Chapter 18 #2
But what if Robert wasn’t finding what he needed?
What if this whole business wasn’t ended after tonight?
Well, it certainly couldn’t’ go on. She’d already decided that she would find a way to see Robert tonight, to warn him about what she’d overheard.
It was just that… now that she was here, with Mr. Gisborn and his greasy gazes, she wasn’t quite sure how to get away from him.
“The weather has been lovely,” Meg said when the group had fallen into an uncomfortable silence.
“Yes, yes it has,” Uncle Prinley agreed.
“The perfect weather for a wedding, one might say,” Aunt Regina said with a knowing smile for her daughter and Mr. Reeve. “I do love a warm day for a wedding.”
“I rather prefer the warm nights,” Mr. Gisborn said. The look he gave Marianne made her nearly retch.
Aunt Regina either did not hear it or chose to ignore his inappropriate comment. “I have ordered the prettiest gown for Meg to wear for her wedding. I only hope there is no rain. I would hate to see it soiled from mud.”
“We’ve had too much mud lately,” Marianne said, feeling quite muddied herself.
Mr. Gisborn boldly went on. “I doubt we’ll have to worry about mud for the wedding. It’s quite a good season for weddings, in fact. Don’t you agree, Miss Maidland? We should consider one of our own.”
She had just taken a bite of her fish. She instantly choked, then inhaled a bit as she tried to regain her composure. That naturally made everything worse and she was soon coughing and sputtering and creating a general fuss.
The servants standing over them rushed to her aid, and Meg began pounding her on the back. Marianne tried to wave everyone away, but that only caused her to nearly tumble from her chair. Oh, but this was horrible!
The worst part of it all was what she noticed in the distance.
While everyone in the room was focused on her distress, she glanced up to see a concerned face peering from a darkened doorway. Robert! Good heavens, but he was witnessing this mortifying display.
“Please… please, I am fine,” she gasped, fending off her caregivers.
Finally she was able to stop coughing and catch her wind again.
Her face felt flushed and her eyes watered as if she’d been crying.
The bit of fish that she’d choked on was long gone, but her whole system was in such disarray that she could hardly form words.
She pushed her chair back from the table and a flustered footman helped her to stand.
“I’m so sorry… I don’t know what came over me…”
Meg started to rise beside her. “Perhaps you need some air. I’ll go out with you.”
“No,” Marianne said, sounding slightly more able. “I’m quite embarrassed enough. I just need a moment alone… please… I’ll be right back.”
The rest of the diners expressed concern, but her insistence on wishing to be alone was enough to put them off.
Meg gave her a kindly smile and Aunt Regina encouraged her to tend to her personal needs, then hurry back.
A separate room was set up to accommodate guests’ requirements, so Marianne rushed out in that direction.
It was not in the direction where Robert had been, though. She didn’t dare go that way! Once she was safely away from everyone’s view, though, then she could go off to search for him. But the house was ancient and huge. How on earth would she find him?
As it turned out, she did not need to. He found her. No sooner had she left the dining room and turned the corner into the designated guest room, than Robert was there. He pulled her into the dimly lit chamber and shut the door.
“Robert!” she gasped, forgetting herself and using his Christian name.
His arms wrapped around her and she gladly fell into them.
“Are you well?” he asked softly. “What on earth did that pig do to cause you such distress?”
“I… he asked me to marry him!” she said.
“From what I witnessed, he rather told you to marry him,” he corrected. “There is a bit of a difference.”
“You were eavesdropping!”
“I was. And you handled the situation… creatively.”
She cringed. “I choked. Quite literally, I’m afraid. But Robert… I must tell you… there’s something awful!”
“What is it, Marianne?” he said, smoothing her hair and brushing the tears off her cheek.
“It’s that…” she paused, realizing that things between then had definitely changed. “Are we at first names now?”
“It appears that we are,” he said. “Do you feel the need to discuss this, or can you go back to this awful thing you were urgently about to tell me?”
“Er, yes… I should tell you straight away. Mr. Gisborn has some truly awful plans.”
“If those plans include marrying you, then I wouldn’t worry about him having much hope of succeeding.”
“It’s much more than that! I heard him with Mr. Dent, my uncle’s lawyer today. I believe they are plotting to kill him!”
“Your uncle?”
“Yes! They have some sort of scheme to deceive him about money, and then they laughed that by the time he figured it out, it would be too late and my cousin would inherit his things.”
He seemed less surprised by this than she would have expected.
“Ah, that explains the push to get your cousin married to the sheriff,” he said.
“And why Gisborn is not worried about your uncle using the mortgage to take over Greenwood. They expect him to be gone, and his heir will be controlled by a husband who will play along with them. This is the puzzle piece I was missing.”
“But this is dreadful! What can we do?”
He was just about to make a suggestion, but then he stopped. She waited patiently, but instead of speaking he pushed her away. She was about to complain when she realized there were unusual sounds coming from the direction of the dining room.
Putting his finger to his lips to indicate they needed to stay silent, he glanced out into the corridor.
Apparently, he determined it safe, so he led her out.
Moving toward the dining room, he peered around the corner.
They pressed up against the wall to remain unseen.
He motioned for Marianne to stay behind him, carefully out of sight.
She heard chairs in the dining room grating over the floor and the sound of multiple feet. Doors were opening and closing. Mr. Gisborn’s voice rose above the din.
“What is this? Mr. Reeve, aren’t these your men?”
“We’re sorry sir, but we have urgent news for the magistrate and the sheriff,” a voice called out. “There’s been a murder! In Sherwood Forest.”
Marianne gasped. She clung to Robert’s arm and he squeezed her hand as they listened.
“Tell us what happened,” Mr. Gisborn demanded.
“We found a man murdered,” one of the newcomers explained. “Probably by the ruffian calling himself Robin Hood!”
“Who is the murdered man?” Mr. Gisborn asked as calmly as if he were asking after the weather.
One of the men cleared his throat and answered. “His name is Dent, sir. Mr. Charles Dent. A solicitor, I believe.”
Now Uncle Prinley’s voice called out. “Dent? Murdered?” His surprise and horror were most believable.
Mr. Gisborn’s response was not. “How shocking! Killed by Robin Hood, you say?”
“There can be little doubt.”
Uncle Prinley was still stammering. “But Dent was… I saw him only a few hours ago. Why, it’s no wonder he didn’t show up today with my payment. Gisborn, did you send the man to me as planned?”
“Of course, my friend, just as we agreed. I collected the amount and instructed him to take it directly to you. I never thought to ask if you had received it.”
“Well I didn’t! I say, this is outrageous. Mr. Dent… murdered!”
Mr. Gisborn hardly seemed affected by the news.
He was more interested in placing blame.
“It was just a matter of time, I suppose—Sherwood has become a haven for the criminal element. Robin Hood, of all things! As magistrate, St. John, you can’t let this continue.
Send every man you have to find him out there and exterminate the vermin! ”
Uncle Prinley wasn’t so quick to act. “But I… tell me, man, when you found Dent, how did he appear? Had he been beaten? Was he on the main road?”
“He was shot, sir, with a pistol, from rather close, it appears. He was off the road, too, so perhaps someone lured him into the wood.”
“A pistol? But this Robin Hood character uses a bow.”
Mr. Gisborn was not at all tripped up by this. “Criminals use whatever is convenient to them, sir. Dreadful; it really is.”
“Did he have any money on his person?” Uncle Prinley questioned.
“No sir, none at all. He carried a pouch—a rather large one in fact—but it was empty.”
Marianne leaned close to Robert’s ear. She wasn’t sure the noise and excitement from the dining room would drown out her whisper, but Robert needed to know what she had overheard earlier today.
“Mr. Gisborn is the one who told Mr. Dent to meet someone in the woods. He was to then claim he was robbed while bringing Uncle Prinley his payment. That was their plan to deceive my uncle—they would say the payment he expected was stolen, while really Mr. Gisborn had no intention of paying him. Mr. Gisborn never said Mr. Dent would be murdered, though!”
“Who was he to meet?”
“I don’t know. One of Mr. Gisborn’s associates, I suppose.”
Robert nodded. He seemed to comprehend this better than she did.
By the grim set of his jaw and the harshness in his eyes, she began to understand what this meant for him.
Gisborn had lured the man there and orchestrated his murder.
Now he would blame it on ruffians—Mr. Gisborn relished the rumors and helped to spread them.
Sherwood Forest would be crawling with searchers by morning.
Anyone caught would be charged with the murder.
It was perfect for Mr. Gisborn, but deadly for Robert.
He pulled her back from the doorway, into the shadows again. Holding her there, he studied her face, as if he were afraid he would never see it again. She began to worry. What did he know that she did not?
“Go back to them,” he whispered to her. “Be as shocked as everyone else. Give nothing away.”
“But what about you? What will you do?”
He touched her cheek once more and gave an ominous parting word.
“I’ll take care of my own.” Then he turned into the darkness and was gone.