it, sir. I know how much you want someone to dine with you in Hell.”
“Oh, but I do, my vixen.”
My breath came shallow, my lungs tightening. I stared at the ground, drowning every sound out—the thudding of the walls, the clapping of flesh, the moans, the evil words and promises.
I shut it all out and drowned in my own sorrow, not sure how I would ever recover from this. Not sure how I would ever pull myself out of this bottomless swamp of torment, sorrow, and rage.
Closing everything out meant I didn’t hear the footsteps that approached me from around the side of the house.
A shadow blocked the moonlight overhead. A dark whisper spilled down on me, breaking the nightmare I was experiencing and becoming my new nightmare.
“You know, it’s not nice to snoop on your elders, little mouse. Awfully inappropriate when they’re in such a compromised state.”
Gasping, my gaze ripped up to the black-cloaked man standing over me—tall, long dark hair, a gaunt face that looked like a healthy skeleton, and a rictus grin slicing across his pale, mustachioed face in the darkness.
I tried to crawl away—to flee between his long legs.
He laughed, wheeled round, and snatched me by my hood. Pulled me off my feet, even as I kicked and dangled in the air.
“Hoy!” my father’s voice carried out from the window. “What’s all that ruckus out there?”
“Caught a little mouse sniffing around for crumbs in the wildflowers, Sir Thomas. One you might want to see.”
Chapter 46
