The word went around amongst the soldiers. ‘Keep out of Gisborne’s way today unless you want a good kicking.’ Guy was never known for his sweet disposition but that afternoon he was acting like the very devil himself, and thus to be avoided at all costs.
Once he had snarled and threatened his way through his duties he ordered food and wine to be brought to his room and went in search of Agnes Fawcett. He found her walking in the garden and it was not long before they were in Guy’s room. Agnes had evidently forgiven him for his recent coolness towards her and the incident at the feast.
‘Little thoroughbred not playing the game?’ she said waspishly as Guy tore her dress from her shoulders.
‘Shut up Agnes, ‘Guy hissed,’ and just lie on your back.’
Agnes was happy to oblige. Life had dragged over the last few weeks without Gisborne to entertain her and if this was the only way she could get him, so be it.
Later, as she gathered up her clothes, she felt that she would have been better staying walking in the gardens. Guy had not been particularly gentlemanly with her and at one critical point had cried out that b***h Katherine’s name.
Agnes pulled on her clothes and cast Gisborne a poisonous look. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her.
‘I’d like to say how much I enjoyed that,’ she told him. ‘I’d like to say it, but I damned well can’t.‘
She went around and stood directly in front of him, allowing herself a few moments to linger over the most satisfying picture that he presented when naked. Then she brought her hand back and slapped him hard across the face. To her chagrin, her action barely seemed to register with Guy.
‘Next time I suggest you find some slut of a servant to pleasure you,’ she said with as much haughtiness as someone who had just done what she had done could muster.
Guy heard the door close behind her and reached out for the flagon of wine. It was empty. He pulled on his clothes and went in search of more. Much, much more.
It was dark and Guy struggled to light the candles in his room before reaching for the wine flagon and trying to re-fill his goblet. The flagon was empty and he slammed it back down on the table. It continued to make a noise even after he withdrew his hand and it was some moments before he realised the noise was in fact somebody knocking at the door.
‘**** off,’ he growled but the door opened anyway, to reveal Vasey standing there. He had a wine flagon in his hand.
‘Thought you might need this,’ he said, ‘although, I see by your dishevelled appearance, you have already made quite a start.’
Guy just looked at him and snorted.
Vasey sat down, surveyed him and then lent forward conspiratorially.
‘You know what your trouble is, Gisborne? ‘
Guy waited, he was very certain that Vasey was going to tell him.
‘You’re too nice. Where women are concerned you’re too damned nice. ‘
Guy looked at him with a raised eyebrow; this was not something of which he had previously been accused.
Vasey continued, ‘Look at all that trouble with Marian, you just let her lead you on and dump you. Lead you on and dump you. She needed a firm hand. Katherine is just the same.'
Guy grimaced.
‘You know what I would do?’ Vasey asked ‘I’d go to her room now and show her who was in charge. Bed her there and then. She’ll put up a fight that first time but after that, well, from what I've heard you've never disappointed in that area have you?’
Even in his drunken state, Guy was finding the conversation unsavoury … and since when did he take advice about women from Vasey?
‘And I tell you what, after you have had her, she'll say ‘yes’ to marriage to you like a scalded cat. A woman like her, she’d be so shamed by what had happened to her, she’d never be able to look anyone in the face again unless she married the man who did it. And …’ Vasey was warming to his theme now, ‘I saw what was going on before I came in this morning. Looks like she might not even be that unwilling, eh?’ He nudged Guy in the ribs.
Guy looked at him with a sour expression on his face. Vasey ignored it and headed for the door. Then he came back. ‘Oh, and don’t say I never do anything to help you.’ He threw a key down on the table.
Guy picked it up and looked at it.
Vasey laughed at his expression. ‘Well say ' thank you'. It’s the key to dear Katherine’s bedchamber. I told the girl who prepares her for bed to remove it from the lock. Get in there, lock the door and then … well …’ He tapped his nose, winked and left the room.
Guy put the key back down on the table and poured himself another drink.
He was still angry beyond words with Katherine for her involvement with Hood. That man always managed to get his nose into Guy’s business. And he knew that after his display of cruelty today she would never have him, not willingly anyway.
She had made that very clear.
He drank more wine. God, but she was a haughty b***h. So high and mighty sitting up there with her morals and her rules. All that ice, he wanted to see it melt away under his mouth.
As Guy kept that thought in his mind, he found himself becoming aroused. He imagined pushing Katherine down on the bed and feeling her soft beauty spread out beneath him. He took another drink.
What would he have to lose if he did go up there now and bed her? She disliked him anyway, and it was the type of act she would expect from him.
Anyway, God knew he'd been patient with her.
She wasn’t going to marry him willingly so perhaps he could shame her into it. He’d try not to hurt her.
Was he a man or not? How he would like to prove wrong all those people who laughed at him behind his back. ‘Gisborne can't keep a woman,’ they whispered. He'd show them just what kind of woman he could get, one far and away superior to any they had ever encountered before.
He thought again about Katherine's mouth. It was a whore’s mouth, he’d always thought that. Underneath that ice she was begging for somebody to bed her, he could tell … and God must have given her a mouth like that for some reason.
Guy imagined all the things that Katherine could do to him with that mouth and his passion and anger darkened within him.
He picked up the key, stood up and headed out of the room.
