Page 96 of Robin and Marian
Her insides tingled with raw fear. She knew she was cold, vaguely, and her lungs burned. Her body shook, but she fought through it all to glare at him. “Is the sawmill still on fire?” she asked.
His lips curved up secretively. Everything he was doing now made no sense, but somehow he’d gotten away with it all these years. Had he been so rich that no one had questioned him? They’d all looked the other way when it had come to his propaganda machines. That kind of power had gotten to his head, but being rich and powerful had its limits. He couldn’t just kidnap her and get away with it. He’d know that. She was as good as dead, and it freed her tongue. “Is Alan going to kill Scarlett?”
“No, Robin will.”
That again. “So you’ll frame him for it?”
He dug the paddle into the wooden platform and leaned his chin on the handle to study her. “Don’t you ever get tired ofher? She’s always crying and carrying on about something—Robin this and Robin that.”
“Normal people just cut ties with annoying family members,” Marian said.
“And lose my inheritance? I don’t think so. Besides…” He pressed his knees into the wooden hull to kneel next to her. “You know me. When was I ever normal?”
Marian swallowed hard, banking on that fact. “Hey, Richard already talked to me,” she said. “He told me you’d inherit, so you should call Alan and tell him to back off.” His dark eyes, especially his bruised one, glittered under the moonlight under his heavy brows like the hollow stare of a ghoul. Was he going to blink? She tried to soldier on. “That’s if you want to impress me…and I… I’d be impressed… if you did that.”
He broke into a grin and shoved her against a paper maché tree. It bent against her back and she bit down a cry of pain. “You don’t get it, do you?” he asked. “You were the bait! You always were. Nothing distracts Robin more than you! Maybe I wanted something for myself. For once! But you’ll always behis.”
He’d just confirmed her worst fears. A crazy man she could trick; a man blinded by hate? He’d kill them all. “I get it,” she said. “He’s the dashing, charming one and you’re jealous?” She didn’t know why she goaded him, and she waited for him to push her again, but instead he stretched back to his feet. “Don’t make this harder on yourself.”
“Why didn’t you just pay someone to off us?”
He dipped his paddle back into the water. “Because I want to watch.”
The tremors running through her body got worse. His quiver of arrows was strapped around his shoulder, tied snugly against his back. That was her execution. Her eyes went to the bow that he’d dropped to the bottom of the raft and she willed her hand to just take it and jump for the water. If he caught her, she was dead anyway. And she couldn’t move. Looking up at him, she saw his attention was on something in the distance.
“Your knight in shining armor,” he said. Her body screamed at her.Move!Her fingers curled in response. She heard Guy talking through the buzz in her ears. “Let’s shoot him.”
Breathing hard, she scraped up his bow and dove into the water, swimming for the shore. Her skirt was getting in the way and she kicked wildly at it and felt herself sinking. She listened to Guy let out a growl and splash into the water after her. She wouldn’t be fast enough, but still she tried, using the bow like a paddle to get closer to the banks. Rocks scraped under her hip and she realized she could stand. As soon as she did, she got caught up in the fabric of her skirt and felt it rip under her. She reached down and tore the rest of it away from her knees, feeling, rather than hearing Guy come up behind her. Marian flung the bow far from her into the forest just before Guy grabbed her around the waist to tug her back into the deeper water.
For a moment she was afraid that he might drown her. Robin was close enough so he might see and that might be all Guy wanted—but no, he was trying to take her back to the float. She dug her elbows into his ribs and he shook her, hissing into her ear, “If you don’t come, Iwillkill you.”
Had there been any doubt before?She rammed her foot into the back of his knee and heard the crack before she was off into the water again, clawing for the shore, her back arched to keep him from getting to her. Once she reached the rocks, she would have more of a chance. He couldn’t keep up with her on a hurt leg. She scrambled and felt the forest floor under her bare feet. She hadn’t realized she’d lost her slippers, but she had. Guy was in a blood rage behind her and she heard the dull thuds of his feet in the dirt as he tried to track her down with—she assumed—a dislocated knee cap.
“Marian?” he called. “I see you!” Not for long. She ran harder and tripped, sprawling headlong into a ravine. She screamed as she fell, her shoulder landing on the skull of a deer, and her leg scraping open on the razor-sharp edge of a rock.
“Oh good,” he said, above her. She saw his face peering down. “You don’t want to miss the fun. I’ve got a surprise set up for Robin.”
He’d set a trap? Of course he had! Was this it? She scrambled back to her feet, gasping at the bloody gash on her ankle. She forced herself to keep moving, grimacing against the pain. She’d broken a toe too. Trying to work around it, she found herself limping like her pursuer.
“His sister is as good as dead,” he said behind her.
“That’s yoursurprise?” she shouted scathingly. She was positive that Guy meant for Alan to do it. After all, he’d been the one to trick them into their present predicament, but would he go that far? “Alan won’t do it!” she cried over her shoulder. There was only so much a ruined man would do to get himself out of trouble. She hoped she was right.
“Oh, Marian, I thought you were one of those hard-hitting reporters?” His British accent dripped with sarcasm. “I can’t believe Alan fooled you. He didn’t me.” He leaned against a tree and rubbed at his leg. His wilted costume made him look like a hideous monster, and for once she saw him inside out. “He’s no saint. He saw an opportunity to steal money and he took it. You’re blind! He approached me to make an investment and I laughed in his face. I was the only one who saw him for what he was. While Robin languished in jail for being such a trusting idiot, I made Alan pay for me to look the other way.”
“So you’ve been blackmailing him all these years.” She kept moving, hoping to keep him talking so that she’d get so far that he’d never catch her. “That doesn’t mean he’ll kill his wife for you.”
He snorted. “For me? You think this is my idea? Alan’s through with her—he wants her inheritance, the insurance money, her part in the business. He just needs someone to frame for it. That’s why we lured her murderer out of the castle. And Robin’s coming this way… just in time to find you. He’ll try to find Scarlett next. Midge. The poor, insane man went on a killing spree.”
She realized exactly what Guy had missed in his arrogance. Alan had set the newly-returned convict from prison on him. “You’re the fool,” she shouted. “Why would Alanevershare his money with you? He lured Robin out to kill you first!”
Guy turned silent behind her and she knew her words had done their work. He’d been blind like the rest of them. “Not if I kill you all,” he hissed.
She jerked back as an arrow sank into a tree next to her.Thatwas why he’d stopped stalking her. Guy had found his bow and he’d been taking aim. He’d been so open, she should’ve known. He thought he had her.
The psychopath meant for her dead body to be Robin’s surprise—he’d shoot her through. Luckily he wasn’t nearly as accurate as Midge.
Robin saw the float swaying near the shore of Sherwood Forest, the paper maché branches stuck in the trees. He didn’t have to look inside to know there was no one in it. He’d seen Marian jump from it and Guy chase after her, scooping up his bow from the shore.
